Rust

APARTMENT COMPLEX

The apartment complex is a new monument that allows players getting started with a wipe to find a place to call home. Simply talk to the receptionist in the lobby to get started and rent a room.

There are options for every budget, from the basement to the penthouse. Different room types come with different perks, like more storage, furnaces and more.

Once you've rented a room you'll need to insert scrap into the slot next to your door, otherwise you'll be evicted and all of your possessions will be seized.

There is a master key available somewhere on the island - find it and you can unlock access to any occupied room in the apartments for 5 minutes.

Need a hint as to what room to burgle? There might be a guard in the basement who has more information.

RENTABLE SHOPS

The new apartment complex monument features a small marketplace of shops. Each shop can be purchased and run by players, allowing you to sell your wares to the residents of the apartment building.

To get started, simply approach the shop and interact with the contract hanging out front, and you'll get a breakdown of how much it costs. This includes a non-refundable upfront scrap fee as well as a per-hour (real-time) scrap cost. You will need at least 12 hours of rent available to open the store.

Once open, you can modify the sale listings and adjust stock levels like any other Vending Machine. These shops cannot be accessed by drone, but you can modify the sign above the shop to add some personal flair.

All of the shops already taken? After a shop has been open for 6 hours, you may take it over, but you will pay x2 on both the upfront scrap cost and per-hour rent. This will continue to escalate (3x, 4x, etc) if someone else takes over the shop after 6 hours until eventually someone runs out of rent and the shop (and cost multiplier) resets.

If a shop is taken over or closes and it has your belongings in its inventory, you may return to the shop to retrieve them. Just interact with the shop to pick up your items. These items will only last 24 hours though, so be quick!

Be warned, the master key can also be used on these stores so your items could be stolen if you try and store valuable goods.

SOFTCORE UPDATES

We've made some new changes to the Softcore game mode.

Accelerated Progression

There's now a 2x multiplier on resource gather amounts. This works pretty much as you'd be used to on modded servers, giving you extra ore, wood, food and animal loot.

Raid Windows

It's hard to handle raids for more casual players. To combat this, we've created pre-defined time windows where you are allowed to raid each other. By default, raids can only happen between the hours of 6 PM - 9 PM. This is set via your server's local time, so it's the same time zone for everyone. E.g. 6 PM local time no matter where you are. During a Raid Window, everything is fair game, it's regular rust.

Outside of those times, Tool Cupboards 'project' the raid blocking system, so you need to be inside a TC radius to be protected outside of the window. During this time, building blocks and doors cannot be raided: walls, floors, roofs, doors, ladder hatches, etc. Deployables can still be attacked, as can a Tool Cupboard (if it's lying unprotected).

A Tool Cupboard must be at least 1 hour old to be able to block raids. This means a young TC can be raided regardless of whether the raid window is on or not. Helping prevent misuse of the system.

Server Owners have been given a bunch of ConVars to tweak this.

CLAN TABLE

Clans are a more advanced version of teams where you can have more members with different roles/permissions. There is a separate clan chat channel and announcement/MoTD text for communicating with clan members.

Clans can be created and managed at Clan Tables.

You can now see clan names on player nameplates. You'll also see your clan members' locations on the map if they're nearby.

The clan system is disabled in hardcore mode.

PLAYER ANIMATION - SPRINTING WITH RIFLES

As mentioned last month, we're starting to use a new set of animation tools to improve the player animator. This month we're rolling out new sprinting animations while holding most two handed projectile weapons/rifles.

The player now pops their right arm up and lets the sprinting animation take over the rest of the body, looking much more responsive and less robotic.

PLAYER ANIMATION -ONE HANDED MELEE WEAPONS

We've extended last month's Torch animation system to support one handed melee weapons. We're just testing this out on the vanilla Hatchet for now, but once we're happy with the results we'll roll this out to other melee weapons. This allows for nicer movement while holding a weapon while still allowing two handed animations like throwing to play as expected.

GLOWING WALLPAPER PACK

This month, we’re introducing the Glowing Wallpaper Pack.

Brighten up your base with this collection of 27 wall, floor, and ceiling wallpapers. Featuring luminous neon, glowing graffiti, foxfire fungi, and more. Whether you’re building the coziest crib or an industrial powerhouse, this pack has something for everyone.

These wallpapers look great in the day, but are even more special when the lights go out.

Included in the Glowing Wallpaper Pack:

Walls

• Stars And Planets

• Mushrooms

• Firearms

• Explosions

• Graffiti Murals (3 variants)

• Neon Shapes (3 variants)

• Foxfire Fungi

Ceilings

• Glow In The Dark Stars

• Fireflies

• Graffiti Murals (4 variants)

• Foxfire Fungi

Floors

• Directional Graffiti (6 variants)

• Glow In The Dark Carpet (3 variants)

The Glowing Wallpaper Pack can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam item store

USEPLAYERJOBS CHANGES

Jobs 3 is now default, Jobs 2 to be removed

This month we've added a couple more changes/improvements to Jobs 3 code and we've had the it active on our servers for half of the month and things looked stable. We've also done a bit of a rewrite how we pass around server player state, which will force server mods to update their code as well. This makes it the perfect time for us to promote it to default, as it would enable us to clean up a bit more code and simplify things.

This means **Jobs 2 **mode will become deprecated and will be removed in August - one will still be able to set it to 2, but it will run mode 3 underneath.

As Jobs 3 has been modified over multiple months, here's the full list of improvements that comes with it:

• Use of UniTask library to avoid allocations from multithreading code

• Speeds up per frame player snapshot sending by using new fuzzy pool and removing buffer preallocation

• Runs portions of player network subscription updates in parallel

• Schedules EAC and Analytics tasks earlier to avoid main thread waiting on them

• Parallelized remaining server Anti Hack logic

New Jobs 4 level

We've also started to explore Jobs 4 optimizations - our first contribution to it is parallelization of server occlusion pair gathering. We're also going to be looking what kind of more risky or breaking changes to make, so it'll likely be a couple months before Jobs 4 will have enough substance to ship it.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Picked Skin Grey Out

Picked Skin is now Greyed Out

Auto Sorted

Vending machines and fridges now support storage adaptor auto-sorting

Inventory Player Model

Player model quality now changes within the inventory to yield better performance

Footstep Frequency

Adjusted the footstep frequency to be closer to the old player rig

BEARS FOR A BETTER WORLD - CHARITY 2026

Get ready to cuddle up with a bear that’s not only adorable but also changing lives! Starting July 2nd, Rust will host a massive charity drive to raise money for two incredible causes: Cancer Research UK and Ronald McDonald House UK.

Rust is also partnering with some of the biggest names in the Rust community! Throughout the drive, partnered creators will be hosting their own fundraising streams, with free Twitch Drops to also help raise awareness of the charities and allow players to show even more support.

We even have a Charity Auction! Want a signed Displate poster? Or to design your own Rust Skin? Go check it out!

100% of sale proceeds after Steam fees and tax from the sale of these charity bears will be donated, helping support Cancer Research UK's critical work in funding cancer research and saving lives, and also supporting Ronald McDonald House UK to provide free accommodation and support to families with children in hospital. Every purchase will make a difference.

These one-of-a-kind charity bears are available through Rust’s in-game item store, and players can choose from two cute, quirky, and (actually) glow

PLAYER UPDATE

New Player Model

We’ve overhauled the player model from the ground up.

This includes improved meshes and materials, more realistic proportions on a new rig, expanded head and hair seeds and a much needed pass over almost everything player-related.

The old player model has served us well for almost 10 years, but it’s lagged behind the rest of the game for some time. Visually, it was showing its age, but just as importantly it was holding us back from making bigger improvements to characters, animations and implementing future features. Prior attempts to improve the player model has always ended up feeling like band-aid fix, there was only so much we could do while working around the limitations of the old proportions and skeleton. At some point it became clear that the only real way forward was to rip it out and rebuild it properly.

Alongside the new base model, we’ve also:

• Expanded the number of heads in the game, with each head now having unique materials and additional details such as eyelashes and improved eye lighting.

• Reworked and expanded hairstyles and beards, using new anisotropic shaders to make hair feel more natural.

• Updated all clothing to work with the new rig and proportions, giving a lot of older assets a much-needed refresh and fixing some long-standing issues.

• Modernised the art pipeline behind the player model, making future fixes and improvements much easier to ship.

Your face will change, but race and gender seeds have been kept intact, so we’re hoping it won’t be too much of a shock for those of you who have grown attached to your random seed over the years. We’ll be continuing to improve on the player model after release, and we also have a player customisation update planned for the future.

It’s been a huge amount of work, especially as we’ve been doing it alongside regular development and monthly updates. Performing open-heart surgery on one of the most interconnected parts of Rust, while continuing to ship patches, has certainly come with its challenges.

Performance

We know “improved visuals” and “additional details” can be worrying to hear when it comes to performance. It’s something we’ve been watching closely throughout development. Alongside the visual improvements, we’ve also done a deeper pass on our tooling and pipelines, which has allowed us to make optimisations we couldn’t make with the old setup.

Our internal metrics are looking positive so far, and we’ll continue to monitor performance closely after release.

BALLISTIC ARMOUR

For the first time in a very long time, we're adding a new top-tier armour set to Rust.

The Ballistic Armour set offers increased protection over existing craftable alternatives, but there's a catch. It cannot be crafted. If you want your hands on it, you'll need to find it. This armour is comparable to existing metal armour with plates.

We're also introducing the Battle Dress Uniform (BDU). Like the Ballistic Armour, the BDU is loot-only and cannot be crafted. It offers slightly improved protection over existing clothing options, while making a few trade-offs elsewhere.

Both sets are intended to expand late-game gear progression and create more valuable loot opportunities. If you're looking for the best equipment available, you'll need to get out there and fight for it.

NEW WEAPON: M16A2

The M16A2 is a military-grade rifle found through end-end loot and cannot be crafted. Designed around a three-round burst fire mode, it offers excellent accuracy and a high rate of fire, making it particularly effective at medium-range engagements.

To help balance the burst damage potential, the M16A2 deals less damage per shot compared to the LR-300.

Like the Ballistic Armour and BDU, the M16A2 is another valuable loot-only item you'll need to get out into the world and fight for. You'll see a theme here.

PSA: PERFORMANCE ISSUE WITH HIGH POLLING RATE

The Unity 6 update changed how mouse inputs are processed. High polling rate mice (1000Hz+) are now causing significant CPU overhead issues and frame drops.

**Lower your mouse polling rate **to <1000Hz via your mouse manufacturerer's software. (Logitech G HUB, SteelSeries GG, etc..)

We're looking into a proper fix on our end. Sorry for the hassle.

IMPROVED ANIMATION SYSTEMS

One of the primary goals of the new player model was to give us a better foundation to improve the player animations in Rust. We're now starting to improve our animation systems to allow us to make the player animator feel less robotic and more life like.

One key problem we've faced in the past is that all of the animations that the player uses are in a single monolithic animation state machine. This is over 250+ animations, along with override sets for most weapons. This state machine is painful and error prone to update since every weapon and mountable shares it - changing how an animation transitions could have unpredictable consequences for other situations in the game.

To resolve this we've built a new sub system tool that lets us layer in additional, bespoke animation logic in certain situations in the game. Instead of extending and adding even more animations into our massive animator controller, we can now create small self-contained new animation behaviours and apply them in specific contexts.

That's all a bit dense, so let's look at a real world example - the humble torch. We all start with one, and we've all turned it on at night and immediately been killed. It's suffered from a few animation issues that were challenging to solve in the past. Even though it's only held in the right hand, our animation system could only take over the whole upper body, so the left arm was always stiff and robotic. The upper body animator had no awareness of the players locomotion, so it couldn't react to running, jumping, etc (and even if it was aware, making a whole set of running and jumping animations just for the torch is wasteful).

To solve this we've applied a new sub system that creates a new state machine just applied to the right arm. This preserves the running and moving animations on the left arm. We've also added support to blend in the left arm during animations that require it - lighting the torch for instance.

We've just rolling this out in a few small places for now to test it out and make sure it's stable, but these new tools are going to allow us to work faster, produce less animation bugs and get a better looking result going forwards.

ANIMATIONS UPDATE

Animation matching

Where possible, we have taken this opportunity to match 3p animations with what happens in the viewmodel. Many of the old animations were wildly different, both in actions and timing.

More bespoke anims Some weapons shared anims due to time constraints but weren't always a great fit. There are now more bespoke anims created specifically for each weapon.

3/4 stance

The original goal was to move on from forward-facing aiming which, although functional looks awful visually. It also makes clipping of elements like the stock inevitable because the upper body can’t ‘make space’ for the weapon which must aim true.

We've gone with more of a weaver stance in this update, to reduce some of the issues listed above.

It's a more natural looking stance, importantly with more twist in the body and angled hips.

INDUSTRIAL DECOR PACK

Straight from the forge this month is the Industrial Decor Pack, a collection of 20 heavy-duty and machined industrial themed items to galvanize your base. Featuring decorative deployables, utilitarian storage and sturdy tools.

Shipping in the in-game store or from the Rust Steam item store

Industrial Shelving

To go alongside the shelving, we’re also shipping the Industrial Storage Barrels in both horizontal and vertical varieties. Made from steel and probably several hazardous chemicals, they’re sure to keep your precious loot safe, or toxic, and safe. You can change their colour with the Spray Can tool.

Industrial Storage Barrels

To go alongside the shelving, we’re also shipping the Industrial Storage Barrels in both horizontal and vertical varieties. Made from steel and probably several hazardous chemicals, they’re sure to keep your precious loot safe, or toxic, and safe.

Industrial Torch

Light-up the path ahead with this skin for the Torch, featuring an electric filament and unique animations.

Industrial Auto Turret

Light-up the competition with the Industrial Auto Turret. Made from the toughest metal framework, this skin for the Auto Turret is sure to deal with any intruders definitively.

Industrial Large Furnace

Start an industrial revolution with this unique and exclusive skin for the Large Furnace. Go from primitive to the modern era with this one-stop shop to progress.

Industrial Electric Furnace

Seize the means of production with this skin for the Electric Furnace. Looking like a basement nuclear reactor, you’ll be sure to blitz through any safety guidelines in your charge for more ore.

Industrial Garage Door

Roll up the shutters and get to work. Featuring a unique animation and plexiglass windows for extra security, this skin for the Garage Door is sure to get things done.

Painted Concrete Floor Wallpapers

Featuring 6 unique flooring wallpapers, you can create virtually any layout you wish with these floor designs. From production-line to dead-end trap.

Industrial Sprays and Emojis

Theme up your base, or just trash-talk your rivals, these sprays and emojis are sure to put in a shift.

BOWLESS CROSSBOW

This month we’re introducing the Bowless Crossbow which is a unique skin for the Crossbow.

Clearly made by someone with a grudge and a hefty disregard for health and safety. Made from salvaged workshop components and featuring a bowless pulley system, this crossbow is sure to pack a punch.

The Bowless Crossbow can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam item store

SKIN VIEWER

The skin viewer got a small upgrade this month. You can now inspect skins in your hand, straight from the store or your Steam inventory menu.

IMPROVED HIT VALIDATION

Often, you can land shots on players in hot air balloons or on boats and you’ll be met with the dreaded ‘projectile invalid’. This is because the server has rejected your hit.

This month, I looked at improving hit validation for parented players. Hit validation now takes into consideration the previous position of parents when validation happens - this should let your shots land and provide a better experience for players all around.

DISCORD X RUST - THE WUMPUS PLUSH

We are excited to announce a very special, first-of-its-kind collaboration with our friends over at Discord. Starting today, you can bring Discord’s iconic mascot, Wumpus, out of your chats and straight into your base!

Say hello to the In-Game Wumpus Plush.

The Wumpus Plush is a one time exception and is exclusive to the Discord Shop.

To grab them, you'll need to purchase him directly through Discord, which will then link up and unlock the item on your Steam account inventory.

The Wumpus Plushie can be placed anywhere inside your base. Stick them on your workbench, line a few up on your roof to confuse raiders, or just keep them next to your sleeping bag for 70% comfort, and good luck before a big Deep Sea run.

Deployable Companion: Fully interactive placement - rotate, stack, and find the perfect spot for your new friend and receive 70% comfort when near them.

Discord Authenticity: Lovingly modeled to bring Discord's signature colours and aesthetic, seamlessly into Rust's universe.

100% Flex: Show the friends and foes you were there for Rust's first-ever Discord store collab.

Head on over to the Rust Game Shop on Discord to get yours!

CORE PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Pool Rewrite

We rely on an internal utility called Pool to recycle objects and avoid allocations - it's vital for avoiding creating pressure on the Garbage Collector. Since it's vital, it's used everywhere thro

WORKBENCH UPGRADES

Workbenches have received a whole new upgrade system - along with nine upgrades to find and customise your benches with! Each upgrade provides a different bonus effect, and you can mix and match them to find your favourite combos.

These upgrades are not craftable and will not be commonly found, so keep them safe! Open the workbench's inventory to add your upgrades. They each have their own visual, which will alter the way the workbench looks.

If you get lucky and collect 'em all, you'll have a fully upgraded workbench - both in terms of bonuses and visuals!

MORTAR

We're adding a new anti-personnel/raiding deployable weapon: Mortar!

Functionally really similar to cannons, but is instead placed on flat land and allows for launching projectiles over long distances. Firing a mortar requires mastery through trial & error as there is no visual guide to help you land shells exactly where you want them. Instead, you'll need to pair it with binoculars to estimate how high to aim the mortar for it to land on your target.

To prevent repeated shots, the mortar has recoil that slightly bumps the mortar up on every shot, as well as a small inaccuracy that changes how far each shell lands.

You can choose between two mortar shells, one aimed to deal high damage to players while the other focuses on destroying structures.

TIN CAN ALARM CHANGES

The tin can alarm is getting a small update. You can now trap them with a bunch of different items.

How it operates has not changed, crossing its wire will trigger the trap and cause a loud clatter, alerting anyone nearby to your presence.

And you can deploy it anywhere from your base to inside monuments. Use it strategically to cover access points and defend your positions.

When triggered, it'll throw the loaded item in place.

It supports:

• F1 Grenade

• Molotov

• Bee Grenade

• Beancan Grenade

• Flashbang

• Smoke Grenade

• Supply Signal

• Flare

• Firecrackers

Watch your step!

VENDING MACHINE UI REFRESH

The vending machine UI was in need of a refresh and some improvements. We've totally redesigned the administration page and given the purchase page a new lick of paint.

The new administration page comes with a few features: being able to quickly setup vending orders via its in built inventory, selling skins individually, and being able to reorder your existing sell orders without deleting and recreating them.

CRYPT STONE BUILDING SKIN

We’re launching a new much-requested building skin to the permanent store this month; the Crypt stone building skin. Available now from the Rust store, this building skin allows you to change the visuals of your stone tier base.

Your new home for eternity, or at least the next wipe.

Purchasable from the in-game store or Steam item store.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Computer Station now requires power

Time to put that power supply to use

Grenade throw consistency

Fixed some issues with 3rd person grenade throw animations

Floating City Vendor

Floating City Boat Vendor now sells modular boat parts to get you back on your feet if you lose your boat (and a cheaper DPV too!)

Monument Building Radius

Monuments which feature multiple no build zones now correctly display each one

Monument Road Signs

Road signs are now correctly spawning in Outpost, Junkyard and Water wells

Boat Bow Drag

Drag has been greatly increased for boats with a flat bow. Build accordingly

DISCORD X RUST SHOP

Starting today (May 7th), we’re launching the official Rust Shop directly inside Discord.

We’re actually only the second game to do this (shoutout to the Marvel Rivals team for going first), and the goal is pretty simple: making it easier to grab the skins and DLC you want, while you’re already hanging out with your team, browsing the goods right where you coordinate your raids.

To get things moving, we’re running a launch celebration for the first two weeks.

From May 7th to May 21st, every single piece of Steam Item Store DLC released before 2026 will be 20% off.

If you’ve been eyeing that specific building skin or hazmat suit for the last year, this is the time to snag it - or gift it to that special team mate.

It’s pretty seamless - anything you buy through the Discord Shop links straight to your Steam inventory. You can find the shop via our Official Discord or through the Discord Shop.

Check it out and let us know what you think in the #feedback channels!

RESKINNING DLC BARRELS

We've now released several variants of the horizontal and vertical storage barrels but due to the fact that they don't have a common vanilla item (as opposed to something like the Tool Cupboard skins) they weren't compatible with the Spray Can/Repair Bench for swapping the skin.

We've fixed that this month, allowing you to freely swap between the barrel skins. This will also be fixed for future versions of other DLC items we've released (eg. single and half height shelves).

NEW ACHIEVEMENTS

We're adding a new set of achievements related to the recent Naval Update. There are plenty of easy ones you should be able to get by just exploring the deep sea, as well as some more complicated hidden achievements that are a lot rarer in comparison - but should still come up within normal play.

Can you spot them all?

FIX HELD ANIMATIONS STOPPING EARLY

There has been a longstanding issue where if a player uses the last item in a stack, the viewmodel and player animations for using that item will stop immediately upon the item having been spent. Without affecting the timing of when items are determined to have been used (as changing this would have gameplay/balance implications), we now have a means of setting up animations to stick around after the item has been spent so they can be play out nicely before stopping.

This has been applied to all grenade types, as well as the bandage and medical syringe, and will be applied to the other held items over time.

SERVER BROWSER UPDATE

We've made some changes to the server browser.

It was possible in the past for server owners to be able to spoof ping information through various means. This would make servers show lower in ping that were actually higher in ping to you, possibly picking a server which would end up feeling laggy when your intention was to pick a local server.

We're rolling out a new system: country mapping. Based on the servers IP we get an estimate of what country the server is in, as well as its coordinates. We use those coordinates to sort servers close to you. This means that servers can no longer spoof where they are located.

For the above system to work we also need to estimate where you are located (in order to show your servers nearby). This is located at the top left of the play menu and can be overridden by you. This override is saved between sessions if you'd rather have it done manually.

BINOCULAR REFRESH

Binoculars have had a whole refresh!

The model, animations and UI have all been updated to feel more modern.

Right click to peer through the binoculars and Left click to cycle the three zoom levels. And it pairs nicely with the new mortar!

Crafting cost has been reduced too!

SALVAGED CLEAVER REMAKE

Last month we revisited the Salvaged Axe, with a full visual and animation overhaul. This month, we’ve given the same treatment to another legacy favourite — the Salvaged Cleaver !

The Salvaged Cleaver has received a complete remake, featuring a brand-new high-quality 3D model, updated HD textures, and an entirely new animation set.

The result is a weapon that looks like it was lovingly rebuilt from junk… and still very much wants to live in your enemies’ ribs.

NEW WORKSHOP SKINNABLE: ELECTRIC FURNACE

This month’s workshop skinnable is the Electric Furnace

There are so many possibilities with skins for this item, especially as it lights up. We can’t wait to see what the community cooks up!

To make your own Electric Furnace skin, head over to the in-game workshop and locate the Electric Furnace deployable item. From there, you can download the model file and add your own materials.

TWITCH RIVALS - BASE INVADERS

Twitch Rivals - Base Invaders is back!

Watch and earn an exclusive Twitch Rivals HMLMG skin for one day only! This drop will be tied to the Twitch Rivals channel and only active during the broadcast window.

20 teams of 5 will battle it out, while 5 general Twitch Drops are available for 5 days only!

Drops start: May 13th - 11AM PT/ 2PM ET/ 7PM BST Drops end: May 18th - Midnight PT / 3AM ET / 8AM BST

Connect your accounts to claim your drops!

https://twitch.facepunch.com/

PERFORMANCE: BATCHED PLAYER PROCESSING

Removal of UsePlayerUpdateJobs 0/1

Last (https://rust.facepunch.com/news/spring-clean#PerformanceUsePlayerUpdateJobsUpgrade) I mentioned that I was planning to remove old player processing code. The vanilla (UsePlayerUpdateJobs 0) and our first version of batching (Jobs 1) mode code has been removed. You can still set UsePlayerUpdateJobs to lower than default 2, but it won't have any effect and it'll run as if it's set to 2.

UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 still experimental

This patch we've made a couple bug fixes and tweaks that should both reduce number of garbage allocated for creating tasks every frame (our fork of UniTask can now reliably pool internals) and improved scheduling of physics queries for our server-side player checks. We're going to be switching some of our servers for Jobs 3 mode and seeing how they run over next month. If it holds, we'll promote it to default.

Going forward

Alongside above, we're also working on eliminating some of the bottlenecks that prevent us from more heavily relying on parallelization:

• The way our Pool is implemented causes a lot of contention on a singular lock - I'd like to ship an improvement in Jobs 3

• We still have a lot of player state that's stored in a way that prevents us from converting to Burst code and having to run recaching logic every frame - it would be gradually completed in Jobs 3 and future modes

• We need to find a way to make entity saving multithreading safe (which means no Unity API calling) - hoping to tackle for Jobs 4

We're slowly getting to the point where player processing is not the slowest part of the server workload. I'd like to squeeze out as much benefit as I can while it's still worthwhile before moving to the next big server performance problem.

DEEP SEA LOOT BALANCE

We've reduced the amount of loot you can find in the Deep Sea.

Loot found in that side of the map was a little too generous compared to the other monuments and areas in the game.

However, Scientist boats will also have less guns overall.

WINDOWS SERVER 2016 EOL ANNOUNCEMENT

We are currently in the process of upgrading to Unity 6. This means Windows Server 2016 / Windows 8 and older will no longer be supported. The minimum required version will be Windows Server 2019 / Windows 10 Version 21H1 (Build 19043) or newer.

From our metrics none of our players are still on Windows 7 or Windows 8, so we aren't concerned about that. However, we suspect some server hosts are still running Windows Server 2016. If you run a Rust server, consider this the first and final notice that you need to upgrade to at least Windows Server 2019 by the end of the month.

NEW ITEM: ARMOURED LADDER HATCH

The Armoured Ladder Hatch is a new top-tier construction. A direct upgrade from the Metal Ladder Hatch, the Armoured Ladder Hatch is built for players who want maximum durability on their vertical access points.

Unlocked at Tier 3, it’s available in both square and triangle variants, slots straight into existing frames.

Unlocked at Tier 3, it’s available in both square and triangle variants, slots straight into existing frames.

NEW ITEM: WATER WHEEL

Renewable energy is the best energy. You liked wind and solar? Now it's time for another classic, Hydro!

Water wheels can be placed in rivers to passively generate electricity from the water flowing along its base. When placed in the ocean they do generate some charge, but more inconsistently as the tides change. Either way you will need to make sure that the waterflow coming in is not blocked by anything!

The wheels can also be used as giant hamster wheels if you want to hop in and convert some calories into power. And before you ask, yes you can force handcuffed players into them.

TECH TREE MULTI-UNLOCKING

The tech tree unlocking process received a long-overdue upgrade this month!

Instead of painfully having to select and unlock each item as you go down the tree, you are now able to select any node you want and will be shown a preview path that leads to the desired item. Pressing the unlock button then automatically unlocks the whole path at once, playing a satisfying animation.

New sound effects have also been added, the unlock animation was improved and the tree is now centered when zooming in and out - interacting with this UI should feel a lot better overall.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Chainsaw Frenzy

• Chainsaw now always hits the X when farming trees

Watchtowers

• Watchtowers can no longer be spam placed next to each other

Sleepy Junkpiles

• Fixed junkpiles spawning on sleeping bags

IO counter

• Can now set the reset value of the IO counter

Deep Sea Sleeping Bags

• Added a visual indicator to distinguish between sleeping bags in the deep sea on death screen

EXTENDED PLANT RIPENESS

We've increased the time plants are in their "ripe" stage to 24 hours (was 14). This should hopefully be less punishing for players who can't log back on to harvest their plants more than once per day.

Note that the growable flowers were already at 28 hours so they are unchanged.

SHIELD COLLISION CHANGE

We've noted the new meta around shields becoming a bit too popular over the last month. Ideally shields are a powerful defensive tool but they come at the cost of reducing your offensive capabilities.

To better fit that direction we're now switching the hitbox based on whether you are actively holding up the shield. When idle the shield uses a smaller square hitbox and it will use the current larger hitbox while it is being held up.

We've also fixed a bug that resulted in additional recoil being applied when shooting at a shield, this was only meant to be applied when attacking a shield with a melee weapon.

COLOURED BUTTONS

We saw a cool community concept for coloured buttons and decided to implement it as a part of this patch, the functionality is really similar to wires with a similar colour set - the only difference being that red is the default colour for buttons to match how they previously looked.

The more technical and cooler side of this is that we previously didn't support nested radial menus, the new coloured buttons are the first to support them and should allow for more complex nested menus in the future.

CUSTOM CHAT CHANNEL TAG COLOURS

After a recent request, I've added some extra colour pickers to the accessibility options.

These allow you to change the colour of the tags for Discord DMs, team chat, cards chat, etc.

Hopefully this makes things a bit clearer!

LIGHT TOGGLE RADIAL MENU

The old ToggleLight feature/bind has had a major upgrade this month!

“Light Toggle Radial” has been added to the controls menu as a replacement for the previous togglelight bind, and will use the same default/current bind.

• Tap the keybind to retain the original behaviour: all equipped light sources toggle simultaneously.

• Hold the keybind to open a radial menu (when multiple light sources are equipped), allowing you to toggle each one individually.

This is especially useful in situations where you don’t want everything toggled at once - for example, when using night vision goggles alongside a weapon-mounted flashlight.

There's potential to expand this feature into a more generic "item state toggle" feature in the future, that could also toggle things such as weapon fire mode.

OVERFISHING & FISHING IN THE DEEP SEA

Fishing inside your base or botting the fishing minigame doesn't align with the true spirit of fishing. To get the best catches you should be hunting down secluded spots and casting your line there. Plus, if you want to do things passively, fishing traps exist for a reason.

So we've added an overfishing mechanic. If a certain amount of fish have been caught in the vicinity within a certain time span, the area becomes "overfished". In overfished areas, only junk will come up from cast lines. The area will repopulate after it has time to refresh, and fishing can resume then.

There are plenty of ConVars for community servers to tweak the mechanic to their liking (including disabling it completely) so don't worry about it being forced. Additionally, overfishing has no impact on the fish traps as the primary intent for the feature is to mitigate in-base afk fish farming.

To balance this out, fishing in the Deep Sea is getting a buff! You can no longer catch Herrings or Anchovies in the deep sea, which means the loot pool has been concentrated towards higher-value catches.

BUNNY COSTUME

This year we’ve somehow created an even more silly costume to terrorise the nakeds with, the Bunny Costume.

Coming in three cute and cracked varieties so you can dress for any occasion.

The Bunny Costume is only available for a limited time on the Rust Steam item store

EXCAVATOR RUSTIGE EGG

Bringing in a little decorum this Easter, we have the latest Rustigé Egg coming in exquisite amethyst and gold. Open it up to reveal an eggcellent mini Excavator scene and a unique tune.

Available for a limited time on the Rust Steam item store

EASTER 2026

Happy Easter! Easter Egg Hunt is back today until the 16th of April and there's a whole range of fun items now available too!

If you don't make the podium, that's okay. The painted eggs you collect can be upgraded to Bronze eggs once you collect 10. If you collect 10 bronze eggs then you can upgrade to a silver egg, eventually all the way to gold!

There are various items available to help you during your hunt - the Easter Basket will allow instant pickup of eggs and the Bunny Onesie and Ears will provide you with an advantage via Egg Vision.

Easter Store Items

EASTER WALLPAPERS

What better way to spring clean your base this year than applying these fresh new individual wallpapers for your walls and floors.

Available as individual limited wallpapers on the Rust Steam item store

PERFORMANCE: USEPLAYERUPDATEJOBS UPGRADE

UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2 on By Default

Since rolling out march's Shipshape update, we have enabled UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2 on all our servers and it's been a smooth ride, most of the time. It revealed a couple bugs with the demo system, but those have been fixed. And it's been helping our servers - you can see where we've switched one of our servers:

As a result, I'm changing the servervar to be set to 2 by default. For a short while the 0 and 1 modes will still be available, but I'm planning to rip out support for them - if your server has custom mods that target player update loop, you should look to upgrade those.

UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 - new experimental level

The above image shows the performance gain on a fresh-ish server, but as the world grows old it starts to slow down and bottlenecks become worse. Here's an example of a server mid-way through update cycle with 360 players:

There are a number of issues highlighted above in the ~20ms section:

• The areas marked with 1 and 2 are running serial code. For 1(2.3ms) it's running our server side antihack logic, for 2(3.8ms) it's updating player's network streaming

• For number 3 - we spend 0.3ms because one of async tasks doesn't finish early

• For number 4 - our use of C# asyncs is leading to allocations, so our optims have a tax

Problems 2 and 4 are related - to fix problem 2, we would use more asyncs, but that would cause more allocations, inflating problem 4.

To deal with this, we started rolling out our fork of (https://github.com/Facepunch/UniTask), a framework for cheaper creation of tasks. In Jobs 3 mode, all task creation code has been converted to UniTasks instead of C# Tasks to eliminate related allocations, we converted more of antihack to Burst Jobs and parallelized player network streaming logic further.

We're currently trialling it out internally, but it's publicly available for experimenting. I'll be keeping an eye out on feedback.

PERFORMANCE: NEW TERRAIN RENDERER

Continuing moving to a more GPU driven rendering pipeline we are rolling out our own terrain rendering system (no longer using Unity's). Everything should look broadly the same visually but a lot of the work has moved to the GPU. The new terrain has massively reduced drawcalls and more aggressive culling. This results in an overall gain in CPU performance.

Performance Details

Terrain can be situational but for a performance snapshot example I'll take a profile on top of this hill:

I can compare the metrics by turning new terrain on/off:

Rendering metrics

Drawcall reduction: ~1000 (2.71k -> 1.07k)

Shadowcaster reduction: ~550

CPU main thread

Unity's terrain CPU update completely removed: ~0.25ms gain

The combined reduction in drawcalls and terrain.CullAllTerrains update result in a median: ~0.65ms gain.

The numbers will vary (and can sometimes be even better) but overall you should see decent improvement in CPU times.

