Rust Oil Rig Guide: Small and Large Rig Puzzle Walkthrough

Oil rigs are two of the best loot spots in Rust, and also two of the easiest to die at. One sits out in the ocean guarded by a stack of blue scientists, and the whole trip runs on keycards, fuses, and a 15-minute hack timer that tells every player nearby exactly where you are. Get the route down before you go, and the rig turns into a reliable scrap and gun factory. Go in winging it, and you'll usually end up swimming home with nothing.

The good news is that neither rig has any real radiation to worry about, so you don't need a hazmat suit. That saves inventory space for ammo and meds, which you will need a lot of. Here's how both rigs work, floor by floor, card by card.

Small Oil Rig Puzzle Steps and Keycard Route

The Small Oil Rig is a four-level platform out at the edge of the map, and you'll need a boat to get there (rowboat or RHIB work fine, and a minicopter is even better if you have one). Park at the dock on Level 0 and expect one scientist patrolling right there. Kill him from the boat if you can. Why take free damage walking up the ladder?

Before you leave shore, pack these:

| Item | Why you need it | |------|-----------------| | Green keycard | Opens the yellow building on Level 3 | | Blue keycard | Opens the office room on Level 4 | | Fuse | Powers the puzzle doors | | Rifle + ~200 ammo | 15 or so scientists live here | | Meds (bandages + syringes) | Scientists hit hard and aim well |

The route, bottom to top

Most teams clear from the bottom up, and that's the right call. Scientists above you can shoot down through open grating, and fighting uphill is miserable. The climb goes like this:

Level 0 (the dock). One scientist. Snipe him from your boat before you even board.
Level 1. Two scientists and up to four crates or barrels. Quick stop, grab what spawned, keep moving.
Level 2. Five scientists, up to ten containers. This is the busiest platform before the puzzles. Take them one at a time and use the crane boom for cover.
Level 3. Two scientists plus whatever wanders down from above. Here's your first puzzle: a small yellow building with a green keycard reader. Swipe it and you get three containers inside. There's often a spare green card on the desk too, which is nice if yours is worn down.
Level 4 (the top). Six scientists, the blue card room, and the locked crate. This is where the money is.

The blue card room

On Level 4 there's a small white office building under the helipad. That's the blue card room. Pop your fuse in to power the door if the panel's dead, swipe the blue card, and inside you'll find an elite crate plus military crates. There's also a red card door inside that building, so if you brought a red card you can open that too for an extra elite crate. Plenty of players skip the red card here since the blue room alone pays for the trip, but if you have a spare red card burning a hole in your pocket, bring it.

The locked crate sits out in the open on Level 4, between two stacks of piping. Hacking it starts a 15-minute timer and triggers the Heavy Scientist event, which we'll get to in the last section.

The moonpool shortcut

There's a sneaky way in that a lot of players still don't know about. Under the center of the rig there's a vertical metal tube (the moonpool, added back in 2024) that runs from the water straight up to Level 3. No scientists inside the tube itself, and the exit door puts you right by the green card puzzle. It's great for a stealthy entry or a fast escape. Just know that the top of that chute is a very campable spot, so don't climb out lazy. There's even a computer station at the top with the rig's CCTV codes already punched in, so you can scout before you commit.

One more exit tip: you can jump off any level straight into the water and take zero fall damage. That's your panic button if another crew rolls up.

Large Oil Rig Puzzle Steps and Red Keycard Route

The Large Oil Rig is the big sibling, with more levels, more guns pointed at you, and a red card room that makes the whole trip worth it. Where the small rig runs four levels, this one goes seven, and you'll want all three keycards plus at least one fuse, ideally two. Bring more ammo than feels reasonable. Somewhere north of 300 rounds is a sane starting point, because there are roughly 20 scientists standing around plus a Heavy Scientist wave at the end.

The level-by-level climb

Level 0 (dock): Two scientists. Same opening as the small rig, pick them off from the boat.
Level 1: Usually quiet. Just stairs and a ladder, no loot. Pass through.
Level 2: Two scientists, three crates, and barrels. Clean it out.
Level 3: First green card room. Swipe it for the crates inside, and check the desk for another green card. There's also a workbench in this room, which is handy for a mid-run craft if something breaks. One more scientist patrols just outside the door.
Level 4: The busy floor. Multiple scientists, multiple crates, and two puzzle rooms. One is a blue card room. The other needs a fuse to open, and that one holds a recycler plus another blue card. Yeah, the large rig actually has a recycler, which the small rig doesn't. Recycle your junk into scrap on the spot instead of hauling dead weight home. Vents on this level also connect to adjacent floors, and they're genuinely useful for dodging gunfire or skipping a fight.
Level 5: Mostly a passage floor. The eastern part is usually empty. The western part has three scientists and a hidden room reachable through a vent, and that hidden room has an elite crate and a weapon crate. Worth the detour.
Level 6 (the top): Eight scientists on the approach, so don't rush the stairs. There's a big room up here with a research table if you have spare scrap for blueprints.

The red card room

On Level 6, find the red keycard room and swipe your card at the terminal by the door. Inside sit three elite crates and four weapon crates. That's the single best loot pocket on the whole monument, and honestly one of the best offshore. The usual order of operations: work your way up, swipe green on the way, blue when you hit Level 4, then red at the top. If you only own one blue card, spend it where it counts, since every swipe burns card durability.

The locked crate is outside on Level 6. Same deal as the small rig: start the hack, a 15-minute timer begins, and a Chinook shows up. The difference is scale. The small rig's Chinook drops a handful of heavies. This one drops around a dozen, and they all want you dead.

