Updated for 2026

The Missile Silo in Rust is the only monument that hides its entire loot table behind a hatch in the ground, and it is the one most players are scared of for the wrong reason. They think the problem is the radiation. It is not. The problem is that the way in is one way, the way out is a button you have to find, and there is nothing at the bottom to help you if the run goes badly.

It is also, quietly, the cheapest red card monument in the game to unlock. Military Tunnel wants all three keycards and a fuse. Launch Site wants a green card, a red card and two fuses. The Nuclear Missile Silo wants one red keycard and nothing else, which is a fact half the guides on the internet still get wrong.

This guide covers exactly what to bring, how to open the hatch, the route through all six levels, every crate and scientist count, the radiation numbers, both exits, the five CCTV camera codes, and whether the whole thing is actually worth your evening.

TL;DR The Missile Silo (full name Nuclear Missile Silo) is a Tier 3 red card monument added on 4 May 2023 and promoted from blue card to red card in the Meta Shift update on 2 October 2025. You need one Red Keycard and zero Electric Fuses. Swipe the card in the tower building, press the button, and drop through the blast hatch. Below are six levels holding roughly 35 containers including 4 elite crates, 2 Advanced Blueprint Fragments, 3 diesel barrels and 27 scientists, most of them wearing night vision. Radiation runs a median of 26 and peaks at 81, so a Hazmat Suit plus Anti-Rad Pills is the real entry cost. There is no recycler, no repair bench and no research table anywhere on site. The hatch does not reopen from the inside: you leave through the blast doors on Level 1 by pressing the red button in the security checkpoint. Everything resets in about 30 minutes.
Rust Missile Silo guide 2026 showing the red keycard entry, no fuse requirement, twenty seven scientists and four elite crates
One red card, no fuse, five floors down and a warhead at the bottom.
1red keycard needed
0fuses needed
27scientists
~30mfull reset

What Is the Missile Silo in Rust?

The Nuclear Missile Silo is a medium sized surface monument sitting on top of a very large underground one. From a distance it looks like a low military compound with a tall radio tower, ringed by trailers, a truck building and a hangar bay. In the middle of that compound is a circular blast hatch, and under the hatch is a six level facility built around a live ICBM.

Facepunch added it in the R.U.S.T. update on 4 May 2023, and described it exactly the way you will first experience it: a small military base marked from a distance by a tall radio tower, with a large hatch in the centre that opens onto a network of underground tunnels.

For its first two and a half years it was a blue card monument. That changed on 2 October 2025 with the Meta Shift update, which made it a red keycard monument, added three extra elite crates and put Advanced Blueprint Fragments in its loot pool. If you are reading a silo guide that says “bring a blue card”, it predates that change and everything else in it is suspect too.

The monument sits inside a no build zone of roughly 90,792 square metres, so nobody can wall it off, and it is not a safe zone. It has no train tunnel entrance and no Chinook drop point, but the Patrol Helicopter can crash there, which occasionally turns the surface into a very good day for whoever is nearby.

Two Names, One Monument You will see this called Missile Silo, Nuclear Missile Silo and the Nuke depending on where you read. They are all the same monument. The in game map label is Nuclear Missile Silo.

What You Need to Enter the Missile Silo

Here is the short version, because this is the single most misreported thing about the monument: one Red Keycard, no Electric Fuse. The hatch is powered already. There is no fuse box to feed.

Rust Missile Silo pack list showing the red keycard, hazmat suit, anti-radiation pills, medical supplies and a close range gun with a note that no electric fuse is needed
The card gets you in. The suit and the pills get you back out.
ItemHow ManyWhy
Red Keycard Required1Swiped at the reader beside the hatch. Stacks to 1 and despawns in an hour, so carry it in a fresh slot.
Electric Fuse Not needed0The silo puzzle is a card swipe plus a button. No fuse box, no power puzzle.
Hazmat Suit Required150% radiation protection. The monument runs a median of 26 rads and peaks at 81.
Anti-Radiation Pills2 or moreEach clears 75 radiation over 5 seconds for 5 hydration. The Level 5 cavern needs them.
Close range gun1Every fight down there is a corridor or a stairwell. An MP5, a Thompson or a pump shotgun beats a bolt action.
Meds and foodPlenty27 scientists, and the only free healing is sitting on one of the toilets.
Spare backpack spaceAll of itThere is no recycler on site. Everything you loot goes home raw.
Where the Red Card Actually Comes From Red Keycards are not sold by any vendor. They are not craftable and not recyclable. The only reliable source is a blue card puzzle room, and the cheapest one in the game is Water Treatment Plant, which needs one blue card and one fuse and has a median radiation of zero. Train Yard and Airfield also pay out red cards. Full detail in our blue keycard and red keycard guides.

