Sulfur is the resource that decides whether you raid this wipe. Every rocket, every C4, every satchel and every bullet you fire starts as a yellow rock somewhere on the map, and the group with the most sulfur in its boxes is usually the group doing the raiding.
This sulfur Rust guide covers what sulfur is, how much sulfur ore every tool pulls from a node, where the best sulfur spots are, how to smelt it fast, every other way to get it, how much sulfur each explosive and ammo type costs, how many nodes that means you need to hit, and the farming habits that keep your boom box full all wipe.
- What It Is
- Stats
- Mining Nodes
- Where to Find It
- Smelting
- Other Sources
- Gunpowder
- Sulfur Costs
- Nodes per Raid
- Tips
- FAQ
What Is Sulfur in Rust?
Sulfur is a basic resource, and it comes in two items. Sulfur Ore is the raw rock you mine out of a sulfur node. Sulfur is what comes out of the furnace after you smelt it. One ore always becomes exactly one sulfur, so the two numbers are the same and players use the word “sulfur” for both.
Sulfur has no recipe and no blueprint. You can only mine it, dig it with a quarry or the excavator, or get it back by recycling gunpowder. Almost everything you do with it goes through gunpowder, and gunpowder goes into ammo, grenades, rockets and explosives. That is why raid costs in Rust are always quoted in sulfur.
Sulfur Stats
| Stat | Sulfur Ore | Sulfur |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Raw ore from sulfur nodes | Smelted, ready to craft with |
| How you get it | Mine sulfur nodes, Sulfur Quarry, Giant Excavator | Smelt sulfur ore in any furnace (1 ore = 1 sulfur) |
| Craftable | No | No |
| Main use | Smelting into sulfur | Gunpowder (20 sulfur + 30 charcoal = 10), explosives, special ammo |
| Stack size | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Shortname | sulfur.ore | sulfur |
| Item ID | -1157596551 | -1581843485 |
Every other shortname and ID is in our Rust item IDs list.
How Much Sulfur Per Node? Every Tool Compared
A sulfur node is a rock with yellow streaks. Hit it with a mining tool and it pays out sulfur ore with every swing until it breaks. How much ore you get from the whole node depends on the tool.
| Tool | Sulfur ore per node | With Pure Ore Tea | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rock | About 100 | About 150 | Very slow, about a minute a node |
| Stone Pickaxe | About 257 | About 385 | Slow |
| Pickaxe | 300 | 450 | About 27 seconds a node |
| Salvaged Icepick | 300 | 450 | About 14 seconds a node |
| Jackhammer | 300 | 450 | 1 to 2 seconds a node |
Two things matter more than the tool once you have a metal one. The first is the hotspot, the glowing mark that appears on the node while you mine. Hitting it does not add ore to the node, but it gives more per swing, so you clear the node in far fewer hits. Follow it around the rock every time it moves.
The second is Ore Tea. It raises your node yield by 20% (Basic), 35% (Advanced) or 50% (Pure) for 30 minutes, so a full sulfur node goes from 300 to 450 ore with a Pure tea. Drink one before every serious sulfur run.
Where to Find Sulfur in Rust
Sulfur nodes spawn all over the map, but they are not spread evenly. These are the places to look:
- Desert and arid ground. The sandy biome is where sulfur is thickest. A quick loop through the desert usually turns up more yellow rocks than the same time in the forest.
- Snow biome. The cold north has plenty of sulfur too, and fewer people farm it on wipe day because of the cold. Wear warm clothes.
- Cliffs, mountains and rocky ground. Nodes cluster where the terrain is broken up, so ride along cliff edges and river canyons rather than open grass.
- Roadside and monument edges. Fast to reach, but also the first place other players check.
Telling nodes apart is easy once you know: sulfur nodes are yellow, metal nodes have a rusty orange tint, stone nodes are plain grey, and the rare HQM node is shiny silver. Nodes respawn over time, so a field you cleared an hour ago will slowly fill back up.