GPU performance

While most of the work has moved to the GPU, the improved culling and terrain rendering technique has minimised any overhead. In tests GPU performance has remained similar.

PERFORMANCE: SERVER MESH STRIPPING

As part of our standard build process for the dedicated server, we have always stripped out Textures (since the server does no rendering) but Meshes have always been included. This is usually wasteful - the majority of meshes are only ever used for rendering and are not needed on the server. These meshes are loaded by default, and take up memory which is critical on the server. They also waste space on disk which is less important, but still worth improving.

This month, we are now removing most meshes from the server build unless they are required for a collider. Our initial tests showed that this has saved around 600mb of memory at runtime and 2.7GB of space on disk. We're reasonably sure we haven't inadvertently removed any meshes that are required by the server, but if you encounter any missing collisions that worked last month please let us know.

PERFORMANCE: IMPROVED NETWORK GROUPS

I've made some improvements to our network group code, which handles area of interest management, to better optimize what is networked from the server to clients.

Before this change, the server networked everything in a large square around the player. A square is simple but not ideal because it networks much further towards the corners vs. the center of the edges. After this change, the server now networks everything in a large, blocky circle around the player.

Next up, I added the ability to use different network ranges for different entities. This allows us to only network smaller entities (decor, dropped items, etc.) when you're closer to them, and allows us to network larger entities (vehicles) further away. We've tweaked the network ranges of a few entities to start with and will explore more going forward.

HOT AIR BALLOON ALTIMETER

To make it clearer that altitude affects direction, we've added an altimeter to the Hot Air Balloon!

It's positioned right where you need it - next to the Windsock and the Burn Control Button.

This should help explain the correlation and make it a bit easier to get ballooning!

SALVAGED AXE REMAKE

After 12 years, this month the Salvaged Axe has been given a new face lift. A well and truly deserved update to this staple tool.

Featuring a new high resolution model and textures, as well as a brand new set of animations to match the updated model.

MEDICAL SYRINGE REMAKE

Another asset receiving a facelift is the trusty medical syringe!

It was starting to show its age at 12 years old, so in this update we've upgraded it to includes a new high-resolution model, updated textures, and a brand-new set of animations.

Restoring health in an emergency situation has never looked so good!

NEW WORKSHOP SKINNABLE: SALVAGED AXE

This month’s workshop skinnable is the Salvaged Axe.

This weapon just received an awesome visual upgrade which makes us especially excited to see what the community will create with it!

To make your own Salvaged Axe skin, head over to the in-game workshop and locate the Salvaged Axe weapon item. From there, you can download the model file and add your own materials.

UPDATED F1 CONSOLE UI

We've completely re-designed and rebuilt the F1 menu. All tabs have been improved, packed with new features and nice QOLs.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the notable improvements.

Console

• A command list screen has been added, showing all the available commands

• For admins, auto completion now works with server convars

• CTRL + Scrollwheel will increase/decrease the text size

• All the missing convar descriptions have been generated using AI. You'll see (Generated) in front as a warning, we figured AI descriptions are better than no descriptions.

**Items/Vehicles **

• You can now favourite items and find them in a dedicated tab

• We've also added a "Recents" tabs

• CTRL + Scrollwheel will increase/decrease the item size

• Keyboard controls have been added

Server

• Added player positions and team ID

• Added teleport and mute

EXTENDED DAYTIME

This month we've extended the amount of time each day has sunlight by around 20 minutes. The duration of night is unchanged (around 10 minutes).

This should hopefully allow for more time for daylight activities while still keeping nighttime tactics viable.

BOAT BUILDING IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES

There have been a ton of small fixes and improvements to player boats and boat building this month. I want to a highlight a few of the more common complaints that have been addressed here in this section.

Boat building blocks can now be rotated and demolished at any time in edit mode - they are no longer subject to the usual 5 minute timer.

The tiny dive site buoys that would bring your full size boat to a complete halt have now been addressed. You may now sail freely!

The very annoying issue with sails randomly being destroyed has also been fixed. This was caused by a sail being rotated after initial placement, which sometimes led to them being placed off the edge of a boat. When you then picked something up nearby, the groundwatch triggered and the sails got destroyed. Not any more!

Finally, the Deploy & Edit steering wheel option will now always show, even if the current location is unsuitable. An error toast will be displayed if you try to use it, informing you that you cannot edit in this location. There are many reasons why deploy & edit can be unavailable and most of the time the reason is explained, but this one was missing - which led to a lot of confusion previously. Hopefully this will help clear things up!

Head to the change list for the full details!

DEEP SEA CHANGES

We made a number of balancing changes and improvements to the Deep Sea.

• Loot now respawns slowly over time. The initial loot fill when the Deep Sea opens has been decreased to around 70% of what it was.

• The side of the map it spawns on is now random after each opening.

• The deep sea will no longer open right after the server wipes.

• You can’t go there using RHIBs now.

• A notification sound will play when the deep sea opens.

All these changes can be configured via new convars.

We’ve also increased the network range from 300 to 620 metres in the Deep Sea, so you can spot ships from much further away. We can’t afford to do that on the mainland because of player and entity density, but out at sea we have enough performance headroom to support it.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts about their experience with the Deep Sea since its release.

CANNON HIT MOVEMENT PENALTY

We've added a movement penalty for player built boats that are hit by cannons. Repeated hits can reduce a ship's movement speed to 30% of its maximum speed. We'll keep an eye on how this plays out, but our hope is that this leads to more interesting ship to ship combat as well as some more boarding action.

We've also buffed the player protection while mounted to cannons so players shouldn't be as vulnerable while using them.

ELECTRICITY, INDUSTRIAL, AND WATER IO ON BOATS

You can now use electricity, industrial and water IO items on boats.

Almost all the items are available. Some of them are more involved to support than others, for performance or various other reasons. Some of them are blocked purely for gameplay balance concerns.

Blocked items:

• Auto turret

• SAM site

• Windmill

• CCTV cameras

• Seismic sensor

• Hanging lights

• Door controller, hopper

All subject to change in the future!

WALLPAPER ON BOATS

You can now use wallpaper on boats, the same way as in your base.

DESTRUCTIBLE BOAT WRECKS

Sunken player-built boats can now be damaged block by block, allowing for exploration and loot recovery.

PLAYER BUILT BOAT DECAY CHANGES

I've made some changes to decay rates, based on player feedback.

Decay delay has been doubled from 12 hours to 24 hours and decay duration has been reduced from 18 hours to 12 hours.

This will mean players can stay offline for longer without their boat decaying, but abandoned boats will decay quicker.

As a reminder, a player boat is only classed as used when it receiving steering wheel input.

STORAGE BOX PACK DLC

Shipping this month is the Storage Box Pack, a packed-out collection of 16 uniquely designed and labelled skins for the Large Wood Box. Featuring bespoke and beautiful designs for Ammo, Armor, Charcoal, Clothing, Components, Explosives, Food, Guns, Meds, Metal, Ore, Scrap, Stone, Sulfur, Tools and Wood.

Each box also has a special functionality where they show the contents as a distinctive stack of items. Never fear though, the contents are not visible to hostiles unless your auth is destroyed!

Get them boxed up from the in-game store or from the Rust item store!

DEPLOYABLE SNAPPING ON BOATS

You can now use deployable snapping on player built boats!

This works as you'd expect. Hold a relevant deployable and left shift whilst on a player boat. This works for the exact same set of deployables as it does on land.

PLAYER BOAT AIM SWAY

We've added a moderate amount of ADS aim sway while on player built boats, scaled by the speed of the boat. Ideally this encourages the use of cannons over traditional weapons, but doesn't entirely rule out some poorly aimed rockets and AK spray.

PAINTING LINE TOOL

Just like the line tool from back in the day, but updated for modern day Rust standards. You can now draw lines while painting by holding shift and dragging a click to paint a line!

While there's nothing more beautiful to us than the freehand drawing that took seconds to make, we think this tool could benefit the people who really go all out in making masterpieces.

DEEP SEA BOAT BUILDING

We've added a static Boat Building Station to every Deep Sea island, allowing you to make repairs and modifications while at sea.

These static stations also have a slight magnet force that pulls your ship in as long as it's powered down and nearby, making it easier to dock.

NAVAL SCIENTIST IMPROVEMENTS

We made it so that naval scientists **can't see through the smoke **from smoke grenades anymore.

If this works well we'll port the same soft occlusion tech to prevent them from seeing through bushes, which would be extra nice for the junkpile scientist once he gets the new AI.

There's been a bug in Rust since the very beginnings where the hazmat would give no protection against scientists or turrets. Turned out a lot of other armors actually performed worse than expected.

We updated the formula but only for naval scientists for now, as rebalancing turret damage is a gigantic can of worms.

tldr: Against naval scientist hazmat goes from 5% to 30% protection, and fullmetal from 25% to 50%

Naval scientists missed a lot but had high damage.

We changed it so that they miss less but have lower damage.

What this means is that you'll have more time to see your health ticking down and get in cover, as opposed to big chunks of health disappearing intermittently.

Unlike regular scientists naval scientists did not have flashlight and lasersights. We gave them some so it'll be easier to fight them at night.

There were a lot of rough corners to the scientists reactions to sniping from extreme distance.

They will be more responsive now, and will reposition if they hear bullets coming from other angles.

Previously at long range they would only reposition if they were hit or saw you flank them.

We'll keep monitoring the naval scientists performance and gameplay wise, before we start porting their AI to the scientists at other monuments.

ANTICHEAT: TPM 2.0 & SECURE BOOT ENFORCEMENT

Server Owners

Servers can now opt-in to requiring TPM and Secure Boot enabled for players to connect to them. This allows EAC to work better but not all players have it set up. Over 80% of players have TPM hardware already but just under 60% of players have Secure Boot enabled right now.

Servers that require TPM and Secure Boot for all players will have the Secure tag shown on the server browser. Clicking on a server with additional requirements will show you what is required and if it is supported on your system.

We will be enforcing this on a few Facepunch servers for the initial test period. Community servers will be able to enforce this at-will. Just look for the "Secure" tag in the server browser.

To require TPM and Secure Boot for all players and get the Secure tag you can enable the server.useServerWideRequiredSystemConfig convar.

Additionally, we are working on backend systems to require TPM, Secure Boot, and more for individual accounts. Servers can opt-in to enforcing these per-player requirements by enabling the server.usePerPlayerRequiredSystemConfig convar. Note that this will not apply the Secure tag to your server - that will only show if it is enforced for all players.

Players

Players can check to see if their PC is compatible by running a couple of Windows commands. If you have a PC from the last ~8 years It's likely your PC is already running it or equipped to run it.

Here's a guide on how to check for and/or enable TPM/Secure Boot on your PC. It's good to familiarize yourself with it, as many games are already enforcing this. Our end goal is to make it global in the future.

We will communicate more about this timeline in future devblogs.

SHADOW SETTINGS REWORK

The Shadow settings have been reworked to be part of a Shadow Quality preset setting that can be found under the Graphics Quality section of the Graphics menu. We no longer have a specific section under the Graphics tab for Shadow Settings, as it's no longer needed.

The Max Shadow Lights setting has been moved to the Rendering section of the Graphics menu, as we still wanted this to be separate from the new presets. Max Shadow Lights has also had its minimum value changed to 1 to prevent light-leaking issues.

This has been done to allow us to have more control over the performance and visual balance of the shadow settings, while making it easier for players to configure.

REMOVED 64K COLLIDER LIMIT

The physics library that Unity uses, PhysX, has always had a limitation that only around 64,000 colliders are allowed to be within a broadphase cell, the entire world is split into 256 of these cells (16x16).As the world got a lot bigger with the naval update the size of these cells also had to increase, meaning a lot more colliders per cell.

As we now use a custom version of Unity, using a custom version of PhysX, for both the server and client, we have more control over limitations like this.

There is now effectively no limit to the number of colliders that are allowed in each broadphase cell. There is a theoretical limit of around 4 billion colliders per cell, but you would hit performance bottlenecks long before that.

MISSION SERVER PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Alongside the new missions introduced with the naval update was a bunch of general misc changes to how missions function on the backend and code cleanup in an effort to make missions easier for us to work with and fix some longstanding issues with them.

One of those longstanding issues was a problem with how we would find which missions are valid and able to be accepted by players. We need to have this information on hand for each player whenever they open their map due to the mission provider map markers showing how many missions are available and where, and to have the correct dialogue options show up when we go to talk with these mission provider NPC's.

The problem with how this worked before was that we would have the client try to figure out what missions are available for the mission map markers and dialogue options, with the server then checking if a mission is definitely valid for that player when a player tries to accept and start a mission.

This led to scenarios where there could be discrepancies between what the client and server see as a valid mission for that player, due to the client not having access to all the same information that the server has. Where there was a discrepancy, a client could see inaccurate mission map markers and could try to select dialogue options to start missions but would then be booted out the conversation without understanding why.

The idea to fix this was to consolidate this mission validation work to run on the server. To be smart and performant about it, we now have a mission validation "work queue" (a pattern we use to load-balance tasks across frames instead of running many tasks in one frame, to avoid frametime spikes).

The work queue figures out which missions could potentially be accepted by anyone on the server (do the required entities exist, is there a valid spawn point for an entity which the mission spawns, etc), so all players are able to pull from the same information here rather than having a different work queue run for each player. This work queue attempts to run any time a player needs to know what missions are valid, but with a fixed cooldown. If the work queue is in cooldown, then the player which requested an update instead receives the last calculated valid states for each mission.

After releasing the naval update, we were seeing that this new work queue was too expensive. We were also seeing some expensive RPC frametime spikes when players go to talk to NPC's (when a player talks to an NPC, the server performs a complete revalidation of that NPC's missions and checks that specific players mission prerequisites, so that they have the most up to date information to display the correct dialogue options). Data from our EU Staging server shows that the work queue was second place in terms of time spent executing (data captured across 7 days after the naval staging wipe). It was also accounting for up to 6% of our total frametime.

Profiling this showed that the most expensive part of the work queue was for trying to generate points for missions which create generate random positions in specific biome/topology areas of the map, with one position generation taking in the range of 5-6ms.

To summarise, part of that process would iterate over thousands of potential areas of the map, before passing these initially found potential areas to a second filter, pulling randomly until we find one which we can generate a valid position from. This is something which would have always been problematic every time we we started one of those types of missions, but was only exposed in this way because we moved the work to run in a work queue, and more frequently than before as we are now polling the mission regularly rather than only when a player tries to start that mission.

Put simply, the optimisation was to instead of always iterating through thousands of areas, pull all these potential areas into a basic indexed data structure once as part of the servers bootstrap process, and when we need a position pull randomly from that preallocated data structure until we find a valid area. In testing, this showed at worst case we would test a few hundred areas instead of always at least a few thousand.

Profiling after this change shows that the cost of the task is now down to around 0.15-0.275ms, bringing down the total cost of the work queue (across all frames) down from around 20ms to 1.5ms. Our EU Staging performance data across 7 days after the change shows that the work queue has now fallen right down the list of total time spent executing, and is now accounting for only up to 0.15% of total frametime. The change also resolved the lag spikes created from talking to mission provider NPC's.

This was a slightly lengthier writeup but I hope it gave some insight as to the context for this specific problem, and how these problems come up and how

PLAYER MADE BOATS

Player-made boats are here, providing a new way to explore the seas, including the Deep Sea!

Place the new Boat Building Station deployable in the water and get building with your shipmates! Use the new Boat Building Plan to construct your dream boat, utilising a new set of boat-specific building blocks.

Add a steering wheel, anchor, sails, engines, planks, ramps and cannons to complete your vessel and head off into the Deep Sea!

Careful consideration and placement of your engines and sails is important if you want a seaworthy ship, as they will affect its handling and speed. Sails and engines can both be reversed using the radial menu options for some nifty reverse parking.

Be sure to set a lock code on your steering wheel to stop unwanted access or theft of your shiny new boat.

Regular deployables can be placed on your boats. If they work on the Tugboat, they'll work here too.

Need to make a change after realising your boat just goes in circles? Use the Deploy & Edit mode (not available in the Deep Sea) to quickly and easily deploy a Boat Building Station around your boat.

Have fun building and exploring the seas!

NEW BOAT DEPLOYABLES

To get your vessel sea worthy, we've now got some new deployables - specifically for your boat!

Boat Building Station

The boat-building station is placeable in deep water, it's used to build and edit your boat.

Building plan

The boat-building plan is similar to the building planner you know and love, but for boats.

Sails

A sheet of toughened fabric rigged to catch the wind and help propel the boat forwards.

Helm

A must-have for any seaworthy boat. Used to steer and control your direction, with a built-in lock to keep your vessel secure when you’re not at the wheel.

Engine

A powerful motor that runs on low grade fuel and burns through it fast. Loud, thirsty, and inefficient, but invaluable when you need to escape danger, chase down other players, or muscle your way out of a bad situation. Sometimes speed is worth the cost.

Anchor

A heavy anchor used to stop your boat drifting. Drop it to hold position and keep your vessel exactly where you want it. Without it, your boat may drift to shore.

Canon

A powerful naval weapon used to sink other players’ boats. Load it with cannon balls.

Small Ramp

Bridge gaps and create quick access points. Ideal for boarding other ships or reaching land from the water.

Plank

Used to bridge gaps, board other boats, and settle minor disagreements by pushing friends into open water.

THE DEEP SEA

The Deep Sea is a new offshore region you can travel to using boats. It’s high risk, high reward, and intentionally unforgiving.

You can access it by sailing toward the edge of the map using a strong boat such as player-made boats, RHIBs or the new PT boats.

This is not a place to live: you cannot build, and nothing respawns. First come, first served. The deep sea will open and close intermittently, like a world event.

Inside, you can explore new content detailed below in this blog:

• Tropical islands

• Floating cities

• Ghost ships

• Boats controlled by scientists

We have lots of plans to expand deep-sea and use it as a bridge between worlds.

GHOST SHIPS

Similar to monuments, Ghost Ships are stationary ships scattered throughout the deep sea and filled with loot for people to scavenge while navigating on their boats.

Each Ghost Ship is protected by scientists, both on the ship and nearby patrols who will try to keep you off the ship. Some Ghost Ships also contain locked crates, which you'll need to hack while being under pressure of other players and scientist boats.

We hope that Ghost Ships, along with other loot locations such as tropical islands provide enough incentive to visit the deep sea often.

DEEP SEA FLOATING CITIES

While exploring the deep sea, you may come across the Floating Cities. Built from abandoned barges and the framework of an unfinished oil rig, these ramshackle monuments serve as safe haven for all types of players.

Currently, there are four variants of Floating Cities that can spawn on a server with each floating city offering the same type of facilities. These include docks where you can secure your boat and various NPC vendors selling weapons, equipment, food, and medical supplies.

A nearby farming barge can be accessed for a small fee, giving you the chance to harvest fresh crops. Throughout each monument, familiar safe-zone amenities are scattered among the platforms, including recyclers, workbenches, research tables, and refineries.

At the center of every floating city is the Deep Deck Casino, an inviting space offering entertainment and a place to relax to all weary sailors. Here you can meet fellow survivors, unwind in the pool, enjoy music, and gamble away your scrap to your heart’s content.

Just remember to play nice while you're there - stir up trouble, and the security turrets will remind you why that was a bad idea.

DEEP SEA ISLANDS

For years, the ocean has just been a blue void between you and the Oil Rigs. With this update, we are introducing a brand new biome in the Deep Sea, the Tropical Islands.

These micro-islands are fully distinct from the mainland. Expect white sands, dense palms, and even a new delicious natural treat. You won't see any pine trees here.

Their semi-procedural nature will yield different experiences. Some of them might have old ruins, others a motherlode of ore - or both.

But tread carefully. You aren't the only one seeking a fortune out there.

SCIENTIST BOATS

We've added a new boat - the PT Boat. Only found in the Deepsea - It's slower than the RHIB and consumes more fuel, but is stronger and packs a punch.

Beware, the Deep Sea is filled with the new Scientist Boats.

These vessels (including RHIBs and the new PT Boat), are crewed by scientists who roam the Deep Sea in coordinated groups looking for players to engage. You might find them protecting the Hacked Crate on board a Ghost Ship.

Each boat can be cleared of Scientists and stolen by the player. We wonder what you'll find on-board?

Each PT Boat comes equipped with two turrets. One packing dual 50 caliber machine guns, and the other with a single more precise 50 caliber gun. Each can be reloaded with standard 5.56 rifle ammo.

RHIB REFRESH

The RHIB has been in need of a little TLC, and there's no better time to do that than the Naval Update. The model and textures have been updated, along with a new storage box model.

The RHIB now comes equipped with a working compass and map display screens - helping you navigate the ocean.

NEW SCIENTIST AI ON OILRIGS AND AT SEA

If you fought a lot of scientists, you know trying to sneak or flank them is the perfect way to get killed.

The always know where you are, and will instantly 180 and beam you if you try to play smart and outmanoeuver them.

Because of this, it's very tempting to either snipe them from very far away, or camp behind a bottleneck and wait for them to inevitably rush in one by one.

This makes taking a monument guarded by scientists a test of resources with a low skill ceiling.

It boils it down to: _do you know the cheese, and do you have enough ammo and bandages to grind through them? _

New scientist AI is progressively coming out, but only to oilrigs,** ghostships** and deep sea islands for now.

You can tell them apart from their naval camo outfit and square visor.

Unlike their cousins they don't see through walls, and need to rely on noises and recent sightings to find you.

This means you can bait them by peeking or making a noise, then go around and shoot them in the back.

This is further facilitated by their lower reaction time.

If you appear at an angle they didn't expect, they'll be surprised, then you can shoot them down before they can even react.

Additionally they won't rush down into bottlenecks to be slaughtered by a camping player, instead they'll try to flank, throw smoke grenades and rush together, or just wait in ambush on the other side.

They'll also be a lot more cautious against snipers, if they're hit or hear a shot they'll all dive into cover and wait.

We'll keep a close eye on your feedback and keep tweaking them.

Where they're in a good enough state, we'll consider switching the other scientists on the main island to the new AI.

BUILDING PLAN VIEWMODEL

We think it would be nice to have what everyone else sees match what you see so we've added a Viewmodel to the planner.

NEW MISSIONS

We have 5 new naval themed missions in this month's update.

These can be picked up from a mixture of new and existing mission provider NPC's. Some of these require you to venture in the deep sea, some keep you rooted at the mainland.

This update brings in a lot of work to improve how we create and modify missions internally. There is still more we want to do with missions, but we are in a better place to work on them now than we were before.

This work additionally brings in several QOL fixes and improvements to existing missions and NPC conversations, as well as related background optimisations.

LARGE OILRIG BOATS

Scientist boats will now spawn at Large Oilrig with the crate - giving players an additional challenge when taking oil from the sea.

The RHIBs will patrol around Large Oilrig, preventing any players from getting close. These respawn each time the Oilrig resets.

You can kill the scientists and steal the loot on board. Stolen boats will stay around after the Oilrig reset.

ARTIST PACK DLC

Rust has one of the most diverse playerbases of any popular game, from hardcore PVPers to friendly and not-so-friendly RPers. To reflect this, we’ve cracked out our finest digital brushes and created the Artist DLC Pack; a collection of cool and clever items designed to help you express yourself no matter if you want to paint a charming portrait, or tag up your neighbour’s base.

Paintball Gun and Overalls

Turn tactical assault into art with the Paintball Gun and Overalls. Featuring a unique ammo type, load the hopper with paintballs, select your team colour and make a scene. Comes in 5 colours for multiple teams.

Paintballs do different damage amounts depending on if both the hurt player and instigator player have overalls equipped. There are separate server convas to scale these if admins desire, 'paintballstandarddamage' and 'paintballoverallsdamage'.

You can of course also use the paintball gun to tag up whatever you want, not just other players! Additionally, the paintball overalls have a unique feature where the hood is dynamically up or down depending on your choice of headwear.

Paintable Reactive Target

Light up your own targets with this deployable skin for the Reactive Target. You can paint on both the target board and the bucket helmet. As an added feature the bucket acts like a player’s head, allowing you to hone your headshot skills.

Ornate Frames

Bring a touch of class to your base with these Ornate frames. Paint on them or add a photo, and once you’re happy with your masterpiece, give the frame a unique description. Comes in 5 size varieties from small to extra extra large.

Light-Up Frames

Put your artwork up in lights with this collection of 5 light-up frames. Supporting IO, you can display these lights off or on, which will highlight your work for all to see.

Shutter Frames

Unroll your designs with the shutter frames. Coming in 5 size variates, you can roll-up and down the shutters both manually and with IO, enabling endless possibilities from an RP Gameshow Contest to the ultimate trap base reveal.

Frameless Canvases

If the extra large frame isn’t big enough for your ambition, look no further than this set of 5 frameless canvasses. You can use these to create murals of truly epic proportions.

Portable Easel

Take your talent to the great outdoors with this new unique deployable. You can mount any frame up to Large size and paint to your heart's content taking in the crisp air downwind of Fishing Village. In paint-mode, you can toggle the background and even the canvas itself, helping you in your creative vision. The easel supports any colour you want to use, even black…

Paintable Window

Whether you want to make stained glass, a fish tank, a store window or a Home Alone-style decoy, this paintable window will come in handy! This deployable is a skin for the Strengthened Glass Window.

Rosette Award Sprays

Last but not least, awarded with the Artist DLC Pack are 4 custom sprays usable with the Spraypaint tool. Included are sprays for 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place and… Last Place. Use these as you see fit.

NEW WORKSHOP SKINNABLE: SKS

This month, we're introducing the next workshop skinnable: the SKS

The SKS has been a popular request from the skinning community, and we’re happy to oblige! As one of our newest weapons, we can’t wait to see how the community works with its updated visuals.

To make your own SKS skin, head over to the in-game workshop and locate the SKS weapon item. From

12 YEARS

Servers are now wiped and Santa is packing up and clearing out the bodies, but we hope you enjoyed the Holiday Season. We're getting back to work after a couple of weeks off, which is why this blog is lighter than usual, but we're looking forward to the journey ahead in 2026!

Last month, we celebrated Rust's 12th anniversary, marking an incredible journey. The game continues to experience year-over-year growth, which is quite remarkable for being 12 years old. Rust is now bigger than ever, and it's only going to get, much bigger this year.

This year, Rust saw:

• Highest ever peak player count of 259,646 on Steam in 2025

• Over 450,000,000 Game Sessions

• Over 5,800,000 unique players

• Over 700,000,000 hours played

• Over 37,000,000 Drops claimed players

• 28,523 Workshop Submissions

Here's a recap of some of the major updates we did last year:

**(https://rust.facepunch.com/news/primitive) **We kickstarted the year with Primitive, introducing a new game mode and a whole load of new items and raiding methods

**The Crafting Update **The Crafting Update added advanced cooking, farming (chickens, bees), new workbenches, Armor and more

**Premium Servers **Premium Servers introduce a new server type, aiming to reduce cheating and improve fair, competitive play.

**Jungle Update **One of the biggest updates of the year saw the Jungle biome added with climbable trees, deadly tigers and crocodiles, new monuments, boomerangs, blowpipes, and more!

**Friends with Benefits **Friends with benefits was one of many updates which saw sweeping QOL updates, introducing party system and snappable deployables to name a few

**Meta Shift **Meta shift was one of several updates which made sweeping changes to progression. Introducing Blueprint fragments, custom crosshair and changes to monument puzzles

**Quality Of Life **Over 400 QOL changes

**Menu Overhauls **Sweeping changes to main menu, server browser and store.

Alongside a metric ton of improvements and bug fixes.

Rust continues to be a labour of love from all of us at Facepunch, and we couldn't have done it without your passion and feedback. Thank you for your continued support, be it playing the game, telling friends, and engaging and communicating with us. We've very much enjoyed everything we've worked on for the game this year.

LOOKING FORWARD

What’s in store for 2026? Consistency! Continued guaranteed monthly updates on the first Thursday of every month, alongside regular fixes, quality-of-life enhancements, improvements, and exciting holiday events.

This year, Rust Mobile will be released globally. We're very excited to see how this performs, all early indicators are showing very promising signs. If you're intresting to learn more about Rust mobile or participate in the next closed beta next, visit:

rustmobile.com

Next Month

Next month, on February 5th, we'll finally be shipping the Naval update. The update will include player-made boats, which will allow players to travel to the deep sea, explore new islands, and monuments with new AI encounters. This is going to be a massive update.

Looking ahead

Alongside next month’s Naval update, we’ve got a huge amount of content either planned or already in active development for 2026.

You can expect to see new monuments, including apartment complex. We’re also working on new player models and animations, which will improve both how characters look and move. The player update will unblock one of the biggest hurdles to player customisation.

We’re expanding the ecosystem with new animals, cows and sheep, for example, alongside a proper animal breeding system. This opens up some interesting gameplay opportunities and adds more depth to the world beyond simple hunting. Bigger and better dung farms?

We’re also taking time to revisit older content. That includes expanding on popular features that players already love, and taking another look at less popular systems to see if they can be improved or reworked with the benefit of everything we’ve learned since they first shipped.

As always, plans will evolve, priorities will shift, and we’ll keep talking openly as things take shape. But there’s a lot to look forward to.

As with prior years, we've set aside multiple months in our internal roadmap for light or no content. These gaps are deliberate to allow us to be versatile and adaptive to community feedback, to have time to focus on and address old content, and to improve recent content. We have a lot we can keep building upon, not all content we add to Rust is supposed to become meta, but rather adding yet another way of achieving a goal.

CHEATING

Cheating continues to be one of the biggest threats to Rust, and it’s something we invest heavily in, both technically and operationally.

**2025 **stats:

• 338,000+ total bans applied

• 296,000+ permanent bans applied (27% increase from last year)

• 42,000+ temporary bans applied (26% decrease from last year)

• 16,000,000+ cheat reports received (28% increase from last year)

• The majority of cheaters are now removed from the game in less than 7 hours of playtime, down from 10 hours at the start of 2025

In March, we released Premium Servers. To access these servers, your Rust Steam inventory must be valued at $15 or more. This includes items from the Permanent Store, such as building skins, décor packs, and hazmat skins, as well as any other tradable Rust items with an attached value.

Since launch, there have been several attempts by bad actors to game the system in various ways. So far, we’ve successfully countered those attempts.

We’ve also seen strong and healthy retention across Premium Servers. They’re doing an excellent job of gatekeeping cheaters out, and I'm very happy with how this is working. At present, the $15 price point is doing its job well, and see no need to raise the barrier to entry. If you want the best cheat-free experience, premium servers are it.

In May, we enabled server-side player culling by default across all servers. As a reminder, this is technology that stops networking players who are fully obscured by terrain and rocks, preventing or significantly limiting several high-impact cheat features such as ESP and aimbot.

In April, we opened our HackerOne program to the public. This allows players and researchers to report security vulnerabilities and exploits in exchange for a bug bounty. We also launched a dedicated security page on our website to make submitting reports easy, secure, and straightforward. To date, we’ve paid out over $300,000 through this program.

More recently, our anticheat partner, Easy Anti-Cheat, has begun additional efforts specifically targeting recoil cheats, often referred to as scripting. We continue to work very closely with the Epic Games EAC team, and there’s a lot of ongoing collaboration behind the scenes. We’ve got some big plans together for 2026.

Looking ahead to 2026, we’re continuing to hire additional support staff and developers dedicated to anticheat. We’ll also be introducing a new third-party anticheat layer that we’ll be working closely with. More details on that once we’re ready to talk about it publicly, but it'll be soon.

PERFORMANCE

Performance is always an ongoing process. We’re constantly adding and improving features every single month, many of which never make the headlines and sit quietly in changelogs. There’s no magic button we can press to suddenly make Rust run faster. Instead, it’s a slow grind of small gains that add up over time.

Over the past few years, we’ve hired several people whose sole focus is performance. A lot of this work is experimental and, frankly, tedious. Things that should/could work in theory often don’t in the real world, and it can take days to weeks just to prove something isn’t viable. Sometimes you spend a long time getting to a result that simply says “nope”.

And, like every year, we do mess up performance from time to time. When that happens, we review what went wrong and keep adjusting our internal processes to get better at catching issues earlier.

That said, we did ship some genuinely great improvements in 2025, the **BIG **ones:

• Load and server connection times reduced by around 65%

• Significant reductions to RAM and VRAM usage

One area we’ve always hated is load times. For years, loading into Rust was easily one of the worst parts of the experience, it was embarrassing compared to other games. Long waits, inconsistent times, reconnecting after a crash or kick taking forever. It actively held the game back, and we knew it.

As we continue to add more content and systems, performance can take a hit. We’re constantly fighting that trade-off. It’s a balance between pushing Rust forward and making sure it still runs well across a huge range of machines.

Most players seem to understand the reality of this. Rust is a sandbox game. You can go to the largest, worst-performing monument in the game, drop a massive base next to it, have a dozen smaller teams build nearby, then throw 40 players into the area, raid while 500 players are connected to the server. Honestly, it’s a miracle Rust works as well as it does sometimes. These are exactly the kinds of situations we have to design and optimise for.

Looking ahead, we’ve got a lot of performance work underway. Much of it is deep, underlying changes to things like render pipelines, navmesh. We’re also regularly checking in with the Rust Mobile team to see what they’ve solved there, and whether any of those solutions realistically make sense to bring back to PC.

Performance is never “done”, but we’re committed to keeping Rust playable as it continues to grow. If we hit all performance roadmap taskings in 2026 and it works out as we hope, 2026 will be a good year.

DLC

Over the past two years, we’ve grown a dedicated DLC team, I want to be really clear about what that means as I often see meme comments on socials. This is a team we’ve explicitly hired for DLC work, not people moved off existing Rust development.

This team does not take resources away from regular Rust development. DLC work is (95%) separate from our core monthly update pipeline. It’s an add-on, not a replacement, and if anything, having a focused DLC team has at times helped us push more free content into the game by taking pressure off other teams.

If you look back at 2025, you’ll probably notice a pattern. Nearly every month we shipped a new in-house DLC item, pack or skinnable. That wasn’t accidental, and it’s a pace we’re comfortable maintaining. You can expect this to continue into 2026.

Compared to most games, I genuinely believe we offer good value for money. That’s something we don’t want to lose as Rust continues to grow.