How to Open the Missile Silo

The hatch is not the first thing you interact with. The card reader is, and it sits in a small building next to the comms tower on the edge of the compound, guarded by regular scientists.

  1. Clear the surface first. Four blue scientists patrol the outer ring. Kill them before you commit to the card, because you do not want anyone shooting you in the back while you stand at a reader.
  2. Swipe the Red Keycard at the reader in the tower building. The card survives the swipe. It is the fuse that gets destroyed at other monuments, not the card.
  3. Press the red button next to the reader. That is what actually drives the hatch.
  4. Get to the hatch and jump in. The blast door opens and begins closing again shortly afterwards. There is no second press without a second run to the reader.
The Door That Kills You Instantly Do not stand under the blast hatch while it moves. Touching the underside of that door is an instant death, not a chunk of damage. It is the single most common way people lose a full kit at this monument, and it happens before they have looted a single crate.

Once you are through, that is it. The hatch is a one way trip. It does not reopen from below, and there is no ladder back up the shaft. From that moment your only route out is the exit blast doors on Level 1, which is covered further down.

How to Run the Missile Silo, Step by Step

This is the route that wastes the least time. It assumes you want the elite crates and the fragments and you are not trying to clear every single container in one visit, because the surface crates will have reset by the time you climb back out anyway.

Rust Missile Silo walkthrough showing nine numbered steps from the radio tower and red keycard swipe through to the exit button in the security checkpoint
Nine steps. The only one people skip is the last one, and that is the one that kills them.
  1. Find the radio tower. The compound is low and easy to miss but the comms tower is visible from several grid squares away.
  2. Loot the surface. Propane trailers, the red truck building and the hangar bay all hold containers, and clearing them first means fewer scientists behind you.
  3. Swipe and press. Card reader in the tower building, then the red button beside it.
  4. Drop through the hatch without touching the door.
  5. Level 0. You land on steel mesh platforms and start taking fire almost immediately from a night vision scientist in the passage ahead. Radiation begins here.
  6. Level 1. Office, lobby, storage rooms and restrooms. Roughly five containers, a toilet worth sitting on to heal, and the elevator down.
  7. Level 2, the gauntlet. Around 11 scientists across an open admin floor, two small jumps across the missile shaft and a pass through lobby. This is where most silo runs end. Take it slowly and use the pillars.
  8. Elevator straight to Level 5. From Level 2 an elevator skips the middle floors. Level 3 is living quarters with four crates and almost no resistance, and Level 4 is a computer room with a single crate. Both are optional.
  9. Loot the cavern. The end room holds an elite crate in the back of a pickup truck, three diesel barrels, and the warhead itself. Standing near the warhead stacks radiation fast, so grab and step back.
  10. Ride back up to Level 1 and head for the exit doors.
Bring a Friend, Not a Second Gun This is the hardest sustained PvE fight in procedural Rust. Twenty three scientists underground in tight rooms, and the underground ones wear night vision so darkness is not cover. A duo clears it comfortably. A solo can do it, but expects to burn most of a medical kit doing so.

Inside the Missile Silo, Floor by Floor

Six levels, numbered 0 through 5, connected by a mix of stairs and three separate elevators. The elevators matter more than the stairs, because two of them are shortcuts that exist specifically so you are not walking the whole facility twice.

