Farming sulfur in Rust comes down to three sources: ore nodes on rocky ground (300 sulfur ore each with a pickaxe or better), the static Sulfur Quarry (1,000 ore per diesel) and the Giant Excavator (2,000 ore per diesel). An eight-rocket raid needs 11,200 sulfur plus 15,600 charcoal, so the furnaces and the wood pile matter as much as the ore. Here is the math for each source and a plan for the weekend.

How much sulfur the raid needs

Start from the target, not the pile. A rocket costs 1,400 sulfur once you count the gunpowder in it and in its 10 explosives, and the classic entry of one stone wall (4 rockets) and two sheet metal doors (2 each) is 8 rockets, or 11,200 sulfur. The raid calculator prices any mix of targets, and the raid cost guide covers when C4 or satchels beat rockets.

Target (hard side) Rockets Sulfur C4 Sulfur
Sheet metal door 2 2,800 1 2,200
Garage door 3 4,200 2 4,400
Stone wall 4 5,600 2 4,400
Sheet metal wall 8 11,200 4 8,800

Sulfur is only the visible half. Ten gunpowder costs 20 sulfur and 30 charcoal, and a rocket holds 650 gunpowder (150 in the rocket, 50 in each explosive), so every rocket also eats 1,950 charcoal. Eight rockets: 11,200 sulfur, 15,600 charcoal, 800 metal fragments, 240 low grade fuel and 16 metal pipes. The crafting calculator breaks any count down the same way.

What a sulfur node gives

A sulfur node pays 300 sulfur ore to anything from a pickaxe upward, 257 to a stone pickaxe and 100 to a rock. The glowing hot spot does not change that total: hitting it gathers at 150% for that swing, consecutive hits push the rate to a 300% cap, and a miss resets it. Facepunch's Ore Nodes page says outright that the overall yield does not increase, so chasing the spot buys speed and tool condition, nothing else. Hot spots only render when lit, so night farming without a miner's hat drags.

That makes 11,200 ore 38 nodes with a jackhammer, icepick or pickaxe, or 44 with a stone pickaxe. Ore stacks to 1,000, so the haul is 12 slots.

Which tool to bring

Tool Ore per node Time per node Condition lost per node
Jackhammer 300 1 to 2 s 2%
Salvaged icepick 300 7 to 13 s 1%
Pickaxe 300 12 to 27 s 5%
Stone pickaxe 257 10 to 26 s 11%

The time ranges are the gap between landing hot spots and flailing. The jackhammer needs no aim and no fuel, and it is not craftable: Outpost's tool shop sells it for scrap (Rust Labs lists 75 to 300, with 150 the usual figure), and it drops from tool crates and airdrops. At 2% condition per node one jackhammer does about 50 nodes between repair bench visits. The salvaged icepick is the craftable answer, 5 metal blades and 1 metal pipe at a tier 2 workbench, and at 1% per node it outlasts everything. A plain pickaxe is fine for 38 nodes if you carry two. The stone pickaxe leaves 43 ore in every node and burns 11% condition a time; retire it early.

Where sulfur nodes spawn

Nodes spawn on the cliffside topology layer, so look along cliff bases, mountain slopes and rock outcrops; open fields are nearly empty of them. Corrosion Hour's biome guides rate the arctic as having some of the highest node density of any biome, with the desert decent but thinner. Swamps spawn hand-pickable sulfur at a higher rate, but a pickup is only 50 ore. On a procedural map the Sulfur Quarry sits in the desert and the Giant Excavator only spawns there, so a desert base is next to both machines while a snow base is next to the most nodes.

The Sulfur Quarry

The Sulfur Quarry is a fixed monument, not something you place; the craftable Mining Quarry has been admin-only for years. One diesel runs it for 2 minutes 10 seconds and drops 1,000 sulfur ore into the output box, so twelve diesel covers the eight-rocket raid in about 26 minutes of engine time. It cannot be locked and the engine noise carries, so groups that run it more than once ring it with high external walls and a turret and still post a guard.

The Giant Excavator

The Excavator is the fastest sulfur in the game and the loudest. Since the December 2021 update one diesel runs it for 2 minutes and yields 2,000 sulfur ore (or stone, metal fragments or HQM, picked in the control room). Six diesel is 12 minutes and 12,000 ore, more than the whole raid. The output splits between two drop points, scientists guard the pit, and RF 4777 broadcasts while the engine runs, so anyone with a receiver knows. Facepunch's launch advice was four people minimum. Past 10 minutes (5 diesel) the relay can call a supply drop, a bonus that also puts a flare over your heads.

Diesel, the real currency

Both machines stand or fall on diesel, which cannot be crafted. Barrels spawn at the Dome, Junkyard, both Oil Rigs, Power Plant, Water Treatment and Radtown, a handful each, and Corrosion Hour's quarry guide adds Airfield and Military Tunnels, mostly behind keycard doors. Outpost's resource exchange sells diesel for 300 low grade fuel apiece, so a six-diesel Excavator run is 1,800 low grade if you buy every barrel. Diesel stacks to 20.

Ore tea is the only buff that matters

Ore tea raises ore yield by 20% (basic), 35% (advanced) or 50% (pure) for 30 minutes. A Pure Ore Tea turns a 300 node into about 450 and cuts the raid from 38 nodes to 25. One pure tea is 32 yellow and 32 blue berries of mixing, so start the planters on day one. It is a buff on you, so it does nothing for the quarry or the Excavator.

Smelting and the charcoal gap

A large furnace smelts 3 sulfur ore per second, a small furnace 0.6 and an electric furnace 1 per second (3 power, no wood). So 11,200 ore is 62 minutes in one large furnace, 31 in two, and over five hours in a single small furnace. Furnaces burn 0.5 wood per second, so that large furnace run eats about 1,870 wood and leaves around 1,400 charcoal, since three wood in four turn to charcoal. The rockets need 15,600, so smelting covers less than a tenth and the rest is roughly 19,000 more wood burned on top. The furnace calculator gives time, wood and charcoal for any furnace count; for most groups it means one person on wood all day.

A weekend session plan

Friday night is for kit: buy or repair the jackhammer, craft a spare icepick, mix the teas, and place a sleeping bag at the edge of the node field you scouted with a small stash (10 cloth) buried nearby. Bring bandages, a weapon you can afford to lose and nothing else of value.

Saturday morning, farm in daylight so the hot spots render. Drink the tea, work the cliff line in a loop and dump ore into the stash every three or four nodes; a full inventory of ore is a very attractive corpse. Every couple of loops, carry the stash home into furnaces that are already lit, since idle furnaces are the usual bottleneck. Excavator groups spend Friday on diesel runs instead and Saturday on one 12-minute engine run with all four present.

Craft gunpowder as the sulfur comes out rather than banking 11,200 raw sulfur in one box, and split the rest across two boxes and a stash. By Sunday the only thing left to craft is the rockets, and the only thing left to farm is cloth for the bags outside their base.

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