One of the things we’re actively exploring is what a battlepass-style system could look like in Rust. This doesn’t mean we’re copying another game, and it doesn’t mean anything is locked in yet. If we do this, it has to feel very “Rust”, fair, respectful and good value. If you're a frequent user who purchasing DLC, this system should feel rewarding.

As with everything we do on Rust, we’ll be listening closely to feedback and adapting as we go. We’ll talk more openly about this once we’ve got something concrete to show and discuss, which will likely be around the middle of 2026.

We'll continue supporting the skinning community, we're not out to discontinue it with these plans. Going forward, we'll be adding one or two new skinnable item to the game monthly, working our way through the most popular items first.

To date, we've helped payout over $32,701,869 to the community skinners!

RUST STAGING: A REMINDER

The good news is, if you really want to try the naval content early, you can. Just be aware it comes with bugs, performance issues and all the rough edges we are still working through. We have fresh servers live on the Rust Staging branch that you can jump into.

If you want to help test, break things and give feedback, you are more than welcome. To learn how to get onto Rust Staging, check this out:

https://rust.facepunch.com/staging

If demand exceeds current capacity, we'll be adding new servers.

Something we'll be looking at this later year is a reward system for good and accurate bug reports, a human actually reads every single bug report and flags it appropriately. Since Staging has the most bugs, we hope this system will incentivise its use.

2025 IN NUMBERS

Full blog and 2025 changelog recap here.

PROGRESSION CHANGES

Continuing from last month’s controversial Meta Shift changes and our push to make meaningful experimental changes to Rust’s progression, this month we’re taking things a step further.

By making progression easier! Wait, what? Bear with me.

One of the main issues with Rust progression is that the majority of servers don’t Blueprint wipe, including our Facepunch servers. When you join a freshly map-wiped server but already have everything unlocked, you’re effectively skipping the entire early and mid-game. You craft late-tier items immediately, bypassing all the gear and choices before it, which completely breaks the sense of progression on a wipe. Given the current state of the game, we may as well unlock or remove BPs, which seems crazy.

Today, we’re wiping all Blueprints, wiping all servers, and drastically reducing tech tree and research costs:

• Common: 15 (down from 20)

• Uncommon: 30 (down from 75)

• Rare: 60 (down from 125)

• Very Rare: 120 (down from 500)

We’ve also removed scrap crafting costs from Workbenches, while Blueprint Fragment requirements remain unchanged.

By drastically reducing unlock costs and removing scrap from workbench crafting, the progression curve will feel smoother without removing that sense of effort or reward. Rather than skipping straight to the end, players will be encouraged to actually use early-tier items first and naturally progress upward.

Blueprint wipes bring back that sense of discovery, structure, and early-game pacing that Rust was built on. Combined with the cheaper unlocks and the removal of scrap from workbench crafting, the system should feel faster and less punishing, not a grind, while still maintaining that satisfying sense of progression and reward each wipe.

The current loop of the game is that you must find components and Blueprint fragments. Through that loop, you’ll naturally collect scrap as you go, and now with Blueprint wipes, there’s a meaningful way to spend it again.

Does this mean we’ll be force-wiping Blueprints every month? Maybe. We’re not committing to anything yet. We’re going to play, watch, and listen before making any long-term decisions based on the past two months of changes.

BOX SORTING

Got a Storage Adaptor attached to a box? You’ll now find it has a power input and some new box sorting settings available when you open it. You can sort items alphabetically (and change what language you use), condition, count, category (matching the conveyor filter) as well as a custom snapshot mode.

The custom snaphsot mode allows you to set a container up with the item layout that you want, take a snapshot of it and then the sorter will attempt to recreate that snapshot as best it can. Sorting is applied automatically 1s after an item is added or removed from the container.

Box sorting is enabled on the Large and Small Wooden Boxes, the Coffin and all DLC storage items (barrels and box skins).

MINI FRIDGE

Keep your food fresh and neatly stored with the new Mini Fridge deployable.

Designed for compact bases and early-game, the Mini Fridge offers a compact way to preserve perishables without needing a full-sized refrigerator.

• Requires: 3 power

• Storage: 18 slots

• Placement: Fits comfortably under half-height floor builds

• **Unlock: **Early unlock from the Engineers workbench

Perfect for solo players or tight base designs, the Mini Fridge bridges the gap between early-game food storage and late-game luxury, giving you a simple, power-efficient way to keep your meals from spoiling.

MONUMENT PUZZLE RESET CHANGES

Last month’s Meta Shift update caused quite a lot of activity around monuments due to the new blueprint fragment system. While these fragments are designed to be scarce, we observed some undesired behaviour due to how monuments would reset to refresh their loot that was contributing to the fragments not spawning as quickly as intended.

Due to the value of these fragments, camping around monuments to ambush players became a popular playstyle. While that’s a classic strategy in Rust and not something we would want to disallow, we noticed that some players were camping so close to monument puzzles and loot rooms that they were inadvertently preventing the loot from respawning. This would lead to fragments becoming even more rare, which would encourage more players to camp the monuments, which would make the problem even worse. It would also lead to long periods of pointless camping, as no new fragments were being generated.

This is how monument puzzles used to work:

• Start a timer for 30 minutes

• If a player is within range of the monument pause the timer until they leave

• Refresh the loot once the timer finishes

To resolve this we’ve made several changes to how most keycard monuments reset and refresh their loot:

• Monument refresh timers will now only start once a player loots a container in the puzzle rooms, rather than constantly refreshing every 30 minutes even if no players have visited.

• Monument refresh timers will now tick down even if players are in range.

• Monuments will now start generating radiation around their loot rooms and relevant puzzle elements (switches, fuse boxes, etc) 10 minutes before they are due to refresh. This radiation is severe and unsurvivable, although it has a small radius around it of milder radiation to communicate that you should stay clear.

• Once radiation is active, the puzzle can only reset once it has been clear of players for a total of 5 minutes.

• We’ve adjusted and shrunk the areas that we check for player presence across most monuments in order to make them as forgiving as possible and still allow general movement and looting around the monument while this refresh is taking place.

These changes should hopefully preserve the importance of monument PvP combat while making sure that the presence of combat doesn’t make blueprint fragments artificially harder to get.

MEDICAL SYRINGES AND HORSES

Medical syringes can now be used on horses by right clicking on the horse with a medical syringe equipped, in the same way you can heal other players. Horse healing can be performed whilst mounted as well as unmounted. Upon healing, horses additionally receive a temporary boost to their max gallop speed (+12.6km/h for 4s) and a small amount of stamina recovery.

This should help prevent tragedies of your noble steed succumbing to the various dangers of the island, with the speed boost also giving a better chance of escaping dangerous situations. Horse jockeys may also find this interesting in achieving the maximum possible speed with horses (please gallop responsibly).

NOTABLE CHANGES

**Water Well Vendor **Semi Automatic Pistol Sell Order Removed

**M4 Shotgun **M4 Shotgun Now Spawns Inside Hackable Loot Crate Again

**Hackable L96 **L96 Spawn Chance Lowered Inside Hackable Crate

**Boat Vendor DPV **DPV Can Now Be Purchased At Fishing Village

**DPV **Removed HQM Crafting Cost From DPV

**Computer Station **Can Now Add More Cameras To The Computer Station

**Diving Tank **Diving Tank Can Now Be Repaired For Free Like The Jack Hammer

**Blue Keycard Vendor **Removed Keycard Purchase from Vendor

VENDING MACHINE - DRONE ACCESSIBILITY

No longer will you have to travel to outpost just to find that the Vending Machine you wanted to buy from doesn't support drones.

All Vending Machines will now show if they are drone accessible or not via the Vendor UI in the main game map.

WINDTURBINE OPTIMIZATIONS

On servers with large bases there are often a decent amount of wind turbines. Each of these turbines were skinned to allow it to be animated. This meant that each wind turbine had its own animator and animation system to allow it to spin. This is fine for lower numbers, but at higher amounts it can affect game performance. To combat this we have removed the skin from wind turbines. Instead having them animated in code.

You shouldn't see a difference here in game, but we should get some better performance, especially with more turbines in the same area.

This also gave me a chance to review our LODs for the turbines themselves and make them a bit better at distance as well, the 'pop in' should be noticeably improved.

ELEVATOR IMPROVEMENTS

We’ve given the player placed elevator a bit of love this month. One recurring annoyance was having to replug the elevator power every time you add a floor, which was difficult since you often couldn’t easily reach the top. Now there is a power input plug on each floor (separate to the call button) and if any floor has power the whole elevator will be considered powered.

We’ve also increased the speed significantly (3m/s to 5m/s) and reduced the delay between when the elevator can be used again after it comes to a stop.

HELICOPTER BALANCE PASS

There's no question that attack helicopters are at the apex of offensive vehicles, but with that strength there still has to be counter-play and ways for defenders (cough victims) to fight them off. With this balance pass we took a look at one of the core-problems, that the attack helicopters are too hard to take down with the homing missile launcher, which was intended to be the primary counter-play solution.

The first change is that we have completely removed the ability for thrown flares to interact with homing missiles. Passenger's shouldn't be able to avoid the 30s cooldown of the helicopter flare launcher by manually throwing a flare. Now when the flare launcher is used and is reloading, subsequent homing missiles pose a legitimate risk to the helicopter and the pilot needs to choose whether to fight or flee.

To couple with this change, we have also removed the ability to repair helicopters that are in-flight. If you are taking heavy damage you will have to find a safe place to land to be able to repair your vehicle. This further reduces the ability for attack-heli passengers to mitigate all incoming damage.

And finally, pilots should be taking a risk when flying the helicopter, and to keep a steady grip on the controls they will need both hands. Currently healing items like the bandage and syringe aren't usable, but other items that act more like food still function (i.e. large medkit, and healing teas), meaning a quick-fingered pilot can heal from their inventory menu while flying. With this update we are bringing this more in-line with the other consumables, disabling the ability to use healing foods while piloting a vehicle. This applies to all vehicles, not just helicopters.

With these systematic changes, we don't want to hit the other player-driven helicopters too hard. So to compensate, the minicopter and scrap transport helicopter have been retro-fitted with their own flare launchers. When purchasing one of these helicopters from a vendor they will start with flares already loaded in the flare compartment accessible from the fuel tank(s).

For hot air balloons (HABs), you will be able to dodge homing missiles by turning off the engine for 4 seconds. But just to be clear, homing missiles by default do not target the HAB, this is only _if _the server ConVar has been toggled that enables the HAB to be targeted.

NEW CCTV CAMERAS

This month, some new static CCTV cameras were installed at the Cargo Ship and Ferry Terminal locations. Players will now be able to input the following codes into a computer station:

Cargo Ship

• CARGODECK

• CARGOBRIDGE

• CARGOSTERN

• CARGOHOLD1

• CARGOHOLD2

Ferry Terminal

• FERRYDOCK

• FERRYPARKING

• FERRYUTILITIES

• FERRYLOGISTICS

Additionally, we fixed a long standing bug limiting the number of CCTV codes per computer station lower than intended, so you should now be able to have a lot more added at once.

PAINTING COLOR WHEEL & FAVOURITE COLORS

The painting menu has gotten a long-awaited upgrade, a colour wheel! Now you can pick your colour using the same type of colour picker as in the workshop scene, including the copy/paste ability with hexcodes.

With this comes another QoL improvement so you don't lose your selections: favourite colours. Add up to 10 favourite colours that can be easily copied to the brush, or swapped out, with a single click. These favourites can also be accessed using the paint.favcolours ConVar, meaning you can bind custom swatches to different keys to hotswap your palette!

DIRECTIONAL FOLIAGE DISPLACEMENT

Foliage now will now physically and directionally push away from players and other moving objects. Things like leaves, shrubbery and branches will move out of your way (within reason). This should make off-ground foliage feel more reactive and realistic as players move around.

RPG LAUNCHER ITEM STORE DLC

This month we’re introducing the RPG Launcher, which is a unique skin for the Rocket Launcher.

The skin can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam permanent item store.

Whether you’re marauding on the high seas or just outside Outpost, this battle-hardened RPG Launcher will strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, and a rocket into the heart of their base. Comes with unique rocket ammunition skins.

WORKSHOP SCENE IMPROVEMENTS CONT.

Continuing on the work from last patch, we have another round of workshop scene improvements for the skinners out there. This month has been focused on adding new features to improve the creative flow and keep most of the tools in-game, so you don't have to alt-tab to the workshop page or reference tables with the maximum texture resolutions.

MORE EXPERIMENTAL SERVER OPTIMISATIONS

Couple months ago I wrote about the release of updated flow of processing players on the server that could be activated with **UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2. **It's key aspect is that it tries to leverage multithreading to speed up stagers of logic. The highlights are:

• We can run server occlusion in parallel

• We can send entity snapshots and entity destroy messages in parallel

• Only main thread serializes entity snapshots, the cached snapshots get consumed by worker threads

I've ran a bunch of tests on our servers and discovered that it's been a mixed bag of results - on fresh servers it showed good results, but on older servers it would show no benefit at all. I've investigated and discovered the following problems that have been addressed in this release.

Similar to last time, I'm hoping to validate the new mode and once confirmed that it's holding, roll it out to all official servers.

Server Occlusion - too much work

In retrospect, I've already mentioned in the old blog post how 350 players can cause 10k of various checks to be run, I just assumed that we'd be able to sift through them quick. But that's not the case:

In the above view we do a lot of small checks that usually are cheap, but we have so many pairs to check (~2.7k in above 330 player snapshot) that it becomes expensive. The way we gather pairs was inefficient - we could generate an (active player, sleeper) from-to visibility check, meaning we'd need to eventually validate if we should send data to the sleepers. We also intermixed player state checks throughout the logic, which would lead to us generating more pairs if we discovered half-way through pair filtering that we need to revalidate things. All-in-all, it was still doing too much work.

I've applied the following changes:

• I've simplified player/sleeper state checks further, as some state can be inferred, and added result caching

• When generating pairs we now always end up with (player-or-sleeper, player) from-to pairs.

• Because of above, I ripped out additional downstream checks to see if pair.to is ever not-player or should ignore

This should bring down hash lookups by ~75% & reduce pair count by ~50% (rough guess). I hope this'll bring server occlusion times down to ~2ms per frame for 330p case.

Player Processing - Lock Contention

Another obvious problem that became apparent on snapshots. Our multithreaded player update processing was slow, as slow as serial processing.

All threads, including main, got bottlenecked on 1 lock - you can see how the purple WriteThread bellow has gaps where it doesn't do anything right as above green worker thread is pushing more work:

We rely on pooling to reduce allocations. But to do that safely, our pool uses a lock per type - this allows us to be fast in single-thread cases. But it doesn't scale in a many-thread scenario. It was rather bad, to the point where total time across threads for pushing entity snapshots was 100ms.

Instead of modifying our pool implementation (as that's used in our entire codebase), we now pre-allocate all necessary state on main thread (avoiding expensive locks). I'm hoping it'll speed up the processing and bring it closer to 3ms for comparable population(330p).

BLUEPRINT FRAGMENTS

The current progression meta has grown stale, moving too fast and becoming too easy over the years, with scrap inflation and scrap being everywhere. We don't believe this has been overwhelmingly negative, but it has detracted from world PvP, especially in and around monuments, and we want to experiment more with progression. This is experimental step 1:

We’re introducing a new layer of progression to the Workbench system. The aim is simple: get players back out of their bases, contesting monuments, slow down progression and clashing over territory.

Workbench level 1 remains unchanged, but Level 2 and Level 3 now require blueprint fragments to craft. These fragments are found at key monuments, creating a soft progression gate that pushes players into early fights and slows down clan snowballing.

• Workbench Level 2 now requires 5 Basic Blueprint Fragments

• Workbench Level 3 now requires 5 Advanced Blueprint Fragments

Blueprint fragments are tied directly to puzzles and high-end loot, encouraging players to push deeper into monuments and hackable events.

Basic Blueprint Fragments

• Always spawn in green puzzle rooms (x1)

• Always found in blue-card puzzles next to the red keycard (x2)

• Found in airdrops

If you chain both green and blue, you've already had 3 Fragments in a run.

Advanced Blueprint Fragments

• Guaranteed inside hackable crates

• 1 in 10 chance to appear in elite crates

• Always spawn in pairs

The main areas where these can be found are:

• Launch Site

• Military Tunnels

• Nuclear Missile Silo

• Underwater Labs

• Small and Large Oilrigs

• Events: Cargoship and Ch47 crate drop

You can also convert 20 Basic Fragments into 1 Advanced Fragment, giving a fallback path.

Scrap crafting costs for workbench levels 2 and 3 are now greatly reduced, allowing players to have extra scrap to unlock items from the techtree.

Larger groups will naturally eventually accumulate more fragments than they need, creating an economy where fragments and workbenches are traded. Smaller groups and solos will be forced to scrap harder for their progression, making monuments hotly contested again.

We'll be watching and reading all feedback, and we'll adjust and balance as needed over the coming days and weeks. As mentioned at the beginning, this is just part 1, part 2 will be released in the December update.

MONUMENT PUZZLES

By design, not all monuments are equal, some have trade-offs, while others feel bad for groups but ideal for solos or small groups. With blueprint fragments, we want to ensure all mid to large-sized monuments are relevant, so with that said, the following monuments have basic green keycard puzzles added:

• Dome

• Ferry Terminal

• Radtown

In addition, you'll now be able to find a recycler at the Dome, puzzle room.

MONUMENT LOOT SHUFFLE

The meta of running the same paths in monuments has gone stale, we've not changes some monuments in over 5 years. Do you know where every monument loot crate is? Many of you will.

Today, almost every monument has had the majority of its loot moved to new locations. Areas that previously had little to no loot have been refreshed, making these areas relevant again. Dead spots are gone, and new loot run paths have opened up.

Our goal here is to break old habits and get players rediscovering movements, hopefully making loot runs feel fresh, least for a bit.

CRATE LOOT

Every day, we see posts on Reddit, X, Discord, Facebook, of someone sharing a screenshot of awful loot roll they just got. Granted, sometimes it is terrible, but Hackable crates should always feel rewarding.

We've reworked Hackable and Elite crate loot rolls, removing some of the junk. You should now always get something of use, hopefully multiple items.

DRONE STORAGE

Drones now have a single storage slot, able to hold a single stack of any item. While piloting the drone, you will be able to drop the contents by left clicking.

Throwable explosives dropped from the drone are active and will explode with their usual behaviour, keep your eyes and ears open.

SAMs and Auto Turrets will now treat player drones as hostile and target them, marketplace drones are safe.

NUCLEAR MISSILE SILO

The Nuclear Missile Silo monument, first introduced in May 2023 as a blue-card monument. The silo has always been a high risk vs reward location, with forced corridors and plenty of scientists to battle through, and then hopefully not door camped when leaving.

From today, the monument is now a red keycard monument. This change aligns it with other high-tier areas, advanced Blueprint Fragments can now be found here.

3 additional elite crates have been added throughout the silo.

This change should make the silo a more valuable, highly contested destination for groups chasing top-end loot and progression.

Did you know? **Rust **= Repopulation Unit Survival Test

CROSSHAIR CUSTOMIZATION

Ever since its introduction, Rust's built in crosshair has left a lot to be desired. There was only one setting - on or off. If you didn't like the default look or behaviour, you were out of luck. This lead to many players opting for third party apps instead.

This month we are adding crosshair customization, which gives you control over settings like Style, Colour, Dot size, Spacing, Line length & width, Outline and Outline colour.

It also lets you choose whether to hide the crosshair when aiming or keep it visible.

Lastly, there's a built in crosshair sharing feature, where you can import & export crosshairs via a code.

NEW ITEM: SPIKE TRAP

The spike trap is a new default primitive trap which slows and hurts players when stepped on.

Crafting cost: 80 Wood.

MONUMENT EVENT SOUNDS

The UI popups for Oil Rig resets, Cargo Ship inbound, and Excavator activated have been replaced with global environmental sounds. We hope that this proves to be a more immersive and less clunky way of notifying players to these monument events.

For players that miss the message popups, this can be reeenabled with the console command 'ui.monumentnotificationtoasts'

MISSION REWARD BUFF

One of the many data points we collect is how often players are doing certain activities and missions sit towards the bottom of that list. The most common reasons we hear why you don't like missions are: that missions don't suit Rust, you don't want to do missions, and missions are not worth the time for the reward.

Fair, we don't want to force anyone to do missions if you don't want to, they're supposed to be an add-on to the activities you're already doing.

We can certainly try to address some of the complaints, so today we've significantly increased mission rewards by offering a higher quantity of loot and additional mission rewards.

Do give them a try and let us know if they now feel worth the effort to reward.

SHORE CRATES

A new type of crate can now be found washed up along the spawn beach shore, offering a small boost to help you get started.

They’re not common, so you won’t be able to rely on them for a steady supply, but you may be lucky enough to stumble across one

WORKSHOP SCENE IMPROVEMENTS

We have been working on some upgrades to the workshop skin creation scene, and would like to present you with a first pass. With this update comes a host of UI improvements, a few new features, and behind the scenes there's some updates to the interface components that are going to make them easier to work with going forward.

Overall the flow of making skins should be smoother now, with less buggy menus and more clarity of all the different tools available. Notably some new features are: toggles for the player model and depth of field effect, custom workshop icon support, and a new colour picker. If you're interested in skinning but haven't bit the bullet yet, now is the time to check it out!

MEDIEVAL BALANCE

The medieval arsenal has had some love this month, with sweeping balance changes across the board. Our goal is to make these weapons and make them feel more viable.

The way shields work has had an overhaul. Your stamina allowing you to hold shields at the ready has been nearly doubled, but when you block damage with the shield, this stamina is reduced. The amount of stamina reduction is dependent on shield type, In addition, shields block a higher percentage of damage than before and also have a slightly larger hitbox. This should make them a more viable defense mechanism than their first iteration.

Catapult Ammo Range

All Catapult ammo fires 30% further

Catapult Reload

Catapult Now Reloads 3 Seconds Faster (50% faster)

Catapult Crafting

Catapult crafting reduced by 1 gear and 1 rope

Battering Ram

Battering Ram sheet metal cost reduced by 2

Propane Explosive

Propane Explosive bomb deployed and thrown, damage increased

Ballista Craft

Ballista craft reduced by 1 gear

Bee bomb

Bee bomb crafting cost reduced by 1 bee grenade

Ballista Incendiary

Ballista Incendiary low-grade fuel reduced by 10

NOTABLE CHANGES

Barricade placement

Fixed ice lakes and train tracks blocking barricade placement when close to monuments

Turret Interference Fix

Fixed turrets powered inside a base being turned off by turrets outside the base

APC Invisible Fire

Fixed Invisible fire around APC debris

Held Item Redeploy

Fixed held items rarely redeploying when moving quickly through the world

Chainsaw Startup

Removed the fail start-up chance from chainsaw, starts first time, every time

Cargoship Pathing

Smoothed ship path shown on the map & no longer sails around Oilrigs

CHINOOK CRATE DROP RANDOMISATION

There has been a long term bug in Rust with the Chinook's Crate drop logic. It would often frequently select the same location all wipe. This has now be changed to be a true random, as it should've been.

MENU OPTIMISATIONS

We've made some optimisations surrounding the new main menu this month.

• Reduced VRAM usage by compressing and atlassing the UI assets in a better way

• Lowered CPU overhead when the menu is not visible

• Addressed freezes and stalls when landing in the main menu after the splash screen

More improvements that didn't make it in this patch are coming next month. We're exploring different ways to load and unload the menu content dynamically, reducing the VRAM pressure.

MODDING IMPROVEMENTS

Considering my humble beginnings as a community modder before Facepunch, it seems fitting to be the one giving back to the modding community who works tirelessly to extend the game past the vision we originally had for Rust.

This month I integrated a previous Hackweek where I allowed the following features to be modified on the client.

• drone station tax currency item & amount

• ddraw works without client admin

• dropped item custom names

• entity scale

• item icons

• maximum health

• melee weapons throwable

• send user language when connecting to server

• vitals

I also took a look at our Community UI modding framework and merged the following features into the base game.

• 9-slice sprite support

• activeSelf exposed

• button hover colors

• draggable CUI components

• input field multi-line

• input field placeholder

• layout groups

• pivot

• rotation

You can make Pull Requests for new CUI features at this github repo.

PERFORMANCE - VRAM IMPROVEMENTS

This month, we investigated the performance of Rust and found that the VRAM usage was significantly higher than intended. This was due to various factors, but the main issue stemmed from how we handled texture streaming. By default, texture streaming was set to use all available VRAM for textures.

This was problematic as it left no space for meshes and render targets, meaning RAM would be paged to cover the excess memory required for rendering.

To solve this issue, we started looking into a better way to calculate the memory budget for texture streaming by taking the available VRAM and subtracting an estimate of the excess memory we required, but this would have caused issues for devices with a lower amount of VRAM.

To ensure that textures are always loaded at the correct mipmap level, and the minimum amount of VRAM is used for texture memory, we've set the memory budget very high, but enabled discarding. This means that we only ever have the textures that are needed immediately in VRAM, which should improve memory performance for all devices.

We also identified an issue with texture streaming and our batching system, where the required mipmap level wasn't being calculated correctly. This has now been corrected to allow for more efficient use of texture memory.

Another significant change we made to improve the texture streaming system was to enable mimap streaming on all skins to reduce their memory overhead.

NEW WORKSHOP SKINNABLE: BED

This month we're introducing a new workshop skinnable: the bed.

The bed is always high up on the request list for adding new skins in the community, so we're really happy to kick this process in to action starting this month. We've already enabled the bed deployable to be available to skin creators and the first few skins are starting to come in which is very exciting to see.

We'll be rolling out other in-demand items over the calendar, so keep an eye out to get the freshest skins.

To make your own bed skin, head over to the in-game workshop and locate the Bed deployable. From there you can download the model file and add your own materials.

We can't wait to see what incredible and inventive skins people come up with!

ROTATABLE PAINTINGS

Paintings, signs, and photo frames can now be rotated before deployment!

To help with this in the painting menu we have added some hot-keyed controls to help you quickly rotate your artwork, or reset the rotation/pan back to center.

BICYCLE BUNNYHOPPING

Bicycles and Tricycles have received some additional love this month with a new feature - bunnyhopping!

Pressing Right-mouse-button whilst riding will activate a small jump to help you navigate obstacles in the world. The bikes are now more thrilling to ride and are even better than before in getting you to your destination - logs, rocks, walls and grubs won't stand a chance!

Some key points:

• Faster bikes provide higher bunnyhops

• You can only activate 1 bunnyhop every 3 seconds

• Jumping will require and consume 10% of the bike's stamina bar

• Jumping is scaled with the bike's health and stamina bar (keep those tyres inflated, chain oiled up and don't wear yourself out too fast if you want a big hop!)

Send me your best skatepark clips!

PROJECTILE INVALIDS WORK

Every Rust player has been pained by a projectile invalid appearing in their combatlog. These checks exist for good reason to ensure projectiles behave as expected within legal values between clients and the server, preventing manipulation by bad actors. For the most part, these checks work correctly and do their job, contributing to a safe and consistent experience, but we are aware that there are cases in which they go wrong, invalidating a projectile that should have been accepted by the server.

I'm working to investigate and resolve these false positives.

This month, I have been working with the server projectile's code to investigate and reproduce reported issues. This involves pages of code reading, note taking, drawing projectile trajectories in editor, making diagrams and firing thousands of bullets, amongst a whole lot more.

Improvements have been made this month to edge-case false positi

MAINTENANCE

This month’s update is a little lighter than recent, focused on tackling a number of long-standing bugs and improvements. We’ve been working through community feedback to smooth out some of the more persistent issues and make everyday gameplay feel that bit better. Normally, if bugs persist for several years, there’s usually a good reason for that, whether it’s being difficult to reproduce or requiring a lot of work to resolve.

Looking ahead to November, we’re lining up some strong meta and balance changes. If you’ve got suggestions, don’t hesitate to share them with us across our socials, including (https://discord.com/invite/rust), we’re always keeping an eye out and reading through what you send.

November will bring the much-anticipated Naval update. This will introduce modular boats with cannons, of course, and much more. You’ll be able to customise your vessel, set sail across the high seas, explore new ocean-based monuments, and even discover smaller outlying islands beyond the horizon.

In December, we'll be celebrating 12 years of Rust, what the heck. 12!

Additionally, we'll soon be announcing the Warhammer X Rust crossover DLC.

LONG DISTANCE GUNSHOTS

Networking range in Rust is made up of grids. These grids are a fixed size and can be adjusted by server owners, they are sometimes reduced on high-populated community servers to lower network overhead. When these grids are reduced, it also reduces things like: gun audio. This makes the world feel incredibly small and closed off.

We can now run gunshots at different distances to the network range: helping make Rust feel more alive and shaking up the meta by giving advantages/disadvantages to certain weapons.

The **old default **was around 350 meters.

The new values are as follows:

• Pistols / SAR / SKS / SMGs / Shotguns - 400 meters

• AK / LR - 500 meters

• LMGs / Minigun / Long Distance Rifles (Bolt Action Rifle / L9) - **600 meters **

This means that players will now be able to hear you from much further away if you're choosing to use stronger weapons such as the AK or a Bolt Action Rifle.

TEAM BAG LABELS

It was hard to see what bags belonged to which team members, even if they named them correctly: it could be a pain to figure out.

Provided you now have Building Privilege and a Hammer out, you will now be able to see which bags are owned by which team members when looking at them.

MINICOPTER DAMAGE INDICATORS

Added visual and audio damage indicator effects to provide clearer feedback on minicopter health status. Players will now see progressive visual cues as the minicopter takes damage, with thresholds at 45% and 20% health remaining. Now if you see a mini leaving a raid trailing smoke and you can't hit the driver, you'll know to aim for the chassis itself!

FOLIAGE DISPLACEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

Foliage displacement has been improved to allow for smooth transitions. This includes when objects are removed and also makes displacement from moving sources like players look more realistic and natural.

VOLUMETRIC CLOUDS ENABLED BY DEFAULT

With the last patch, we introduced new volumetric clouds as an alternative to the 2D clouds. However, we put them under experimental settings and kept them disabled by default.

With this patch, the volumetric clouds are now enabled by default, with the long-term goal being to completely replace the 2D clouds. The setting for them has been moved under the normal graphics settings tab, and the quality levels are tied to graphics presets. Additionally, the **graphics.vclouds **convar has been replaced by graphics.volumetric_clouds.

NOTABLE CHANGES

**Automated Workshop Screenshots **

Workshop submissions using the in-client skin creator tool now automatically take screenshots that are included in the upload.

Players Eyes

For several years, a bug has caused players eyes to sometimes appear closed, this is now fixed!

Invisible Respawn

Fixed players being invisible when respawning, whilst asleep

RF C4

Fixed C4 not being stackable after enabling RF

Tugboat Rug

Fixed rugs deleting deployables when picked up, if on a tugboat

Barricade placement

Fixed barricade deployment being blocked on sand dunes around giant excavator

EXHIBIT DECOR PACK DLC

Taking the stage this month is the Exhibit Decor Pack, an illuminating collection of deployable items to glow up your base.

The pack can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam item store

Bulb String Lights

Get that warm and fuzzy feeling with these decorative bulb string lights. Hosting a garden party or wiping a raiding party - it’ll look fabulous.

Clothing Mannequin

Goes by “Manny”. Dress him up in your favourite attire and pose him for style. He’ll even swap clothes with you if you want a quick wardrobe change.

**Wall Cabinet **

Place on the wall and store your smaller items inside or on the shelf below. Has 18 slots.

Moveable Spotlights

Light-up the action with these moveable spotlights. Target them with the hammer and they’ll orient towards you! Comes both in wall and floor mountable varieties.

Fairy Lights

Smaller and more twinkly than the Bulb String Lights, these Fairy Lights bring a touch of magic to the wasteland.

Fluorescent Strip Lights

Giving off a strong UV light, these strip lights will be a great addition to any grow-op. Comes both in wall and ceiling mountable varieties.

Chandelier

Give a touch of elegance to your base with this adjustable Chandelier light. Raise and lower it to the perfect height. Time to fit a grand staircase in your 2x1.

Electric Table Lamp

Settle down for the long dark night with this cozy Electric Table Lamp. Maybe get a buddy to read you a story.

Beanbag Chairs

Sit back and relax in these Beanbag Chairs. Comes in two varieties.

Wallpapers

Interior design to the max with these unique and sparkly wallpapers. Included are a dark shaggy carpet, hexagonal wall tiles and painted gold stars ceiling decoration!

PARALLEL PLAYER PROCESSING - PART 2

Threading Player Updates

Back in Jungle Update blog, I wrote about experimenting with batched processing of players on our servers. To summarize, I talked about how we needed to restructure code and start doing more operations in batches instead of on individual basis, and I showcased how it allowed us to leverage Burst and parallel job execution to speed up NoClip checks on the server.

This update I'm taking it a step further - I've converted more parts of our player update code to batch/pipeline form, which allowed to clearly see dependencies between processing stages. This, in turn, confirmed which parts we can try to process in parallel on worker threads. As a result, we can now offload a bunch of player-related logic over to worker threads, speeding up the main thread:

Right now it's gated behind UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2 server variable, as an experimental mode. We've been running this on our EU Staging Server for a couple weeks to confirm that things are stable - and so far it's holding, but I don't have clear guarantees on how it will scale on high-population servers. In theory, thanks to these points:

• Faster server occlusion (more on that below)

• Avoiding redundant calculations of player state by using frame caches

• Use of managed threads for work offloading (sending entity snapshots and destroy messages have been converted)

I'm hoping that it'll allow the server to scale better with a higher player count and make player processing less of a bottleneck.

The plan is to roll it out gradually to release servers, while confirming server stability & performance - so far it's been developed in a lightly stress tested EU Staging, so I'm missing real world data. After roll-out is successful, I'll be able to identify further bottlenecks and work on expanding parallel processing.

Server Occlusion Optimizations

As part of the above rewrite I took a look at server occlusion, as I noticed that it has been running too many checks per frame. In addition to other problems, this caused server occlusion to eat up to 8ms in some cases, like bellow:

Having to process 10k occlusion queries for 350 players seems to be excessive, even if it eventually boils down to only 500 paths to check.