Rust Missile Silo level map showing the surface hatch and levels zero through five with scientist counts, the Level 2 gauntlet and the Level 5 warhead cavern
Level 2 holds more scientists than the other five floors combined.
LevelWhat Is ThereResistanceWorth Stopping?
SurfaceRadio tower, card reader, trailers, truck building, hangar bay, blast hatch4 blue scientistsYes, and it resets while you are underground
Level 0Steel mesh landing platforms, conical passage, Office 1 with one crate1 night vision scientistBriefly. Radiation starts here
Level 1Lobby, storage room, restricted area, restrooms, elevator downLight patrolYes. Around 5 crates and a toilet to heal on
Level 2 DangerAdmin office, missile shaft jumps, pass through lobby, pantry, restroomAround 11 scientistsYes, but this is the fight
Level 3Living quarters lobby and two dorm rooms2 night vision scientistsOptional. 4 crates, no comfort
Level 4Computer roomQuietBarely. One crate
Level 5 PaydayGarage bay, cavern with the warhead, elite crate in a pickup, 3 diesel barrels, countdown laptopAround 3 scientistsYes. This is what you came for
Missile baseThe bottom of the shaft, a dead end side roomNoneNo loot. Pure sightseeing

The three elevators run Level 1 to Level 2, Level 2 to Level 5 and Level 5 back to Level 2, with a further car that takes you from Level 2 up to Level 1 next to the exit doors. In practice that means you can skip Levels 3 and 4 entirely on the way down and never see them again on the way out.

Missile Silo Loot: What Is Actually Down There

Around 35 containers in total, weighted heavily towards military crates rather than normal ones, plus four elite crates and a pair of guaranteed Advanced Blueprint Fragments.

Rust Missile Silo loot table showing four elite crates, thirty one mixed crates, two advanced blueprint fragments, three diesel barrels, twenty seven scientists and zero recyclers
Four elite crates, and nothing on site to recycle any of it with.
WhatHow ManyNotes
Elite crates4Three of these arrived with the October 2025 red card promotion. One sits in the pickup truck in the Level 5 cavern.
Military leaning crates21Split as 12 that roll 70% military and 9 that roll 80% military.
Normal leaning crates10These roll 80% normal, 20% military.
Advanced Blueprint Fragments2Guaranteed collectables. Five Advanced Fragments buys a Workbench Level 3.
Diesel Fuel3Collectable barrels in the Level 5 cavern. Excavator and quarry fuel.
Scientists2723 underground, 4 on the surface. The underground ones carry night vision goggles.
Recyclers0No recycler, no repair bench, no research table, no vendors, no drone market, no hackable crate.

Those two Advanced Blueprint Fragments are the reason the monument matters more now than it did in 2024. Since the Meta Shift update, Workbench Level 3 costs 5 Advanced Blueprint Fragments, and they are only guaranteed in hackable crates and here. A single silo run is 40% of a Tier 3 bench, which is a serious number for a group that cannot contest Oil Rig.

No Recycler Is a Real Cost Most Tier 3 monuments let you shred components on site and walk home light. The silo does not, and neither does either oil rig. You carry every gear, pipe and tarp out through a single exit that anyone camping the monument already knows the location of. Our recycler guide has the full list of which monuments do have one.

Radiation and How Much Protection You Need

The silo runs a median radiation of 26 with peaks of 81 in the worst spots. That median is the highest of any procedural monument, which is what makes it feel worse than Launch Site even though Launch Site has hotter individual rooms.

Rust Missile Silo radiation chart comparing median and maximum radiation against the Dome, Train Yard, Military Tunnel, Launch Site and Power Plant
Launch Site has hotter rooms. The silo has hotter everything.

A Hazmat Suit gives 50% radiation protection and is the entry ticket. It is a full body suit, so no armour layers over the top of it, and that trade is worth making here because nothing down there is going to be a long range fight where armour would save you anyway.

What the suit does not cover is the warhead itself. Standing next to it in the Level 5 cavern stacks radiation very quickly, which is where Anti-Radiation Pills earn their slot: 75 radiation removed over 5 seconds, at a cost of 5 hydration. They are loot only and cannot be crafted, so grab every bottle you find in the weeks before you plan a silo run.

Radiation Does Not Stop at the Door Radiation poisoning stays in your system after you leave the zone and keeps draining health on the walk home. Take a pill on the way out, not when you notice your health bar sliding. This kills more players in the field outside the monument than inside it.

How to Get Out of the Missile Silo

This is the most searched question about the monument, and there is a reason for that: the hatch you came in through does not open from the inside, and nothing in game tells you that before you jump.

