The numbers Facepunch printed, side by side
The Giant Excavator takes one barrel of diesel and runs for about two minutes. In that time it produces:
| Resource | Per barrel |
|---|---|
| Stone | 10,000 |
| Metal Fragments | 5,000 |
| Sulfur Ore | 2,000 |
| High Quality Metal Ore | 100 |
Read those four together. Same machine, same barrel, same two minutes: twenty units of sulfur for every one of HQM.
That is not an accident of tuning. It is the clearest statement in the game of how Facepunch values high quality metal — and it is the reason 100 HQM feels like an event while 1,000 sulfur does not.
First: there is no HQM node
The most common early mistake is going looking for one.
There is no dedicated high quality metal node. HQM ore comes off ordinary metal ore nodes, and only on the last hit — two ore per node.
Which means one rule: never walk away from a half-mined node. The HQM is in the final swing, and if you leave at 80% you got nothing.
There are also rare HQM nodes that give about 20 ore, but they are not something you build a route around.
Every source, ranked
| Source | Yield | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Giant Excavator | 100 ore / diesel | ~2 min. Loud, visible, scientists on site |
| HQM Quarry | 50 ore / diesel | ~2 min 10 s. Half the output, same fuel bill |
| Wrecks | 77 HQM (Bradley), 70 (Patrol Heli) | Pays in finished HQM — no smelting, no second trip |
| Recycling | 20 per rifle or SMG body | The reliable everyday source |
| Metal nodes | 2 each | Finish them |
| Military / elite crates | 15-50 finished HQM | Comes with the monument run |
The diesel machines
Both are static monuments now — since Devblog 189, quarries and pump jacks are printed on the map rather than placed on your land. So using one has the same cost structure: you stand at a known location next to a loud machine for as long as the fuel lasts.
| Machine | Ore per barrel | Time | Diesel per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Giant Excavator | 100 | ~2 min | 30 |
| HQM Quarry | 50 | ~2 min 10 s | 29 |
Diesel sells at the Outpost Resource Exchange for 300 Low Grade Fuel a barrel — so the honest exchange rate is 300 LGF for 100 HQM ore, plus a mountain of stone and fragments you will mostly leave behind.
That output is ore, not metal. It still has to go home and through a furnace, which is another trip with a loud, obvious backpack.
Save every drop of diesel from your monument runs. Five barrels at the Excavator also triggers an airdrop on the monument, which makes a loud thing louder.
Wrecks — the one where your tool doubles it
Wrecks pay in finished HQM, and unlike mining, the tool changes everything.
| Tool | Patrol Heli | Bradley |
|---|---|---|
| Salvaged Icepick / Jackhammer / Pickaxe | 70 | 77 |
| Stone Pickaxe | 55 | 60 |
| Salvaged Hammer | 53 | 58 |
| Bone Club | 36 | 39 |
| Rock | 35 | 39 |
A metal node gives every one of those tools the same two ore. A wreck gives a pickaxe twice what a rock gets. Never harvest a wreck with a rock if you have anything better.
Recycling: the everyday answer
| Component | HQM | Scrap |
|---|---|---|
| Rifle Body | 20 | 25 |
| SMG Body | 20 | 15 |
| Tech Trash | 10 | 20 |
| Metal Pipe | 2 | 5 |
| Road Sign | 1-2 | 5-10 |
| Sheet Metal | 1 | 8 |
| Gear | 1 (disputed — one source says none) | 10 |
The single best recyclables are spare guns. An Assault Rifle or an M39 returns 30 HQM at a monument recycler — more than any component.
Rifle and SMG bodies are the components to prioritise at 20 each. Sources disagree on semi-auto bodies — one puts them at 2 HQM, another describes them as “1 plus an 80% chance of a second” — and one source says gears return no HQM at all while another lists 1. Gears and metal blades are not worth recycling for HQM either way.
Smash rifle bodies. Do not hoard them like trophies. A stack of them wipes out the HQM requirement for a Workbench 3 on its own.
Monument recycler vs safe zone
Monument recyclers win on both axes:
| Monument | Outpost / Bandit Camp | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed per item | ~5 s | ~8 s |
| 20 road signs | 24 HQM + 120 scrap | 16 HQM + 80 scrap |
The safe zone is a third poorer and slower. Use it only when the walk or the server population genuinely costs you more than a third of what you are carrying.
Smelting
| Furnace | HQM per minute |
|---|---|
| Standard Furnace | 9 (one ore in ~6.7 s) |
| Large Furnace | 45 across its slots |
| Electric Furnace | 15 |
HQM cooks at half the speed of metal fragments. Give it its own furnace, or it will sit behind a stack of ore and look like it is doing nothing.
One ore becomes one high quality metal, 1:1.
Why it feels tight in 2026
Two mechanics make HQM scarcer than players expect:
The auto turret now costs 25 HQM. The August 2026 Power Trip update raised it from 10 — so a turret wall that used to cost 10 each now costs two and a half times as much.
Armoured walls are expensive to keep. Armoured walls cost roughly 3-8 HQM per wall per day in upkeep, paid from the cupboard, and the rate rises as the base grows. Check the upkeep before you upgrade an entire perimeter.
A Workbench 3 wants 100 HQM by itself.
Practical habits
- Finish every metal node. The HQM is in the last hit.
- Give HQM its own furnace — it smelts at half the speed of frags.
- Guard the quarry hopper. It has no lock, and roamers love the output.
- Recycle at monuments, not safe zones, whenever the walk is survivable.
- Empty gears and metal blades out of your HQM box — they were never paying you.
- HQM stacks to 100 and a dropped stack despawns after 40 minutes.
- All of it resets on force wipe, so do not sit on a stockpile at the end of the month.
Related guides
- Rust Crafting Guide — workbenches and what HQM builds
- Best Gun for an Auto Turret in Rust — the 25-HQM turret
- Rust Monuments Guide — finding a monument recycler
- Rust Monument Loot Tables — where rifle bodies come from
- How to Move a Tool Cupboard in Rust — the armoured upkeep cost
- Rust Electricity Guide — the Electric Furnace
- Rust Tips and Tricks — the small things