I've reworked the relevant code to benefit from the following improvements when UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2 is enabled:

• We now deduplicate occlusion queries - if player A and player B want to check for visibility of each other, it's enough to just check A->B

• We run occlusion queries in parallel

• We cache results of occlusion queries for the duration of a frame, allowing us to skip them throughout the rest of the frame

I'm hoping that the gains will scale with the player count and become substantial once we're testing with 350+ players.

Going Forward

The rewrite of player update allows us to see more clearly how the execution and data flow, but it's lacking further optimizations(aware of 1 bottleneck) and tuning (controlling worker batch sizes). My plan is to use the new telemetry to guide where to focus efforts as I continue to expand UsePlayerUpdateJobs further. I currently don't see a specific end in sight, as the more is converted, the more opportunities to capitalize on data/execution patterns we get.

If things go well for UsePlayerUpdateJobs 2 during this patch, it's likely the mode will be promoted to level 1, and a new experimental stage will begin.

ENCRYPTION CHANGES CONTINUED

As mentioned in last patches devblog, we are going ahead with requiring a minimum encryption level of 2 on servers that wish to be considered 'secure' and appear on the Rust Client server browser.

As a reminder, encryption level 2 is the default configuration for Rust Dedicated Servers and as a result the vast majority of server owners do not need to take action. For those that do, you will need to update your server.encryption convar to **2 **and restart your server.

Additionally, we are going ahead with the removal of the server.secure convar. As previously mentioned, any insecure servers will now need to pass the '-insecure' parameter on server startup instead.

SAVE THE DATE - TWITCH DROPS

**September 20th-30th **

Rust Kingdoms 3 returns bigger and better! Watch for socials to see the lineup and what drops you can collect!

Head to https://twitch.facepunch.com/connect to sync your Twitch and Steam accounts.

HARDCORE REFRESH

Hardcore mode is making a comeback this month, bringing with it some community requested changes and a few new tweaks we've been planning for a while.

Our goal with game modes, such as Primitive and Hardcore, is to offer a fresh way to experience Rust, see how players respond, and try out different ideas. We don’t expect them to stay popular for long, usually just a couple of months. They’re not a major development focus or time sink, as most of the team is working on bigger features behind the scenes.

We look forward to seeing your feedback. These game modes help guide our decision-making for the core Rust experience, so your input really does matter.

If Hardcore’s not your thing, don’t worry, there are plenty of other changes to check out in the blog below.

HARDCORE - FOG OF WAR

The fog of war system is back on Hardcore game mode, exclusively, obscuring the map when you first spawn and slowly revealing itself as you move around the world. This is now integrated with the normal map system rather than a held item like it's original version.

Our goal with this mode is to heighten the inherent risk and reward gameplay in Rust, hopefully leading players to consider their next moves carefully as the consequences for dying can be significant.

HARDCORE - COMPASS

As part of an effort to make navigation more interesting in Hardcore we have added the compass as a new handheld tool item.

In Hardcore mode your location on the map is now no longer displayed at all unless you have compass equipped in your belt. Once you have a compass in the belt, the player location is displayed without the direction indicator. The compass UI at the top of the screen is also completely removed, as it was in the previous Hardcore mode.

Whilst the compass is available to use in all other gamemodes too, the changes relating to the map and compass UI are limited to the Hardcore gamemode only.

There is endless fun to be had in spinning around in circles whilst holding the compass. I hope that it will also prove valuable to all those who enjoy roleplaying as scurvy seadogs navigating the high seas aboard boats.

HARDCORE - WEAPON & AMMO CRAFTING CHANGES

Firearms can no longer be crafted or researched at all. You'll now be at the mercy of what loot you find in the world, although you can now repair any weapon you find without needing to research it. We've also increased the crafting costs of all ammunition by 5x.

We hope these changes will make you think twice before engaging and promote a more thoughtful style of play.

HARDCORE - RESPAWN CHANGES

On hardcore, Sleeping bag respawn cooldowns have been increased to 15 minutes, while beds will now be 10 minutes. Along with the weapon crafting changes this hopefully leads to a more complex thought process when deciding whether to attack other players.

HARDCORE UPKEEP CHANGES

We've doubled the upkeep cost in Hardcore mode. The goal here is to encourage tighter, more efficient base designs and reduce the number of massive, sprawling compounds that tend to dominate the map over time. With higher upkeep, players will need to think more strategically about how they build and maintain their bases, prioritising what's essential and trimming the excess.

This change should help promote more frequent raiding, faster turnover of bases, and a more dynamic map overall. It also aligns with the core intent of Hardcore, leaner gameplay, higher stakes, and a tougher, more unforgiving survival loop. We'll be keeping an eye on how this plays out and adjusting if needed.

MENU RE-DESIGN

This month we've introduced a refreshed look for our menu. After several years of our existing menu being built upon we've decided to create a new experience built from the ground up. Allowing us to add new features in, better UX and a more modern appearance.

On load to Rust post-patch you'll notice our shiny new interface. Across the top we have the new navigation menu with all of the usual links just in a horizontal format. And along the bottom we have the social bar, the place you go to access your friends list, party system and send our message.

Sandwiched between those two is where we'll hold all of the pages, content, media and everything else.** **

Home

Our new homepage design. Primarily more of the same from the last UI but an improved focus on the most recent patch. In the top left of the interface we now have a new call to action, the Twitch Drops tile. It'll be activated when we've published a new event either coming soon or currently in progress. Bottom left we have a curated list of heroes - whether that be weekly skins, featured DLCs or even a bit of information we want to share.

In the top right we've added a new area for Quick Join, see your previously played servers quickly. If you want to jump straight back into the action you can connect from the homepage. No extra clicks required. ** **

Play

A refreshed look at the Play tab. We've introduced a horizontal tab menu for the server types, from Official all the way across to what your friends are playing. Down the left side of the UI we've got a filter menu, we've spent a bit of time tidying this area up so its a lot less overwhelming and gives you a quick glance at what filters and options you have toggled to tailor your server results.

We've added a few new features: like sorting via server modes, as well as the ability to see queue sizes before you join.

** Server Maps**

You can now preview a server map before you join. This lets you plan where you're going to put your base, make sure its got whatever biome you love and make plans before committing to a queue. This works for any servers with Rust+ support.

Store

Featured, Limited and General stores all got a major overhaul. We fully rewrote the entire store system to improve the experience of viewing skins and packs. Within the Featured tab we'll have a curated list of items for sale as well as a block for the weekly skins.

Skin Viewer

On a few pages you'll notice we've added a new skin viewer. A new overlay where you can view skins from all angles. Rotate, pan and zoom to inspect skins to your hearts content. We've also put the same viewer into the Inventory page so you can see existing skins in all their glory.

Inventory

The inventory has been tidied up, a new organised structure. Pressing on an item within your inventory will now open a new modal which will give you information about it, a 3D model viewer if available, market rates and even if you can break it down or not.

Likewise the crafting of items has also received the same modals to make everything consistent, cleaner and more usable.** **

Settings

Settings also received a full overhaul. Options have been re-organized into categories and a search bar will let you filter all of the controls, highlighting the pages in which items match your query.

Gesture Wheel

The gesture menu got a full overhaul from the existing experience. You can now drag and drop items from the gesture bar on the right to the slots you want them to sit in. Whether you replace existing items, or into empty sockets you should be able to freely move items around quicker than ever before.

We've also introduced other gesture packs into the menu, allowing you to see what you own and what you don't own with the ability to quickly navigate to the pack on the store to learn more about it.

LOADING OPTIMIZATIONS

You should now expect up to 65% quicker loading from desktop to loading into a server due to a big refactor of how we load assets. This optimization also enabled us to reduce our memory usage by 10-20%. Results will vary but everyone should see a boost!

The experimental option "Optimized Loading" has also been removed. This new optimization completely replaces that and cannot be toggled.

These optimizations also apply to the Rust server.

Technical Details

Everyone who has played Rust before now would know that Asset Warmup takes so long. Even on a top end PC it can take at least a minute or two to complete on its own. This loading step is where we load all of our prefabs from disk and preprocess them to automatically fill in bits of information and remove unnecessary pieces for the client (or server). Loading the prefabs takes up most of the time here. If you had the experimental Optimized Loading option enabled it made them load quicker by having Unity load the prefabs asynchronously (and starts as soon as the menu is visible).

Our new method of loading prefabs is to stick all of them into a couple scenes and then load the scenes. Apparently Unity is way faster at loading scenes than prefabs (who knew?). We can also load those scenes asynchronously - they're loading as soon as you're booted to the menu. Once they're loaded we hook them into our ResourceRef system (basically addressables but predates addressables) and then they can be used as normal prefabs everywhere.

The memory usage reductions come from not needing two copies of every prefab (the prefab asset + preprocessed copy) and doing a chunk of the preprocessing at build time. Both weren't possible before this optimization because modifying prefab assets during builds is unreliable and modifying prefab assets at runtime is unusually slow. Using scenes lets us stop using prefab assets as soon as they get instantiated into one of these scenes.

NOTABLE CHANGES

**Minigun turret changes **Miniguns placed in Autoturrets and Attack Helicopters now spin up before shooting

**Invisible indicator **Admins using the debug.invis command now have a visual indicator when invis is enabled

**God indicator **Admins using the global.god (godmode) command now have a visual indicator when godmode is enabled

**Map marker keybinds **Two new keybinds can be set in the options, one to place a marker on your current position, and one to clear all map markers

Dynamic weapon stats

Weapon stats update when adding/removing attachments

**Server restart warnings **Server restart chat messages moved to toasts

**Tugboat horn **Tugboat can now honk in the same way cars can

METAL DETECTOR CHANGES

Metal detectors can now detect weapons dropped by other players. Whenever a player's backpack or dropped weapon despawns, it will now be buried for a day, allowing other players to find it using a metal detector.

To keep things balanced, the chances of finding a weapon are relatively low, but they increase based on the number of weapons dropped. This means scavenging after a raid with a metal detector should still feel rewarding for players.

The buried weapons are stored in a rough grid and have a chance of being buried, you won't be able to drop a weapon to hide it and return to the same spot and dig it back up. The buried weapons will also expire after 24 hours if they haven't been found.

The weapons are also filtered so that you won't find something crazy underground but the majority of weapons should still be allowed.

PILOT PACK DLC

This month, we’re landing a new Hazmat pack based around an elite fighter pilot.

The pack can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam item store.

Pilot Suit

Touchdown in the turbulent world of Rust in this fighter pilot’s G-Suit. Whether sustaining high speed turns or dealing with rads, this suit has you covered.

M15 Semi-Automatic Pistol

Only high-ranking personnel get to handle the M15. Put it to good use.

Flight Control Codelock

High-tech and guaranteed to keep the hostiles out.

Black Box wood storage box

There’s no chance of rescue, so salvage what you can and store it here.

Salvaged Ejector Seat Chair

Pulled from the wreckage and repurposed as the coolest place to hang out after a hard day’s raiding. No longer ejects.

Suit up (https://rust.facepunch.com/store/pack/pilot)

SERVER SECURE/ENCRYPTION CHANGES

Starting this patch, we've made some minor changes to how servers mark themselves as insecure as well as introduced an additional requirement a secure server needs to meet in order to appear on the Rust Client server browser.

If you wish to run an insecure server you will now pass the '-insecure' parameter on startup rather than setting the server.secure convar to false. The convar still exists and server owners will see warnings on server startup if they are still using it, we are aiming to remove the convar entirely on the 4th September 2025.

For existing secure servers, you now need to ensure your secure.encryption value is at least 1 to appear on the server browser in the Rust Client. We have plans to further increase this requirement to 2 on the 4th September 2025. This is, and has been, the default configuration for Rust Dedicated Servers and as a result these changes only impact a minority of servers and most will not need to take any action.

VOLUMETRIC CLOUDS, FOG, & ATMOSPHERIC REVAMP

With this patch, Rust's atmospherics have received a facelift, including:

• New volumetric clouds.

• New volumetric, biome-localized fog.

The goal is to better support a wide variety of dynamic weather, which is something we struggled to do with the old tech.

Volumetric Clouds

Available under the Experimental options tab as a replacement for the 2D clouds, the volumetric clouds are fully 3D, move across the sky, morph into different shapes with weather, and interact naturally with lighting from the sky at all times of day.

[pics, video of clouds moving]

Volumetric fog

This new fogging technique allows us to have different fog setups localized to each biome that remain spatially consistent.

Previously, we would adjust fog globally depending on which biome you were standing in, which was unnatural and provided an advantage to players standing outside of the biome. Now, for example, you'll be able to see the haziness of the arctic biome as an outsider looking in.

Along with this, the volumetric nature of the fog presents cool visual improvements. For example, it receives light from the sun and shadows from the surrounding environment, creating natural god rays and pretty sunsets. The fog in each biome of also colored slightly differently to better match the environment.

PAINTING AUTO-SAVE

For those marathon painters creating the next masterpiece of Rust's art history, we want to make sure you don't lose it all if you happen to starve to death before the final brush stroke. With this toggleable option checked your paintings will automatically sync with the server every 30 seconds, saving you from a complete restart.

FOLIAGE SELF-SHADOWING

Foliage (trees, bushes) outside of shadow range will apply directional self-shadowing. This should improve visuals of distant foliage and reduce trees looking like they are glowing (especially at sunrise/set).

BATCHED PROJECTILE UPDATES

Each time a bullet or thrown weapon moves around, the client would perform some physics raycasts to see what it had hit and process the results (damage, blood, sound, etc.), then the next projectile would do the same, then the next one, etc. This is pretty standard and works fine when you have a small number of projectiles, but can be a bit slow when you have a large number of projectiles in a densely packed area.

The projectiles have been rewritten to update as a single batched set, where the information on the physics queries they need to perform is gathered first and ran across all available job threads in parallel. Updating projectiles as a set like this also opened up a few new optimisation paths that we're now making use of.

From our benchmarks we've seen that batched projectiles are generally at least twice as fast to compute as the old serial projectiles. You're not going to see your framerate double but things should be a little smoother when fights get intense.

SYRINGE AUTOMATION REWORK

Quite a small change, but we've modified the syringe self injection animation to now apply the heal just as the syringe leaves the arm rather than slightly after. The animation was reworked so that the duration is no different to before, this is purely a visual change.

This should hopefully result in less accidentally cancelled heals.

SKINS NORMAL MAP FIX

Unless you're a skins artist you probably won't have noticed, but we identified a bug in the client that caused normal maps to be updated in an incorrect con

RUST 2025: MID-YEAR RECAP & SNEAK PEEK

PARTY SYSTEM

As part of one of our long term goals of reducing friction for new players, we bring the party system to make it easier to connect to a server as your friends!

To invite friends to a party:

• Open the friends menu (bottom right of the main menu)

• Right click on a friend

• Click "Invite To Party"

• Wait for them to accept the invite

Once all your friends have joined your party the party leader can connect to a server. This will cause all party members to connect to the same server.

There is also an in-game advantage to joining a server as a party. When you first spawn on the server your party members will spawn nearby each other and automatically be put on the same team. Future respawns will remain random scattered on the beach.

OUTPOST SPAWNING

After several years of waving a radiation detector around, we’ve finally given CZ-721 in the Outpost something to do. He now offer players a mission to travel to a Fishing Village and back to unlock a new, permanent spawn point in Outpost. This new spawn point has a 30 minute cooldown and won’t count towards your bag limit. This mission is available in both Vanilla and Primitive modes, but is disabled in Softcore (as there is already a permanently available spawn point in that mode).

Along with this new mission we’re also shipping a bunch of under the hood improvements to the mission system. This has been a longer term project over the last few months as we all want to make more missions and flesh this system out but the process to create new missions internally is quite cumbersome and error prone. Prior to these upgrades, creating a new mission involved a long process of manually setting up conversation nodes, filling in translation fields and lots of manual data entry. We’ve automated as much of this as possible, allowing us to iterate and create more missions faster. We’re not quite there yet but we’ve got more missions planned this year that will allow us to push these tools further.

In terms of player facing upgrades, we’ve improved the conversation screen so that it doesn’t bounce around as the text is animating in, added a Mission Complete panel to communicate when a player has finished a mission and applied a lot of performance improvements as the conversation screen was quite heavy.

TEAM INVITE CHANGES

We’ve made several improvements to the invite process this month in order to make it easier to find and play with your friends. You’ll find a new Invite button in the bottom left Team UI that allows you to add friends to your team even if they aren’t on the current server or online.

You can also now send team invites via the chat panel by right clicking a players name in the chat.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Peacekeeper Mode

Now display a holster warning to offending players (like the old safe zones)

Headshot Sounds

Added dedicated UI sounds slider (affects headshot sounds)

Surrendering Holstered

Weapons are now holstered when surrendering, no longer hidden

Optimized Turrets

Optimized Turrets aiming calculations on the server for better performance

DEPLOYABLE SNAPPING

Placing Deployables has always been a bit of a chore in Rust, especially if you want it to be properly in a corner or against a wall. We've finally implemented a solution to this, one that will hopefully be unintrusive, easy to use and help open up the building system by allowing quick and accurate placement of deployables for all.

Plenty of Deployables can now be snapped. This snapping is enabled by pressing Left Shift whilst ready to place an object. It comes in two flavours: Simple and **Advanced **(default). These modes can be changed in the settings menu.

Simple:

Simple mode will try to snap the object to a wall whenever possible. It will not force any other changes, and can be used to use the wall as a simple slider, allowing custom placement wherever you would like, but with the walls help.

Advanced:

Advanced will do everything simple does and more. Deployables will snap into corners, and will try to snap onto similar Deployables nearby. For example a box will snap to a box, or a shelf will snap to a shelf.

ABYSS PACK - NEW STORAGE TANKS

August 2023's Abyss Pack has been updated to now include another new free item!

The Vertical and Horizontal Storage Tanks have been bought up from the depths. Holding as much as a Large Wood Box, they're great places to store your salvaged loot.

If you already own the Abyss Pack, the new Storage Tanks will automatically be added as an option in the crafting menu.

You can get the pack on the Steam Item Store.

PATROL HELICOPTER CHANGES

I know the most recent set of Patrol Helicopter changes weren't the best in some respects, so we want to try and improve them. It may be best to discuss some of the reasoning behind the previous changes as well as the reasoning to these new changes before getting into it.

Background

Our main drive with the Patrol Helicopter changes is to encourage PVP across the map, whilst simultaneously stopping the same clans from getting Patrol Helicopter every time it comes out. Our previous set of changes included two main parts:

Tug of War

Before the last set of changes, the Patrol Helicopter would simply aggro on the player that shot at it, providing it wasn't mid missile attack and enough time had passed since its previous aggro. This meant that 'the last player that damaged it' could tag the Patrol Helicopter predictably and easily.

Therefore a system known as 'tug of war'/danger zones was developed. When a player attacks the Patrol Helicopter an invisible bubble is generated, players attacking the helicopter from within this this bubble increase the bubbles score according to a specific set of factors (damage dealt etc). This allows multiple groups or individuals to fight for aggro of the Patrol Helicopter in a more **serverwide **style.

Multi-Stage Fights (Fleeing Mechanics) When these 'bubbles'/danger zones ranked up too much score too fast, then the Patrol Helicopter will flee. With the idea being that the flee would happen 2/3 times and players would be required to chase down the Patrol Helicopter: fighting it across the map to encourage PVP serverwide.

In my opinion: most of the issues with the above changes lie with Multi Stage Fights, with the main one being that players end up feeling frustrated or unrewarded for taking the helicopter.

New Mechanics

The Tug of War system has been left virtually unchanged, with most of the following changes have been made to try and improve the Multi Stage Fight/Fleeing behaviour.

Patrol Helicopter has been changed to work the following ways:

• Will always flee **towards **a monument.

• Flees will be **capped **to 1 grid maximum.

• Flee **location **is now shown on the map.

• Patrol Helicopter will no longer flee if you take it from nearby/inside a monument.

These changes are meant to preserve and improve the best parts of the previous changes (increased serverwide engagement and more PVP) whilst also trying to fix the issues players had with the multi stage fights.

It's possible these changes wont work, but I want to try them out.

IMPROVED EROSION

We've improved the erosion simulation that is done as part of the procedural map generation with this update.

It will now do a better job of blending the canyons and lakes with the rest of the environment and generally make a larger impact in the generation of the world. The improved simulation adds a relatively small amount of time to the map generation, but is aggressively multi-threaded to try and mitigate this.

LEGACY VIEWMODEL CAMERA ANIMATION UPDATES

As of April 2024 we've been adding hand animated camera animation to our viewmodels via a new camera bone in the rig. For older viewmodels, we've continued using the code based system implemented back in 2017. While this was functional, the camera didn't accurately track the movements on screen as well as it could.

We are now able to assign any object to be the camera for our viewmodels, so we have intended to bypass the lack of a camera bone on these legacy assets, by creating hand animated movements directly in Unity. We have now completed these animations for all our older assets (pre 2017). Admires now have camera animation as well.

ROOF STABILITY FIX

I want to take a moment to explain the bigger picture of our development process after noticing a large amount of outrage following a commit regarding "roof stability being fixed".

At Facepunch one of the core objectives of our mission statement is as follows:

Valuing Player Feedback: Our community is the lifeblood of Rust. We actively seek out and incorporate player feedback, ensuring that our development process is aligned with the desires and needs of our community.

We understand and respect that some bugs are better left in the game once they turn into important gameplay mechanics. Bunkers and External TCs are well known bugs that we have intentionally left in the game until we find a suitable official game mechanic to replace them. It's not ignorance: we actively keep an eye on them and only fix the variations that we feel cross the boundary from "cool mechanic" into "game breaking".

Roof stability bunkers and disconnect-able TCs were not considered game-breaking so what happened? Well, often these bugs end their life in the same way they were created: unintentionally.

After the Jungle Update we noticed players started making more pyramid bases and "Jungle Temples" but there was a problem: roofs would break after server restart and/or it would be impossible to build despite it showing enough stability. The root cause of this bug as well as disconnect-able TCs was the same: the stability system was using the lowest number of links to the ground instead of the highest stability for support. To fix pyramid bases meant disconnect-able TCs would also be fixed. We weighed the options and this seemed acceptable: there are many alternative bunkers in the game & you can still break external TCs manually before replacing the main TC.

I hope this gives a bit more clarity on why we fixed roof stability and gives a better explanation of our development process than a single line commit message did.

**TLDR: **We didn't break all bunkers in the game nor plan to, we fixed stability calculations primarily affecting stability with roofs which caused a single type of bunker to break.

2025 RECAP & LOOKING FORWARDS

Rust is fast approaching its 12th birthday. That’s nearly 12 years of guaranteed monthly updates - over 380 content updates and 2,500+ hotfixes since launch. This year, we passed 1 million positive reviews, making Rust the 6th most reviewed game on Steam. Thank you.

In 2025 we hit a huge milestone: over 20 million copies sold on PC alone.

We also shipped some of our most ambitious updates yet:

Primitive Update – Four siege weapons, a new bow, shields, and a new game mode. We also rolled out updates to horses, ragdolls, and more.

Crafting Update – A feast of changes: new ways to cook and craft, pet chickens, bees, pies, armor inserts, optimizations, and plenty more.

Jungle Update – A whole new biome! Climbable trees and vine swinging, deadly tigers and crocodiles, new monuments, boomerangs, blowpipes, and more.

Looking ahead:

Next month brings a Hardcore mode refresh alongside some long-requested quality-of-life improvements.

Later this year, we’re setting sail with the Naval Update - introducing modular, player-built boats complete, with cannons, of course and much more.

Also in the pipeline: AI and animal overhauls, including new animals, a Warhammer collaboration, and more we’re not quite ready to talk about yet.

40% OFF RUST AND STEAM STORE DLCS!

The Steam Summer Sale is here!

And with just a few days left, why not pick up a copy for that potential clan partner mate you've been trying to convince to join? Get it to gift here.

JUNGLE POLISH

One of the loudest bits of feedback we heard after last month's Jungle update: “I can’t find anything!” Fair. The jungle was a bit too good at being a jungle.

Wild hemp has been reworked with taller stalks and purple flowers, so you can actually see it against the overgrowth. (Player-grown hemp remains unchanged.)

More ore nodes now spawn throughout the jungle thanks to increased rock formation density and a general boost to ore availability.

Berry bushes have their own dedicated Jungle population to help keep food distribution more even across the map.

Cars and bikes now spawn along jungle road sides, you’ll no longer feel stranded in the canopy.

Players no longer spawn directly in the jungle biome. It’ll still generate near spawn areas, but you won’t be dropped in the middle of the Jungle unless you choose to live there.

Additionally, we've added several new trees that did not quite make it into the initial release.

We’ve also made a pass on monument distribution. This has been a long-standing issue, and it worsened with last month's Jungle update. Good news, it's fixed! overall, you can now expect a healthy increase in the number of monuments per map.

Some key highlights in testing a world side of 4500:

• Airfield +37%

• Trainyard +34%

• Excavator +45%

• Military Tunnels +28%

• Powerplant +17%

• Water Treatment +16%

• Sewer Branch +14%

Overall, we hope all these changes bring Jungle into a balanced position.

INCAPACITATE DART

I've made some changes to make this dart less OP, but still useful.

There's now a blur and dim effect instead of the full screen blackout, and the fade speed has been decreased.

The movement speed reduction duration has also been decreased from 6 to 4 seconds, to match the blur duration.

IMPROVED INDOOR LIGHTING

We have worked for the past couple of months on lighting improvements for the game interiors.

Simply put, in the past our lighting model would darken the entire world if you were located indoors. This caused disadvantage for players looking out and advantage for players looking in as the interiors were fully lit from outside.

Thanks to the efforts of the team we now have a spatially aware solution to this problem that also brings some benefits such as soft physical transitions in and out of interiors.

We are still improving this new system and while this goes on, some trickier interior spaces such as large pipes and complex cylindrical buildings remain on the old system temporarily.

SILENCER CHANGES

We’re making several changes to the silencer system this month, introducing two new silencer types and making the existing silencer non-craftable (now renamed to Military Silencer).

The Soda Can Silencer is the cheapest to make (40 metal fragments, Workbench 1) and will last around 12 shots on an Assault Rifle firing standard rounds. It also mildly decreases shot damage and velocity.

The Oil Filter Silencer is a bit more expensive (10 HQM, Workbench 2) and will last for around 48 shots on an Assault Rifle firing standard rounds.

Both new silencers will apply a decrease to damage and velocity compared to the Military Silencer.

Our goal here is to ensure Silencers remain a powerful tool for ambushes and surprise tactics, but don’t become a default tool to keep on your weapon during a full firefight. The existing Military Silencer’s durability is unchanged so it will still last quite a long time and should hopefully become quite a valuable item to find in high end monuments.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Seat swapping keybinds

New keybinds have been added to let you switch directly to specific seats in vehicles

Interaction crosshair

You can now customize how much information is displayed on your crosshair

HBHF Sensor

The range of the HBHF sensor can now be adjusted

Neon signs

New inputs have been added to neon signs, allowing you to control which frame is displayed

Propane Explosive Bomb

Propane explosive bomb crafting recipe no longer requires explosives

Monument Heaters

Heaters at the small and large oilrig now provide heat and comfort

Water Pump Protection

Pump health doubled

LR300 Rifle

Quicker LR300 deploy and improved animation

MP5 Durability

MP5 Durability increased, allowing for an additional 300 rounds before needing to be repaired

Vending Machine Order Editing

Can now edit orders in a vending machine without having to recreate them.

Shelf pick up

Can now pickup shelves if they have nothing on them.

IO Wire snapping

Hold Shift to snap wires in 90 degree increments.

Lighting Polish

Wires, Most Electronics, and even some Light Fixtures have gotten visual update to make your base even more cozy.

BUILDING QOL

I made some improvements to building this month. There were quite a few issues with our line of sight checks, leading to some frequent frustrating "Line of sight blocked" error messages when building.

This is much better now, the checks are more forgiving and more consistent.

FLOOR & CEILING WALLPAPER DLC

This month, we’re expanding wallpaper to floors and ceilings.

Wallpapers can now be applied to foundations, floors and roof building blocks. Like the original wallpapers, they are entirely visual and do not provide any additional protection.

We’ve also made significant improvements to its functionalities:

• The wallpaper item is now the Wallpaper Tool

• It works like a building plan and consumes cloth when placing wallpaper down

• Walls, floors and ceilings have a different skin sets - each only works on its appropriate surface

• You can select your skin using right click

• You can easily reskin placed wallpaper by simply placing it again

The wallpaper tool includes 8 new default skins, 4 for floors and 4 for ceilings.

Floor & Ceiling Wallpaper Pack

In addition to the 8 floor and ceiling wallpaper skins unlocked by default, you can purchase the Floor & Ceiling Wallpaper Pack which features a hefty 34 extra floor and ceiling wallpaper skins for decorating your base.

Skins included in the Floor & Ceiling Wallpaper Pack, as pictured above:

Floors

• Carpet (2 variants)

• Parquet Painted (3 variants)

• Parquet Wood (4 variants)

• Marble Tiles (2 variants)

• Metal Treadplate

• Asbestos Tiles (4 variants)

• Tatami Mats

Ceilings

• Plaster (2 variants)

• Parquet Wood

• Parquet Painted (5 variants)

• Subway Tiles (5 variants)

• Metal Sheets (3 variants)

• Wood Beams and Plaster

The Floor & Ceiling Wallpaper Pack is available for purchase in-game or through the Steam Item Store

DIRECTIONAL ITEM DROPPING

You can now drop items to the ground around you in the direction of your choosing.

I've added a new keybind option which you can set under the keybinds UI. Look for "Directional Drop".

With this key held, drag the item icon in the direction you wish to throw it - dragging directly up will throw it in front of you, dragging to the right will throw it to your side, etc.

To make it easier to drop items with a direction, holding the keybind also lets you drop items by dragging them anywhere on the UI, even over other inventory slots. This means you don't need to drag an item all the way off the inventory UI in the correct direction. The item icon will turn red to show the item is always going to be dropped, not moved.

TUGBOAT FRIEND AUTHING

The TC friend list authing UI and functionality has now been extended to the Tugboat, making it much easier to auth your friends or team mates to your Tugboat.

COOKING & MIXING TABLE QOL

I've made a couple more QOL upgrades to the recipe UI for these tables.

Any recipes that you currently have all the ingredients for will appear at the top of the list. This will also update as your inventory content changes.

Additionally, the colour of recipe text now also updates correctly with inventory changes instead of only when the UI is first opened. This also matches ingredient availability - recipes you have all the ingredients for are bright white, other recipes are grey.

EXTERNAL WALL & GATE UPGRADING

Wooden external walls and gates can now be upgraded directly to the adobe versions if you have the correct items in your inventory, without needing to go through the long winded process of upgrading to regular stone and then reskinning them.

LARGE DEPLOYED ITEM DEMOLITION

Large, non-pickup, deployed items can now be demolished using the hammer within 10 minutes of their placement.

The initial list includes:

• Large Furnace

• Refinery

• Watchtower

• Barricade variants

• Wind turbine

• Large paddling pool

• Water catchers

You'll need building privilege to be able to demolish large deployables with the hammer.

INDUSTRIAL LIGHTS PACK UPDATE

Something members of the community have been asking for is a blue light to accompany the red, green and white lights in the Industrial Lights pack that was released in November 2021. We’ve listened and have added it to the pack!

If you already own the Industrial Lights Pack, the new blue light skin will automatically be added as a proper skin option for the white Industrial Wall Light.

We’ve seen some very industrious ideas for the possibilities with this new light, and we can’t wait to see what the community comes up with. Check out the Industrial Lights pack here.

BEE BOMB

The catapult is a fun tool for inflicting pain on your enemies, but it hasn’t fulfilled its potential without the Bee Bomb.

The Bee Bomb is a new Catapult Projectile. On impact it will create a few Bee Swarms.

TEA TIME

Earlier this year, we introduced a few new teas, but they were missing some key ingredients - namely, consistency. These teas didn’t have advanced or pure crafting options.

That’s now sorted.

Advanced and Pure variants have been added where they were missing for warming, cooling, harvesting and crafting teas. These teas offer enhanced and longer duration of buffs. Some of the basic tiers have released a slight nerf.

PVP BARRICADE

We’ve taken a swing at reducing barricade spam in PvP fights - a bit too effective (and a bit too annoying).

The wooden barricade stack size has been halved from 10 to 5. This should help curb the Insta-maze spam in close quarters without gutting their utility entirely. You'll now have to use them more strategically.

Barricades on train tracks will no longer stop trains dead in their tracks. You can still be a nuisance, just not a locomotive-destroying one.

Small changes, but they should make PvP a little less about throwing down walls and a bit more about the fight itself. We're not opposed to reducing the stack size down further, we'll be monitoring these changes closely.

ARMOR SLOT CRAFTING CHANGES

While creating the Advanced and Pure versions of the crafting tea we noticed that the random chances weren't quite what we had initially planned when implementing the feature. We've made some adjustments to bring them in line with our original vision.

Old chances:

No slot: 50%

1 slot: 20%

2 slots: 10%

3 slots: 20%

New chances, no teas:

No slot: 50%

1 slot: 25%

2 slots: 15%

3 slots: 10%

New chances, Standard tea:

1 slot: 50%

2 slots: 30%

3 slots: 20%

New chances, Advanced tea:

2 slots: 60%

3 slots: 40%

New chances, Pure tea:

2 slots: 33%

3 slots: 66%

TARGETING ATTACHMENT

A new internal weapon attachment is available this month, allowing you to use the Ping system without having to switch to the binoculars. This should help players in teams more effectively call out locations and points of interest. Costs 10 HQM and 1 Tech Trash to craft and requires a Workbench 2.

AUTO TURRET NERF

Earlier this year, in the primitive update, we introduced bow turrets, which were added to support the primitive gamemode, but the vanilla meta has shifted to players spamming turrets early game with bows, we don't feel this is a healthy meta.

Today, bow weapons placed in turrets now have reduced damage and longer reload times. We will keep a close eye on these changes, and I'm sure the topic will continue to be a highly debated subject within the community.

