Rust is an element of the game that irritates many players. Older players can remember a time when weapons and items in the game never rusted, while even older players can remember a time when the consequences of rusting weren't as severe as they are today. Nonetheless, rust is something that everyone has to deal with. Anything and everything in the game is susceptible to rust, but there are a few things that you can do to prevent rust from becoming a major problem for you.
Blessed Be
The easiest way to prevent your items and weapons from rusting is to get a blessing from the Royal Court. Receiving a Minor Blessing costs 100,000 marks and it ensures that your equipped weapons won't rust. After getting a minor blessing, you can elect to receive a Greater Blessing for 500,000 marks, which provides full protection against rust for your equipped weapons and the weapons/items in your backpack.
Each blessing will protect your gear until either the next day or on the day that you decide to log in again. If you were to suddenly take a one week break from playing, for example, the blessing will protect your weapons for the entire duration as long as you don't log in again.
Remember to keep all of your desired weapons in your backpack before logging out since the blessings don't guarantee that the weapons and items in your storage won't rust. Weapons will rust if they are kept in your storage, or at least if they don't have any oils attached to them.
Snake Oils and Fish Oils
Another easy way to prevent your weapons from rusting is to apply oils to them. Applying oils to your weapons is imperative if you've ran out of space in your backpack, for it ensures that the weapons won't rust overnight if they're safely stowed in your storage. Oils can be applied to each weapon up to five times; each time guarantees that the weapon will be protected from rust for one day.
Luckily, there are many monsters in the game that drop Snake Oils. The following monsters in the game are known to drop Snake Oils:
Anacondas, Azteca Soldiers, Basilisks, Dragons, Dungeon Berzerkers, Dungeon Snots, Dungeon Trolls, Forest Snots, Giants, Goblin Champions, Goblin Vaults, Mountain Trolls, Ninjas, Samurais, Sea Serpents, Shoguns, Sphinxs, Treasury Guards, Warlocks, and Wyverns.
If you aren't the type of player who enjoys questing or can't seem to find enough Snake Oils for all your weapons, manufacturing some Fish Oils through the Grand Oil Fish Project mission at the Dragon Guard is your next best bet. You'll receive anywhere from 14 to 26 Fish Oils for completing the mission.
Without the Oils or the Blessing
If you ever find yourself in a situation in which you've forgotten to receive a blessing from the Royal Court in addition to running out of quests and oils, don't fret if there are valuable weapons that you're trying to protect from rust. Purchasing some Knives from Bill Smith's weapon shop and filling up your entire backpack with them is an underhanded but effective way of preventing rust. It isn't guaranteed to prevent your valuable weapons from rusting, but the large amounts of Knives should greatly reduce the chances that your desired weapons will rust.
The Risk of Rust
The chance of rust occuring is greatly reduced when your character sleeps at a Room or a Suite. Rust is significantly more likely to occur if your character sleeps elsewhere. If you have no choice but to camp out, be sure to bring a Sleeping Bag, Camp Tent, and Cooking Gear with you.
The Rate of Rust
Although I don't have access to any kind of information that will allow me to know the exact rate of rust , it seems that the rate of rust for items is at around 0.995%. If you send 10,000 of one item to a character, for example, the recipient should receive 9,950 of that item in return.
Polishing
Today, it costs 100 marks to unrust every rusted weapon that you have equipped and in your backpack. Polishing doesn't affect any rusted weapons that you may have in your storage, so it may be a good idea to bring them out of there to avoid having to waste another 100 marks to polish them.
Polishing in the Past
At least between February 2000 (the month that I'd started playing) and April 2002, players had the option of paying a certain amount of marks to polish certain unrusted weapons for the purpose of upgrading their stats. Polishing was also an individual matter; polishing one weapon didn't polish every other weapon in a player's backpack that needed to be polished.
Rust in the Distant Past
Sometime before February 2000 (the month that I'd started playing), rust didn't affect the items and weapons that players had in their storage box, but it did affect the items and weapons that they had in their backpack.
