Rust Investment Guide 2020

The following is a guide created to help those in need of a small boost in the right direction with respect to Rust investing. Please take every bit of information present in this guide with a grain of salt, as these are strategies I have learned over my time of Rust investing, and with the help of a few quality content creators within the Rust community.

Disclaimer: All information is subjective to those who view it. No information in this guide is 100% correct, but rather a description of trends in terms of the Rust market. I am in no way a professional, but rather someone who possesses some knowledge regarding this topic, and is certainly open to anyone's opinion or suggestions to this guide.

Enjoy!

An Introduction

A little bit about Rust investments:
-They are heavily dependent on the Rust community. For example, Rust skins are mostly created by the community, via the workshop, and upvoted until they are put into the in game market. From there, the community is open to purchase these skins, for what seems in my mind to be a reasonable price. Prices will be highlighted shortly.
-Usually the best skins to invest in are the ones that seem very visually appealing, rather than kind of bland and lackluster. The key word here is "Usually", as not all skins are dependent on aesthetics, but rather in-game advantage. Both cases will be highlighted shortly in the next few sections of this guide.

Rust Items: Clothing/Armor

Let's start off with Clothing and Armor.
These items include, but are not limited to:
-Road Sign Kilt
-Road Sign Jacket
-Coffee Can Helmet
-Metal Facemask
-Metal Chestplate
-Hoodie
-Pants
-Boots
-Bandana Mask
-Gloves
Now, when looking at the in game shop, collections of these items tend to be very worthwhile. Collections are groupings of items that have the same skin. A great example of this is the blackout set. A very recently added set, many of the clothing items in this set have shown to have gained a lot of value with the release of the other pieces to the set. Although this does not happen in all cases, people tend to enjoy having a collection rather than various interchangeable skins, and thus, the prices of collections rise.
Do not forget that these skins usually should be visually appealing to the buyers, in order for it to have some demand. Despite this, there is one particular case in which visual appeal is not the only thing that determines value and worth in Rust investing. This case is in-game advantage and disadvantage, which will be highlighted shortly.

Rust Items: Tools and Weapons

Next, we have tools and weapons in Rust.
These may include:
-Metal Pickaxe
-Metal Hatchet
-Stone Pickaxe
-Stone Hatchet
-Rock (My personal favorite)
-LR
-AK
-Bolt Action Rifle (BAR)
-Semi-Automatic Rifle (SAR)
Tools and weapons tend to be more of a long term investment, dependent on again whether they are a part of a set or collection. If they are part of a set, they are more likely to shoot up in price, but this is not always the case, so these are more unsafe investments. Furthermore, weapons that have fewer in quantity available, like the eoka pistol, have a higher chance of being profitable due to their limited numbers. Weapons like the AK, LR and Bolt Action Rifle (BAR) also tend to be good due to their sheer in game usage and desire.

Rust Items: Deployables

Finally on our list of Rust items, we have deployables.
These items have a wide range, including:
-Large box
-Small box
-Locker
-Furnace
-Sheet Metal Door/Double Door
-Garage Door
Basically, anything that can be placed down in game is a deployable.

Any deployable box or furnace that ends up being part of a set that allows players to label things in an organized manner (like the XPoint large boxes) tend to be really good investments because they just keep things well labeled and essentially are advantageous.

There are more topics to discuss relating popular Deployables, please see the following two sections for descriptions of these topics.

The Outliers: Glow in the Dark

Glow in the Dark Skins
There are two big things to note with glow in the dark skins. Anything that glows in the dark but gives away your position at night tends to show less demand, and is thus less desirable among community members. Although they may look cool, most players tend to avoid them due to the competitive disadvantage that they hold. For example, weapons or armor that glow in the dark at night, or even tools, could compromise your position against an enemy wearing completely dark armor, that has no glowing effect whatsoever. They have the element of surprise because of their lack of glowing skins, whereas you are a moving target in the darkness of the night. Essentially, these glowing skins are not very good to invest in.