We are currently exploring broader, more significant changes over the coming months to turrets.

FOLIAGE RENDERING IMPROVEMENTS

We’ve reworked how ground foliage is rendered - shifting to a more GPU-driven system with smarter, per-instance camera culling.

In plain English: your system should now spend less time and effort rendering grass you can’t even see.

You’ll notice improved performance, especially when sprinting or flying across the map. This update reduces load on both GPU and CPU, keeping things smoother even in foliage-heavy areas.

WATER VEHICLE CAMERA CHANGES

Several water based vehicles use camera rotation that involves rolling the camera from side to side, either in response to waves or input. That sort of camera rotation can be disorientating to players that are more sensitive to motion sickness.

In the case of Boogie Boards and Inner Tubes, their camera rotation was entirely due to ocean waves, which was likely made worse with the latest ocean refresh. I've entirely removed the camera rotation while using these vehicles.

In the DPV's case the rotation is due to player input which was intended but is quite severe. To solve this I've added a new option in the Accessibility menu that will remove the rolling behaviour.

EXTENDED FOOD SPOILING

The food spoiling system from the Crafting Update is being extended to include fruit, vegetables and eggs. These items will spoil into a generic Spoiled Produce item and will last 48 hours outside of a fridge, making them a more long term food item.

HIGH POPULATION LOOT SCALING

With the increasing popularity of higher population servers, we’ve heard a lot of feedback about how fast loot can spawn on these servers. Our loot spawning scales have been static for quite a while and were never really intended to scale beyond the 500 player mark.

To improve this, we’ve added a new server convar called “Spawn.population_cap_rate" which is set to 300 by default. Our loot respawning system will now cap how many players it considers on the server by this number, meaning the loot spawn rate will not increase beyond 300 players regardless of how many players are on the server.

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JUNGLE BIOME

We've added the first new biome to the game since the original introduction of the procedural world generation: Jungle!

The jungle biome covers part of the temperate coastal (tier 0) area where new players spawn. The terrain in this biome is flatter than other biomes, has a higher river density and thicker foliage.

The jungle biome features a large variety of completely new foliage. This includes new types of bushes, such as bromeliads and monstera. New undergrowth plants like arrowroot and calathea. As well as variety of new trees like trumpet trees, jungle palms and sandbox trees. The biggest of them all are enormous kapok trees that you will be able to climb and swing from.

The jungle is much denser than what you may be used to, so be aware that dangers and predators may lurk in every corner. Or use it to your advantage and hunt your prey instead.

The jungle biome is vast, but allows for full base building like all other biomes. Take a step inside and embrace your inner Tarzan.

VINE SWINGING

While exploring the Jungle biome you will encounter a new type of tree covered in vines, you can climb these trees to reach branches that provide a new vantage point. There are also interactive vines on a lot of these branches that allow you to swing from one branch to another, allowing you to traverse significant distances in the jungle without having to touch the ground.

Unlike our other form of aerial transportation (ziplines) vines move from one location to another, so if you are travelling as a team you will need to throw the vine back to your friends after using them so they can follow you. You can also use a vine to quickly, safely and quietly descend to the jungle floor.

Just like other trees these vines can be knocked down for wood, however they will create an invulnerable stump in their place and the tree will respawn after a while.

JUNGLE REMNANTS

Among the towering trees and thick undergrowth, you’ll stumble across small jungle monuments, each holding a glimpse into a forgotten past. These include the Jungle Ziggurat, a weathered stone structure with its own mysteries, and a scattering of ancient jungle ruins left behind by a long-lost civilization.

Jungle Ruins

The new Jungle Ruins are small monuments packed with atmosphere and early-game loot. Perfect for a quick stop while exploring, you’ll find low-tier supplies and maybe even a few surprises tucked away among the overgrown ruins.

TIGERS AND PANTHERS

The dense foliage of the jungle will be a grub's paradise, but they will need to be careful... there may be something sneakier than them lurking.

The tiger may be the deadliest animal you'll ever encounter Rust. It closes in extremely slowly from behind, and only strikes when it's sure to kill. A moment of inattention in the jungle is all it takes.

The challenge developing a stealthy NPC, is that it can easily feel unfair and bullshit. In Rust people are already often ambushed by all kinds of NPCs, and those are not even trying to be stealthy...

To address this there are 3 different hints in game that will let you know if you are being stalked from behind, some more subtle than others. We do our best to guarantee that you won't be jumped without getting at least one cue. It'll be on you to experiment and discover those hidden signals.

Do not only scan the foliage for black stripes and orange, as you may fail to notice the very rare black panther that also roams the jungle.

Finally there is a hidden trick you can pull on tigers and panthers, good luck finding it!

CROCODILE

You may notice the rivers are wider and deeper in the jungle, but think twice before crossing, maybe this shape you see in the murky water is not a dead tree.

If the tiger is the deadliest, the crocodile may be the toughest.

Don't lower your guard just because it looks slow and short-sighted, you may be surprised... The crocodile operates on the basis of mutual respect, don't mess with it and you'll be fine, but fool around and find out.

Like the wolf and tiger, the crocodile also has a hidden counterplay that will give an edge to the ones in the know.

BOOMERANG

We’re introducing another new early game weapon: the Boomerang!

This throwable weapon travels in a fixed arc and returns to the player after each throw, just like you’d expect. Its consistent path means skilled players can master its timing and trajectory to gain an advantage. The Boomerang can also be used as a melee weapon in a pinch if you need it for close range!

BLOWPIPE

This month, we’re introducing a new early game weapon: the Blowpipe – a silent, improvised weapon for those who enjoy causing problems quietly.

• Wood Dart – Basic and to the point. Light damage with no frills.

• Scatter Dart – A short-range spread shot that sprays multiple smaller darts. Great for up-close chaos.

• Incapacitate Dart – Slows your target and obscures their vision for a short time. Perfect for making a quick getaway (or moving in for the finish).

• Radiation Dart – Applies stackable radiation to your target. Watch them get progressively more uncomfortable.

The blowpipe’s low cost and quiet operation make it a solid choice for ambushes, harassment, or just annoying your neighbours.

SNAKES

Snakes are a stealthy new threat found in the Jungle biome - and you'll definitely need to keep an eye (or ear) out for them!

They hide pretty well in their leafy environment and their poison attack slows your movement speed. Be sure to listen out for their attack hiss as it's usually the first sign that you're about to be bitten!

They'll definitely keep you on your toes - a quickly timed jump after their hiss will avoid the attack altogether!

On the plus side, dead snakes can be skinned for Snake Venom, a new item that can be used to create incapacitate darts for the new blowpipe weapon.

LARGER RIVERS

Rivers are now longer, wider, and deeper in all biomes. They can no longer be walked across and require players to swim in order to cross them. The jungle biome specifically also has a higher river density compared to other biomes, which leads to more rivers in total on a map.

NOTABLE CHANGES

Vending Machine Fridge The Vending Machine can be powered to stop food spoiling

Food Cooling Icon A new icon now appears to indicate when your food is being kept cool and fresh

Chicken coop fits on a foundation Resized the chicken coop to fit on a foundation, it also now snaps into place!

Jungle Animal Meats Several new Jungle themed animal meats added

Outbreak Scientist New scientists now roam the jungle!

Leather Gloves Leather Gloves are now default BP and no longer require a sewing kit

JUNGLE DLC ITEM PACK

We’re dropping a brand-new DLC - the Jungle Pack, packed with 20 new skins and items. You’ll find skinnables like the Bamboo Wall Shelf, Half-Height Shelves, Jungle Relic Assault Rifle, Cocoknight Wood Armor, Bamboo Large Storage, and loads more.

There’s also new wallpapers, sprays, a gesture, and some chat emojis to mess around with.

You can grab the Jungle Pack from the Rust Item Store on Steam or straight from in-game.

Bamboo Shelving

Why have one shelf when you can have three?

This pack comes with Bamboo Salvaged Shelves, Bamboo Salvaged Half Shelves, and Bamboo Wall Shelves. Perfect for giving your base that overgrown, lived-in look.

The bamboo shelf is a reskin for a regular shelf, the shallow and half-height shelves are currently unique items to the pack.

Bamboo Barrels

Need somewhere to stash your loot? These Bamboo Barrels are skinned versions of the Large Wood Box, coming in both vertical and horizontal styles.

Same size as the ones from the Frontier Decor Pack, just way more... jungly.

Jungle Relic Assault Rifle

This ancient relic AK reskin has seen things — bad things.

Cocoknight Wood Armor

Only the bravest warriors can adorn the Cocoknight Armor. Made from bark, vines and.. coconuts, this armor set consists of skins for the Wood Armor Helmet, Chestplate, Pants and the newly introduced Gloves.

Obsidian Bone Knife

Knapped from the darkest obsidian, this skin for the Bone Knife has been passed down through the ages. As sharp as it is mysterious.

Jungle Idol Rock

Whomever holds the Jungle Idol Rock will see death. Whose it is, is uncertain.

Wallpapers, Sprays, Gesture and Chat Emoji

To really set the vibe, we’re also throwing in:

• 3 Wallpapers: Jungle Animals, Leaves, and Sigil

• 2 Sprays: Tiger and Skull

• 2 Chat Emojis: Sick and Bush

• 1 New Gesture: Beats Chest!

EXPLOSIVE PROTECTION FIX

When initially released the damage reduction of explosive armor inserts didn't match the resistance numbers shown on the inventory screen. This was caused by most forms of explosive damage being part melee damage so they could kill players without being used for raiding but the damage reduction not reducing the melee damage component. This was fixed by converting existing damage values to pure explosive damage in PvP while keeping the existing values for raiding.

This brought a new problem: with the inserts and certain combinations of armor you could reach up to 93% explosive protection and shrug off rockets! To compensate explosive protection will now be capped at 75% which should save you from a single rocket at high explosive protection values.

HUNTER VISION

The hunter vision is a new boost that let you see the scent trails of wild animals, helping you to track and hunt them down easily.

Eating the big cat pie will give you the boost for 15 minutes.

JUNGLE BUILDING SKIN

The new Jungle stone building skin, available now from the Rust store, allows you to change the visuals of your stone tier base.

This skin is for sale at the Steam store. To use, simply equip your hammer tool, display the wheel, and enable building skins. This should reveal the skin's wheel on which you may choose Brutalist upgrade.

Available now from the in-game store or Steam item store.

WOOD GLOVES

Rounding out the wooden armor set, the new Wood Gloves are now available! Default craftable and made from wood and cloth, these gloves offer early-game protection that slots between Leather Gloves and Roadsign Gloves.

Perfect for fresh spawns or anyone needing quick, reliable hand protection without the need for a blueprint.

SERVER PROFILER UPDATES

Experimental Streaming Support

With this update we're releasing the next stage of Server Profiler - experimental support for streaming profiling telemetry into memory. This can be done with the following command: **profile.perfsnapshot_stream **

• Name (max 32 characters, defaults to "Profile") - controls the filename of the snapshot, .json.gz

• MainThreadBuffer (MB, max 256, defaults to 32) - how big is the telemetry buffer for main thread

• WorkerThreadBuffer (MB, max 256, defaults to 8) - how big is the telemetry buffer for each worker thread

• Debug (0/1, defaults to 0) - whether to generate .bin.gz for debugging

The key difference here is that original profile.perfsnapshot command was able to accumulate up to 10 frames of data, while the new command will accumulate telemetry until the main thread storage is full, at which point it'll export the .json.gz file. For ~40 players on staging server and default 32MB main thread storage we were able to generate roughly 60 frames of data:

Quiet Mode

I've exposed a new control for server-chat notifications when a snapshot is being taken - the messages that warn the players about potential server stutters with a countdown: profile.quiet 0/1 - default to 0 (will notify), set to 1 to disable chat messages.

This affects both the old profile.perfsnapshot and the new profile.perfsnapshot_stream commands

SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

Batched Player Processing - Experimental Physics Query Batching

In the "Crafting Update", Server Optimizations section I've written about starting to work on batched player processing. The goal is to group logic better to enable more efficient memory cache utilization as well as starting to process players in parallel. Back then we only tried processing water queries for players in parallel.

This coming update we have now converted NoClip validation, 1 of 3 physics-heavy player validation routines, over to the new batched flow. It aggregates all the physics queries into separate batches, and runs batches sequentially, while each batch internally is run in-parallel.

My synthetic stress tests showed a ~5x/~80% speed-up of AntiHack.AreNoClipping compared to original implementation of AntiHack.IsNoClipping.

Original flow simulating 4 checks for 10k players:

Parallel flow:

Running the new logic on a 57 player staging server currently shows reduced benefits

Original flow(50 frames of data):

Parallel flow (52 frames of data):

It shows that we're getting around ~0.5ms(~10%) savings in AreNoClipping, the method that I focused on optimizing. We're also seeing ~13ms(~18%) savings at top level, ServerUpdateParallel.

It's important to note that this is all on relatively fresh Staging with a relatively small population. Release environment is a bit different, so I'll be validating how it behaves and if it's stable going forward.

WORKSHOP QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

This month, the team has been working hard on some significant quality-of-life changes to the Rust Workshop.

Although many of these changes are designed to make community skin artists' lives a little easier, they should also improve the visual quality of many in-game items!

We've added previously missing Ambient Occlusion and Specular maps to all skinnable weapons, clothing, and deployables. These will automatically apply to existing skins that do not include their own custom textures for these map slots.

We’ve also fixed the downloadable meshes in the Workshop so they now have correct position, scale, and rotation, along with more sensible pivots!

A bunch of weapon-related issues have been resolved, including UV fixes on third-person models, properly displaying arrows on bows and crossbows, and adding third-person sights to the Double Barrel Shotgun.

The Wood Storage Box and Large Wood Box now support transparency for interiors. We can't wait to see what the community comes up with here!

We've also made a raft of improvements to the Workshop scene, including fixing items disappearing at a distance, implementing Time-of-Day pause and Skybox Rotate functionality, and — for the extremely adept skin artists — fixing an issue where

DEPLOYABLE DEBRIS

A selection of deployable objects in your base will now leave behind a destroyed version when killed in the softcore game mode, allowing you to repair them to quickly get your base back up and running after a raid.

When destroyed, these objects will drop 50% of their contents, the other 50% will be stored inside and accessible only by the player owners.

If the deployable is destroyed due to losing its ground, it will fall to the nearest position and won't be repairable on the spot. You can still pick it up with a hammer and repair it later at a repair bench.

This new behaviour is enabled on:

• Large Wooden Box

• Storage Barrels

• Small Wooden Box

• Coffin

• Small Furnace

• Electric Furnace

• Locker

• Tool Cupboard

• Fridge

• Vending Machine

• All Workbenches

In the case of Tool Cupboards, the destroyed version will still provide building authorization in it's normal radius for 48 hours and can only be repaired by players that were authorized on it.

Whilst this feature is only applied to the softcore game mode, it's a bit of an experiment, and we may bring it over to the vanilla game in future.

RESPAWN CHANGES

The Reclaim Terminal at Outpost has been removed, and we don’t think you’ll miss it.

In Softcore, if you die outside of a building privilege radius, you’ll now respawn with 50% of your inventory automatically. No more sprinting to Outpost, hoping your stuff didn’t get looted, and waiting around to reclaim your bits and pieces. The system is now faster, cleaner, and more forgiving.

We’ve also improved how that 50% is calculated. Previously, it would just grab half of your item stacks, meaning you could end up keeping full stacks of low-value junk while losing all your meds or ammo. Now, it does what you'd expect: you keep 50% of your total count for stackables, which makes the whole thing a lot fairer and more predictable.

This change should help reduce the friction after dying in the field while keeping the Softcore experience accessible for players who are still learning the ropes—or just trying to get back on their feet.

UPKEEP TAX CHANGES

Softcore mode has higher upkeep rates for doors to discourage massive sprawling bases and encourage more raiding. Building blocks are unchanged.

The difference is pretty significant: the average large base will now see door upkeep around 90%, compared to 30% in vanilla. Smaller, tighter bases won’t feel this as much, but sprawling honeycomb bunkers stuffed with doors will now come with a proper maintenance bill.

The aim here is to discourage door mazes that sit untouched for weeks and make raiding more viable, even if you’re not rolling with a full zerg. You’ll still need to defend your loot, but you might have to think twice before slapping down that 38th garage door “just in case.”

PVP DAMAGE

Softcore mode has always been about giving newer or more casual players a gentler way to ease into the brutality of Rust. With that in mind, we’ve made a change that should make early PvP feel a little less punishing: bullet damage from one player to another has been reduced by 25% in Softcore.

The goal here is simple - give fights more breathing room. Instead of being instantly downed the moment someone spots you with a semi, you’ll have a bit more time to react, reposition, or even fight back. We want to encourage longer, scrappier engagements where you actually get to play the fight, not just die in it.

SLEEPING BAG CHANGES

Sleeping Bags/Towels/Beds will now function slightly differently in softcore mode. When destroyed, they will be replaced with a new destroyed version that will still allow the player to respawn at that point one last time.

Once you respawn the bag will be destroyed. Bags in this state have a little skull icon next to them on the map/respawn screen.

ADOBE WALL AND GATE

This month, we’re introducing the Adobe external wall and gate skin pack, now available from the Rust store. The Adobe external wall and gate skin pack allows you to change the visuals of your external walls and gates.

You can use the Spray Can item to reskin your external walls.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Fridge Changes

Bota Bags and Honeycomb can now be placed in Fridges

Easy Rug Deployment

Can now place rugs under already placed deployables

Crossbow & Turret Arrows

All Crossbows and Bow Turrets now show if they're loaded + the type of arrow to other players

More Unique Impact Details

More impact details are now rotated, and scaled randomly to increase uniqueness

Hanging Banner

Hanging banner can now be placed at a greater distance allowing ease of placement

Pole Banner

The pole banner can now be placed on construction

BEE SYSTEM BALANCE & IMPROVEMENTS

A number of changes are now being rolled out to the Bee System to help balance and improve the overall experience. I'll start with the most important and work down.

Bee Swarms

• Now takes all clothing protection into consideration: This means that when the Bees sting you their damage is reduced according to all of your clothing, just like damage from any other sources. Hazmat suits still block all damage that comes from Bees.

• Swarms no longer directly stack on top of each other: When attacking someone with Bee Swarms you could pile on Bee Swarms and each Swarm would do its own damage. This meant 10 Bee Swarms would do 10x damage. Bee Swarms now do less and less damage with each swarm piled on top.

Beehives

• Adjustments: Beehives were creating too much Honeycomb in the Temperate Biome, this has now been rebalanced.

• Hostile Environments: Beehives now work properly in hostile environments. Remember to use heaters in the snow!

• Is Producing Honeycomb: Due to the slow fill up of the nucleus status bar: it was hard to know if your hive was producing Honeycomb or not. There's now an indicator at the bottom to make it more clear.

• Temperature Readout: it was hard to see what the temperature bar meant. It's now possible to see exactly what temperature is being read out. This should hopefully make it a bit more clear.

A bunch of bug fixes and hardening of the Bee System rolls out with this patch. Hopefully everything is a bit more snappy.

I hope you have all been having fun with the Bees!

AREA OF EFFECT VOLUMES

In Rust it was always difficult to know what range a Sprinkler or Heater had.

This change provides some visualisation for area of effects. This means you can see the area of effect of a Sprinkler, Heater, Shotgun Trap, Flame Turret, Igniter, Various Sensors etc.

This volume only gives a rough outline of where the object will affect and not exactly what objects will be affected, but it's a great start. As with anything: this can be disabled in the settings if you don't like it, and is entirely optional.

ABYSS PACK - NEW SUNKEN KNIFE

August 2023's Abyss Pack has been updated to now include a new free item!

The Sunken Knife is a new addition that follows in the aesthetic of the rest of the damaged deep-water items found in the abyss. But don't worry, despite it's corrded form, it still functions fully as a sharp close combat weapon.

If you already own the Abyss Pack, the new Sunken Knife skin will automatically be added as a skin option for the Combat Knife.

You can get the pack on the Steam Item Store.

For more information and all media, head (https://rust.facepunch.com/skins/abyss).

PREMIUM SERVER UPDATE

It’s been just a few weeks since we launched Premium Servers, and we’re happy to report they’ve been a solid win.

The goal was simple: create a more secure environment with less cheating by requiring a minimum $15 Steam inventory to join. So far, the results speak for themselves. According to our internal review, players on Premium Servers encounter cheaters around four times less often than those on regular servers.

Even with fewer Premium Servers running, their populations have stayed healthy, especially outside of peak hours, where they’ve occasionally outpaced non-premium servers.

We’ll continue monitoring how these servers evolve and may adjust thresholds or requirements over time, but for now, we’re calling this launch a success. Thanks to everyone who jumped in early and helped make it work.

If you're looking for a better experience, I highly recommend sticking with Premium.

LINUX DEDICATED SERVER UPDATE

Last September we announced that we will have to retire dedicated server support for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18 soon. This change is now around the corner, so this is one last warning to all server owners and hosting providers to update their infrastructure accordingly. Our new minimum requirements will be Debian 11 / Ubuntu 20.

CREATIVE MODE: NO FUEL/ALWAYS ON

I've added a way to make all fuel sources such as furnaces, candles, etc, work without fuel in creative mode.

The following new commands can be used to toggle it for individual entity instances:

• toggleAlwaysOnAll <true/false> - Toggles the mode for all supported entities on a server (admin only)

• toggleAlwaysOn <true/false> - Toggles the mode for the entity you are currently looking at

• toggleAlwaysOnRadius <true/false> - Toggles the mode for all entities in specified radius

All these commands and features require creative mode to be enabled for the player or all players.

I've also added the creative.AlwaysOnEnabled convar which needs to be enabled for the whole thing to work.

When in this mode, some new item specific features help make the process smoother, such as torch holders spawning a torch item if the commands are used on empty torch holders and other items such as the candle now don't use up durability and can run forever.

HACKERONE BUG BOUNTY PROGRAM

We've been testing (https://www.hackerone.com/) for a good while now and have had some good experiences with it. For those that don't know, Hackerone allows reporting security vulnerabilities and exploits in exchange for a bug bounty as a win-win for both us and whoever submitted the report. In order to make this easier going forward, we've set up a dedicated security page on our website that makes submitting reports extremely easy, secure and straightforward. If you or someone you know are aware of something that fits our bug bounty program rules as laid out on our security page, please don't hesitate to submit a report via the link above.

DISCORD SOCIAL INTEGRATION REWARD

In February, we rolled out a social integration layer to Rust, no more alt-tabbing - you can view, chat, invite, and add friends, all from right inside the game, all through Discord.

The feedback for this has been fantastic and now we've partnered with Discord to provide players that sync their accounts with a reward - a Discord Trophy that is craftable and deployable in-game!

Not linked your accounts yet? Head in game and sync your Steam and Discord friend with ease, right from the main menu!

JUNGLE UPDATE TEASER

The Jungle Update is coming and approaching final development stages, and with it comes a brand new biome, new early-game weapons, and a whole cast of deadly new wildlife including crocodiles, snakes, and more.

We’re planning to kick off public testing early this month, so if you’re eager to get a first look (or first bite), keep an eye on our socials and Discord announcements for when testing begins. We'd love to hear your feedback.

COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS OVERRULE

Some server command-line arguments weren’t being applied correctly if conflicting values were already saved in server.cfg.

We’ve now updated the server bootstrap process to reload command-line arguments after loading server.cfg, ensuring that command-line values always take precedence.

If you're a server owner and running Rust on Linux or using a third-party server manager like Pterodactyl, we recommend reviewing your setup to make sure everything is working as expected.

EASTER

On April 10th at 19:00 BST we'll be releasing an optional update to enable this years Easter events and releasing the Horse costume.

During the Easter event every 24-38 hours in-game hours an Easter egg hunt will begin. You'll have 3 minutes to collect as many eggs as you can. The top 3 players are given special eggs as a reward. These eggs can be cracked open for various types of loot ranging from scrap all the way up to an M249!

Today at 19:00 UTC, we're issuing a mandatory update - We are rolling out Premium Servers, an experimental way to filter out cheat users and create a better experience for legit players.

To access Premium Servers, your Rust Steam inventory must be valued at $15 or more. This includes items from the Permanent Item Store, such as building skins, décor packs, and hazmat skins, as well as any other tradable Rust items with an attached value. Currently we do not include Rust's standalone DLC such as Instruments, Sunburn and Voice Props packs (this may change in future).

We initially communicated a $20 threshold, but after analysing data from millions of accounts, we've settled on $15 as a more effective starting point. This is based on a comparison of banned accounts versus regular players, aiming to strike a balance between accessibility and cheat deterrence, although opting on the lower end.

• Premium Servers will only be visible if your account meets the $15 threshold.

• Premium Servers will show a Premium (and clickable) Tag to provide details about eligibility.

• This won’t stop every cheat user, but it’s an extra layer of friction against disposable cheat accounts.

• Server owners can opt-in by enabling the following convar: "server.premium 1"

• The $15 threshold may change over time, and we may introduce additional factors to refine premium status.

• Depending on Steam traffic, brand new purchases may take up to 20 minutes to reflect onto the Premium Server authorization.

• You can manually refresh or check your premium status by going to the server listings, clicking the premium server tag and clicking the refresh icon.

• If you have premium status, it'll display on your avatar on the menu menu

If we encounter any abuse or exploitation of Premium servers or the market, user accounts will be banned. All trades of Rust skins are logged.

SERVERS

There are currently several new freshly wiped official premium servers going live today at 19:00 UTC.

To connect to these servers, you'll find them in the official server list or connect directly from the mainmenu, open the console by pressing F1 and typing "connect" followed by the IP or endpoint. For example, "connect eupremium.rustopia.gg" or "connect 79.137.98.213:28015"

MONTHLY MAP WIPES:

EU Facepunch

• EU Premium 1 - 79.137.98.213:28015

• EU Premium 2 - 79.137.98.146:28015

• EU Premium Small 1 - 79.137.98.146:28020

• EU Premium 3 - 79.137.98.117:28015

• EU Premium 4 - 79.137.98.117:28020

EU East Facepunch

• EU East Premium 1 - 57.128.211.55:28015

• EU East Premium 2 - 57.128.211.53:28015

• EU East Premium Small 1 - 57.128.211.53:28020

• EU East Premium 3 - 57.128.211.54:28015

• EU East Premium 4 - 57.128.211.54:28020

US West Facepunch

• US West Premium 1 - 148.113.198.88:28015

• US West Premium 2 - 148.113.198.86:28015

• US West Premium Small 1 148.113.198.86:28020

• US West Premium 3 - 148.113.198.87:28015

• US West Premium 4 - 148.113.198.87:28020

US East Facepunch

• US East Premium 1 - 40.160.19.6:28015

• US East Premium 2 - 40.160.19.218:28015

• US East Premium Small 1 - 40.160.19.218:28020

• US East Premium 3 - 40.160.19.217:28015

• US East Premium 4 - 40.160.19.217:28020

WEEKLY MAP WIPES:

US Community Officials

• us-medium.rusticated.com:28010

• us.premium.rplayrust.com

• main.us-premium.moose.gg

EU Community Officials

• eu-medium.rusticated.com:28010

• eupremium.rustopia.gg

AU/Asia Community Officials

• aupremium.rustafied.com

• premium.rustoria.asia

Community-run officials may have their own separate blueprint wipe schedules. We recommend seeking out their individual discords/website for specifics.

LOOKING AHEAD

We will stress, this is an experiment, and we’ll be closely monitoring its impact. We will know more in the upcoming months if this is something we can expand upon and refine.

We will also take this opportunity to also encourage everyone to set up and use Steam's mobile authenticator. It both protects your account from intruders, and also allows quicker Steam/Rust skin trades among friends.

COOKING WORKBENCH

The cooking workbench is a new deployable that allows you to cook up some new food recipes. Mixing table recipes can also be crafted here.

Many of the new items unlocked by the cooking workbench offer stat and modifier bonuses, so give them a taste!

Cooking food now has a visual model on all cooking deployables and cooks in real time.

CHICKEN COOP

The Chicken Coop is a new deployable that lets you hatch and care for your own flock of Chickens. To get started, you’ll need to find an Egg from a chicken in the wild. Wild chickens have a chance to drop an egg every minute as long as a player is nearby.

Once you have an egg and build your coop, you can insert the egg and use the “Hatch” button to grow your first chicken. Each chicken has 4 stats - Hunger, Thirst, Love and Sunlight. HUnger and Thirst are pretty self explanatory, chickens will eat and drink from the item slots in the Chicken Coop. Love is satisfied by giving the chickens a little pat on the head every now and then, while Sunlight will be satisfied as long as your chicken coop is exposed to the sun. If these needs are met your chickens will gain health, whereas if they are neglected chickens will slowly start losing health and eventually dying.

If your chickens are happy, they will start laying eggs in the Chicken Coop periodically.

FOOD SPOILING

Meat based food items can now spoil over time, meaning you will need to store them in a Fridge or cook them before they become unusable. Raw meat will spoil after 6 hours, while cooked meat will spoil after 24 hours. The timer is reset when the meat is cooked and will be paused entirely as long as the meat is in a powered fridge.

Any item that can spoil will have a timer on its item information panel that tells you how long you have, as well as showing an icon if the item is being refrigerated and not in danger of spoiling.

TRIANGLE PLANTER

To maximise the space in your farms, we’re releasing a new version of the planter that can fit on a triangle foundation or floor piece. You can plant 4 seeds in it at once and it has the same max soil saturation as the small planter (3000).

We’ve also added a matching Railroad version of the planter that will be unlocked for owners of the Frontier DLC pack. To better support planter skins we’ve made the existing Railroad planter and the new Triangle version proper skins, so they won’t appear as standalone items in the crafting menu and will be compatible with the Spray Can.

BEES

Bees are useful to players in a number of ways. They can be farmed or turned into weapons.

Natural Beehives

First: you have to find a Beehive in the wild. They have a chance to create a home on an Oak Tree.

Next comes the harvesting, but don't expect them to take it lying down, once you destroy a hive the Bees will come. They can be a formidable opponent and can be countered by wearing a Hazmat Suit, throwing water over yourself, using a Flamethrower or using a Torch or another source of fire to prevent their attacks.

After collecting some Honeycomb: Extract the honey from it in your inventory. Honey is useful in a number of cooking recipies, as well as a food in its own right. It can also be sold to Bandit Camp for some extra scrap.

Beehive

When creating honey there is a chance for a Beehive Nucleus to spawn. This is required for our next item: The Beehive.

This is a player placed deployable that allows you to make Honeycomb. Place your Nucleus inside. Each Nucleus will slowly level up, going from Grade 3 -> Grade 1. Grade 1 Honeycomb is the best, and will net players the most Honeycomb over time. Remember your Hazmat Suit whilst you're harvesting the Comb!

Beehives have a few stats you need to manage:

**Being Outside, Humidity and Temperature. **

• Beehives like to be Outside: this means that they have a few open air walls around them.

• They don't like it when it rains: so keep them under shelter or have a fire running nearby,

• They are fussy with temperature. Ensure you build in more Temperate areas or use heaters.

Bee Grenade

Finally: We have the Bee Grenade. This is a new weapon that lets you create pesky Bee Swarms on demand.

These thrown Swarms will slowly create up to 3 smaller Swarms to attack players in a nearby radius and operate the same as the Natural Beehive Swarms. Use a source of fire, water, wear a hazmat suit or run like the wind to get away.

PIES

Finally!

There's a whole batch of new pie recipes ready to be cooked and devoured!

Each different pie has a unique stat or modifier bonus, so give them all a taste and find your favourite.

ENGINEERING WORKBENCH

We're adding a brand new Engineering Workbench, a dedicated tech tree for water, electricity, and industrial systems. If you've ever wanted to take your base automation to the next level, this one's for you.

The Engineering Workbench unlocks at Workbench Level 1, giving early access to basic circuits, water management, and industrial setups.

As you progress, you'll be able to research and craft more advanced components, making it easier to set up automated factories, efficient electrical grids, and complex water systems.

QOL CHANGES

Drones Drone range increased to 600m from 300m and HP doubled.

Wood Armor Reduced crafting cost of wooden Armor

Meat's Back On The Menu All meat models have been replaced and many icons updated.

Hide genetic info Can now hide genetic info when looking at plants

Crafting Times Over 40 items have received a reduction in crafting times

Neon Signs Power Neon signs power usage halved

PREMIUM SERVERS

Next week, we'll be rolling out Premium Servers, an experimental way to filter out cheat users and create a better experience for legit players.

To access Premium Servers, your Rust Steam inventory must be valued at $15 or more. This includes items from the Permanent Store, such as building skins, décor packs, and hazmat skins, as well as any other tradable Rust items with an attached value. Currently we do not include Rust's standalone DLC such as Instruments, Sunburn and voice props packs (this may change in future).

We initially communicated a $20 threshold, but after analysing data from millions of accounts, we've settled on $15 as a more effective starting point. This is based on a comparison of banned accounts versus regular players, aiming to strike a balance between accessibility and cheat deterrence, although opting on the lower end.

• Premium Servers will only be visible if your account meets the $15 threshold.

• Premium Servers will be ranked higher on the server listings against their non Premium server counterparts.

• This won’t stop every cheat user, but it’s an extra layer of friction against disposable cheat accounts.

• Server owners can opt-in by enabling the following convar: server.premium.

• The $15 threshold may change over time, and we may introduce additional factors to refine premium status.

I'd stress, this is an experiment, and we’ll be closely monitoring its impact. If you meet the requirements, you’ll see Premium Servers available in your list. If not, time to upgrade that inventory

Premium Servers will go live, Thursday, March 13th.

HOPPER

The Hopper is a new attachment that can be attached to a Large Wood Box or the Storage Barrels. When powered, this will suck up any dropped items in a small radius around the Hopper and deposit those items in the box. It also acts as a storage adaptor so you can connect industrial pipes directly to the box without needing an extra adaptor.

If a player or animal is killed while in range of the Hopper it will be sucked up and harvested, with the resulting meat, bones, animal fat, etc, deposited in the box.

If a backpack is dropped in range of the Hopper it will be sucked up and unpacked.

All of the above interactions require the Hopper to be able to see the item/corpse and not be obstructed by building blocks.

