Rust Blueprint Guide 2026: Workbench 2 Costs 5 Fragments, Not Scrap — and the Research Order for a Tier 2 Kit

Workbench 2 doesn’t cost scrap in Rust anymore. It costs 500 metal fragments, 20 high-quality metal and 5 Basic Blueprint Fragments, and the fragments are what stall most wipes, not the scrap. Facepunch deleted the scrap line from every workbench recipe on 6 November 2025 and cut research prices by up to 76% in the same patch, yet plenty of guides still tell you to bank 500 scrap before you go looking for a bench.

This guide gives you the current bill for Workbench 1, the Research Table and Workbench 2, the fragment sources that decide how fast you can build it, and a rule for when to pay scrap at the tech tree and when to wait for loot. The goal is a Tier 2 kit (Workbench 2 plus a Tier 2 gun and armor set) by Day 2 of a wipe. Treat Day 2 as a stretch target, not a promise: the recipe math fits in two days, but the wipe-week plan we checked puts Workbench 2 at the end of Day 3, and fragment drops are partly down to luck. If you’re new to Rust, start with our Rust beginner’s guide first. This one assumes you already have a base and a Tool Cupboard.

Verified on 8 October 2026 against Facepunch’s Livestock update (1 October 2026), whose devblog and changelist list no blueprint, research, tech tree or fragment changes. Recipes and prices below date from the October and November 2025 patches. Check the price shown at your bench before you spend.

Quick Start: Tier 2 in 8 Steps

1. Build Workbench 1 as soon as you have 500 wood and 100 metal fragments. It needs no other bench and no fragments.
2. Start a furnace on metal ore and keep it running. The two benches need 600 metal fragments between them, and 800 if you also build the Research Table.
3. Run the roadside green-card loop, then your first green-to-blue puzzle chain. One full chain drops 3 Basic Blueprint Fragments.
4. Skip the Research Table until you’ve looted something worth researching. The tech tree opens at the workbench itself and needs no table.
5. Collect 20 high-quality metal while you run puzzles and monuments.
6. Run a second chain, or pick up 2 more fragments from crates and airdrops, to reach 5 Basic Blueprint Fragments.
7. Craft Workbench 2 while standing at Workbench 1.
8. Research any Tier 2 gun or armor you’ve looted, tech-tree the rest, and read the live price at the bench before paying.

What Facepunch Changed, and Why Older Guides Are Wrong

Two devblogs rewrote blueprint costs: Meta Shift on 2 October 2025 and Pivot Or Die on 6 November 2025. Meta Shift put Blueprint Fragments on the upper two benches, so Workbench 2 now needs 5 Basic Fragments and Workbench 3 needs 5 Advanced ones. Pivot Or Die removed scrap from the bench recipes entirely, wiped all blueprints, cut research prices and deleted the tech tree tax. Facepunch’s stated reason for the wipe was that “the majority of servers don’t Blueprint wipe, including our Facepunch servers”, which let fresh-wipe players skip early and mid-game gear.

The biggest single drop is on Very Rare items, which fell from 500 to 120 scrap, a 76% cut. Stale numbers still circulate: XGamingServer’s blueprint guide, which carries a June 2026 date, still lists Workbench 2 at 500 scrap and research at 20 to 500 scrap, which is the pre-November pricing. If a guide mentions scrap in a workbench recipe, it predates the patch.

The Bench Bill: What You Actually Pay

Workbench 1, the Research Table and Workbench 2 together cost 500 wood, 800 metal fragments, 20 high-quality metal, 20 scrap and 5 Basic Blueprint Fragments. Drop the table and the bill falls to 600 metal fragments and no scrap at all, according to the gamers.wiki workbench breakdown of the current build.

Metal fragments are the bulk item here. Workbench 2 alone takes 500 of them, more than Workbench 1 and the Research Table combined (300), so start the furnace before you leave on your first puzzle run and let it work while you’re gone. Workbench 3 is a different scale of project (1,000 fragments, 100 high-quality metal and 5 Advanced Fragments) and doesn’t belong in a Day 2 plan.

Blueprint Fragments: The Real Gate

A green-to-blue puzzle chain drops 3 Basic Blueprint Fragments, so Workbench 2’s 5 means two chains, or one chain plus 2 fragments from other loot. Facepunch’s Meta Shift devblog is explicit on the puzzle rewards: Basic Fragments “always spawn in green puzzle rooms (x1)” and are “always found in blue-card puzzles next to the red keycard (x2)”. Its own arithmetic: “If you chain both green and blue, you’ve already had 3 Fragments in a run.”