This comes with one exception in terms of weapons.
If the reticle of the gun is the only thing that glows, then this is an advantageous item in combat situations, because it acts almost like a red dot sight in showing where you are aiming when you have no visual due to the darkness of night.
Some skins that have this perk:
-Glory SAR
-Glory AK
-Polymer BAR
Because of this advantage, there tends to be high demand of these items, and thus it is more than a safe investment.

When it comes to deployables, Glow in the Dark is considered an advantage. Say you are trying to navigate your base at night without any source of light, or even find your base while running from someone who has a better weapon than you. Having some way to see your front door or interior doors and boxes while in a heated situation is huge. In a raid defense, every second counts! Typically, all glowing deployables are seen as advantageous, and thus I would consider them wise investments. It also depends on the looks of the items, but usually glowing deployables are safe.

In-Game Advantage/Disadvantage

As with anything in Rust, advantage and disadvantage in fights play key factors in determining what a player wants to use, versus what they don't.
As described previously, Glow in the Dark skins account for some of these cases.
However, these are not the only advantageous skins you can find on rust. Camouflage skins that do a very good job blending into the environment also tend to be of high value. This is why darker skins tend to be more popular than bright green or yellow skins. White skins show the same capabilities as darker skins, because those who often lay down their bases in the snow can use the white of the snow to blend in.
Thus, investing in sets that show to have advantages or disadvantages in fights respectively tend to increase or decrease the future price.

Prime Takeaways and Tips

TL;DR
Clothing/Attire:
Low Risk investments: Clothing/armor that is part of a collection (training set, blackout set, etc.)
High Risk investments: Glow in the dark clothing (creepy bandana)

Weapons:
Low Risk: AK, LR, Bolt, Eoka (based on how nice they look, and if there are no similar ones on the market)
Guns with glowing reticle (nothing else glowing)
Medium Risk: Guns part of a set (Training AK, No mercy guns, etc.) could be good could break even (don’t tend to go below market)
High Risk: Glow in the dark skins that give away position/skins that just are ugly.
Some exceptions w regards to good camo skins.

Deployables:
Low Risk: Glow in the dark/Collections that provide advantage.
Medium Risk: Deployables that are aesthetically pleasing
High Risk: Ugly skins that do not follow either of the two above criteria.

For reference, OMIGHTY The King on YouTube provides great, fairly reputable weekly assessments of the in-game store. Each video seems to come out roughly one to two days after the sale starts, at most.
OMIGHTY The King:[r.search.yahoo.com]

One more thing to note is that the Rust store has standard prices for each skin that will be observed the longer you participate in Rust investing. If a skin is above standard store price, it is automatically higher risk to purchase. At store price is a medium risk, and below store price is usually a safe investment (Again, usually)Some of these currently are:
$1 USD for Most Armor/Clothing
$2 USD for Guns/Tools/Rocks
$1.50 USD roughly for Deployables
Many of these prices are discussed briefly in OMIGHTY's videos, I strongly suggest you show him some love and take to watching his videos.

Thank you for your time in reading this guide, have a nice day, and best of luck investing!

Credits:

Special thanks to OMIGHTY The King for helping me learn the ropes of Rust investing with his simple investment guides.
Another special thanks to moiz, Chad Flexington and Hantr, three great moderators of OMIGHTY's discord server who helped deduce standard store prices for me.
And special thanks to NALO for teaching me more investment tips and tricks in general (Despite being across different games).

Much love to everyone!

[d0m]

nice one

[Crystal Beth]

googly eye easter hat - RIP wallet

[The Captain]

Thank you :)

[Novy]

im probably never gonna invest in rust or any gme for that matter but this is great to just read

[The Captain]

zZz broken Thank you! I really appreciate you mentioning this. A simple guide in my opinion won’t impact the Rust market nearly as much as some speculate. Much love <3

[nissan qashqai]

This is literally common sense stop complaining about him sharing this information.

[The Captain]

Thank you moiz <3

[Moiz]

Great read for anyone new too rust investing

[whisky]

Shhhh Keep them poor, and let us rich men earn more money.

[Reverend ⁧⁧™]

Stop teaching idiots how to profit.