Crafting speed increases by 25% for each item already completed in the same batch.
- speedBonusPerItem
- 0.25
- maxSpeedMultiplier
- 0.25
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Locked Crate 6.25%, Elite Crate 3.75%
Workbench upgrades
Ten upgrades you slot into a bench to change how it crafts. None of them is craftable and none is in the tech tree, so every one you own came out of a crate.
Where they go
Every bench a player places takes 10 upgrades, including the tier 1 bench. That is four benches, not three: the Engineering Workbench takes them too. Guides written while the system was on the staging branch quoted 4, 6 and 8, and said at the time that they were guessing.
- No upgrade requires a particular bench tier. Any of the ten fits any of the four.
- One of each: a bench will not take the same upgrade twice.
- Each upgrade changes how the bench looks, so anyone who gets inside your base can read what you have installed. Reinforced has a different look on each bench tier.
- Monument benches take no upgrades at all. The panel does not open on them, so an upgrade you carry to Outpost has nowhere to go.
The four benches
| Bench | Upgrade slots | Health | With Reinforced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workbench Level 1 | 10 | 500 | 1,000 |
| Workbench Level 2 | 10 | 500 | 1,000 |
| Workbench Level 3 | 10 | 750 | 1,500 |
| Engineering Workbench | 10 | 500 | 1,000 |
The ten upgrades
Provides a 100% comfort zone around the workbench for those long crafting sessions.
- comfortLevel
- 1
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Normal Crate 0.63%
Armor or clothing compatible with insert slots will roll an additional slot when crafted using this upgrade.
- bonusSlots
- 1
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Normal Crate 0.63%
10% chance to produce a free bonus item when crafting in batches. Ineffective when crafting explosive and raid related items.
- bonusChance
- 0.1
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Military Crate 1.67%, Underwater Lab Military Crate 1.67%
Allows unlocking any tech tree item regardless of progression. Cost is doubled and there is a 25% chance of failure that still consumes resources.
- costMultiplier
- 2
- failChance
- 0.25
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Military Crate 1.67%, Underwater Lab Military Crate 1.67%
Doubles the workbench crafting radius, letting you craft from twice as far away.
- rangeMultiplier
- 2
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Normal Crate 0.63%
Crafting at a workbench with this upgrade has a chance to refund up to 10% of the ingredient costs back to you in raw material form.
- maxRefundFraction
- 0.1
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Normal Crate 0.63%
Increases the workbench's max HP by 150% and grants explosive damage resistance.
- healthBonusLevel1
- 500
- healthBonusLevel2
- 500
- healthBonusLevel3
- 750
- healthBonusIOBench
- 500
- explosiveResistance
- 0.2
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Military Crate 1.67%, Underwater Lab Military Crate 1.67%
Reduces the scrap cost of all tech tree unlocks at this bench by 20%.
- costReduction
- 0.2
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
Locked Crate 6.25%, Elite Crate 3.75%
20% chance to produce a random surplus part (1-8) when crafting. Surplus parts are used in special alternate recipes.
Not craftable, not in the tech tree
No reachable source in this build
What Reinforced actually does
It adds a flat amount of health rather than a percentage, and on every bench that amount happens to equal the bench's own health, so all four double. It raises the maximum without healing: a bench already down to 300 becomes 300 out of 1000, not 1000 out of 1000. On top of that it cuts explosive damage by 20%, applied after the bench's own protection.
The upgrade's own in game description says it raises max health by 150%. The values the game ships give exactly 100% on all four benches, so the description and the numbers disagree. We publish the numbers.
What Efficiency will not touch
11 items are excluded from the Efficiency upgrade in the game files. Raiding materials, mostly. The seeker rocket is not on the list.
Surplus is not obtainable in this build
The item exists and its loot assets ship, but nothing references them, so no container can drop it. Its component also carries no effect values at all. Several wikis list it as a Locked Crate or Elite Crate drop; in these game files it is neither.
What we could not source
These are values the game ships without shipping their meaning, so we print the number and the field it came from rather than inventing an explanation. Nothing below is a guess we are hiding.
- Accelerated Workbench Upgrade
Whether 0.25 caps the total bonus at 25% or floors craft time at a quarter, which is four times faster. The two readings differ by a factor of sixteen.
Field: maxSpeedMultiplier
To settle it: Time a five item batch in game, or read the clamp in the shipped assembly. - Comfort Workbench Upgrade
What a comfort level of 1.0 does to healing and stress, which is a system this wiki has not extracted.
Field: comfortLevel
To settle it: Extract Rust's comfort system as its own dataset. - Defensive Workbench Upgrade
Which crafted items receive the extra slot, and whether it applies at craft time only. It is an armour insert slot on the crafted item, not an eleventh bench slot.
Field: bonusSlots
To settle it: Read the ItemModContainerArmorSlot callers in the shipped assembly. - Efficiency Workbench Upgrade
What a hit on the 10% actually produces: a duplicate output, refunded ingredients, or something else.
Field: bonusChance
To settle it: Read ItemModWorkbenchEfficiency in the shipped assembly, or craft a large batch and count. - Prototype Workbench Upgrade
What a success yields, beyond costing twice as much and failing a quarter of the time.
Field: costMultiplier, failChance
To settle it: Read ItemModWorkbenchPrototype in the shipped assembly. - Range Workbench Upgrade
Whether doubling the range scales all three axes of the bench's craft area or only the horizontal ones.
Field: rangeMultiplier
To settle it: Read the workbench trigger consumer in the shipped assembly. - Recycle Bin Workbench Upgrade
What the 10% is a fraction of: the recipe cost, the item's recycle value, or the stack.
Field: maxRefundFraction
To settle it: Read the recycle bin refund path in the shipped assembly. - Salvage Workbench Upgrade
The absolute Scrap prices the 20% applies to. This wiki does not publish tech tree prices, because a node can request a runtime fallback.
Field: costReduction
To settle it: Out of scope by site policy, not a data hole. - Surplus Workbench Upgrade
What this upgrade does. Its component serialises no effect values at all, so the item description is the only shipped source.
Field: none
To settle it: Read ItemModWorkbenchSurplus in the shipped assembly. An empty class body is itself the answer.
A modded server can turn the upgrade panel off entirely with useLegacyWorkbenchInteraction, so what you see on a heavily modded server may differ.
Client data: build 25129251, captured 6 Sept 2026. Sources and dates.