How to Smelt Sulfur Ore
Put sulfur ore in the ore slots of any furnace, add fuel and turn it on. Sulfur ore turns into sulfur one for one, with nothing lost. It is also the fastest ore in the game to cook, twice as fast as metal ore.
| Oven | Sulfur per minute | 1,000 sulfur ore takes | Fuel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Furnace | 36 | About 28 minutes | Wood, roughly 0.8 wood per sulfur |
| Electric Furnace | 60 | About 17 minutes | 3 power, no wood, no charcoal |
| Large Furnace | 180 | About 6 minutes | Wood, about 170 wood per 1,000 ore |
The wood you burn is not wasted. Each wood that burns has about a 75% chance to leave a charcoal, and charcoal is the other half of gunpowder. That is why most raiders smelt sulfur in wood furnaces rather than electric ones: the sulfur and the charcoal come out of the same load. A Large Furnace is the best choice for bulk sulfur, since it is five times faster than a standard furnace.
Other Ways to Get Sulfur
| Source | Sulfur ore | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sulfur node | 300 per node (450 with Pure Ore Tea) | The main source all wipe, free but out in the open |
| Sulfur Quarry | 1,000 per diesel | Static roadside monument, about 2 minutes per diesel, no lock |
| Giant Excavator | 2,000 per diesel (40,000 per 20 diesel) | Biggest single source, guarded by scientists and heavily contested |
| Recycling gunpowder | About 1.2 sulfur per gunpowder | At a monument recycler (60%); gives charcoal back too |
| Survey Charge crater | 0 to 5 | Not worth it, a charge costs about 60 sulfur |
Diesel Fuel is what turns these machines on, and every diesel you put in the excavator is worth almost seven sulfur nodes. If your group can hold the excavator for a full tank, that is 40,000 sulfur ore, which smelts into 40,000 sulfur, enough for 18 C4. Solos and duos usually skip it and farm nodes instead. See our mining quarry guide for how the quarries compare.
Turning Sulfur Into Gunpowder
Gunpowder is where nearly all your sulfur goes. The recipe is 20 sulfur and 30 charcoal for 10 gunpowder at a Workbench Level 1, so every single gunpowder costs 2 sulfur. At a Mixing Table the same 10 gunpowder costs 20 sulfur and only 20 charcoal, so the sulfur bill is identical but you save a third of the charcoal.
A few recipes also use sulfur directly on top of gunpowder: Explosives (10 sulfur each), Explosive 5.56 ammo, Incendiary 5.56 ammo, Incendiary pistol bullets and Incendiary shotgun shells. Everything else that goes bang gets its sulfur through gunpowder.
How Much Sulfur Does Everything Cost?
These totals come straight from the current game recipes, counting 2 sulfur per gunpowder plus any sulfur the recipe adds directly.
| Item | Recipe (sulfur parts) | Sulfur each |
|---|---|---|
| Timed Explosive Charge (C4) | 20 Explosives (50 gunpowder + 10 sulfur each) | 2,200 |
| Rocket | 150 gunpowder + 10 Explosives | 1,400 |
| Satchel Charge | 4 Beancan Grenades | 480 |
| Incendiary Rocket | 150 gunpowder | 300 |
| High Velocity Rocket | 100 gunpowder | 200 |
| Beancan Grenade | 60 gunpowder | 120 |
| Explosives | 50 gunpowder + 10 sulfur | 110 |
| F1 Grenade | 30 gunpowder | 60 |
| Explosive 5.56 Rifle Ammo | 20 gunpowder + 10 sulfur for 2 | 25 a round |
| Incendiary 12 Gauge Shell | 10 gunpowder + 20 sulfur for 2 | 20 a shell |
| Incendiary 5.56 Rifle Ammo | 10 gunpowder + 5 sulfur for 2 | 12.5 a round |
| Incendiary Pistol Bullet | 10 gunpowder + 5 sulfur for 3 | About 8.3 a round |
| 5.56 Rifle Ammo | 5 gunpowder for 3 | About 3.3 a round |
| Pistol Bullet | 5 gunpowder for 4 | 2.5 a round |
Want the cost of a full raid? Pick the walls and doors in our Rust raid calculator and it adds up the sulfur for you. For anything else, the crafting calculator breaks any recipe down to raw sulfur.
How Many Sulfur Nodes for a Raid?
