Most Popular Starter Base Design (2019) (2024)

The 2×1 with a triangle airlock is probably the most common starter base in Rust. Even the most prominent Rust-base designers build this base as a starter.

In this video, I’ll review a few important things to consider when building a 2×1, and in the second half, I’ll show you how to build a simple 2×1 that would put you ahead of most of the other plays in terms of efficiency.

This video is primarily meant for new players or inexperienced builders. The first thing when building your starter is, which cannot be stressed enough, no fancy !@#%. Forget about all those videos that want to build elaborate underground areas. This is your starter.

We build starters to quickly secure the precious materials we found with our rock. The longer it takes you to build your starter, the more likely it becomes that you’ll be killed, your materials taken, and your base under construction being grieved or taken over.

Leave these fancy designs for your main base. Second, decide which airlock you prefer. We use the term airlock for a combination of doors that don’t allow raiders to enter the base even though the doors are open.

If you want to learn more about the different types of airlocks, check out my tutorial on airlocks. The most popular type of airlocks is the triangle with two single doors, however, you’re faced with a choice. Place the outer single door on the left or on the right sides. Both variations work, but they have different properties.

The choice needs to be made now, because it will dictate the rest of the design of the base.

Placing the door on the left-hand side has the advantage that the outer door alone blocks the way in, which means you get an airlock from just a single door. The disadvantage is that door campers can jump into the airlock, and then you cannot close the door without letting them in.

Placing the door on the right-hand side has the advantage that when both doors are open, door campers cannot even enter the triangle. The downside is that you need to remember to have the inner door open while opening the outer door.

We’ll be placing the door on the right hand side because it’s my personal preference. Third, now that you have decided which side the outer door should go, let’s talk about the airlock position. I see many 2×1’s with the airlock on the front end. This is the worst location. Not only does it reduce the space for efficient item placement, it also allows door campers to see the inside of your home base when the doors are open, as well as to shoot out your TC and then grief the base.

Thus, I strongly recommend to put the triangle onto the side. In addition to limiting how much of the base door campers can see when the doors are open, this allows to create an additional airlock with a double door.

Since we use the right-handed airlock, we put the triangle on the right-hand side. This way, door campers see as little as possible of the inside of the base. If you prefer the left-handed airlock, put the triangle on the left-hand side.

To fit all the items into the 2×1, you will have to place boxes and other items perfectly aligned. Perfect alignment can make the difference between being able to place another box, furnace, sleeping bag, etcetera, or not. I was not able to reliably place items with perfect alignment until I learned a trick from PepperTheRed.

If you want to place a box perfectly flush against the wall, clip the box into the wall, and then slowly move it back out. If the edges of the box emerge from the wall on both sides at the same time, it’s perfectly aligned.

Now, let’s put this into practice, and build an efficient 2×1. The design I’m showing you will fit a TC, two furnaces, two sleeping bags, five large boxes, a workbench, and even a research table. On top of that, the base even offers a bit of space so it might work for a dual.

The design steps are optimized for building it on wipe day on a vanilla high pop server. The first thing you want to do is to find a suitable location before you even start farming. One rookie mistake is to stay near the beach.

I highly recommend to run inland as soon as you spawn. Once I’ve picked the area where I’d like to build, I start running there and focus on getting cloth, and putting down sleeping bags along the way, so if I get killed I do not have to run the whole way again.

Once you’ve found your spot, put down a sleeping bag nearby in a bush, and start farming wood. When my team and I start out, we usually farm enough for a 1×1 with a TC, a wooden double door with a key lock, and one or two small boxes.

In the beginning, you will most likely have to use key locks. Then typically assign a team member who has access to the key locks to remain in the base, craft items, while the rest of the team farms resources. Of course, you don’t have to update the 1×1 to wood first.

If you have stone, upgrade as much as you can to stone immediately. The TC will go into the right corner. To fit all items, it’s important to place it into the corner as far back as possible against the wall. Practice this bit on the build server, such as Dank Bank so you don’t screw it up while you’re doing the placement in game.

Don’t hesitate to put down a few small boxes next to the TC temporarily. The same goes for the sleeping bags. Extend your base into a 2×1, and put a single door frame on the opposite side of the TC. Again, use a wooden door if you don’t have the metal fragments yet. Then add a triangle with the door frame on the right-hand side to create the airlock and put another door.

In the meantime, you hopefully found enough material to upgrade the base to stone. Furthermore, you should have obtained the low grade to build furnaces. Good sources of low grade are animals, red barrels, and the boxes and carts at the entrances of caves. The first furnace goes into this corner. The second furnace goes right next to it.

Now that metal fragments are smelting, first replace all key locks with code locks. Then upgrade the doors to sheet metal. Then you can start crafting and placing large boxes. Move up to two sleeping bags in front of the door, and if there are more, the rest outside of the base.

The first box goes next to the TC. The second box into the corner. To place the second box, you might have to move a little bit back so that the door frame does not push you to the right. To make better use of the space, let’s add a half height floor triangle.

Walk outside, place a triangle foundation and a half wall, then add a triangle floor. Thanks to this triangle floor, you can now add a triangle floor on the inside of the base to serve as a makeshift shelf.

Once that’s done, you can run outside and remove the twig. Now take out the double door, and jump onto the triangle to place the next two large boxes. They’ll be placed in the same orientation as the lower two boxes. If you have trouble with the placement, I made a tutorial specifically on how to align boxes correctly.

A pop-up with the link should now appear in the top right corner. Replace the double door after you completed the loot room. Once you have enough metal fragments and scrap, you can place a tier one workbench right next to the single door.

Finally, you might want to put down a research table as it allows you to safely learn blueprints for your main base. To do that, pick up the second furnace, then place the research table as close as possible to the boxes. A fifth large box will fit nicely underneath it. When you place the furnace back, you’ll notice that it may stick out a little bit, but that’s now it is.

If you happen to keep using this base for a little longer, here are a few suggested upgrades. Place a shotgun trap guarding the door in case someone enters the triangle. If placed right, it should be impossible to drain. Replace the double door with a garage door. Hatchet out the tier one workbench and replace it with a tier two.

Congratulations, you have a very efficient 2×1 starter base!

I hope you found the tips in this video useful, even if you’re an experienced builder. However, while building efficient bases can be a rewarding experience, please remember beggars are not choosers.

If you’re starting up and stumble upon a small and abandoned base, consider taking it over no matter how well it is designed. In the end, the 2×1 is only supposed to be a temporary base to help you get started. It’s always better to take over a less than perfect base, rather than farming to build your own from scratch.

With that said, have a safe start into the wipe.

Until then, Evil Wurst out.