Rust Raid Calculator: Total Cost in Sulfur, Hits, and Time
Free interactive Rust raid cost calculator above — pick a target (door, wall, TC, foundation) and a tool (C4, rocket, satchel, explosive ammo) and see the exact raid cost: total sulfur, hits required, and placement time. Updated for 2026 vanilla server values. Mobile-first. Shareable URL. Embeddable.
How the calculator works
Every Rust building part has a fixed HP value (vanilla; modded servers may differ). Every raid tool deals a fixed damage per hit against each material category (wall vs door vs window/embrasure vs TC). The calculator divides target HP by tool damage to get the minimum number of placements, then multiplies by the per-craft sulfur cost to give you the total raw-resource cost.
What it shows you:
- Hits needed — minimum count of that tool to break through (rounded up — you can’t half-place a satchel)
- Sulfur cost — total sulfur spent to craft enough tools (raw resource only; gunpowder + cloth are derived from sulfur in vanilla)
- Placement time — cumulative time to actually place all the explosives (rocket launcher reload included; satchel light-and-throw included)
- Target HP — for context, since softening damage from earlier hits can change the breakpoint
The classic raid economics
Vanilla Rust raid math hasn’t changed dramatically in 2026 — the meta still revolves around three core decisions:
1. Eco raid vs full raid
An eco raid uses cheap tools (satchel, beancan, explosive ammo) at a higher hit count to keep sulfur cost low. A full raid uses C4/rockets to break through fast at higher per-hit cost. Eco wins when you have time and stealth; full wins when speed matters (online raids, defended bases, trio raids on duo bases).
2. Soft side vs hard side
Stone walls have the same HP on both sides, but the soft side (interior) takes pickaxe damage (14 dmg per hit, free). Players who don’t bury their foundations or floor-stack get raided through soft-sided pickaxe holes for zero sulfur cost. The calculator above assumes hard side raids.
3. Door choice = primary defense
The single biggest decision raiders make is picking which door to attack. Garage doors look strong (600 HP) but explode under 3 rockets — cheaper than the metal walls around them. Sheet metal doors (1000 HP) cost 2 C4 to break, which is the inflection point most groups optimize around.
Shareable raid math
Every calculation has its own URL via the ?t= and ?w= params. Click “Copy share link” to get a URL that pre-loads your selection — paste into Discord or Reddit and your group sees the same calculation. “Get embed code” gives you an <iframe> snippet for your own wiki/blog.
Run a Rust server with friends
Practice raid setups, test base designs, and run trio wipe servers without dealing with vanilla’s grief economy. Supercraft hosts Rust dedicated servers with admin tools, scheduled wipes, and Discord-webhook event notifications. See plans →
FAQ
- Are these vanilla numbers?
- Yes — the HP and damage values are from current Facepunch vanilla. Modded servers (Rusty Moose, etc.) may scale differently; check your server’s plugins.
- Why does the sulfur cost include gunpowder + cloth?
- The number is “raw sulfur equivalent” — if you craft your own gunpowder and cloth from scratch, the bottleneck is sulfur. We translate the full recipe back to sulfur for an apples-to-apples comparison across tools.
- What about hard-side vs soft-side raids?
- The calculator uses hard-side numbers (the durable side). Soft-side is sometimes pickaxeable for zero sulfur if the base owner didn’t honeycomb their walls. See the bunker meta article linked above for soft-side defense strategies.
- Where do explosive ammo numbers come from?
- Vanilla 5.56 explosive does ~9 damage per round to metal doors and TC. The 60-sulfur-per-bullet cost makes explosive ammo the cheapest soft-side raid in the game when you can hit accurately and have an LR-300 / Bolt.