Wiki · The Economy

Crafting & Materials

Life stacks a whole layer of custom materials and recipes on top of normal Rust. It's the most confusing system for new players — so this page lays out every station, every chain, and every hidden step in plain order.

Custom Materials, Explained

Life adds custom materials — ingots, planks, springs, drug ingredients — and a custom craft menu on top of vanilla Rust. The catch: an item that looks like ordinary metal fragments might actually be an Iron Ingot, and your best weapons are crafted from these custom parts.

The game teaches this with a one-time pop-up the first time you pick up a new item — a five-second banner explaining what it's for. It only shows once, ever, with no way to bring it back. That's exactly why this wiki exists: a reference you can re-read any time.

Where you actually craftThe custom craft menu opens automatically when you use a Workbench — walk up to one and the full recipe list is right there. There's no chat command and no recipe book, so if you've never opened a workbench, you've simply never seen the recipes.

The Four Stations

Four different stations do four different jobs. Knowing which is which is half the battle — and almost all of them must be placed inside a property you own.

Furnace
Smelts metal ore into ingots and dries raw drug pickings into ingredients. Buy at the Construction Store (Large Furnace ~$1,444); upgradeable with cash for faster, more efficient smelting.
Recycler
Refines logs into planks, titanium ore into rock, and dirty relics into relics. Runs on Diesel. See the Personal Recycler note below.
Workbench
Where you craft gear — the menu opens when you use it. Buy one at the Construction Store for ~$452. Makes steel & bronze ingots, refined planks, springs, heating coils, weapons, tools and armour.
Mixing Table
Combines dried drug ingredients into finished drugs. It isn't sold or craftable — it's gang-hideout kit. Your own crew's table is fine; a rival gang's is locked to them.
Getting your own recyclerYou can't just buy a recycler. The Personal Recycler is unlocked by prestiging or by completing a schematic set. Once you place it in your property it refines and processes anywhere — no gang needed. Without one, you're using a recycler at a gang hideout.
A recycler needs fuelThe recycler won't process anything without Diesel, which comes from the Delivery job. No Diesel, no planks, no titanium — this trips up a lot of people.

Materials & How To Get Them

The full custom-material list and where each one comes from:

Custom Materials

Copper IngotSmelt copper ore
Iron IngotSmelt iron ore
Bronze Ingot80 Iron + 100 Copper
Steel Ingot80 Iron + 60 Coal
Titanium OreMined (Miner)
Titanium RockRecycled ore
Pine LogsLumberjack
Pine PlanksRecycled logs
Oak LogsLumberjack
Oak PlanksRecycled logs
Birch LogsLumberjack
Birch PlanksRecycled logs
Vehicle FuelRuns vehicles
Gold BarsFrom heists
DiamondHeists & debris
Dirty RelicsDive-site loot
RelicsRecycled relics
MaterialHow you get it
Iron / Copper OreMine metal nodes (Miner; Copper around level 15)
Iron / Copper IngotSmelt the matching ore in a furnace
Titanium Ore → Rock → Titanium IngotMined (Miner) → recycler → furnace
Steel IngotCraft: 80 Iron Ingot + 60 Coal
Bronze IngotCraft: 80 Iron Ingot + 100 Copper Ingot
Oak / Birch / Pine Logs → PlanksTrees (Lumberjack) → process at a recycler
Refined Oak PlanksCraft: 160 Oak Planks + 30 Crude Oil
Metal SpringCraft: 5 Titanium Ingot + 30 Crude Oil (also from gang weapon-convoy missions)
Heating CoilCraft: 1 Titanium Ingot + 1 Metal Spring — needed for hard drugs
Hardened LeatherCraft: 50 Leather + 15 Crude Oil
Raw drug pickings → dried ingredientsBerry nodes → furnace
DiamondBank robbery, or metal-detector debris

Production Chains

Follow the arrows. Each chain ends in something valuable — gear, money, or a powerful drug.

Metal → weapons & armour

Ore → furnace → Iron / Copper Ingot → workbench → Steel / Bronze Ingot → weapons & armour. For titanium: mine the ore (Miner) → recycler → Rock → furnace → Titanium Ingot → Springs & Heating Coils & high-tier guns.

Lumber → refined planks

Trees → logs → recycler → planks → workbench (160 Oak Planks + 30 Crude Oil) → Refined Oak Planks.

Drugs → product

Berry nodes → raw pickings → furnace → dried ingredients → mixing table (plus workbench-made Heating Coils) → finished drug → sell to the Illegal Dealer. Hard drugs need both a Heating Coil from the workbench and the mixing table. Full recipes are on the Drugs page.

Relics → black-market cash

Dive the underwater sites → Dirty Relics → run them through a diesel recycler → Relics → sell to the Illegal Dealer. Full walkthrough on the Crime page.

Why People Get Stuck

If crafting feels impossible at first, you're not alone. The five usual culprits:

  • Recipes are hidden — the craft menu only appears once you open a workbench, so they're easy to miss.
  • Stations aren't signposted — nothing tells you the furnace smelts and the recycler refines.
  • Prerequisites hide two steps back — hard drugs need a Heating Coil that you craft at a workbench long before the mixing table.
  • The intro pop-ups vanish — the one-time item hints are easy to miss and can't be replayed (this wiki is your replay).
  • Stations need a home — almost everything has to be placed inside a property you own, so buy your first property early.
The shortcutBookmark this page. When you pick up a mystery material, search the wiki (top of the sidebar) for its name — you'll find exactly which station turns it into something useful.