ITEM OWNERSHIP

Items now show the name of the player who created the item and how it was made when hovered over. This information allows you to piece together the story of where each item came from... or brag that you stole every weapon someone crafted!

Unlike the original version released back in the XP system, this version has a number of simplifications. Only unstackable items support ownership and there can only be a single owner per item. Items will retain the original ownership no matter how many times they change hands.

ARMOR SLOTS

Several pieces of player crafted armor can now have armor slots . Armor inserts can be placed into these slots. There are several different types of armor inserts available, each providing different bonuses.

Armor items can have 1-3 slots and you can mix and match the inserts that you choose to insert.

Only player crafted armor can have slots. The number of slots an item has is randomised during crafting. You can increase your chances of crafting a piece with more slots by drinking a new Crafting Quality Potion.

COSMETIC FLOWERS

Roses, orchids and sunflowers can now be found in the wild, picked and planted back at home. These flowers are cosmetic only and are not used in crafting.

There's also a new plant pot item, for all your gardening needs.

TEMPERATURE TEAS

The new cooling and warming teas can help make your life as a survivor much more comfortable.

Specially brewed to help fight the elements, they offer some much needed protection against the harsh environmental conditions found in Rust.

BREAD & WHEAT

This month we have add in a brand new food item; Bread!

Alongside this we have also included wheat plants for players to collect and grow themselves to be used in the baking of bread.

TRAIN TUNNEL ALTITUDE

We've moved the underground train tunnels further up, closer to the terrain surface, in order to reduce the length of the elevators, staircases and rail transitions and make it significantly faster and easier to travel between the above ground world and the below ground world.

To achieve this we raised the underwater terrain in any areas where the train tunnels are close to the surface, while leaving it low in all other areas.

We've tested a lot of seeds to make sure we're not introducing any issues with this, but it's a big change that affects many aspects of the world generation, so we can never be 100% certain. If you notice any areas where the triggers from the underground train tunnels stick out of the terrain or any areas in the underground train tunnels where cliffs or rocks stick into the underground train tunnels, please report this together with a seed and the position on the map.

PLAYER SERVER OCCLUSION

As part of our ongoing anticheat efforts we did our initial rollout of our player server occlusion system to official servers where we identified a few major issues that have since been resolved.

We are now in a position where we can confidently say the system is both functional and stable, and we can look forward to additional optimisations and improvements. As we continue to improve and iterate on this system we will continue to hinder the effectiveness of cheaters, primarily those using wallhacks (ESP), and while we fully acknowledge this is only one piece of the puzzle we believe it is a big piece.

Optimisations and Improvements

We have some notable changes in testing that we expect to launch on wipe or in a follow-up server update, these include:

• Rocks and cliffs will be included as part of our occlusion grid bake, this will improve the overall effectiveness of the system and help mitigate those cheaters getting that edge

• Optimisations to our line algorithm that we use to calculate the visibility between two players (which should boast notable performance improvements, especially on servers with larger player counts)

• (For server owners) The occlusion grid generated on server startup will now be saved to a file, this results in faster subsequent startups as loading the grid from a file takes a fraction of a second compared to the minute(s) it can take to generate the grid

Future Plans

This is just the start of our server-based networking occlusion goals as we continue to strive to ensure we maintain a fair and competitive environment for all players. We will be exploring more changes as the year progresses and you may see:

• Enabling player server occlusion on all servers by default (server owners can optionally disable)

• Applying culling to players within monuments

• Applying culling to players and entities contained within player bases

GRAPHICS MENU UPDATE

The graphics menu has received an update, bringing a bunch of new preset quality levels and even a few new options.

It's worth mentioning that there is no performance gain or loss as a result of these changes, they simply move us away from having to use the built in Unity quality settings.

Several new options have been exposed and some pre-existing convar-only options have been added to the UI. It's also now much easier to quickly change between quality levels using the presets.

SERVER PROFILER IMPROVEMENTS

Memory Tracking Improvements

Original Server Profiler released with barebones memory tracking support. I've spent a bit of time this month to expand it out to make it easier for server owners to diagnose problems with memory in either their mods or our systems.

• Increased the amount of info gathered for allocation events - the type, the size and what was the method in which allocation has happened.

• Profiler gathers whole-process working memory (how much memory is actively in use) and virtual memory set (how much memory OS allows to page out). See (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/psapi/ns-psapi-process_memory_counters_ex)/(https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages//man5/proc_pid_statm.5.html) docs for specifics.

• Server Profiler emits a graph and allocation track per thread. Those can be matched by the name

• Main Thread graph resets every frame

• Server Profiler duplicates allocation events onto the Thread Execution track - this makes it easier to track down where memory consumption is coming from

I've been using this internally and it has allowed me to identify a couple problem spots worth fixing. I hope this will be useful for server owners.

Validated Linux Support

During the "Primitive" dev-blog I mentioned that Server Profiler should be able to run on most Linux distributions. Above memory changes caused profiler to need specific versions of runtime libraries, which are not available on every Linux distro. We've downgraded our build environment, and confirmed that the following distributions should work:

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and onwards

• Debian 12 and onwards

Other distros should work as well, but I haven't tested them directly. They should work if they have GlibC 2.14 or more recent versions available.

As a note, if the Server Profiler can't start for what-ever reason then it'll just report an issue and let the server run as normal - no need to rush update your Linux environment if you don't need Server Profiler.

Public Testing Feedback

The new version of the Server Profiler has been trialled out by a number of server owners, ranging from low pop unmodded to high pop modded servers. They've shared that the 500+ population servers are able to run with Server Profiler in the background(not actively recording) without performance degradation.

From this public tests I've also got reports of Server Profiler failing to generate snapshots on high-pop servers from time to time - the patch fixes this issue.

Future Plans

I think Server Profiler has reached a good point where it's features allow for basic investigation work. So I'd like to explore how can we make it more useful in general. I'd like to:

• Explore lifting 10 frame limit for snapshots (risky, as it can eat a lot of memory)

• Explore continuous profiling mode - right now if there's an issue we need to manually catch it via RCon. But ideally the server should be able to track it's own state, and in case something abnormal is detected, it should automatically produce the record with vital info.

• Expose method annotation filters, so server owners/modders can focus on areas they care about

SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS, PART 1

Network Message Leak

As part of public testing of the Server Profiler's memory tracking, a high-pop community server has shared their performance snapshot during a "memory leak" scenario. The graph at the bottom revealed that our thread for decrypting messages suddenly started to allocate quite a lot - at a rate of about 10 MB/second

PRIMITIVE GAMEMODE

The early game of Rust can be the most exciting, unfortunately players rush to fully automatic rifles as fast as possible to get an edge over their enemies. What if the early game could last forever....?

The primitive mode brings us to a distant future where the knowledge of high tech items have been lost, leaving the inhabitants of the island only able to make basic items.

The following changes apply to the primitive game mode.

Allowed Weapons

• Melee

• Bow, Compound Bow, Crossbow, Mini Crossbow

• Speargun

• Eoka

• Beancan Grenade, Molotov

• Flashlight Attachment

• Shields

Restricted Armor

• Removed Facemask

• Removed Metal Chest Plate

Resources Changes

• Less Sulfur Nodes Spawn (50%)

• Increased Tech Tree Tax (2x)

Loot Changes

• Jackhammer & Chainsaw (loot only)

• New travelling vendor trades

Raiding Changes

• Removed All Rockets & C4

• Removed MLRS

Building Changes

• Removed Metal Building Grade

• Removed Armored Building Grade

• Removed Armored Doors

• Removed C4, Rockets & Explosive ammo

World Modifications

• Removed Monuments (Oil Rig, Missile Silo, Excavator, Underwater Labs)

• Removed Underground Train System

• Removed Scientist NPCs (vendors remain)

• Disabled Patrol Heli Event

• Disabled Cargo Ship Event

• Disabled Bradley APC

• Increased Wild Horse Spawns (2x)

Travel Changes

• Removed Helicopters (Minicopter, Scrap Transport Helicopter, Attack Helicopter)

SIEGE WEAPONS

Introducing 4 new vehicles: the siege weapons!

Designed for early game raiding, they're all craftable and deployable in the wilds. A great addition to your raiding and grubbing arsenal.

In addition to the cost to craft, building them will require extra materials and a hammer

They are both available in the primitive and vanilla game modes, from the workbench level 2.

CATAPULT

The catapult is capable of launching powerful projectiles with a large impact radius.

It comes with 3 new ammunition items:

• Scattershot: multiple rocks in a spread

• Firebomb: ignites on impact, spreading flames

• Propane Explosive Bomb: high-damage explosives, damages construction

It can also launch players. Use at your own risk.

CATAPULT AMMO

You can also use the Firebomb and Propane bombs as a deployable raiding tool. Once deployed they will start to spark when they take any damage and explode after several seconds. When used in this way bombs will do less damage.

SIEGE TOWER

The Siege Tower provides a new way to get into compounds, high open windows or help with a raid. As the heaviest Siege Weapon, these towers lack some mobility, but make up for it in strength. Like the other Siege Weapons: The Siege Tower can be towed by a horse, or pushed to get it into position.

Each tower is 3 levels tall, with a drawbridge on each level. Use the drawbridge to provide some protection as you assault a base.

Each tower can have a door placed at the bottom for an added layer of security.

BATTERING RAM

The battering ram is a heavy fuel-powered vehicle you can drive around. Its reinforced arm can be used to destroy wooden and stone constructions

The ram takes damage with each hit and will need high-quality metal to stay operational.

BALLISTA

The ballista is a massive, wheeled crossbow designed for long-range combat. It can be deployed on terrain and towed by horses.

It can fire 4 new bolt items:

• Pitchfork Bolt: large sweeping projectile

• Piercer Bolt: penetrates armored vehicles

• Hammerhead Bolt: heavy and solid, deals damage to doors

• Incendiary Bolt: ignites on impact, spreading flames

A stationary version is also available, which can be deployed within your base for defensive use.

SHIELDS

Shields are a new backpack slot item that allows you handle frontal threats with ease. Simply equip the shield in your backpack slot and equip a compatible single handed weapon and the shield will automatically appear.

While holding a shield it takes over the function of RMB, so you won’t be able to aim down sights or throw weapons. Instead holding RMB will raise the shield in front of you, giving you more protection at the cost of reduced visibility and not being able to sprint.

You can only hold a Shield up for 4 seconds before having to put it back down, this is shown via a small progress bar near the crosshair (similar to the Compound Bow).

There are 3 shield variants, each with a different damage block amount. This amount is the percentage of damage that the shield absorbs from any incoming attack, the remaining portion will be received by the player holding the shield. While equipped you’ll see a new shield durability bar appear above your health bar, any damage a shield takes is applied to its durability and once broken the shield will be unequipped.

Items that are compatible with shields will mention this on their item information panel when selected.

When not in use Shields will appear on your back, note that while they are on your back they provide no protection. You will need to equip the shield in order to block any attacks.

4 SHOT MINI CROSSBOW

In the spirit of a primitive mode, we wanted to add another arrow weapon. The Mini Crossbow is a fresh take on the Crossbow. Providing 4 shots in a rotating barrel, at the cost of some damage and range.

The Mini Crossbow will not only be a great addition to the base game, but also the new primitive gamemode.

HORSES

Horses have been completely overhauled and should feel much better to play with.

• They can now traverse most terrain types and monuments

• New movement mechanics allow them to skid by pressing CTRL when galloping

• They can swim, auto-avoid trees and be pulled when led

Horses can also tow siege weapons, including the catapult, siege tower, and ballista.

Additionally, their impact on server performance has been massively improved.

MEDIEVAL PACK DLC

This month, we’re introducing the new Medieval Pack DLC - a themed collection featuring 8 new items and skins consisting of the new Medieval Barricade, Knights Armour clothing skins, Medieval Large Wood Box skin, the Medieval Assault Rifle skin and Medieval skins for the Sheet Metal Door and Double Doors.

The pack can be purchased from the Rust Steam item store.

Knight Armour Set

Arise a brave Knight with these chivalric skins for the Coffeecan Helmet, Roadsign Jacket and Roadsign Kilt.

Medieval Barricade

Lay down this barricade to stave off the most ardent attackers, or augment the battlefield with its unique middle-age-themed visuals. Note that you will need to know the Barbed Wooden Barricade blueprint to craft this.

Medieval Assault Rifle

Kingmaker or Kingslayer - you call the shots with this resplendent relic.

Medieval Large Wooden Box

Every Lord needs a sturdy coffer to store their spoils of war. Look no further than this stalwart companion.

Medieval Sheet Metal Door & Double Door

Survey your lands from behind these imposing castle doors, uniquely adorned with spikes to keep the p̶e̶a̶s̶a̶n̶t̶s nakeds out.

The pack can be purchased from the Rust Steam item store.

RAGDOLLS

Temporary player ragdolling has been added for bikes and horses.

Taking large amounts of collision damage on bikes and horses will result in the player being flung from their seat and eventually getting back up (assuming they haven't died in the process). Players can also be flung from the saddle of a horse if it's had too much airtime or has slid too far. Horses will ragdoll in these cases as well.

If you're unlucky enough to be used as ammunition for a catapult, you'll also ragdoll and are guaranteed to die on impact.

Collision damage on bikes has been re-balanced with ragdolls in mind, with the aim of making it less likely to instantly die from hitting obstacles on a bike.

FIRST PERSON ADMIN ESP

We've been slowly building up the feature set of our admin ESP system over the years, mostly due to the demands of various streaming events. This was restricted to using the debug/flying camera, it will now work as expected while in first person perspective spectating. Many server admins have asked for this to have better situational awareness while spectating players.

It uses the same convars as the normal ESP system so you shouldn't need to do anything new. All of the existing convars will apply, this includes:

• ESPCanvas.MaxNameplates

• ESPCanvas.OverrideMaxDisplayDistance

• ESPCanvas.DisableOcclusionChecks

• ESPCanvas.ShowHealth

• ESPCanvas.ColourCodeTeams

• ESPCanvas.UseRandomTeamColours

• ESPCanvas.DisplayDistanceMultiplier

If there are further improvements that would help in live spectating, please let us know!

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Pickup sleeping bags Players can now pick up any sleeping bag as long they are in TC range

IO Reskinning Can now reskin IO deployables with the spray can without disconnecting it entirely

Phone names Phones can now have names up to 30 characters long

Pumpkin Rolling Dropped pumpkins no longer roll indefinitely

Backpacks on Weapon Racks Backpacks and shields can now be used with weapon racks.

SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS

We're rolling out a social integration layer to Rust this month, no more messing around with overlays or alt-tabbing - you can now view, chat, invite, and add friends, all from right inside the game.

Your Steam friends list will automatically sync up in-game. No setup required. Prefer using Discord? No problem! All you need to do is link your account, and your Discord friends will be right there, ready to connect. This way, you’ve got the best of both worlds.

Give it a try, and as always, let us know what you think.

TWITCH DROPS - HOME BREWED 2

Twitch Drops are back!

And from more of our favourite creators on the rise that you should definitely start to recognize!

Be sure to sync up at to claim your Drops after watching these fantastic creators on Twitch.

SERVER PROFILER - LINUX & REDUCED OVERHEAD

TL;DR - Shipping Linux binary; Server profiler should have less impact when idle and recording by gathering less data; if it fails to generate a snapshot, you can now export a debug binary snapshot and share it with us.

Linux Support

This update will contain a library built for Linux environment. The library is a native recorder, so the interface (the "perfsnapshot" command) works the same.

The library has been built on Ubuntu 24.04.1 via GCC 13.3 in C++20 mode and it depends on POSIX utilities (dlopen, dlsym) - so it should be accessible everywhere.

Profiler Overhead

Since the first release of our internal profiler, we got the opportunity to test it in the real world conditions. My first tests were rough (could only capture 1-2 frames worth of data before ballooning to multiple gigabytes of data) and I got feedback from number of server owners that not only it doesn't produce snapshots in some situations, it also has idle overhead - just enabling profiler can have a 5-10fps on a high-pop server.

I've spent some time this update cycle to to reduce this overhead, as in the current conditions it severely reduces the benefit we can get out of the tool. I've tackled it from a couple angles:

Reduced how much Code we capture

The profiler works by annotating every code method that it encounters, wrapping it in a set of calls that dispatch to different Mono profilers. Comparatively, for complex and expensive methods these call are unnoticeable, but for small utility functions that do a trivial thing (change a bool, set a bit, append to a list, etc) the dispatching calls add massive overhead (we're talking 10x+ the cost of the utility function). Lastly, these dispatching calls are cheaper when the profiler is enabled, but not capturing - but they are still not free.

Originally I set up a number of annotation filters to exclude some known and safe code (stuff from System.Collections.Generic namespace, for example), but it still left a lot of "fat" that we could trim. Here's the before and after of the changes affecting our player processing loop:

As you can see there's much less of nested calls(reduced verticality), and instant calls (triangles, they take less than Perfetto is able to track) appear much earlier.

This update we no longer capture:

• Hash functions

• Casting & comparison operators

• Property getters

• UnityEngine.CoreModule related code

• Enumerators

• Anything Math related

• Our internal collections (like BufferList)

• Serialization code

There's more, but hopefully you see the principle behind the choice - anything small, trivial or reliable gets ignored.

This allowed us to massively reduce the amount of data we generate during capture - on staging server, we used to generate about 17MB of json per player, after these changes it's gone down to ~0.5MB of json per player. This should also reduce the "idle" overhead, since there's much less "dispatch code" that's scattered around.

Improved json generation logic

One of the quirks that we have to deal with profiler-gathered data is that it doesn't know where the frame begins and ends - it's just a stream of "method enter/exit" records + "frame end" record that happens somewhere deep in the managed callstack. And since we want to display the data in a per-frame organized matter, we need to scan this stream to figure out how to partition all records.

Originally I implemented a less-efficient version of this because I assumed that there wouldn't be too much data to overwhlem this process. Since the previous section showed that I was wrong on the scale of data, I've also spent a bit of time to improve the export process - we now only need 2 whole-data-set scans to figure out frame grouping, instead of 3 originally, so using napkin-math, this gives us 33% export speedup.

Additionally, I've received reports that profiler can fail to generate snapshots. There are a couple scenarios in the above frame-reconstruction logic that can cause it to fail, so for these cases I've added the option to dump a binary debug snapshot - just run "perfsnapshot 1", and you should see a ".bin.gz" in "/server//profiler/" folder. I'll be able to inspect it in our internal tool to see what am I missing:

Future Plans

I've been using this tool on the daily to inspect the state of our Staging servers, and I'm hoping to do the same with our medium and high-pop release servers as well. To squeeze out the most, there are additional improvements that I'd like to pursue when the time allows:

• Continue trimming down on annotated functions - there's still plenty to reduce.

• Need to expose the annotation filter to server owners - right now it's all hardcoded which is limiting

• Need to expand allocation tracking - right now we just track how much we allocated on main thread. We could track allocated object types, and figure out a better way to display it on Perfetto.

• Emit more metadata about the performance state - provide manual annotation tools to emit the scope of workload for our team, or to show cross-thread dependencies.

• Explore automatic capture during frame spikes.

WELLIPETS

The wait is over!

The exclusive Rust x Wellipets wellington frog boots have started shipping, and codes for the in-game frog boot helmet are ready to redeem* from 11AM GMT on Friday 7th February.

Thank you again to everyone for taking part in this special collaboration, and don't forget to redeem you

11 YEARS

Servers are now wiped and Santa is packing up and clearing out the bodies, but we hope you enjoyed the Holiday Season. We're getting back to work after a couple of weeks off, which is why this blog is lighter than usual, but we're looking forward to the journey ahead in 2025!

At the end of last year, we celebrated Rust's 11th anniversary, marking an incredible journey. The game continues to experience year-over-year growth, which is quite remarkable for being 11 years old. Rust is now bigger than ever!

This year, we saw:

• Over 325 million game sessions

• Over 40 million hours played

• Over 5.5 million unique players

Here's a recap of some of the major updates we did last year:

World Update 2.0

• This HUGE update completely changed the world and added many new unique points of interest around the world

Road Renegades

• Added new forms of transport, bicycles and motorbikes

Bags To Riches

• Finally added backpacks allowing players to carry more items and added the metal detector item

Waves Of Change

• Updated the cargoship and helicopter events, additionally overhauled the Harbors

Lighting The Way

• Allows players to see and navigate at night, we add a small illumination area around the player

Seismic Shift

• Added a new item which will send notifications to your phone if an explosion is detected

Quality Of Life

• Over 300 QOL changes from saving codelocks to floating items

New Weapons

• Added 5 new weapons, the minigun, military flame thrower, SKS, High Calibre Revolver, Handmade SMG

Alongside a metric ton of improvements and bug fixes.

Rust continues to be a labour of love from all of us at Facepunch, and we couldn't have done it without your passion and feedback. Thank you for your continued support, be it playing the game, telling friends, and engaging and communicating with us. We've very much enjoyed everything we've worked on for the game this year.

LOOKING FORWARD

What’s in store for 2025? Consistency! Continued guaranteed monthly updates on the first Thursday of every month, alongside regular fixes, quality-of-life enhancements, improvements, and exciting holiday events.

Next Month

On February 6th, we'll release the Primitive update. The update will be one of the most impactful updates to date in changing the dynamics of early-game raiding and combat by introducing siege vehicles, primitive weapons, shields, and a dedicated game mode.

The Primitive update represents a time in Rust where the already scarce technology and the usual homemade armaments and ammunition have been depleted from Rust's current setting, forcing survivors to fashion crude weapons with less sophisticated methods of attack and defence.

The Siege Tower can be used to climb over exterior walls while players remain in cover. And it can be pushed or horse-drawn and has several floors, with extendable drawbridges that double up as shutters.

The Catapult will be a projectile launcher for longer distances that can utilise multiple projectiles such as boulders, radioactive barrels, and propane tank IEDs. While it does have wheels, its size makes it something that a vehicle or horse will have to help you move it towards your next target.

The Ballista is a combination of a catapult and a large crossbow which was highly accurate given the heft of its projectiles. And in Rust, those features remain with the Ballista also having multiple ammo types, being able to do heavy damage to people, doors, and vehicles.

Finally, the Battering Ram will be another addition that is driveable like a traditional vehicle, with a triggerable ram that damages building blocks in a radius.

As well as these new weapons and vehicles, we have been working on a variety of shields, a 4 shot mini-crossbow, and updates to melee damages and ranges.

With this comes some improvements to horses, including their ability to tow the new siege weapons, and new skins to customise your primitive approach to gameplay and expression.

Can't wait till February? Rust Staging Aux2 branch is publicly playable, allowing everyone to test and give feedback.

Forwards

Alongside next month's Primitive update, we have a ton of content currently in development, and if you're keeping an eye on our commits page, you'll already know some of what's on the way. This year, you can expect to see Cooking 2.0 bringing many changes to food management and unique buffs to foods, a Jungle biome featuring dangerous animals such as crocodiles and tigers, and changes to softcore and hardcore game modes.

Outlined above is skimming the surface of only a few key features. We have a lot more planned.

But what about?

Performance?

Performance is always an ongoing process. We're constantly adding and improving new features monthly, often hidden in changelogs. There is no magic button to increase performance. Instead, it is a slow process of small gains.

We hired several people over the past couple of months whose sole job is focused on performance-related tasks, these are positions which never existed before, we never had staff dedicated to performance full-time, they're getting to grips with the Rust project and are already hard at work identifying and fixing issues. A recent example is Daniel's server profiler.

We'll continue to share news on performance in our monthly development blogs.

Old Content?

As like with prior years we've set aside multiple months in our internal roadmap of light or no content. These gaps are deliberate to allow us to be versatile and adaptive to community feedback, have time to focus and address old content and improve recent content. We have a lot we can keep building upon, not all content we add to Rust is supposed to become meta, but rather adding yet another way of achieving a goal.

Cheating?

Repeating the words of last year's blog: Anticheat is a hugely complex topic. We work closely with Epic Games' Easy Anti-cheat, to aid in detecting and banning cheaters in Rust. We don't disclose what we do and don't do when it comes to anti-cheat for good reason. The more information we disclose publicly, the more it can assist cheaters and cheat developers to circumvent measures, it's a huge cat-and-mouse game.

One of the best anti-cheat measures is obscurity. The fewer people know what EAC and we are doing, the better. This comes with the drawback of not communicating enough, on the outside, it appears we're doing nothing. Almost every month, we're shipping improvements or fixing/restricting cheat features. We've fixed several high-priority exploits upon discovery or disclosure within hours through hotfixes we don't note publicly. EAC sometimes pushes several improvements weekly, which are applied when you start the game.

We continue to promise to you is we're actively monitoring and combating cheaters daily. Our internal systems keep improving, as do EAC.

In past blogs I talked about server-side player culling, if a player is behind a hill and you can't see them, don't network the player to disrupt ESP cheat features. We're slowly iterating this and have tested it on live servers, we're working on getting this to the most performant state possible to work on mid-high population servers.

Another feature we're exploring and want your feedback on it, is a form of premium servers. The overwhelming number of cheaters banned have Rust Steam inventory valued at below $20. A large number of long-term regular players have Rust Steam inventories of over $20. If we used this as a gate to entry for some servers, it would mean these servers would see considerably fewer cheat-related players, is this something you want? Would you play on these servers? We're still collecting data to determine the exact barrier to entry. The reason for looking at Rust's Steam Inventory price, in short, is because it's a metric that can't be spoofed and gamed easily, unlike game data. The big negative here is servers rely on a steady flow of players, new and old; this gate could have a net negative impact on the server's population and, thus, the overall gameplay experience - we'd love to hear your thoughts.

This year:

• We've taken down over 1300 cheats-related media on social platforms.

• 290,000+ bans applied

• 57,000+ Temporary

• 233,000+ Permanent

• The majority of cheaters have been removed from the game in less than 12 hours of playtime

• This has lowered this to 10 hours of playtime in the last 3-months

• 12,617,47 Cheat reports received

• 1,200,000~ cheating reports received on Facepunch servers

11 YEARS OF RUST IN NUMBERS

While we celebrated a fantastic 2024 for the game, we realise a lot of what we've achieved boils down to 11 years of passion from the team. And passion from the community.

It's not always easy to put that into words, but we've managed to put it into numbers below.

Take a look at what you've helped us achieve over the last 11 years!

THE LAST DAYS OF RUSTMAS

Twitch Drops! Hurry!

Yes, Santa has packed up and cleared out, but there are still a few days left to claim free rewards for watching creators on Twitch!

All you need to do is check out anyone streaming Rust on Twitch by Monday 6th of January, and you can bag yourself some sweet Christmas-themed Twitch Drops to make sure you and your base look jubilant all year round if Christmas is more than just a holiday to you!

RUST'S 11TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

We can't believe it either.

It feels like just yesterday that we were celebrating 10 years of Rust, getting emotional over our recap video, but it is true - Rust turns 11 years old on Wednesday the 11th of December!

It's been another incredible year for Rust, with record player numbers, Twitch events, and monthly content updates bringing some of the most significant changes to the world of Rust in the past 11 years.

Here are just some of the key gameplay additions we've delivered as we look back on 2024:

• World Update

• Backpacks

• Tutorial Island

• Digital Clock

• Night Light

• Harbour Monument Rework

• Cargo Ship Docking

• Minigun + Flamethrower

• Seismic Sensor

• Handcuffs + Prisoner Hood

• Motorbikes + Pedal Bikes

• Travelling Vendor

• Tin Can Alarm

• Metal Detector

• Wallpaper

• GCO Attachement

• Hand-held Diver Propulsion Vehicle

• Refreshed Divesites

• Radtown

• Radioactive Water

• T1 SMG + T3 SKS

• ...and much more!

To celebrate Rust turning 11, next week, you'll find a cake and balloons in-game. And your friends can enjoy 40% off Rust for 10 days, starting on Monday!

On behalf of everyone at Facepunch, we'd like to thank you for a great 2024. In January, we'll release a full end-of-year blog in which we'll discuss how 2024 has gone, with highlights, learnings, and our plans for 2025.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Peacekeeper Turret Hostile Indicator

A turret icon now appears next to the usual hostile indicator when you are hostile and near a peace keeper auto turret.

Workcart Storage

A small box has been added to all Workcarts so you can store that extra loot.

Waterpump Depth Change

Waterpumps now work with a smaller depth of water, perfect for the new rivers.

Propane Tank Stack Size

Propane tanks can now stack up to 20.

Dropbox Input Increase

Increased to 4 input slots.

Junkpile Despawn

Junkpiles will now be eligible to despawn after they are partially looted.

Fridge Storage

Fridge storage increased to 48 slots

Homing Missiles

Homing missiles have been added to Bradley and attack helicopter loot crates

WOLF PACKS BALANCING

We spent this month bug fixing and improving the counter-plays to the wolves, as we want them to feel challenging but not unfair.

The problems

Using fire against wolf sometimes felt less impactful than expected, especially when wanting to avoid the fight. Even though wolves wouldn't attack as long as you kept distance and a lit torch, they would follow for a very long time.

This was especially aggravating when driving wolves away from your corpse to get back your loot, but then having them still follow you and potentially cause a death spiral. Furthermore, when jumping on an elevated position to escape the wolf, it would ignore the lit torch and rush to jump up.

The wolf could do very fast huge jumps sometimes up to your base's roof. The jump motion also looked weightless and not really believable.

Another problem was packs of 4+ wolves. They didn't appear all the time, but players that had to face them had a really hard time. Even though packs never spawn with more than 4 wolves, they could sometimes merge. That's because wolves always come to investigate when their hear a howl, even if it comes from a wolf that does not belong to their pack.

Once the player shot a wolf or they got close enough, wolves would give up stalking and weave at high speed towards their prey. For players that only had a bow, this made it hard to land more than one or two shot as the pack of wolves closed the gap. And once enough wolves were in melee range, while it was possible to prevent a single one of them from attacking thanks to hit stun, you easily got overwhelmed.

Lastly it felt harder than it should have been to crouch and sneak around wolf packs, forcing players to take very long detours if they didn't want to fight.

Closing words

You can find more details about how we addressed those issues in the patch notes at the bottom of the page.

Congrats to the players who found some of the hidden features that could be used to get the upper hand on wolves!

ELECTRICITY QOL

Tesla Coil

Reduced tesla coil maximum power usage from 35 to 25 (no difference in time to kill)

Storage Monitor

Added a passthrough slot to the Storage Monitor

Elevators speed

Increased speed of player placed elevators by 50%

Battery full charge indicator

Added an output slot for when your battery is fully charged

MODULAR CAR RADIOS

Modular car radios are now in Rust!

This means that you can now craft a radio to place in your modular car for 120 metal fragments if you own the Voice Props Pack.

Simply craft the radio and then deploy it onto the cockpit of your modular vehicle. The radio will only be operational whilst the car engine is switched on. Once the radio is deployed, anyone will be able to interact with it.

Anyone with authorisation to the vehicle will be able to pick up the radio with a building hammer.

The radio comes with all the same built-in and internet streamed radio stations you find in the Boom Box

HELICOPTER SHREDDING

Purchased Helicopters can now be picked up by the magnet crane and shredded at Junkyard. You will receive Scrap based on the helicopter type and it's current health (50% health = 50% of the Scrap).

• Minicopter - 200 Scrap

• Scrap Transport Helicopter - 300 Scrap

• Attack Helicopter - 500 Scrap

Stolen a helicopter from your neighbours? Why not destroy the evidence and get paid at the same time!

UPGRADABLE HIGH EXTERNAL WALLS & GATES

Wooden high external walls and gates can now be upgraded to their stone versions via the hammer context manner, similar to regular building blocks.

Additionally, high external walls now craft in batches of three. The stone high external walls requiring 1 sheet metal per craft.

The stone high external gate has also been adjusted to require 1 sheet metal and only 3 gears, with its crafting cost reduced to 4000 wood/stone (down from 4500) for improved inventory management.

VENDING MACHINE STATISTICS

You are now able to see a bunch of statistics about your vending machine. This includes:

• Transaction History

• Highest Revenue Items

• Best Sold Items

You can browse these stats in a wide variety of timescales: from the last 30 minutes to all-time.

Some 'long term stats' are also available (all anonymous), these are:

• Total Sales: The total number of items purchased from the vending machine

• Total Unique Customers: The total number of individual customers who have made a purchase

• Total Repeat Customers: The total number of instances where existing customers have returned to make additional purchases.

• Best Customer: The customer who has made the most purchases (total count of their transactions)

These stats are processed on the Serverside then communicated to clients.

Here are a few Server Convars to help server owners:

vendingmachine.max_returned - Specifies the maximum number of entries to return when fetching purchase history or aggregated stats (e.g., best-sold items, most revenue-generating items, etc)

vendingmachine.max_processed - Limits the maximum number of sales records to process when performing operations like filtering or aggregating data, even if more records are available

vendingmachine.max_history - Defines the maximum number of purchase records that the vending machine will store in memory (on Serverside) before removing older entries to make space for new ones

Server owners can also run: ** vendingmachine.clearallvendinghistory** and vendingmachine.clearallvendingcustomerhistory to clear all Vending Machine stats and long term stats respectively.

LEGACY SHELTER REVOKE

Once you placed your Legacy Shelter, it was possible to die and then be unable to place another. When placing down another shelter, your first one is now destroyed.

There's one trade off: Shelters now take a few seconds to place (just like high external walls). This gives enough time to warn you that your old Shelter is going to be destroyed, as well as preventing them from being used in PVP.

VARIABLE ZOOM SCOPE

The 16x scope was significantly under-used considering it's intended to be military loot. This seemed to come down to it being too high of a zoom.

This scope has now been renamed to the "variable zoom scope" and supports 3 zoom levels: 4x, 8x & 16x. This makes it better than both of the old scopes combined & adds in a new zoom for quick target acquisition.

The default keybinds are 'Page Up' to increase zoom and 'Page Down' to decrease zoom, however I fully expect more experienced players to rebind these.

Try scroll wheel (if you aren't using it to switch weapons) or mouse 3 & mouse 4 (if those aren't already bound).

