ROB RUN Beginner Guide: From Hobo to Your First Base

ROB RUN drops you into Looty Bay with no cash, no home and no gun, and a few thousand real players around you. This beginner guide covers your first wipe: choosing between cop and criminal, making early money, getting your first plot of land and keeping your cash safe. Everything here is checked against Kefir's own launch notes from November 4, 2026.

What ROB RUN is

ROB RUN is a free to play crime sandbox from Kefir. It came out in Early Access on Steam on November 4, 2026, for Windows. Kefir expects Early Access to last about 6 to 12 months and does not plan to change the price when it ends.

Each server holds thousands of players, and every cop and every criminal is a real person. The game has two halves. Looty Bay is the city, where you rob, steal and get chased. The desert around it is a shared map where players build bases, own land and fight over districts.

Servers wipe every seven days. That sounds harsh, but it is the point: everyone gets a fresh start, and a good plan can take you from nothing to running the server inside one week.

Cop or criminal?

The split only happens in Looty Bay. Each time you enter the city you can pick cop or criminal, or walk around first and decide later.

• Cops respawn in Looty Bay, usually outnumber criminals and have fast cars and solid gear. Their rewards are lower to make up for the lower risk. Since launch, cops wait longer to respawn after each death in a row.
• Cops on a fresh server only get pistols. Better police gear unlocks as the server gets older, so the first hours of a wipe are the safest time to be a criminal.
• Criminals take the bigger risks and the bigger rewards: robberies, raids on other players' hideouts and everything in the desert.

If you are new, a few hours as a cop is a cheap way to learn the city and how chases work. To build anything that lasts through the week, you will need to go criminal.

Your first hour as a Hobo

You arrive fresh out of prison, broke, with a room at Lenny's motel. You do not get a free gun. After the playtest Kefir considered a pistol on every respawn, then decided that working up from nothing is part of the game. Weapons are easier to find instead.

1. Check dumpsters. Kefir raised the cash found in them at launch, and they are the safest early money.
2. Pick up a starter weapon. There are more starter weapon spawns around the city since launch, and the basic pistol in shops is cheaper.
3. Learn the map before you rob anything. The game rewards players who plan routes, use lockpicks and avoid tripping alarms, which can bring the whole precinct down on you.
4. Spend early cash on what gets you land, not on gear you can lose in one fight.

Expect to lose things. You can lose everything you carry at any moment, and the same goes for everyone else. Small, quiet jobs early beat one loud job that ends in a cell.

Getting your first plot of land

Your goal as a Hobo is a plot of land in the desert. You rent a plot inside a settlement, and that settlement must be owned by a player, you or someone else. You cannot claim land in an unowned district.

Since launch, Tier 1 settlements and land rentals cost documents instead of cash. Kefir made this change so early progress is easier to follow, so keep any documents you find instead of selling them.

Renting a plot makes you a Settlement Resident. You can build a base, start businesses, unlock new shipments that motel players cannot get, sell goods at the Sales Center and buy contraband at a discount. Our power pyramid guide covers the tiers above that.

Making money with a base

Your base is where the steady money comes from. Kefir massively increased the profits from base businesses at launch, including farms, labs and contraband. A farm grows plants, a lab uses chemical reagents, and shipments you find can be opened or broken down.

• Shipments are worth more when dismantled and sold since launch, but they drop less often and take longer to dismantle.
• Building is item based. Houses, fences, farms, garages, safes and workbenches are all placed from your inventory, so you can buy them, find them or take them from someone's bag.
• Your base is a respawn point. If you die, you can come back there instead of the city.
• You can move it. The whole base and everything in it can be relocated at any time, which helps if your neighbors turn hostile or your friends live elsewhere.

Keep the base modest at first. The game says it plainly: the more lavish your hideout, the more people try to break in.

Keeping your cash safe

There is no offline raid protection, so your defense is what you build and who you play with.

• Launder your cash. Laundered money is safe from thieves. Since launch the laundering desk holds much more cash, so there is less reason to sit on dirty money.
• Fortify. Security modules on your buildings and raid alerts for you and your allies make you a harder target.
• Raiders need decoders. The breach decoders used to break into bases cannot be bought in shops, so raiders pick their targets carefully. Kefir even suggests blending in so your base does not look worth a rare decoder.
• A total base wipe is rare. Destroying a base completely needs an extremely rare item found only in loot. Anything that survives a raid can be rebuilt.
• Lock up your car. Anyone can lockpick and search your car's trunk anywhere in the city, so do not leave valuables in it.

Solo or with a clan?

You can survive alone, but Kefir is clear that solo players struggle in straight fights against full groups. Kefir also says going solo has advantages that groups do not get, and the mix of jobs, cars and cops leaves plenty of ways to earn without a straight fight.

Clans hold up to 100 players and exist on the server you chose. They can own property and territory, and a clan is the only way to take a whole district. You can switch clans between wipe cycles.

Mistakes new players make

• Carrying a whole day's cash through the city instead of laundering it.
• Robbing loud targets before knowing the escape routes, and tripping alarms.
• Selling documents, which now pay for your first land.
• Building a flashy base on day one and drawing every raider nearby.
• Forgetting the wipe. After seven days everyone starts over, so spend and enjoy what you earn.

Related guides

Next, read how to climb the ROB RUN power pyramid from settlement resident to Shadow Governor, and check the wipe schedule and server times to start on a fresh server. Once your first plot is yours, the ROB RUN base building guide covers what to build and how to keep raiders out. Thinking of playing police? The ROB RUN cops guide covers badges, pay and arrests.