The two guaranteed rows are the ones to plan around, because the rest of the table gives no drop counts. The ladder behind them is the same one covered in our keycard puzzle order guide: green card, fuse, green puzzle, blue card, blue puzzle. Each chain you finish pays out in fragments as well as cards. Which monuments are worth the radiation and the scientist fire on the way is the subject of our monuments ranked by loot-per-radiation, and that run order maps straight onto a fragment hunt.

Small monuments count too. Rustafied’s pre-release report described the Dome’s green-card room rewarding “a blue keycard, a basic blueprint fragment, and recycler access”, with smaller monuments like Rad Town paying a fragment and several loot boxes. On a fragment hunt, a green puzzle at a small monument is worth the detour.

Advanced Fragments are a separate problem. Hackable crates guarantee them in pairs and elite crates carry a 1-in-10 chance, so Workbench 3’s 5 means three crates in practice. The fallback is converting 20 Basic Fragments into 1 Advanced, which makes 5 Advanced cost 100 Basic. That’s a fallback, not a plan. We found no published fragments-per-hour rate for any route, so the 5-fragment goal below is counted in puzzle chains, not minutes.

Research Table or Tech Tree: The Ratio Rule

Research is cheaper whenever you hold a spare copy of the item; the tech tree is cheaper whenever you don’t. At the Research Table you pay 15 to 120 scrap by item rarity and the table destroys the item you put in. At the tech tree you hold no item, but you pay for every node on the path to your target, and that path is what costs you. The gamers.wiki breakdown puts the Assault Rifle at 120 scrap plus one looted rifle at the table, against 780 scrap as a tree path.

For Tier 2 items the gap is just as wide. These figures come from Rustly’s Tier 2 tree, with “path” meaning the cost from an untouched tree:

The pattern is that research saves the most on guns and almost nothing on tools and suits, so the decision tree is short:

• Do you hold a spare of the item? Research it. A looted Custom SMG you’d otherwise recycle turns an 810-scrap tree path into 60 scrap.
• Does the path barely exceed the research price, like the Hazmat Suit or Salvaged Axe? Use the tree. Building a table just for those costs 200 metal fragments and 20 scrap.
• Is it your only copy and the gun you plan to fire? Don’t research it. The table consumes it, and you’d have to craft a replacement.
• Nothing to research and scrap in hand? Pay the tree, and pick a target whose path overlaps the nodes you’ll want next.

Treat the Semi-Automatic Rifle with care. Rustly lists it at 75 scrap to research and 930 for the full path, but 75 doesn’t match any of the four rarity prices Facepunch published (15, 30, 60, 120). Until a second source confirms the figure, read the real price off your bench. Rustly also warns that path totals drop when you already own nodes on the way, which is why the table’s “path” column is a ceiling and never a sum to add up across items.

The Route: Day 1 and Day 2

A realistic Tier 2 route puts the base and Workbench 1 on Day 1 and the second puzzle chain and Workbench 2 on Day 2. Here’s the sequence, with the checkpoint for each stage:

1. Day 1, early: base up, Workbench 1 crafted. Checkpoint: 500 wood and 100 metal fragments spent, furnace running.
2. Day 1, late: roadside green-card loop and the first full chain. Checkpoint: 3 Basic Fragments in your inventory.
3. Day 2, morning: second chain, or crates and airdrops for 2 more fragments. Checkpoint: 5 Basic Fragments, 500 metal fragments, 20 high-quality metal.
4. Day 2, midday: Workbench 2 crafted at Workbench 1. Then spend scrap on the kit.

For the kit, use a Pump Shotgun and road sign armor as the benchmark. By tree that’s Pump Shotgun at 300, Road Sign Jacket at 150, Kilt at 135 and Gloves at 105, so 690 scrap is the ceiling, and less once the shared nodes overlap. If you loot the same four items, research costs 60 + 30 + 30 + 15 = 135 scrap. Either way the number is a shopping list, not a timer. We found no sourced scrap-per-hour figure, so the plan can’t promise when you’ll have the scrap, only what you’ll need.

