Buried in the ground and hidden from view. Place one outside your base with emergency materials: scrap, a gun, bandages. If you get raided and lose everything inside, you still have a start.

Sleeping bags are your respawn point. Anyone can use them. Beds are private. Only you respawn on yours - and have a shorter cooldown (5 min vs 15 min). Place your bed inside your base. Keep a bag or two at forward positions or monuments you farm regularly. Rename them so you know where they are.

Cooks food and keeps you warm. Visible at night from a long distance. Keep it inside your base.

30 slots. The first box you place. Stack several to handle overflow while you save for large boxes. Place against walls to save floor space.

Smelts ore into usable metal. Place inside your base as early as possible. You need metal frags to do almost anything. Load ore and wood, start it, come back. Do not leave it running with no input. It burns fuel for nothing.

48 slots. Upgrade from small boxes as soon as possible. Takes the same floor footprint but holds 60% more. Use these for all main storage. Label each box: resources, ammo, food, components - so teammates know where to put things.

Repairs weapons and armour for a fraction of the original crafting cost. Place it near your loot room. Every base needs one. Running into fights with damaged gear because you have no repair bench is a common early mistake.

Unlocks tier 1 crafting. Required for satchels, wood shutters, metal window bars, and a long list of weapons and tools. Get this built as your first priority after a furnace. Takes a 1x1 floor space.

Unlocks mid-tier crafting including semi-auto weapons, explosives, and the strengthened glass window. Must be adjacent to a workbench 1. Plan your base layout so both benches can sit in the same room.

Converts an item into its blueprint for scrap. Find something at a monument or loot it from a player. Bring it back and research it instead of spending hundreds of scrap at a tech tree. Essential for expanding what you can craft efficiently.

Smelts ore faster than a standard furnace and holds more input. Takes a 2x2 footprint. Worth building once you are farming nodes regularly. Feeds three stacks simultaneously.

Mounted on a wall. Players without auth can drop items in but cannot take them out. Useful for handing loot to teammates without opening a door.

Stores three complete loadouts. Swap gear with one button press. Mounted on a wall.

Slows food spoilage dramatically. Not critical but useful once you have a food surplus. Keep cooked meat and berries in here so they do not rot between play sessions.

Cooks up to six food stacks at once. Faster and more efficient than a campfire for bulk cooking. Place inside your base. Replaces the campfire once you have metal frags to spare.

Fits in a floor frame and lets you move between floors vertically. Cheaper entry point than a door on multi-story bases. Lockable with a code lock.

Same function as the standard ladder hatch but fits a triangle floor frame.

Unlocks top-tier crafting: rockets, C4, HQM gear, reinforced glass windows, and late-game weapons. Must be adjacent to a workbench 2. A dedicated workbench room with all three benches and the research table is the standard late-game setup.

Crafts ammo and explosives efficiently using gunpowder. Also brews teas from berries for temporary resource yield buffs.

Converts crude oil into low grade fuel. Place near your furnaces. Essential if your server has oil barrels or you farm the pump jacks monument. Saves significant low grade over the course of a wipe.

Wall mounted. 18 slots each. Good for stone, wood, and sulfur ore that you accumulate in large quantities.

Automatically shoots unauthorized players. Covers a 180-degree arc. Needs ammo and power to function. Load with pistol ammo or 5.56. Authorize yourself and teammates before enabling. See the electricity guide for wiring.

Shoots down rockets, minicopters, and attack helicopters. Needs SAM site ammo. Place on rooftops. Not something you build on day one but worth setting up once you have an established base that raids and flies regularly.

Wall, floor, or ceiling mounted. Fires at anyone who walks in front of it without TC authorization. Load with any shotgun shells. Common in airlocks and tight corridors.

Wall-mounted. Sprays fire when triggered. Effective in airlocks and tight corridors against unarmoured players. Significantly less effective against full HQM. Cheaper than a shotgun trap and harder to avoid in narrow spaces.

Sells items to other players. Broadcasts on the map. Set it to sell surplus resources, components, or ammo. Can also be used to transport loot across the map by selling to yourself at another location.

Connects to CCTV cameras and auto turrets for remote monitoring. Lets you watch your compound, entrance, and approaches from inside the base. Expensive to set up but valuable in a team base where you want to monitor activity without exposing yourself.