Rust Missile Silo exit routes and the five CCTV camera codes SILOTOWER, SILOEXIT1, SILOEXIT2, SILOSHIPPING and SILOMISSILE
Both exits are on Level 1. Neither of them is the hatch.

Facepunch described the mechanic plainly when the monument shipped: to exit, you find a security room containing a button that temporarily lets you out. In practice there are two doors.

ExitWhereHow It Works
Quick Exit Blast Doors MainLevel 1, past the control room and the security checkpointA red button in the security checkpoint opens them for a few seconds. Press it and move.
Blue exit only blast door BackupLevel 1, reached by the elevator up from Level 2One way. It lets you out and does not let anyone in behind you.

The full exit route from the bottom is: elevator from Level 5 to Level 2, elevator from Level 2 to Level 1, then through the continued lobby where three more night vision scientists wait beside a fire, past the control room, into the security checkpoint, press the red button, and out.

Assume Someone Is Waiting Outside Both exits put you on the surface at a known, fixed spot, with a full bag and no recycler behind you. If the server is busy, the smart play is to clear the fight, then wait a minute inside the doors and listen before you push through. Plenty of successful silo runs die in the first ten seconds of daylight.

Missile Silo CCTV Camera Codes

The silo has five fixed CCTV cameras, and their codes never change between wipes or between servers. You can read them off the terminal in the security checkpoint on your way out, or just take them from here.

CodeWhat It Watches
SILOTOWERThe comms tower and the card reader building on the surface
SILOEXIT1One of the two Level 1 exit doors
SILOEXIT2The other exit door
SILOSHIPPINGThe shipping and storage area
SILOMISSILEThe missile shaft itself

Codes are case sensitive and a Computer Station holds 15 of them at a time. The two exit cameras are the genuinely useful ones: if you are the group camping the monument, they tell you when someone is about to come out. If you are the group inside, a teammate on a station at home can tell you whether the door is clear.

The Warhead and the Countdown Laptop

At the bottom of the facility, in a cavern the game marks as a hard hat area, sits the nuclear warhead. Next to it is a laptop with a black and red screen showing a countdown, which Facepunch introduced simply as an ominous countdown and never explained further.

It has never triggered a launch event. The widely held reading in the community, and the one Corrosion Hour’s monument guide takes, is that it tracks the server’s wipe cycle rather than any in game explosion. Treat it as atmosphere with a useful side effect: it is a clock you can read from inside a monument.

The practical version of that is simpler. If the wipe is close, a silo run is a poor use of an evening, because the Advanced Fragments you carry out are worthless the moment the map resets.

Not sure how long is left? Check the force wipe clock before you burn a red keycard on a monument that takes an hour to clear properly.

Force Wipe Countdown

Missile Silo vs the Other Red Card Monuments

There are five red card rooms worth running in procedural Rust. The silo is the cheapest one to open and by some distance the most hostile once you are inside.

Comparison of Rust red keycard monuments showing Missile Silo, Launch Site, Military Tunnel and Power Plant by keycards, fuses, scientists, recyclers and elite crates
One card and no fuse is the cheapest door in the red tier. What is behind it is not cheap.
MonumentBringFusesScientistsRecyclers
Nuclear Missile Silo Tier 31 red card027, night visionNone
Launch Site Tier 31 green, 1 red28 plus the Bradley1
Military Tunnel Tier 3Green, blue and red133, aggressive1
Power Plant Tier 3Green, blue and red1Roaming only3
Airfield Tier 2Green, blue, then red for the last door232

Read that table as a shopping decision rather than a difficulty ranking. If you only own one red card and you want it to go furthest, Launch Site pays more raw loot and lets you recycle it on the spot. If what you need is Advanced Blueprint Fragments and elite crates without a Bradley shooting at you, the silo is the better door.

Either way the chain starts in the same place, with a green keycard and a cheap puzzle room, because every red card in the game was a blue card first.

Is the Missile Silo Worth Running?

Yes, but not at every stage of a wipe, and not for the reason most people think.

Early wipe it is a trap. You will not have a red card, and if you somehow do, you would be better off spending it at Launch Site where the loot volume is four times higher and there is a recycler. The silo asks for a hazmat, pills, a decent gun and an hour, and pays out in items you cannot use yet.