SCRAP EXCHANGE VENDOR CHANGES

Now that we've reached a point where we are happy with the dynamic pricing behaviour when purchasing items with Scrap, we've decided to apply the same logic to items being sold for Scrap. Starting this month, you will notice that items that you sell to NPC vending machines for Scrap have a dynamic price applied to them. It will start the wipe with 50% less value per item sold, and can increase to an extra 100% value per item sold if no items are sold.

This will hopefully make it more valuable to sell items as a wipe goes on. As with the previous changes, we'll be monitoring these and making changes as needed.

UNDERWATER VISIBILITY

We recently tweaked this, but your feedback made it clear there was further room for improvement. So we did just that. Underwater visibility is now nearly doubled, allowing players to see further and more clearly underwater.

Additionally, we've slightly increased the depth of water players can sink to before the oxygen level starts to tick down. During swimming, you are now less likely to drown to high waves.

RISKY LANDMINE DISARMING

Landmines now have a 15% chance to explode when being disarmed by another player, so be careful when clearing out minefields!

This was always meant to be the intended gameplay behaviour for landmines, but I discovered an old bug that prevented this from working as intended.

NODE SPARKLE CHANGES

We've slightly modified the behaviour when hitting nodes this month. Nodes will no longer show a sparkle before they are hit for the first time, once they are hit the sparkle will appear underneath the first hit. This first hit is considered a sparkle hit and will reward the appropriate amount of resources, so it's a very slight buff to ore collecting.

We did this for a few reasons:

• This brings their behaviour in line with the tree X marker minigame

• Finding the sparkle at first was slightly awkward, this feels smoother

• Each sparkle was a networked entity that had to be streamed in and out as the player moves around

• We had a sparkle per node in the world, so an average server will now have around 4.5k less entities in the world

While I was at it I made some slight memory improvements so each node will take up less client and server memory.

QUEUE IMPROVEMENTS

While looking at collecting some data around queues, we decided to do a few minor improvements to the queue system. Up until now, the client was unaware of being in a queue, it was simply using server messaging to show the queue. Now the client knows when it has entered and exited a server queue, and can act accordingly. We now display Steam rich presence for waiting in a queue and connecting to a server. This also opens us up to do more client side related queue features in the future.

The other change to queues we made impacts modded server owners specifically. The queue messaging system was being leverage by modded servers to implement loading screen messages via a plugin. These loading screen messages would often fight with the client messaging, and generally didn't look great.

As a nice compromise, we've implemented the ability to change the "menu tip" message displayed in the loading screen. This can allow modded server owners to implement their own tips that may be more relevant for the particular game mode and changes specific to the server. To keep things backwards compatible, the same network message sent before will continue to work with one caveat.

// Old

var net = Net.sv.StartWrite(); net.PacketID(Message.Type.Message); net.String("Top Text"); net.String("Bottom Text"); net.Send(new SendInfo(conn));

// New

var net = Net.sv.StartWrite(); net.PacketID(Message.Type.Message); net.String("Bolt"); net.String("This server has instant craft!"); net.Send(new SendInfo(conn));

Instead of having top and bottom text, you can change the menu tip icon displayed. Existing loading screen plugins will continue to function, but won't display a top message as that field is now used for an icon. A list of available icons names has been published on our Community GitHub repository.

Only servers clearly listed in the modded section may utilize this feature.

RCON SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS

Another one for all the server owners out there. We've started updating the security around RCON. The server will output very prominent warning messages if you're using an insecure RCON password. In some cases, the RCON server will fail to start if the password is bad enough (i.e. "password" or "changeme")

We've also added some safeguards against brute force attacks. Now when a RCON client attempts to connect with a bad password, after 5 attempts the IP address will be banned for 5 minutes. These values are all configurable through a number of new convars. There are also a few convar commands that allow you to permanently ban both IP addresses and networks.

• rcon.banduration (default: 300) Number of seconds to apply to any automated ban.

• rcon.maxpasswordfailures (default: 5) Number of failed password attempts before applying a temp ban

• rcon.logfailedattempts (default: true) Debug.Log all the various failed password / ban connects. Defaults to true, but large servers may want to disable due to spam

• rcon.permanentbanfailedips (default: false) Permanently ban IPs that exceed the failed password threshold

• rcon.ban_ip <ip / network> Permanently bans an IP or network

• rcon.unban_ip <ip / network> Removes an IP or network ban from both the permanent bans, and any temporary bans/attempts

• rcon.print_rcon_failed_logins Prints out the table of attempted logins that failed and if they resulted in a ban or not

• rcon.clear_rcon_failed_logins Removes all of the temporary failed login history/bans (does not remove permanent bans of any kind)

• rcon.print_rcon_bans List the permanent IP/network bans

NATIVE ARM64 HARDWARE SUPPORT

We've been waiting for a while for all of our third party software to natively support ARM64 hardware. This has now finally come to fruition and as the first platform to test this on, we've switched the Mac version of the game to use our native ARM64 build on Apple Silicon hardware. At the moment, Intel hardware is still supported on Mac as well and remains unaffected by this change.

If this works out well, we will investigate native ARM64 support for other platforms in the future. The next most important one would likely be to natively run on ARM64 hardware in Windows laptops, but we are still waiting for some third party software to fully support this, so this will stretch a good amount into the next year at least.

BUILT-IN SERVER PROFILER

Up to recently we've been focusing on server performance health via tracking aggregating performance telemetry. It allowed us to have a general overview of a server's performance from birds eye view. There are point where high-level overview is not sufficient to identify where exactly slow-downs are coming from.

This past month I've been working on a built-in profiler for the server. If used, it allows us to see all the code that is executed for a particular frame - allowing us to see more detail about what & how things are going wrong.

With this, we can now combine our high-level telemetry as an "hotspot-warning" system, while using the built-in profiler will allow us to investigate what those hotspot consist of and which parts are the most worthwhile to optimize. This will help guide our efforts in optimizing the server performance while also validating that we have successfully optimized a particular block of logic.

The profiler comes with an extra benefit: this feature is going to be available for public use. Any server owner will be able to trigger it and take a look at the data. You'll be able to see both what vanilla server does, as well as if there's anything that Mods are actively doing.

How to Generate a snapshot

Note 1: This is currently only available for servers hosted on Windows machines. Linux support is next to come.

• First, the feature needs to be activated when starting the server. You must launch the server executable with **-enableProfiler**

• Once the server boots up, you can run the following console command: **profile.perfsnapshot ** (all parameters are optional)

• delay is in seconds, by default set to 15

• name is the name of the snapshot file, by default is "Profile"

• frames is the number of frames to includes in the snapshot - default is 10, has a max of 10

• Once the delay expires (you'll see messages in global chat), it will record the requested number of frames, generate and compress a snapshot - you will find it in /server//profiler/.json.gz

Note 2: if something goes wrong during generation the file won't be created(youl'l can it in server log file). I'll be continuing iterating on the profiler, so I'll iron out any left-overs.

_Note 3: Taking a snapshot causes server to take a performance hit for a couple seconds. Make sure to give enough delay to avoid disturbing the server population too much. When not taking

T1 HANDMADE SMG

This month we're adding new weapons, firstly filling a gap in the weapon lineup, the Handmade SMG is unlockable near the end of the T1 tech tree.

While it lacks accuracy and raw damage, it compensates for this with sheer volume, letting players unleash a hail of bullets. Skilled survivors can use it to stay competitive by timing their attacks and positioning themselves carefully, allowing for surprise bursts against better-equipped foes.

SKS

Unlockable at the start of the T3 tech tree, the SKS bridges the gap between the SAR and the M39. This mid-tier powerhouse combines punchy damage with accuracy, making it a reliable pick for players who want a no-nonsense rifle with solid range and stopping power. The SKS delivers balanced performance with a kick that seasoned survivors will appreciate.

IMPROVED WOLF AI

Hello I'm Maverick! I recently joined Facepunch to work full-time on the AI and it's been a blast so far.

This month we're releasing the first step of a major AI overhaul. We're starting small by just updating the wolf, but long-term the goal is to update scientists and all other animals.

The why

The current wolf feels a bit like a landmine: if you're walking around and you didn't see it or hear its footsteps, you die. That issue is of course amplified in the pitch black night.

Since wolves runs faster than players, once spotted your only options are to try to kill it before it kills you, or jump out of reach if possible.

Since the wolf charges in a straight line, you don't really have to aim and if you have a nailgun or better it's just a matter of unloading the magazine as fast as you can.

Assuming you spotted the wolf before it spotted you, hunting it was not really engaging. When shot from a distance wolves don't charge and just flee very far away, often forcing you to engage in a long hike to get its loot.

The result of this is that the wolf was either frustratingly hard to handle, or trivial, with no in between. This motivated us to reshape the wolf into something that would pose a challenge that feels fair, and can be tackled in multiple ways.

The how

I could write an exhaustive list of all the new behaviors, but I think it'll be way more fun for you to experiment and I'm confident the community will find even the cool hidden ones.

Forget everything you know about the old wolves and just try out stuff that seems like it should work!

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

IO Arrows

New arrows that show input/outputs when looking at IO deployables

Floating objects drift down rivers

Corpses, Boogie Boards, Boats now float down rivers

Hear player voices over CCTV

Listen in on the group taking Oil Rig

Disable Monument CCTV

Can now damage monument CCTV cameras to disable them for 5 minutes

Copy Paste IDs in F7 menu

Easily get a player's ID when using the Report menu

Add vendor NPC's to all Water Wells

Every Water Well variant now has killable vendor

GESTURE PACK DLC

This month we've added more ways for players to communicate and express themselves with the introduction of our first gesture pack - available now on Rust's permanent item store.

The pack includes 8 new gestures:

• Rock Paper Scissors (Mini-game)

• Loser / L Hand

• Knuckle Crack

• No-No / Wagging Finger

• Cut Throat

• Shush

• Watching You

• Finger Gun

NOTE: You'll need to assign the gestures to a slot on the gesture wheel via our new gesture wheel customisation on the main menu under Options > Gestures (learn more below)

Rock Paper Scissors

Included in the pack is our first ever gesture minigame; Rock Paper Scissors.

Trying to decide which teammate does the next farming run? Or who gets to use the L96? Now you can settle the score with a round of Rock Paper Scissors.

To play, select Rock Paper Scissors from the gesture wheel then wait for an opponent to interact with you to start the minigame. (Note: you'll need to assign the gesture to a new slot via the main menu for it to appear on the gesture wheel)

Once a 2nd player joins, you'll be prompted with UI to choose a hand/option to play - use the numerical keys on your keyboard to make a selection of either rock, paper or scissors. Both you and your opponent will have 10 seconds to make a choice; If the timer runs out or a player moves too far away, the mini-game will end.

After selections are made by both parties, each player will "shoot" simultaneously on the count of three to determine a win, lose or draw result.

We look forward to seeing how you all use the minigame - our plan is to add similar interactive gestures in the near future.

GESTURE WHEEL CUSTOMISATION

In order to support the new gesture pack we’ve added the ability to customise your gesture wheel this month, as well as adding a new wheel so you can access double the gestures. You’ll find this in the Options > Gestures menu.

Customising your wheel is straightforward from this menu. Simply click on a slot to change what gesture is assigned, or use RMB to clear a slot. You can access the second wheel via the arrows at the top, and use E/Q to switch between gesture wheels in-game.

We’re just exposing two wheels as even with the new gestures you won’t be able to fill them up, but we’ve now got the system built so we can add more wheels as we release more gestures down the line.

RADIOACTIVE WATER BUFF

The introduction of Radioactive Water last month was pretty weak. We felt it needed a buff to bring it in line with the original vision.

Here are the changes to Radioactive Water:

• We have increased the radiation amount from sprinklers by 70%

• We have increased the radiation amount from splashes by 40%

This makes Radioactive Water the counter against full kits that it should be.

MIXING TABLE IMPROVEMENTS

This month I added some nice QOL improvements for the mixing table.

• You can now click a recipe to add the required ingredients to the mixing table inventory, in the correct slots.

• Repeat clicking will stack the additional ingredients required to produce another of the same item.

• Shift-clicking will add the ingredients for the maximum number of items you can afford to produce.

• The recipe names of recipes you cannot afford to produce are now also greyed out, making it much quicker to see what you can currently create.

Finally, I made some minor performance and memory improvements for the mixing table UI.

ANTICHEAT UPDATE

Since our last anti-cheat update back in July, we have applied an additional 91,676 bans, 19,398 of these were temporary, and the remaining were permanent bans. Here's the breakdown per patch:

World Update 2.0 - October

• 22,473 permanent bans

• 6,735 temporary bans

• 113,580 reports

Time To Kill - September

• 14,885 permanent bans

• 5,294 temporary bans

• 77,871 reports

Stay Alert - August

• 22,827 permanent bans

• 1,386 temporary bans

• 105,031 reports

Road Renegades - July

• 12,093 permanent bans

• 5,983 temporary bans

• 102,764 reports

Notes

• Patch-specific report data is only from Facepunch Official servers due to data reliability originating from non-official servers, the total number of reports across all server since July is 5.3 million.

• Bans that were later reverted are excluded from these metrics.

• Bans are placed for multiple reasons. The numbers above do not strictly reflect only cheat-related bans, but cheat-related bans make up the vast majority of bans.

• A single player can receive multiple bans, for example, if a user is temporarily banned and then later switched to a permanent ban, this is counted as 2 bans in the above metrics

. The above is to provide context and transparency, not to state we're doing a good job, there is much more to be done in this area, and we are continuing to work on it.

Next

In July, I talked about server-side player culling, if a player is behind a hill and you can't see them, don't network the player. We feel we've done all we can in internal testing and will now roll out this change slowly across all official servers starting this month.

We teamed up with a third party to handle takedowns on our behalf. One of the core objectives is aimed at cheat-related material. The takedowns will be made at the request of Facepunch staff after manual review. There is no automation, and there is no room for innocent content to be taken down.

• We've taken down over 1200 cheats-related media on social platforms.

• We're working continuing to work on several other legal fronts to disrupt cheaters.

COPY PASTE

Copy Paste is a new admin tool that allows server admins to copy, paste & save bases!

This opens up a number of new workflows such as allowing admins to submit a copy of a base when they are submitting a bug report. It also will speed up testing on staging, allowing you to paste platforms with every item you need to test new content.

If you are interested, head over to the wiki page to learn how to use it!

TWITCH DROPS - RUST KINGDOMS RETURNS

Rust Kingdoms returns! The ultimate battle for control begins this Friday on (https://www.twitch.tv/directory/category/rust)!

Watch live as some of the biggest creators both in and out of the Rust scene stake their claim for the throne, through serving/defying their masters, picking battles carefully, or risking all their rewards - who will rule the kingdom by Sunday 17th?

Don't miss out on lots of epic Twitch Drops too! You can sync your account at any time (https://twitch.facepunch.com/).

FLASH SALE - 40% OFF RUST THIS WEEKEND

In case you or your friends missed the World Update 2.0 sale, the game is now 40% off again for this weekend!

This also includes all standalone DLC on the Steam store

Head on over to (https://store.steampowered.com/dlc/252490/Rust/) to take advantage of this 48 hour sale, just in time for this month's wipe and the latest patch update.

FACEPUNCH SERVERS

Many official Facepunch servers, especially those in Eastern and Western Europe and Eastern US, have been upgraded to new, higher-performance hardware. This long-awaited upgrade should significantly improve stability in these regions during peak time. Some servers also received a slight increase in their max player capacities.

Following this update, you may find that your favourite Facepunch server is no longer on your favourites list. To find it, please use the search bar in-game and, if needed, enable the "show empty servers" option.

Upgrades for other regions will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

All blueprints have been transferred, so no progress has been lost.

RADTOWN

One of the emblematic locations from legacy Rust makes a comeback: Radtown.

We turned this monument from a bunch of blocky garage buildings, into a refreshed new gameplay space. We tried to preserve the proportions and purpose of each location while opening up new paths and adding way to improve the flow of movement and cover throughout.

Exteriors

Interiors

CLIFFS

We have completely reworked all cliffs in the game. The new cliffs come in two types, tall coastal cliffs placed close to the ocean and sloped inland cliffs covering hills and mountains.

A lot of effort was made into making them not only look realistic, but also easy to traverse. You can run up the inland cliffs with ease, while the coastal cliffs can be scaled by jumping on the rocky ledges and protrusions.

In addition we have added many new coastal rocks close to the shore to further spice up the world.

REVAMPED ROCK FORMATIONS

We have completely revamped all large rock formations in the game and decided to bring back some of the old fan favorites.

Formations such as the god rock, anvil rock and arch rock all return to the game. Completely new rock formations have been added and some of them even spawn off shore allowing for more base building possibilities than ever before.

UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTS

In Rust, you will now find several different canyons, lakes, and oasis of various sizes in each procedurally generated map.

Canyons, Lakes, and Oases – each offering a fresh way to play with their own pros and cons. Canyons provide narrow pathways for ambushes but can be risky to navigate. Lakes create opportunities for resource gathering and farming but leave you vulnerable in open water. Oases are lush safe havens with valuable resources but will become hotspots for fierce competition.

Canyons

These towering landscapes offer fresh opportunities for ambushes and base building. While the narrow pathways and steep drops make for thrilling combat and strategic locations.

Canyons can be rich in resources, but don't get too greedy and get caught out.

Lakes

These scenic water bodies add a new twist to the gameplay, offering great spots for fishing, resource gathering, farming and base-building by the shore. However, the open water leaves you exposed to attacks, and swimming can slow you down when trying to make a quick escape.

Oasis

These rare paradises amidst the harsh desert. These lush areas are perfect for setting up base, gathering, farming, and finding vital resources like water. But be warned: Oases will attract other players looking to take advantage of these havens.

RIVERS

Rivers are now longer, flow more naturally, and widen the longer they get. This as well as the new unique environments required a larger water system overhaul to support different water types at any altitude.

The ocean is now fully culled underneath the terrain, and lakes no longer stretch beyond their boundaries. Overall, it's a much more robust and future proof system.

https://files.facepunch.com/paddy/20241002/rust_worldUpdate_rivers02_11.jpg

HIGH CALIBER REVOLVER

The High Caliber Revolver is a hand-crafted, single-action revolver that uses 5.56 ammo. Built for precise, long-range shots rather than rapid fire, it demands a steady hand for maximum accuracy. Its slower fire rate reflects the single-action design, but the power and precision make each shot count.

Unlockable at a Tier 2 workbench, the High Caliber is for survivors who prioritize accuracy and impact over speed.

LEGACY WOOD PILE

Welcome back wood piles! These will spawn in the snow, and temperate biomes.

They function just like our traditional ore piles, but for wood! Harvestable with a rock, hatchet or chainsaw. A great source of wood early in the game to start off your Rust journey.

DIVE SITES

Ocean Wreck Buoys

We’ve remodelled the old floating bottle indicators on the surface of dive sites into more solid buoys. They are much more visible which will help with finding dive sites.

Dive Sites

The Dive Sites themselves have been refreshed this month, with an entirely new set of three possible options replacing the old sites. All sites now spawn the same amount of loot (6 crates). Each site has new unique environment art and topology.

Flora and Fauna

Alongside the new Buoys and Dive Sites, we've overhauled the underwater foliage with a graphical update, and tweaked the visuals on fish so they behave more naturally. You might even find a couple of other critters down there.

DIVER PROPULSION VEHICLE (DPV)

We've added small new handheld dive vehicle this month. The DPV can be crafted and kept in your inventory until you need it.

It's then used like so:

• Select it and deploy it into any water that's at least 1 metre deep

• Interact with the fuel tank and add some low grade fuel

• "Mount" it to hold onto the handles and drive it around

Using the DPV, you can travel underwater significantly faster than you could by swimming. Once you're done with it, simply dismount and pick it up. Fuel will automatically be removed and added to your inventory, or dropped if you don't have any space.

Note: Currently players will need to manually remove fuel before picking up the DPV. This will be corrected in a hotfix asap

WATER WELL UPDATE

Waterwells aren’t exactly the most popular monument in Rust, so this month we decided to make them a little more interesting. You will now find a new vendor at some NPC’s that can offer a random selection of teas and farming equipment that shuffles every X minutes.

What’s special about this NPC is that this is the first vendor that is available in non safe zones. This means they can be killed! If that happens they will respawn after a while, but that won’t trigger the vendor to refresh or have any loot so there’s no real purpose. Try and be nice!

You will also find a new food cache with basic teas and high quality food items, and some planters that are automatically filled with random plants periodically. These plants have a high priority of having good genes, so they’re a great way to give your farm base a quick boost.

RADIOACTIVE WATER

We've added a new gameplay feature to the world: Radioactive Water! This is available at two locations in the new Radtown monument. Players will be able to harvest it with any regular water container, be it: a bota bag, water jug or the tanker module for vehicles.

Radioactive Water has a few properties: splashing it on plants will instantly kill them, splashing it on players (via throwing your water from a container, or via a sprinkler) will irradiate them. Carrying a large amount of it in your inventory will damage you, and finally looting a players body will irradiate you if there's enough radioactive water in their inventory.

These properties make Radioactive Water a great choice for a number of things: from instantly resetting your farm, to being a great counter to those players raiding you in full gear.

The backend work done on Radioactive Water opens up a number of gameplay possibilities in the future as any item (in code) can now be marked as Radioactive.

We can't wait to see what creations you come up with!

FRONTIERSMAN PACK

This month we're introducing a new addition to Rust's permanent store, the Frontiersman Pack.

The pack includes three items: Frontier Hazmat Suit, Frontier Hatchet, Blunderbuss

Frontiersman hazmat suit

The Frontiersman Hazmat is a handcrafted survival suit, built for those who brave the wilderness. Forged from durable felt and leather, it’s designed to shield its wearer from the harsh weather, unseen enemies, and the dangers of the wild. The Frontiersman suit is a hazmat replacement skin that can be applied while crafting the hazmat or skinned using the repair table. The Frontiersman suit offers no in-game bonuses.

Blunderbuss

The Blunderbuss is a handcrafted, frontier-inspired shotgun that brings a classic, rugged aesthetic to the Double Barrel. This skin reimagines the weapon, turning it into a more traditional tool of survival from a bygone era

Frontier Hatchet

Inspired by the traditional tomahawk, featuring a rugged design with several charms attached. This unique skin transforms the hatchet into a symbol of frontier survival.

Available now on the item store.

WALLPAPER CHANGES

Based on your feedback following last month’s wallpaper release, you can now place wallpapers on building block hardsides, but only inside your base!

Any exposed hardside wallpaper will be removed by the next decay tick.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Spray Can Improvements

Spray Can will now remember the shipping container colour through deaths and restarts

Note World Model

Note World Model Added

Underwater Visibility

Underwater visibility improved, allowing for enhanced long-distance sight

Repair Bench

The repair bench now displays icons alongside text for repair costs.

CHARITABLE RUST 2024 - TWITCH DROPS

October 12th - October 19th!

Join us and (https://www.rustafied.com/) for the annual Charitable Rust! The main event takes place on October 12th from 11:00AM EDT until 11:00PM EDT On Rustafied's Twitch channel. Tune in for tons of mini games, talent shows, and some of your favorite creators battling it out in Rust Reborn's Bedwars! Check out the full schedule (https://www.charitablerust.com/schedule).

There will be 4 store items this year. Proceeds go toward the Direct Relief Charity. These store items will be account bound. Meaning, you will not be able to sell or trade them once purchased.

You will be able to collect all the Twitch drops for the remainder of the week on any Rust stream with drops enabled!

WORLD UPDATE 2.0 SALE - 40% OFF RUST

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To celebrate the release of The World Update 2.0, Rust is now 40% off until October 8th!

Whether you want to role play, survive as a solo, find a new duo partner, or finally join your friend's clan, The World Update 2.0 is here to bring a fresh new feel to Rust for you to explore!

Or why not use The World Update 2.0 sale to gift Rust to that friend that would make a good survival partner?

There’s no better time to jump in to build, explore, raid, and survive with legacy items returning, new weapons and a hazmat, a new monument, AND the newly tuned terrain!

Head over to Steam to save 40%

MAP MAKER WARNING

If you're a map maker, please note that next month, we'll be removing the old rock and cliff assets from the game. Map makers should update their maps with the new rock assets to maintain compatibility.

The reason we're removing the old assets is to ensure we're keeping the game running as optimal as possible and not needlessly loading unused assets into memory.

DIGITAL CLOCK

Meet the Digital Clock, a new craftable item, a simple but powerful addition to your base's electrical setup.

When powered, it displays the current server time

• Consumes 1 power

• Available at the Tier 2 Workbench

• Craftable for 100 Metal Fragments

The clock also allows you to set up alarms. When an alarm goes off, the power will pass through, allowing you to trigger any sort of circuit inside your base at specific times.

Whether you want to automate your farms, activate traps, or control lighting systems, you can set up to five alarms simultaneously.

GCO WEAPON ATTACHMENT

A powerful new cutting-edge experimental weapon attachment for those who crave more damage and speed in their shots. The Gas Compression Overdrive attachment boosts projectile damage and velocity, allowing you to hit harder.

However, this extra power comes with trade-offs, a slower fire rate and increased recoil. If you can handle the extra kick, this attachment is maybe for you.

The GCO attachment works on the following weapons: Thompson, SAR, SAP, M92, M39 and the Custom SMG.

WALLPAPERS

This month, we're adding wallpapers, a new way to decorate your base's interior.

Wallpapers can only be applied to the interior side of your walls. Purely visual, they don't provide any additional protection, are easy to remove and won't interfere with the deployment of any other items.

• Default blueprint

• Crafting cost: 10 cloth for 2 pieces of wallpaper

• Includes 'Vintage' default skin in 4 colours - blue, red, green and yellow

Just like other deployable items, wallpapers can be skinned during crafting, in a repair bench or after being deployed using the spray can.

Wallpaper Starter Pack

In addition to the 4 wallpapers skins unlocked by default, you can purchase the Wallpaper Starter Pack which features 22 extra wallpaper skins for styling your base.

Skins included in the wallpaper starter pack, as pictured above:

• Clouds

• Yellow Stripe

• Blue Diamond

• Fleur (3 variants)

• Retro (3 variants)

• Subway (2 variants)

• Geometric (2 variants)

• Polka Dots (3 variants)

• Wainscotting (3 variants)

• Venetian Plaster (3 variants)

The Wallpaper Starter Pack is available for purchase in-game or through the Steam's item store.

COLOURBLIND ACCESSIBILITY

As part of my Hackweek last month, I explored some ways we can make playing Rust more accessible for players that experience different forms of colour blindness. Colour blindness is experienced by up to 8% of men and 0.5% of women, so it likely affects a good portion of our player base.

We’ve tried to identify problematic areas in the game world, as well as in our UI, and then make those colours configurable so every player can customise the look of their game to meet their needs. Since colour blindness comes in many forms, we’ve exposed each option individually as well as some presets that we think will help for more common forms of the condition.

We’ve exposed the following options:

• Tree marker colours

• Health Bar colour

• Hunger Bar colour

• Hydration Bar colour

• Team Name tag colour

• Enemy Name tag colour

• Ally Name tag colour (eg. marked friendly in the contacts system)

• Monument blocked colour (the new radius that appears when building close to a monument)

• Mushroom colour

We also adjusted the contrast of the icons in the Hunger/Health/Hydration bar to make them stand out a bit more when in snowy/very bright regions.

Please get in touch if we’ve missed a colour you find problematic to see, or if there are other accessibility options you think could help make playing Rust more comfortable. You can contact us via the F7 report menu, or opening a new Support ticket.

TUNNEL NETWORK VISIBILITY LAYER

Way, way back in the ancient times of December 2022, we shipped a feature that allowed us to separate the above ground and below ground networking groups, improving client performance and reducing network traffic. Unfortunately, we had to disable it pretty quickly on launch as we discovered an edge case where a small number of elevators that started in the above ground layer and ended in the below ground layer would teleport players into a void. To resolve this, we needed to rework how elevators functioned internally.

This work has finally been completed, so we’re re-enabling the feature this month. Fingers crossed the feature sticks this time! This change should be invisible to players and offer better performance.

ERRORS QOL

I think it was time to say goodbye to this debug gibberish spammed in chat everytime you try to build anything.

These errors have been moved from the chat to toast messages, which are just as responsive and most importantly, visible to players playing with the chat disabled.

We wanted to reduce the confusion by making these errors more specific, when possible.

The common "Cannot build in this area" now becomes "Blocked by X", mentioning the name of the entity blocking you. It works with deployables, vehicles, building blocks and players.

The infamous "Too close from another building" error message will now be "Too close to X". It will also briefly highlight the building block in question.

When trying to upgrade a building block, you'll now get a clear explanation of what exactly is preventing the upgrade.

We've also re-ordered the message priority of a few common deployables. So you now get "Must be placed on a construction" instead of "Not enough space" message when trying to place a bed on the terrain for example.

A new convar has been added if you prefer to keep the error messages in chat:

• client.errortoasts_in_chat

LOCALIZATION

A lot of effort has been put into improving Rust's localization this month.

• Most of the UI screens are now displaying right-to-left languages correctly

• Many screens with truncated texts have been fixed

• Unlocalized texts have been addressed

This is ongoing work, it's not finished yet, and more improvements are planned for the coming months.

Thanks to everyone contributing to Rust localization, dedicating their time to make the game more accessible to non-English speakers.

WORLD UPDATE PLAYTEST

Today, we're opening Rust Staging - Aux02 beta branch for public testing to gather feedback and bug testing ahead of next month's world update release, which is one, if not the most significant updates, this year.

The World Update aims to address many long-standing community requests surrounding the world. The update will revamp cliffs, rivers, dive sites, and add new, unique environmental areas such as canyons, lakes, and desert oases. Additionally, some throwbacks to Legacy Rust by bringing back an updated Radtown monument and Legacy Wood Piles.

There is plenty more to look forward to with a new weapon, the high-calibre revolver, new Hazmat skin, and so much more.

We're excited about this world update and want your feedback to allow us to adjust and tweak as necessary. As a note of caution, everything on the branch is subject to change, and map wipes will happen at irregular intervals over the month.

The world update will be released on October 3rd.

How to access

To access the playtest, please follow the steps below:

• On Steam download Rust - Staging Branch

• Right-click Rust - Staging Branch on your Steam library, and select Properties

• Navigate to "Betas" tab

• Next to "Beta Participation" select "aux02 - upandcoming"

• Steam will begin to download and apply the update

• Open Rust - Staging Branch via Steam and play

How to give feedback

To give direct feedback in-game, press F7 and fill out the form, additionally, you can join our Discord and discuss the changes in the channel "staging-aux2"

Mappers

An unfortunate side effect of this revamp is that new assets will be added, and old assets will be removed. This will cause some instability for custom maps and map makers, one example is the older cliff and rock formations will be removed.

We'll post updates on the exact changes in community mapping Discords and our social media closer to release.

TWITCH RIVALS : BASE INVADERS

Buckle up! Base Invaders is back!

This Tuesday, tune in from 8PM BST // 3PM EST as 20 teams of 5 battle it out for up to $1000 per player for the winning team, from a $50,000 prize pool! With a 20x gather rate and teams only being allowed one base and one Tool Cupboard at a time, players need to score points with kills, by controlling hard points, or by destroying enemy Tool Cupboards and more!

The teams feature a range of PvP community favourites, as well as creators from our recent Home-Brewed event, and more! For the full list of teams and rules head (https://schedule.twitchrivals.com/events/rust-base-invaders-rNZMg).

Heads up:

The exclusive hoodie and pants Twitch Drops for the Twitch Rivals stream will only be live for roughly 5 hours on Tuesday the 10th of September, on the Twitch Rivals official channel.

The rest of the Twitch Drops will be available from the start of the event until Sunday 15th.

Don't forget to sync your Twitch and Steam accounts at Twitch.Facepunch.com!

And remember - Facepunch will never DM you about Twitch Drops or giveaways. Beware of any fake websites and scams!

WELLIPETS X RUST

Wellipets’ iconic Frog Boots were added to Rust as a gift for players who owned the game while it was in Early Access between 2013-2018 - as a thanks for supporting us while we took the game from its very humble and janky beginnings, to becoming what it is today.

And now, we've officially partnered with Wellipets to unite both the digital and physical world - An IRL Frog Wellington Boot in original Rust colours (one green, one black), and an exclusive in-game Frog Boot Helmet if you buy the Rust edition of the boots.

Executed in black and Batrachian green and contrasted with their hallmark yellow eyes, these wellington boots boast a distinctive colour combination, both as a legacy Rust item, and now a real, practical but fashionable item. They feature a ladder grip outsole to provide improved traction during wet weather and are decorated with hand painted details at the logo and mouth.

Every physical pair comes with a key to unlock the new in-game item, once shipped. The boots are expected to start shipping at the end of November.

Discover the story and pre-order your pair here: https://wellipets.com/wellipets-x-rust

MODDING API BREAK

Heya! My name is Daniel, I'm a new member of the Rust development team - I've joined about a month ago. My primary objective is to work on Performance and it's various facets for Rust. I'm hoping to be posting about the ongoing work in the future.

In the coming update, I've made some changes to code that we'll be shipping that will break some mods that rely on our internal object pooling utility, Facepunch.Pool. If you're the owner of one of these mods that see errors around invalid use of "Pool.Free", then you should try switching to "Pool.FreeUnmanaged", and if that still doesn't work, then "Pool.FreeUnsafe"(in last case if you're using FreeUnsafe with a collection, make sure to clear it).

I'm making this breaking change because our old API were unsafe and allowed for memory leaks and bugs. Instead, I've introduced a couple replacements that aim to be stricter and as a result safer.

Pool.Free is now 3 separate methods:

• Pool.Free where T : Pool.IPooled or a couple collections with T : IPooled. Calls Clear() and optionally returns each element back to Pool

• Pool.FreeUnmanaged where T is a collection of non-IPooled-implementing types. Calls Clear() or an equivalent

• Pool.FreeUnsafe for any T, just returns it back to pool

The following methods are marked obsolete and will be removed when October Update lands or have been removed:

• Pool.GetList - obsolete

• Pool.FreeList - obsolete

• Pool.FreeListAndItems - obsolete

• Pool.FreeMemoryStream - obsolete

• Pool.ClearList - obsolete

• Pool.FreeDynamic - removed

LINUX DEDICATED SERVER UPDATE

Our dedicated server builds on Linux currently support Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18 or later. Due to third party software we rely on slowly removing support for these platforms, we will soon be forced to change the minimum requirement for our Linux dedicated server builds to Debian 11 / Ubuntu 20 or later. If you're hosting your own server or offer managed servers to your clients, please update to Debian 11 / Ubuntu 20 or later as soon as possible.