If Day 2 ends with 3 fragments and an empty Workbench 2 slot, you’re not behind. That’s the pace the wipe-week plan from RustStats.Pro assumes when it aims for Workbench 2 at the end of Day 3. Playing alone can make the second chain harder, since nobody is covering the puzzle room while you work it; our solo survival guide covers how to take those rooms without a team.

Which Blueprints Survive the Next Wipe?

It depends on the server. Facepunch said in November 2025 that most servers, its own included, don’t wipe blueprints, and when it asked whether monthly blueprint wipes were coming, its answer was: “Maybe. We’re not committing to anything yet.” Rustafied first reported that all official servers would wipe blueprints monthly, then edited the post to call that a “maybe” after reading the devblog.

Sources since then disagree. Rustly’s October 2026 guide says the monthly force wipe “clears the map and every blueprint, server-wide, no opt-outs”, which contradicts Facepunch’s own statement. We trusted Facepunch’s wording, and found no blueprint wipe announced in the Livestock devblog or changelist. That doesn’t prove nothing was wiped, only that nothing was announced.

Open the crafting menu in your first minute. If last wipe’s Tier 2 gear is craftable, you’ve kept your blueprints and the route shrinks to the bench bill. If it isn’t, it’s a full reset and the route above applies in full.

Route by Player Type

The group row rests on one assumption: blueprints are learned per player, so duplicating unlocks wastes scrap. XGamingServer’s advice to “split unlocks across the tribe” points the same way, but we treat it as community guidance rather than a documented rule.

FAQ

Should I build the Research Table before Workbench 2?

No, unless you already hold something worth researching. The table costs 200 metal fragments and 20 scrap, and 200 fragments is 40% of Workbench 2’s own 500. Build Workbench 2 first, because it’s the gate to Tier 2 items; the table only pays for itself when a looted Python or SMG would otherwise sit in a box.

Does Workbench 2 still cost scrap?

No. Facepunch’s changelist for 6 November 2025 reads “Removed scrap crafting cost from workbenches”. The recipe is 500 metal fragments, 20 high-quality metal and 5 Basic Blueprint Fragments, which is why fragments, not scrap, decide your timeline.

Is the tech tree or the Research Table cheaper?

The table is cheaper when you hold the item, and the tree is cheaper when you don’t. The ratios in the table above run from 1.5x on tools to 13.5x on SMGs, so the question isn’t which is cheaper in general but whether you’re holding a spare when you reach the bench.

Do blueprints reset every month?

Not on every server, and Facepunch hasn’t committed to monthly blueprint wipes. The reason it matters is cost: scrap spent on a server that resets blueprints next week is scrap you won’t get back, so check the server description before you buy a full tree path.

Sources

1. Facepunch Studios. Meta Shift devblog, 2 October 2025 (Blueprint Fragments, Workbench 2 and 3 requirements). rust.facepunch.com/news/meta-shift
2. Facepunch Studios. Pivot Or Die devblog and changelist, 6 November 2025 (blueprint wipe, research prices, scrap removal). rust.facepunch.com/news/pivot-or-die
3. Facepunch Studios. Livestock Update devblog and October Patch changelist, 1 October 2026. rust.facepunch.com/news/livestock
4. Facepunch Studios. News index, February to October 2026 (May 2026 Workbench Upgrades; June 2026 workbench range change). rust.facepunch.com/news
5. Rustafied. More Meta Shifts, 25 September 2025 (green-card puzzle rewards). rustafied.com
6. Rustafied. Time to Pivot or Die, 5 November 2025 (monthly blueprint wipe edit). rustafied.com
7. gamers.wiki. Rust Workbench Tiers: The Benches Stopped Costing Scrap. gamers.wiki/en/games/rust/guides/rust-workbench-tiers-the-benches-stopped-costing-scrap
8. gamers.wiki. Rust Blueprints: Fragments, Research, and Tech Trees. gamers.wiki
9. Rustly. Rust Tier 2 Tech Tree: Scrap Costs and Unlocks. rustly.com/tech-tree/tier-2
10. Rustly. Rust Blueprints Guide: Research Costs, Tech Tree and BP Wipes. rustly.com/guides/rust-blueprints-guide
11. RustStats.Pro. Rust Wipe Week Plan: What to Do Each Day. ruststats.pro/guides/wipe-week-roadmap
12. XGamingServer. Rust Blueprints Guide: How to Unlock Everything. xgamingserver.com

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.