Mid wipe it is one of the best runs in the game. Four elite crates and two guaranteed Advanced Fragments, with no Bradley, no heavy scientists and no hackable crate siren announcing you to the server. If you are stuck below Workbench 3, this is the quietest way to fix that.

Late wipe it is a farming loop. Everything resets in about 30 minutes, and because the surface repopulates while you are underground, a single lap of the compound plus the underground run puts you back at the hatch roughly when the reader is worth using again. Bring enough red cards.

The Real Bottleneck Is Cards, Not Kit A red card stacks to 1 and despawns in an hour, so you cannot hoard a pile of them in a box and run the silo all night. Every run means another trip to Water Treatment Plant or Train Yard first. Plan the blue card puzzle and the silo run as one trip, not two.

Missile Silo Myths and Mistakes

What People SayWhat Is Actually True
“Bring a fuse for the elevator”No fuse is needed anywhere at this monument. The puzzle is a red card swipe and a button press. Several popular guides list a fuse and they are wrong.
“It is a blue card monument”It was until 2 October 2025. The Meta Shift update promoted it to a red card monument and added three elite crates at the same time.
“There is a recycler down there”There is not. No recycler, no repair bench, no research table. Templated monument pages on some sites claim otherwise about almost every monument.
“You can climb back out of the hatch”The hatch is one way. You leave through the blast doors on Level 1 by pressing the red button in the security checkpoint.
“The countdown launches the nuke”It has never triggered a launch. It is atmosphere, generally read as tracking the server wipe cycle.
“A hazmat is enough”A hazmat gets you through the corridors. The warhead cavern still stacks radiation on you through it, which is what the pills are for.
“Night is safer”The underground scientists wear night vision goggles. Darkness helps them, not you.

Pro Tips for the Missile Silo

  1. Clear the surface before you swipe. It resets while you are underground, so you get it twice for free, and it means nobody shoots you at the reader.
  2. Take the Level 2 fight from the stairwell. Pulling eleven scientists into a doorway is a completely different fight to walking into the middle of an open admin floor.
  3. Sit on a toilet. The restrooms on Levels 1 and 2 have comfort, which regenerates health for free. There are nine toilets in the facility and most players never use one.
  4. Skip Levels 3 and 4 on a timed run. Five crates between them is not worth the walk when the elevator from Level 2 drops you straight at the cavern.
  5. Grab the diesel. Three barrels is enough to make a Giant Excavator trip worthwhile, and diesel is one of the few things at the silo that has no substitute.
  6. Put the exit cameras on a Computer Station at home. SILOEXIT1 and SILOEXIT2 turn a blind exit into an informed one.
  7. Fly in. The silo sits inland on most maps and a minicopter turns a fifteen minute run into a two minute one, with a fast escape once you are back on the surface.
  8. Carry the card in an empty slot. A red keycard stacks to 1 and despawns in an hour. Losing it to a full inventory at the reader is a genuinely common way to waste a trip.