After the hack finishes and you loot the crate, don't relax yet. Scientists on the lower levels respawn when the event resets, so your trip back down the stairs is a second fight, not a victory lap.

Scientist NPC Locations and Threat Level

Both rigs are patrolled by blue scientists, the same armed NPCs you'll see at Military Tunnels and on Cargo Ship. They hit hard, they aim well, and they will chase you between floors if you aggravate them and run. Here's roughly what's standing around when you arrive:

| Rig | Standing scientists | Chinook heavies | |-----|--------------------|-----------------| | Small Oil Rig | ~15 across four levels | ~5 to 6 | | Large Oil Rig | ~20 across seven levels | ~12 |

The small rig spreads its crew out as one on the dock, two on Level 1, five on Level 2, two on Level 3, and six on the top. The large rig front-loads less and saves its biggest cluster, about eight, for the top platform right where the red card room and locked crate sit. That's not an accident. The game wants you to earn that loot.

A few things worth knowing about how these NPCs behave:

They respawn. A killed scientist comes back in roughly 24 minutes. That's why loitering on a rig is a bad idea, the place slowly refills while you stand around.
Headshots matter. A regular blue scientist goes down to about 3 clean headshots. A heavy scientist from the Chinook takes about 5, thanks to the EOD-style armor they wear. Body-shotting heavies eats ammo fast.
They shoot through gaps. Open grating and walkways mean scientists a level above you can engage before you even see them. Check up as well as forward.
They patrol between floors. The count on "your" level isn't guaranteed. Roamers from above wander down constantly, so clear with your ears open too.

Heavy scientists are the real gate check. They carry serious hardware (think M249s and SPAS-12s) and they push you instead of holding still. The best way to fight them is a chokepoint: a stairwell, the crane tower, or a doorway where they have to come at you one at a time. Never brawl them in the open on the helipad.

Crate Tiers and Best Loot to Prioritize

Not every box on a rig is worth your timer, especially with scientists respawning and other crews on the water. Here's the quick priority list, top to bottom:

Locked crate. The event crate, and the whole reason most people sail out. Guaranteed high-end gear, endgame-tier weapons, and often blueprints you can't easily get elsewhere. It only unlocks after the full 15-minute hack, so it's also the most dangerous thing to go for.
Elite crates. The red card room on the large rig holds three of them. The small rig has one behind the blue/red doors on Level 4. Tier 3 weapons and rare mods come out of these.
Military crates. The bread and butter. Six on the small rig, seven or more on the large one. These give tier 2 guns, springs, and metal frags. Springs alone are worth grabbing since they gate a bunch of crafting.
Weapon crates. The large rig's red room holds four alongside the elites. Same ballpark as military crates.
Standard, food, and medical crates. Grab them when you walk past, but don't route around for them. The exception: if you're low on meds mid-run, a medical crate can save the whole trip.

A full clear of the small rig tends to shake out around 300 scrap once you break everything down, and the large rig lands closer to 400 or more, heavies' drops included. Your numbers will swing run to run, treat those as ballparks rather than promises. Speaking of breakdowns: the large rig's recycler (in the fuse room on Level 4) means you can convert components to scrap and carry half the weight home. The small rig has no recycler, so everything you take there rides in your inventory. Pack light going out.

Loot order matters more than people think. Sweep the outdoor military crates first, while things are quiet, then do your card rooms, and start the locked crate hack last. Once that hack starts, the clock and the Chinook are both running, so you want everything else already in your bags. Some crews loot the elite crates during the hack timer itself, which works too, since you're stuck on the rig anyway. Just leave someone watching the water.

Timing Your Raid Around Chinook and Other Players

The locked crate hack is the moment everything gets loud. The second someone starts it, the rig basically announces itself: yellow lights spin, sirens blare over the speakers, and a CH-47 Chinook flies in and touches down on the helipad within about a minute. Heavies pour out, the chopper leaves, and now you're holding a rig for 15 minutes against NPCs above you and, often, players on the way.

So time it deliberately:

Don't start the hack with a boat on the horizon. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for a nearby crew to motor over and third-party you while you're pinned fighting heavies.
Check the CCTVs first. Both rigs have cameras you can pull up from any computer station. Small rig codes are OILRIG1HELI, OILRIG1DOCK, OILRIG1EXHAUST, and OILRIG1L1 through L4. The large rig uses OILRIG2 with the same suffixes, plus a couple of extra level feeds like L6A through L6D. Thirty seconds of camera checking tells you if the rig is already being run, freshly cleared, or stacked with players waiting to tuck you.
Remember the map Chinook is separate. The patrol Chinook that drops locked crates on the mainland follows a path that can pass near the small rig. If one's already circling when you hack, don't panic, but keep it in mind.
Off-peak hours are your friend. Rigs are PvP magnets on high-pop servers, and the large rig especially gets farmed by clans. A 3 AM run on a quiet server is a completely different experience from prime time.

During the hack itself, pick your spot before the Chinook lands. The crane tower and the narrow stairwells funnel heavies into a line. The red card room works as a defensive pocket on the large rig. Stay off the open helipad, that's where the heavies land and where you're most exposed to anyone sniping from a boat. And post at least one person watching the water the whole time. Every minute of that timer, you're stationary and predictable, which is exactly what a roaming crew is hoping to find.

When the crate finally opens, grab fast and go. Jump off the rig into the water (no fall damage, remember) and swim to your boat. If your boat's still there, that is, so park it somewhere it won't get jacked or sunk, and consider scuttling it out of sight if you're solo. The trip home carrying a locked crate's worth of endgame loot is the most dangerous part of the whole run, and a lot of players lose more on that ride than they ever did to a scientist.