Sulfur numbers get big fast, so it helps to think in nodes. At 300 ore a node with a metal tool:
| Target | Sulfur | Nodes (300 each) | Nodes with Pure Ore Tea (450) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 C4 | 2,200 | About 8 | About 5 |
| 1 Rocket | 1,400 | About 5 | About 3 |
| 1 Satchel Charge | 480 | About 2 | About 1 |
| Armored door (3 C4) | 6,600 | 22 | About 15 |
| Stone wall (2 C4) | 4,400 | About 15 | About 10 |
A good farming run with a jackhammer and a Pure Ore Tea can clear 30 to 50 nodes before the tea runs out, which is roughly 13,000 to 22,000 sulfur ore. Do not forget the charcoal: every 2,200 sulfur of C4 also needs 3,000 charcoal at a workbench.
Sulfur Farming Tips
- Always drink Ore Tea. A Pure Ore Tea is +50% on every node for 30 minutes. One tea is worth a full extra C4 on a good run.
- Get a jackhammer or icepick early. They clear a node in seconds, and time standing still at a node is when you get shot.
- Chase the hotspot. Every hit on the glowing mark gives far more ore per swing.
- Farm sulfur and metal on the same route. It is the same tool and the same trip, and you need metal fragments for explosives too.
- Carry ore home, not sulfur. Do not stop to smelt in the field. Bank the ore and run a Large Furnace at base.
- Stockpile sulfur, craft explosives late. Raw sulfur and gunpowder can go into anything. A box of C4 you crafted too early might be the wrong tool for the base you end up raiding.
- Hide your sulfur. A full sulfur box is the first thing raiders look for. Split it across several boxes deep in your base.
- Spend it before wipe day. Sulfur is deleted with everything else on a wipe. Our home page shows when the next force wipe is.
Rust Sulfur FAQ
How do you get sulfur in Rust?
Mine the yellow sulfur nodes with a pickaxe, salvaged icepick or jackhammer to get sulfur ore, then smelt the ore in a furnace. One sulfur ore becomes one sulfur. You can also get sulfur ore from the Sulfur Quarry and the Giant Excavator, and sulfur back from recycling gunpowder.
How much sulfur is in a sulfur node in Rust?
A full sulfur node gives 300 sulfur ore with a Pickaxe, Salvaged Icepick or Jackhammer, about 257 with a Stone Pickaxe and about 100 with a Rock. A Pure Ore Tea raises it to 450 with a metal tool.
How long does sulfur take to smelt in Rust?
A standard Furnace smelts 36 sulfur a minute, so 1,000 sulfur ore takes about 28 minutes. An Electric Furnace does 60 a minute and a Large Furnace does 180 a minute, which clears 1,000 ore in about 6 minutes.
Where is the best place to farm sulfur in Rust?
The desert and snow biomes and rocky ground around cliffs and mountains have the most sulfur nodes. For bulk sulfur, the Giant Excavator gives 2,000 sulfur ore per diesel and the Sulfur Quarry gives 1,000 per diesel.
How much sulfur is a C4 in Rust?
2,200 sulfur. A C4 needs 20 Explosives, and each Explosives costs 50 gunpowder (100 sulfur) plus 10 sulfur. A rocket is 1,400 sulfur and a satchel charge is 480.
How much sulfur is in one gunpowder?
2 sulfur. The recipe makes 10 gunpowder from 20 sulfur and 30 charcoal at a Workbench Level 1, or 20 sulfur and 20 charcoal at a Mixing Table.
Does Ore Tea work on sulfur nodes?
Yes. Ore Tea boosts sulfur, metal and stone nodes by 20% (Basic), 35% (Advanced) or 50% (Pure) for 30 minutes, so a full sulfur node gives 450 ore with a Pure Ore Tea.
Can you craft sulfur in Rust?
No. Sulfur has no recipe or blueprint. It only comes from smelting sulfur ore, and from recycling gunpowder, which gives back about 1.2 sulfur per gunpowder at a monument recycler.
Sources and Further Reading
- Recipes, batch sizes, stack sizes and item IDs: Rust game item data (rust-game-icons)
- Item page: Rust Wiki, Sulfur
- Finding and farming sulfur: Corrosion Hour, How to Find Sulfur in Rust
- Node yield per tool: West Games, Rust Sulfur Farming Calculator