Missile Silo Rust FAQ

What keycard do you need for the Missile Silo in Rust?
One Red Keycard, and nothing else. The Nuclear Missile Silo became a red card monument in the Meta Shift update on 2 October 2025, having previously used a blue card. You swipe the red card at the reader in the tower building beside the hatch, then press the red button next to it to open the blast door. No green or blue card is required at any point.
Do you need a fuse for the Missile Silo in Rust?
No. The Missile Silo is the only red card monument in the game that needs no Electric Fuse. Its puzzle is listed as a Red Keycard plus a button, with no fuse box anywhere on site. Launch Site and Airfield need two fuses each, and Military Tunnel and Power Plant need one, which is where the confusion comes from.
How do you get out of the Missile Silo in Rust?
You cannot leave through the hatch you came in by. Ride the elevator from Level 5 back to Level 2, then the elevator from Level 2 up to Level 1, clear the lobby and the control room, and press the red button inside the security checkpoint. That opens the quick exit blast doors for a few seconds. There is also a blue exit only blast door on Level 1 that works the same way and cannot be entered from outside.
How much radiation protection do you need for the Missile Silo?
A full Hazmat Suit at 50% radiation protection is the minimum. The monument has a median radiation of 26 and peaks of 81, the highest median of any procedural monument. Bring at least two Anti-Radiation Pills for the Level 5 warhead cavern, where radiation stacks quickly even through the suit. Each pill removes 75 radiation over 5 seconds at a cost of 5 hydration.
Does the Missile Silo have a recycler in Rust?
No. There is no recycler, no repair bench and no research table anywhere at the Nuclear Missile Silo, and it is not a safe zone. Everything you loot is carried out raw through a single fixed exit. The nearest recyclers are at whichever roadside monument, harbor or safe zone is closest on your map.
How many scientists are in the Missile Silo?
Twenty seven in total: four blue scientists patrolling the surface compound and twenty three underground. Around eleven of the underground group are concentrated on Level 2, which is the hardest single fight in the monument. The underground scientists wear night vision goggles, so waiting for darkness does not help you.
What loot is in the Missile Silo in Rust?
Roughly 35 containers, including 4 elite crates, 21 military leaning crates and 10 normal leaning crates, plus 2 guaranteed Advanced Blueprint Fragments and 3 collectable diesel barrels. Three of the four elite crates were added when the monument was promoted to red card in October 2025. One elite crate sits in the back of a pickup truck in the Level 5 cavern.
How long does the Missile Silo take to reset in Rust?
About 30 minutes, in line with the rest of the game’s monument puzzles and containers. Because the surface compound repopulates while you are underground, a full underground run usually leaves you arriving back at the hatch around the time the surface crates are worth looting again.
Where do you get a red keycard for the Missile Silo?
Only from a blue keycard puzzle room. Red keycards are not sold by any vendor, cannot be crafted and cannot be recycled. Water Treatment Plant is the cheapest source because its blue card puzzle needs one blue card and one fuse and its median radiation is zero. Train Yard and Airfield also pay out red keycards.
What are the Missile Silo CCTV codes in Rust?
SILOTOWER, SILOEXIT1, SILOEXIT2, SILOSHIPPING and SILOMISSILE. They are fixed identifiers that never change between wipes or servers, they are case sensitive, and a Computer Station holds 15 codes at a time. The two exit cameras are the useful ones, because they show you whether the way out is being camped.
Can you launch the nuke at the Missile Silo in Rust?
No. The warhead in the Level 5 cavern is connected to a laptop showing a countdown, which Facepunch described only as an ominous countdown when the monument launched. It has never triggered a launch event and is generally read by the community as tracking the server wipe cycle. Standing close to the warhead does stack radiation on you very quickly.
Is the Missile Silo worth doing in Rust?
Mid wipe, yes. Four elite crates and two guaranteed Advanced Blueprint Fragments make it one of the quietest routes to a Workbench Level 3, with no Bradley and no hackable crate siren announcing you to the server. Early wipe it is a poor trade, because a red keycard goes further at Launch Site, which has four times the loot and a recycler on site.
When was the Missile Silo added to Rust?
On 4 May 2023, as the headline feature of the R.U.S.T. update. It launched as a blue keycard monument and stayed that way until the Meta Shift update on 2 October 2025, which promoted it to red card, added three extra elite crates and put Advanced Blueprint Fragments into its loot pool.
Can you build at the Missile Silo in Rust?
No. The monument sits inside a no build zone of roughly 90,792 square metres that blocks building and deployables, and it is not a safe zone either, so it stays contested for the whole wipe. It has no train tunnel entrance and no Chinook drop point, though the Patrol Helicopter can crash there.

Final Thoughts

The Missile Silo rewards preparation more than skill. Nothing inside it is mechanically hard: the scientists are the same scientists as everywhere else, the radiation is survivable in a suit, and the route is linear enough that you cannot really get lost. What catches people is arriving without pills, without spare bag space, or without knowing that the hatch is a one way door.

Sort those three things out and it becomes one of the best value runs in the game. One red keycard, no fuse, four elite crates and two Advanced Blueprint Fragments, and no Bradley or siren telling the whole server where you are.

Get the blue card puzzle done first, take the red card straight to the silo, and check the wipe clock before you commit the evening.

Sources

rust-missile-silo-what-to-bring
Rust Missile Silo pack list showing the red keycard, hazmat suit, anti-radiation pills, medical supplies and a close range gun, plus a note that the silo puzzle needs no electric fuse