Every vehicle in Rust solves a different problem — moving fast, moving heavy, moving across water, or moving through the air. But the first and best vehicle costs you nothing at all.
Horses: the free first vehicle
Wild horses roam roads, fields and grassland, and they spawn everywhere. No saddle is needed to start, and no scrap is required.
To tame one:
- Find a wild horse along any road, in fields or on grassland.
- Approach slowly — crouch and approach from a distance. Do not sprint or make sudden movements, because that spooks it.
- Feed it sugar (10 cloth + 5 wood to craft) several times, or simply hold E to climb on.
- Ride it out. It will try to buck you off. Keep feeding it sugar while riding to calm it; taming completes when it stops bucking. With the mount-and-ride method, the taming bar fills as you ride.
You can also rope-lasso a wild one to lead it home first.
Speed and storage: walk pace about 10 m/s, gallop about 14 m/s with Shift. Gallop drains stamina, so let it recover between sprints. Spacebar jumps. Press E and look at the saddle bags to open 8 slots of storage.
Fuel is food, not low grade. Horses eat apples, corn, plant fiber and raw horsemeat. Open the horse inventory and drop food inside — it auto-eats when hungry. A starving horse slows to a crawl and will not gallop, so keep about 10 food items in the bags.
Upgrades
| Item | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Saddle | 50 leather + 20 wood | Better control and speed |
| Horse armor | 100 leather + 20 metal fragments | Far more resilient to damage |
Keeping it alive
Craft a Hitch and Trough (200 wood, known by default) and place it inside or beside your base. Ride up and hold E on the hitch to tie the horse. A hitched horse does not decay and eats from the trough automatically — a full trough feeds a horse for about 6 days.
Never leave a horse loose outside. Untied vehicles get picked up or decay after roughly 3 hours unmanned.
Two more notes: horses are easily killed by gunfire, so they are an escape and repositioning tool rather than a combat platform — and if you cannot find one, stables at the Ranch and Large Barn sell a saddled horse for about 75 scrap.
Every vehicle, by domain
Land
| Vehicle | Seats | Fuel | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Horse | 1 + bags | Food | Free in the wild; ~14 m/s gallop |
| Modular Car | 1–4 (modules) | Low grade | Built from chassis plus modules |
| Workcart (train) | 1 + linked cars | Low grade | Rail only; very fuel efficient |
| Snowmobile / Tomaha | 1–2 | Low grade | Fast on snow, sluggish on grass |
Water
| Vehicle | Seats | Fuel burn | Price | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kayak | 1 | 0 — paddle power | — | — |
| Rowboat | 4 | ~6/min | 125 scrap | 12-slot box |
| RHIB | 6 | ~12/min | 300 scrap | 36 |
| Solo Submarine | 1 | ~6/min | 200 scrap | 12 + torpedo tube |
| Duo Submarine | 2 | ~6/min | 300 scrap | Torpedo + gun port |
| Tugboat | — | ~15+/min | — | — |
A full 500 low grade tank lasts about 41 minutes in a RHIB, 80+ minutes in a rowboat and 83 minutes in a solo submarine.
Air
| Vehicle | Seats | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minicopter | 2 | 750 scrap at Air Wolf | The go-to, but no storage |
| Scrap Transport Heli | 2 + deck | 1,250 scrap | 60-slot rear storage — the hauler |
| Attack Helicopter | 2 | Low grade | Armed, rare, endgame purchase |
| Hot Air Balloon | multiple | Low grade (burner) | Wind-driven, vertical lift only |
Which one for which job
- Getting around cheap and early — a wild horse. Free, no fuel can, 8 storage slots.
- Reaching the Cargo Ship — a RHIB (fastest boat, 36 storage) or a rowboat if you are budgeting.
- Underwater Labs — a submarine; the solo is cheaper, the duo has a gun port.
- Hauling a team and their loot — the Scrap Transport Helicopter, because the minicopter carries nothing.
- Pure speed, solo — the minicopter.
Related guides
- How to Get Low Grade Fuel Fast — every vehicle’s fuel
- How to Get Scrap Fast — affording the 750 scrap minicopter
- Cargo Ship Guide — the boat you will need
- How to Get Cloth Fast — for the sugar and saddle