TIN CAN ALARM

This month, we're adding the Tin Can Alarm, a new primitive trap made from hanging tin cans.

Crossing its wire will trigger the trap and cause a loud clatter, alerting anyone nearby to your presence.

You can deploy it anywhere from your base to inside monuments. Use it strategically to cover access points and defend your positions.

REPLICATED BUSH SOUNDS

This month, we are changing how the classic bush rustle sounds work. Bush sounds will now be audible to players around you. Just like with footsteps, you now need to take care of when you make noise in bushes. Going slower through a bush makes a quieter sound than when running through it.

This change will also cause the rustles made in hot air balloon tarps to be audible to players nearby, and operates in the same way as the bushes.

UNDERWATER ITEMS

Dropped items that end up in bodies of water will now sink more realistically instead of just dropping like they are still falling through air. As well as slowing down and getting shifted around by currents they will also emit some bubbles as they move and when they hit the ocean floor. This should make finding these items a little bit easier.

ZIPLINE IMPROVEMENTS

We’ve made several changes to the powerline zipline system this month to make it a bit more pleasant to use.

• Ziplines will now pick the furthest possible destination instead of the closest

• We’ve increased the maximum length a zipline can run from 150m to 185m

• Ziplines can now terminate at a higher point on the powerline structure and will pick these higher destinations when possible, reducing the amount of climbing required to continue the zipline.

• You can no longer get dismounted by trees when on a zipline. We already had several systems in place to prevent trees spawning in zipline paths, but it still happened very rarely.

These changes should result in longer, higher ziplines that are safer to use.

NPC VENDOR PRICE CHANGES

After looking over the data from last months wipe, it was clear that the dynamic vendor pricing system wasn’t operating as well as it could have. It tended to drop to 50% off all items relatively quickly in the wipe. We’ve made a couple of changes this month:

• Price changes now operate in real time rather than based on in-game time. This should be more understandable and will work correctly on servers that manipulate in-game time.

• Price changes now take place every 5 real time hours. Last month the prices changed every 15 minutes in real time by default, so this will make the prices change much more slowly.

As usual we’ll keep an eye on this and make changes going forwards.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Trains break barricades

Trains can break through barricades that are deployed too close to the tracks.

Bike fast turns

Hold the Crouch key while driving to perform a faster turn

Sidecar bike physics

Sidecar bikes now drive more like regular motorbikes.

Horse terrain holes

Horses can now enter terrain holes - Train tunnels, the launch site ramp etc.

Fire mode switch

Switching your gun firemode will now play a sound.

Storage Adaptors collision

Can now walk through Storage Adaptors attached to boxes.

Hurt screen overlay toggle

Can now turn off the blood on screen when getting hurt.

Saved code lock input

The last entered code is now saved between sessions.

SHOCKBYTE X RUST - PARTNERED SERVER HOSTING

We're extremely excited to be partnering with (https://shockbyte.com/partner/SBRUST) for managed server hosting rental!

After seeing their work with the Minecraft community, and hearing great things from existing Rust users, we've decided to partner with them in an official capacity - endorsing their stability and reliability. You can enjoy full file access, full customization, and oxide support.

Promotional Offer

As part of the promo, new customers can receive an in-game Tool Cupboard skin by renting a server of any tier! Once your new server is delivered Shockbyte will send you information about how to get your sweet freebie!

Here's Shockbyte's story so far:

_"Born from a passion for multiplayer gaming in March 2013, Shockbyte has become a leading provider of game server hosting. Over the past decade, our team of dedicated gamers has delivered reliable multiplayer servers worldwide to over 700 thousand customers. Since October 2019, we have supported the Rust community, continuously improving our services based on feedback. Our mission is to simplify game server hosting, allowing absolutely anyone to create their own multiplayer community with ease.

With a growing network of global locations, comprehensive DDOS protection, and a commitment to 100% uptime, Shockbyte has become a trusted provider for Rust communities. We understand the complexities of server hosting and are beyond thrilled to now offer our expertise in a partnered capacity with Facepunch. We believe this is the most exciting era for gaming and are proud to provide community-driven hosting opportunities.

By harnessing player feedback we’ve recently completely revamped the hosting experience and we’re extremely excited to be soon rolling out this new modern experience alongside our partnership with Rust. Our top-tier global hardware and robust DDOS protection ensure the Rust community receives only the best multiplayer support. At Shockbyte, our focus is on delivering an enjoyable online experience, committed to innovation and excellence."_

We look forward to hearing about your experiences with their servers and you can get the skin by signing up to any level of hosting through this link or use the button on the in-game menu!!

TWITCH DROPS!

Here we go again! We have worked in a group of your favorite Twitch Streamers and Youtubers that you might recognize!

August 8th - August 18th, 2024

Be sure you get synced up at https://twitch.facepunch.com/ so you don't miss out!

MOTORBIKES

Motorbikes can now be found at several monument locations. One is a single-person bike and one has a sidecar as well, where a second player can sit and use weapons.

These are relatively fast and nimble vehicles, useful for quickly traversing the map using low grade fuel. If damaged, they can be repaired with a small amount of Metal Fragments.

BICYCLES

Bicycles can now be found across the map on roadsides, and also at several monuments. The standard bike takes one player, but a three-wheeled variant allows a second player to sit and shoot from the rear.

The bicycles aren't as fast or strong as the new motorbikes, but they're easier to acquire, and they don't use any fuel. Instead, they slowly consume your own food and water levels.

Holding Sprint while biking will have the driver stand up and give you a bit more temporary power and speed. Sprint mode will also automatically engage if you're struggling up a hill. This feature wears out after a few seconds and needs time to recharge.

HANDCUFFS AND PRISONER HOOD

Take your enemies captive with the new Handcuff and Prisoner Hood items!

Use the Handcuffs on a surrendering (friendly gesture) or downed player to take them prisoner - restricting their inventory, belt, use and interact options.

Handcuffed players can be pushed around and forced into vehicles and other mountables.

Place the new Prisoner Hood on your victim to block their vision and disable their map access, preventing them from seeing where you are taking them.

Handcuffed players can hold their attack button to progress the unlock minigame. Fill the progress bar and the Handcuffs break, releasing you! Unlock progress is tied to the Handcuff item condition so that you can always eventually get free - but being damaged or pushed will temporarily interrupt your breakout attempt!

Additionally, performing the friendly gesture - at any time - lets other players inspect your full inventory and modify your belt - a great way to show you're not a threat or hiding something valuable!

TRAVELLING VENDOR

We've added a brand new event! The Travelling Vendor. The vendor will spawn naturally on maps with ring roads (4000+) and traverse the roads.

The vendor sells a selection of wares: from basic building materials to some of the best items in the game. Each time the vendor spawns a random selection of items are chosen to sell, along with a different price each time. If you're lucky, the vendor will decide to sell something at a discount, so keep an eye out!

To get the vendor to stop just run up to it, but don't stand blocking its way for too long or you will be ignored. It can't wait on you forever! It doesn't take too kindly to gunfire or selling to hostiles so make sure you're on your best behaviour.

I want to say a huge thanks to the Rust Discord Community for their incredible work in helping debug and improve the vendor.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Ceiling Light Wiring Ceiling lights IO points are now easier to target

Improved Barricade Placement Can now place barricades on rocks and dirt roads

DYNAMIC VENDOR PRICING

To introduce a little more variety into the NPC vending system, this month we have introduced a change that increases or decreases the sale price of items purchased with scrap based on that item’s popularity.

The way it works is we now keep a running total of the average number of items sold every 6 in-game hours. Every 6 hours if the number sold is less than the average then the price of the item will drop by 5% for the next 6 hours (down to a minimum of 50%). If the number of items sold has increased above the average then its price will be increased by 10% (to a maximum of 100% extra, or twice the price). We will be starting prices at 200% so they will likely drop for a while before settling to the “market” price.

An example of the logic:

• The average amount of SAM sites purchased in a 6 hour window is 150, and the current price has no increases or decreases.

• At the end of a 6 hour window we check and see that 155 SAM sites have been purchased.

• Since the average has gone up, we raise the price by 10%.

• Since the price is now more expensive, sales drop to 120 over the next 6 hours.

• Since this is below the average we then drop the price by 5%, which results in a 5% price increase in total.

You can see the current discount and price when looking at an item on the map or in-person, the price displayed is the final price and there’s a small indicator that communicates what the current price change is and what that item’s initial price was. You can easily tell at a glance what items are cheap and what items are expensive, as well as how much they’ve changed price to make informed purchasing decisions.

We’ve only applied this to sales where the currency paid is scrap - vending machines that offer scrap in exchange for items (fish market, resource exchange, etc) are unaffected. This will also not apply to player created vending machines.

Why are we making this change? We believe the NPC vending meta can be shaken up a bit and this seems like a fairer change than us just arbitrarily changing a bunch of prices across the board. This way the prices will increase and decrease based on player behaviour and will vary from server to server. As usual we’ll monitor how this goes over the next month and make changes as necessary.

FURTHER MEMORY IMPROVEMENTS

Building on last month's work to reduce the overall number of objects in Rust to save memory, this month we are rolling out even more improvements. We applied the same principle (reducing the number of objects by combining them when possible) but at the project level, so that most assets are already combined and streamlined in the build and don’t need to be processed when starting the game up. The streamlining process we use here is even more aggressive and results in even greater memory savings while also reducing time spent processing assets.

As well as these optimisations, we’re going to be making last month's renderer improvements now enabled by default.

We believe this approach combined with last month's improvements has resulted in about a gigabyte of reduced memory usage on a fresh server.

This was a huge effort as it involved manually modifying hundreds of assets across the entire game. Thanks to the valiant efforts of our QA team we’ve identified many cases where slight unintentional material and colour changes occurred but it’s possible some more snuck through into the release so please let us know if you see anything that looks incorrect!

Just like last month, we have more improvements in the pipeline for next month including memory improvements to monument foliage and a new process for loading monuments that will hopefully reduce loading times and further reduce memory usage.

UNDERWATER VISIBILITY

Underwater visibility has been messed up for a while now. It was an unintended consequence of us rewriting the way we shade things underwater, to make it more flexible.

That low visibility has now been fixed, but we might continue to tweak it some more in subsequent patches.

ANTI-CHEAT UPDATE

Since our last anti-cheat update back in April, we have banned an additional 65,181 accounts, 10,297 of these were temporary, and the remaining 54,884 were permanent bans. Here's the breakdown per patch:

June - Seismic Shift:

• 14,949 permanent bans

• 5,898 temporary bans (86.39% of which were automated)

• 117,554 reports

May - Meta Madness:

• 19,876 permanent bans

• 2,755 temporary bans (91.80% of which were automated),

• 111,094 reports

April - Waves of Change:

• 20,059 permanent bans

• 1,644 temporary bans (94.67% of which were automated)

• 96,473 reports

NOTES

• Patch-specific report data is only from Facepunch Official servers due to data reliability originating from non-official servers, the total number of reports across all server since April is 3,645,165.

• Bans that were later reverted are excluded from these metrics.

• Bans are placed for multiple reasons. The numbers above do not strictly reflect only cheat-related bans, but cheat-related bans make up the vast majority of bans.

• A single player can receive multiple bans, for example, if a user is temporarily banned and then later switched to a permanent ban, this is counted as 2 bans in the above metrics.

• Over the last 31-days, we've had 1,751,457 unique players, and close to half a million daily active players. Using the metrics above, it could be interpreted that 1.2% of the player base are cheaters, it's very common for cheaters to use many accounts over the course of the month. Cheaters often receive an account suspension, get another account, receive another ban, rinse and repeat inflating the true number.

The above is to provide context and transparency, not to state we're doing a good job, there is much more to be done in this area, and we are continuing to work on it.

NEXT

In the last anti-cheat blog update, I discussed how we've limited the information cheaters can read and abuse from network data, such as knowing players health and buried stash locations, authorization lists from turrets and tool cupboards. The holy grail would be not networking nearby players and items you can't see.

If a player is behind a hill and you can't see them, don't network the player. If a tool cupboard is inside a base, don't network the tool cupboard. This is server occlusion, and it's difficult to get perfect. We're currently experimenting with this and hope to do a slow rollout over the coming months, pending further internal testing.

Additionally, we're currently working on many experimental features to disrupt cheats, some of these changes are nearly completion and will be deployed Soon™.

Last month, we teamed up with a third party to handle takedowns on our behalf. One of the core objectives is aimed at cheat-related material. The takedowns will be made at the request of Facepunch staff after manual review. There is no automation, and there is no room for innocent content to be taken down.

• In the past 30 days, we've taken down over 300 cheats-related media on social platforms

• We're working on several other legal fronts, which are too early to discuss

The next anticheat update will be in November

CREATIVE MODE

Creative mode is a new set of native tools Paddy and I have added which allows players to freely build, place and experiment without needing additional plugins. You can enable creative mode for everyone on your server using the server convar "creative.allUsers" or enable it just for a specific player using “creative.toggleCreativeModeUser PLAYERNAME”.

Once enabled, there are several convars you can enable which overrides standard build and placement restrictions:

• creative.freeRepair - allows resource free repairs and bypass the repair cooldown

• creative.freeBuild - makes all building blocks free and adds the option to spawn blocks in a specific grade. Also allows the Hammer to upgrade and downgrade blocks for free.

• creative.freePlacement - removes most placement restrictions when deploying objects. Will allow building in building blocked zones, in other TC zones and when intersecting other objects.

• creative.unlimitedIO - allows an unlimited amount of line points and raises the distance limit when wiring IO entities to 200m. Also adds an invisible colour option in the colour wheel.

This was originally made to help our Media team more efficiently build and film content, but we also see this being helpful for QA purposes as well. Hopefully you find it helpful too!

TWITCH DROPS - JULY 26-AUG 2ND

FancyOrb's Global Warfare event takes place and all your favorite creators will be involved with Twitch drops!

Drops will be available across the entire Rust category on Twitch.

Be sure to get synced at https://twitch.facepunch.com/connect to claim your skins!

SEISMIC SENSOR

This month we're adding the Seismic Sensor, a new electricity-powered deployable.

When powered, it will listen for nearby explosions and send a power signal when detecting any.

• You can configure its range from 1 to 30 meters (one foundation = 3 meters)

• It will output a different power value depending on the type of explosion detected

A non-exhaustive list of power values from explosives:

• 1 power = F1 Grenade, Beancan

• 2 power = Explosive ammo, Satchel

• 3 power = C4, Rocket

The idea is to let you detect and trigger circuits when you're being raided. Alarms, traps... the possibilities are infinite, we're excited to see what you will come up with!

BARRICADE PLACEMENT

Traditionally, we blocked all forms of building inside Monuments. This made sense back in the day when Monuments were small in size and number, but over the years, the amount of land they take up has increased significantly.

We want to reward players who pick a strategic location during a fight, but it's hard to pick a good location when you're in an empty field!

This is why barricades can now be placed on the terrain around Monuments. This allows you to take cover as you enter and exit monuments, as well as take cover inside the open fields inside Monuments.

Applies to:

• Wood barricade

• Stone barricade

• Concrete barricade

• Sandbags

Remember: Monument Structures, Concrete, and Roads still block barricades at this time.

Decay and melee protection has been adjusted to account for more relaxed placement

• 15 minute decay

• 8-10 hits with melee

SEE DEPLOY GUIDE OF TEAMMATES

Behold the ability to see what your teammate is placing and where it will be placed! This should clear up the exact location your teammate(s) are shouting while trying to build.

By default, it only will show your teammate's deploy guides when you are building. This can be changed via the options menu to 'Always Show' or to be disabled.

VISUAL FEEDBACK FOR BUILDING BLOCKED

When allowing barricades to be placed into Monuments we realized... it's not that clear where the building blocked of Monuments actually starts!

You will now see a red outline around the edge of monuments.

This can be toggled in the options menu.

Server owners can disable it via a convar if conflicts with custom Monuments. Monument building radius We also took the opportunity to adjust the building blocked size of some Monuments.

Larger

• Gas Station

• Lighthouse

• Mining Outpost

• Super Market

Slightly Larger

• Dome

• Launch Site

Smaller

• Arctic Research Base

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Faster Code Locks

Once a code is set, the "last used" button is much faster at entering the code

Bone Fertiliser

Bone fragments can now be used in a composter to create fertiliser

Faster Window Crafting

Window glass, shutters and bars now craft in 15s instead of 30s

Skin Names

See the name of skins at the Repair Bench, and a link to get them

Helicopter Handbrake

Idle helicopters no longer drift down slopes

Reduced Speed Penalty

Horse armour doesn't slow your horse as much

Salvaged Hammer Buff

+100% damage against deployables

Mixing Table Ammo Recipes

Added HV Ammo & Incendiary Ammo to mixing table

Industrial Conveyor UI

Easier to search and setup industrial conveyors

Block Explosives In TCs

Prevent players from stashing their explosives in TCs

Hammer UI Consistency

Hammer always shows all options to reduce misclicks

Reduce F15 Volume

Reduce volume of F15 by 50% to reduce strain on ears

LOD Improvements

Fixed monument prefabs appearing invisible from far

Planter Autofill

Hold Sprint to auto plant all held seeds in a single planter

Vendor Attachments

Able to see the attachments on weapons for sale in vending machines

Chainsaw hit radius

Adjusted the chainsaw hit radius to make it easier to hit the trees' X mark

INSTANT REJOIN

While a queue is better than nothing (who remembers the days of spamming reconnect?), we want to avoid players getting stuck in a queue at all: especially when it's due to a crash.

We have made a few changes to allow players recently kicked from any server to skip the queue.

• Holds your spot

• 5 minutes max

• Any type of disconnect (kick, internet outage, crash, alt + f4)

WIRE SLACK

When using the wire tool, you can now adjust the amount of slack in your wire using your mouse wheel while holding LEFT SHIFT.

It's purely visual, it doesn't change anything gameplay-wise, and it also works with hoses and Christmas lights!

PAINTING IMPROVEMENTS

I worked on a bunch of improvements for sign painting this month based on community feedback. There's a mix of QoL and bug fixes, but they should all improve your painting experience!

Changes

• Made the painting UI follow your UI scale option

• Added a convar to switch which side the painting UI is on (paint.leftsided)

• Increased the maximum brush size to 100 (was 32)

• Fixed brush sizes below 2 drawing nothing sometimes

• Fixed drawn brushes overlapping within the same stroke

• Fixed weird color blending behavior for the softest brush

• Fixed portrait and landscape frames using an incorrect aspect ratio paint texture (no more squishing and export inconsistency)

• This makes painting behave more like other apps

• Fixes low opacity values not actually actually being low because the brushes overlap

ELECTRICITY QOL

Medium battery size

Reduced medium battery size by ~15%, now fits under half walls

Tesla Coil & Igniter healing

Tesla Coils and Igniters are now healed by your tool cupboard overtime

Electrical Furnace

Now automatically turned ON or OFF depending on whether they have power

SAM Site

Added a new input to switch your SAM Site targeting mode using electricity

Solar Panel

Solar panels no longer take conditional damage when picked up

Wiring near vehicles

Vehicles no longer prevent you from wiring components

FISHING CHANGES

We’re making several fishing changes this month to try and shake up the broader fishing meta. Our current issue is that it’s quite trivial to endlessly produce fish from a safe zone, then converting that fish to scrap. It’s not the fastest way to earn scrap but it is pretty reliable.

Our intention with the range of fish available to catch was always that you would work your way up the chain - catch a sardine, use that to catch a trout, use that to catch a shark. By allowing raw fish meat to be used as a bait you could easily gut one fish and catch dozens more fish with that meat, which could then be converted into even more fish.

To break this loop, this month raw fish meat is now only worth 0.5 bait (and can be used in stacks of 3) - whole fish can (and should) be used as bait but you now run the risk of losing that fish when casting out. The idea is to introduce a risk/reward mechanic. Do you cash out with your current trout catch or do you put them on line and go for the sharks?

To balance out this reduction in bait, we’ve made several other forms of bait more useful. Several bait types can now be “stacked” - if a fish requires 5 bait to be caught and you stack two Worms worth 2.5 each, you can now catch that fish. This behaviour is applied across worms, grubs, berries and small fish, making these baits more viable. We’ve also increased the bait value of human meat (1 -> 3), bear meat (5 -> 10) and wolf meat (5-> 10). The stack amount can be seen next to the bait value when selecting the item in your inventory.

The Survival Fish Trap became a bit neglected after we introduced the Fishing Rod, so this month we’ve adjusted it to make it more relevant. The trap now uses the same underlying fish/bait system as the rod, meaning you can catch different fish in different water sources as well as catch better fish based on the bait provided. The only mechanical difference between these two fish sources is that the trap cannot catch the same fish as it has used as bait and the trap has a 50% chance to lose the bait without catching the fish.

TECH TREE COMBINING

In order to save some space in bases, I’ve modified the Tech Tree menu to now allow you to browse and unlock techs from lower Tech Trees (eg. Access T1 techs from a T2 bench, access T1 and T2 trees from a T3 bench). Use the tabs in the top left of the screen to switch between available tech trees.

The workbench tax from last month's update is applied based on the Tech Tree level, so there will be no scrap cost changes as a result of this change. The tech tree also now opens immediately when accessing the workbench, saving you a click.

RENDERER MEMORY SAVINGS

In hack week this month, I explored ways to reduce our memory usage, an area that is a real priority for us this year. While a lot of my experiments weren’t workable, one did actually end up saving several hundred megabytes of memory for very little cost, so it’s shipping as disabled by default this month.

A renderer in this case is simply a thing that is visible to the player - a crate, a rock, part of a structure, etc. Importantly for performance each renderer has LODs (Level of Detail) - lower quality versions of each renderer that we switch to based on the distance to the players perspective. In Unity each of these LODs typically lives on a child object of a master parent object, so Barrel01 will have a child Barrel01_LOD0, Barrel01_LOD1, etc that we switch to. What I discovered during hack week is that in a proc gen map of 4.5k size, we can have upwards of 1.3 million objects in the world, each of these objects has some overhead (we need to store its position, rotation, what the object does, etc). In a renderers case, for every single renderer we had 3-5 child objects, one for each LOD level.

I realised that in most cases each LOD object was just sharing a duplicate of all the information except for a different model, so I modified the system to detect when this happens and consolidate all needed information into a single object, then delete the child objects. By applying this to every renderer in the world, I was able to delete 385 thousand objects from the world, which had a combined memory saving of 484mb - pretty significant!

This combination process is run every time the game is launched, we’re currently working on a change to make most of these modifications before we build the game, which should yield further savings next month.

Due to how risky this change is (deleting 385 thousand objects has had some unintended side effects that we’ve now fixed), we’re shipping this new feature off by default, but we’ll monitor it’s usage through the month and likely turn it on by default sometime next month. The convar is graphics.collapseRendererLOD and you’ll need to restart your game after turning it on or off. Let us know how it goes for you!

tldr: 400k less objects 500mb less RAM

HORSE IMPROVEMENTS

It would be amiss to say horses have not had their share of issues over the last few months. So following community feedback I looked into a solution that would resolve the difficulties players have had with horse navigation.

Alongside some minor adjustments to prevent horses from getting stuck and preventing unnecessary stamina depletion, I introduced the ability for horses to walk backwards. This seemed like the most logical approach to alleviate horses getting stuck and should be an overall improvement to navigation.

CINEMATIC ENTITIES

I've added a few more cinematic entities this month for Rust creators to use in their video and image projects. These can be spawned by server owners/admins and can be hidden via console with pre-assigned group numbers.

The new additions include:

• More spot and point light (red/blue/green variants)

• Unlit backdrops and cyc walls (green/blue/black/white/grey variants)

• Flags/cutters (small/medium/large variants)

Visibility Commands

Cinematic entities assigned to different groups which allows them to hidden if desired. Use the command cinematicentity.hideobjects followed by group numbers to hide them.

Cinematic entities are now assigned to specific group numbers which allows them to be hidden if desired. Use the command cinematicentity.hideobjects followed by one or more group numbers to set their visibility to hidden.

The groups are setup like so:

• 0 = nothing (makes all entities visible)

• 1 = lighting

• 2 = backdrops

• 3 = props

• 4 = misc (flags/cutters)

You can hide one or multiple groups in the same command line - for example: cinematicentity.hideobjects 1 - Hides lighting only (keeps light effect but hides the mesh) cinematicentity.hideobjects 1 2 - Hides both lighting and backdrop meshes cinematicentity.hideobjects 0 - Shows/un-hides all cinematic entities

You can also hide cinematic entity groups in demos with cinematicentity.demohideobjects followed by the same group numbers above. To revert to the visiblity of the entities back to their original states from the demo recording, use cinematicentity.removedemooverride

TWITCH DROPS

Join us for the Bellum Redemption event June 10th-17th!

There will be Twitch drops so be sure you get synced!

Please be aware of scams. Facepunch will never contact you. Only ever use our official website. https://twitch.facepunch.com/

TURRET INTERFACE VISUAL FEEDBACK

Turret interference has been effective at preventing players from surrounding their base in 100s of turrets, however it lacked feedback on how exactly to stay under the limit.

Turret interference will now be shown while holding a wire tool and looking at a turret.

It will also be shown in the hotbar while building.

While this is accurate most of the time keep in mind this only counts turrets you are authed on (it ignores enemy turrets). This mismatch is required to prevent players from holding a turret and seeing how many turrets are inside an enemy's base.

FULL DEVBLOG HERE

AIMCONE REDUCTION

Any movement in rust would modify your baseline Aimcone so that shots taken while in motion were somewhat inaccurate. This was supposed to discourage "running and gunning". The problem with this is that any kind of motion while in a firefight puts you at a disadvantage (minor dodging) and increases the amount of RNG experienced by the player.

What I've done is reduced this penalty to zero to start, and blend it up to the full amount after 4 rapid fire shots. This means is you can now strafe and dodge while tap firing and not experience a huge aiming penalty, however full auto will be penalized.

I've also adjusted the Aimcone curve modifiers for a few weapons so that more shots have a higher probability of landing closer to the center. This has been applied to the Custom SMG, SAP and LR300.

WEAPON + ATTACHMENT UPDATES

Weapon mods have received some love this month.

BURST MOD

The duration between bursts while using the burst mod has been significantly reduced to 2x firerate instead of 3x firerate.

HOLOSIGHT

The holosight mesh has had its edges thinned so that less of your vision is obscured while using it. This is a stopgap until we produce a new model for it. I've also fixed the Holosight reticle being affected by motion blur.

MUZZLE BRAKE & BOOST

Both the muzzle brake and muzzle boost have had their negatives reduced, they now have less damage reduction and less damage falloff and should prove to be far more useful.

LR300 TWEAKS

In addition, I've made some changes to the recoil, damage fall off, bullet velocity, and burst mode of the LR300. This should now be the best in class AR.

Everything subject to change.

SAFEZONE RECYCLERS

Starting today, Recyclers in safezones have been nerfed. Their cycle time has been increased to 8 seconds and they now yield 80% of what they used to. This is the price you now must pay for safety.

However, the recyclers found at monuments have the same cycle time as before but now yield 120%! This is to reward players taking the risk out in the open.

While I am aware that a great many keyboards may be smashed as the death screen fades in over the droning hum of the active recycler, I still have hope this helps usher in a new era of roaming and monument combat.

SALE SALE SALE!

Some great items were not used because they were way too expensive. To that end I've made the following changes:

• HV Ammo - Gunpowder cost reduced significantly, and the yield per craft increased to match non HV ammo.

• Torpedos - Craft yield increased from 3 to 5.

• Incendiary Rockets - The cost has been drastically reduced and their damage + flame spread increased.

• Drones - Tech trash is no longer a requirement for drones.

• HMLMG - Gear cost has been reduced.

EXTERNAL STRUCTURE CHANGES

Large External Gates and Walls now require the player to stand still for 1.5 seconds when placing, making them less useful for immediate PvP encounters in the wild. We felt that being able to place down such large structures in a short amount of time felt at odds with our style of combat that rewards situational awareness and environmental tactics.

WOODEN BARRICADE RESIZE

To fill the void left by the external wall changes regarding dynamic cover during PvP, we have doubled the size of the deployable wooden barricade. The wooden barricade remains instantly deployable and provides a moderate amount of cover on-demand without being overpowered or polluting the landscape with large, unsightly deployable.

This is without a doubt a large shift to PvP, we'll be monitoring these changes carefully

BRADLEY CHANGES

Some further tweaks to the Bradley this month.

Scientists now spawn in stages, based on the Bradley's health, and there's some Heavy scientists thrown in the mix now, too.

• At 80% health, 2 scientists will spawn

• At 60% health, 4 more will spawn

• At 40% health, 6 final scientists will spawn

There's also been some tweaks to make some of the Scientists more aggressive and use varying attack angles.

DOOR CONTROLLER

You can now use door controllers without worrying about raiders abusing them to open your doors! This is accomplished by unpairing door controllers once your TC is destroyed & requiring code lock authorization for pairing.

They also are much easier to setup as they can now be placed just like code locks.

This should reduce the pain of constantly opening and closing the doors of your base... especially when your teammates tend to leave them open.

• Now deployable on doors like code locks

• Automatically paired when placed

• Added 2 new side inputs : 'Open' and 'Close'

• Unpaired when the associated tool cupboard is destroyed

We also carried on improving electricity by adjusting components and fixing various bugs this month. Thanks again to the community for reporting bugs and suggesting ideas.

The full change log of each component can be read in the section at the bottom of the blog.

PATROL HELICOPTER CHANGES

We know the latest helicopter changes had some mixed feedback, so we've revised them. No go zones should feel a lot more fair, and most major bugs experienced with heli since the last update are now patched.

• Monument Crashing - the helicopter will now attempt to crash at a nearby monument on death. It won't crash at monuments with safe zones: outpost, fishing village, etc. This can be disabled by server owners via: patrolhelicopterai.monument_crashing

• Flee Behavior - heli would previously flee when it sometimes didn't mean to. Damage to start a flee has been tweaked, ensuring a flee every time you quickly remove 30% of its overall HP.

• Numerous Fixes & Improvements - heli will now properly target you on boats, cargo, trains and other moving entities. Targeting fixes and performance improvements have been made throughout the code. More legacy bugs: such as heli not exploding immediately on impact with certain terrain are also fixed.

LAUNCH SITE LOOT

The Launch site loot had received an overhaul. Before, the loot inside the main building shared the same respawn group as the rest of the launch site, meaning loot inside the main building was never guaranteed. Loot had a chance to spawn elsewhere at the monument, which felt discouraging when completing the puzzle and running the main building.

The main site building now has a dedicated respawn group, which guarantees 23 loot crates when the puzzle resets.

Additionally, more loot now spawns throughout the monument.

UNDERWATER IMPROVEMENTS

Underwater vision has been improved substantially. You can now see much farther when using goggles and even more so when viewing out a submarine porthole.

In addition, the surface accuracy of submarine torpedoes has been vastly improved and torpedoes were made cheaper to produce by way of an increased craft yield. Lastly, the duo submarine fires torpedoes slightly faster than the solo.

BUILDING QOL

Tool Cupboard Auth Friend

Can authorize other players on a tool cupbard

Demolish High Walls

Can demolish high walls & gates for 10min after placement

Fixed High Wall Snapping

Hold SHIFT to disable snapping

Foundation Placement

Fixed foundation placement under roofs & floors

Foundation Debris

Foundations now drop debris

Floor Debris

Floors now drop debris

TECH TREE CHANGES

We’re making some changes to how the Tech Tree works to try and incentivise new styles of play. Starting this month you will notice that the T2 and T3 workbench tech trees now have a tax rate applied to them which will increase the cost of unlocking items. We’re starting this at 10% for T2 and 20% for T3. This cost increase only applies to unlocking via the Tech Tree, researching items via the Research Table is unchanged.

Our thinking behind this is that we feel the Tech Tree progression path has become a little stale and needs to be shaken up, but we don’t want to lose the advantages that the Tech Tree brought to progression - making difficult to find blueprints attainable in a way that felt fair and not as at the mercy of RNG. While there are a number of avenues we can use to try and make both forms of progression feel more balanced this feels like a simple and understandable starting point.

As with all of our changes we’ll be closing a close eye on this and will likely make further changes in the future.

CARGO SHIP CHANGES

It’s been great to see the reception to last month's Cargo Ship/harbor update, we hope you’ve all enjoyed some very (very) intense firefights. Based on the feedback we received we’re making a couple of changes this month:

• The Cargo Ship will now dock at both harbors (if they exist) on a map before leaving. Note that any containers that have already been placed on a ship will be deleted when it starts its approach to the next harbor.

• You can now mouse over the ship on the map to see if it has already docked.

• The containers that are spawned to be placed on the Cargo Ship will now be spawned when it starts its approach (about 100m away from the harbor) rather than when the ship arrives at its dock, giving you more time to hide in the containers.

• The container spawn points have been mildly tweaked so that all of the containers should be accessible, although you might need to do some climbing.

We hope these changes make the event a bit more understandable at a glance as well as make the combat encounters more interesting.

VIEWMODEL RENDERERS

Since implementing a dedicated viewmodel renderer system back in April 2021, all of our viewmodels have been split between the old and new system. The primary stumbling blocks were viewmodels with lots of particle effects and lights (torches, flamethrowers, etc). While we covered most of the high impact cases of viewmodel jittering by supporting guns (how often do you use the birthday cake on oil rig?) we’ve been wanting to consolidate everything for a while. This month we’ve updated all of the viewmodels to use the new renderer so they should appear smooth and jitter free regardless of where you are in the world. The affected viewmodels:

• Both flamethrowers

• Water Bucket

• Beancan Grenade

• Molotov Cocktail

• Flashlight

• Birthday Cake

• Garry’s Mod Toolgun

• Poker playing cards

• Lunar New Year spear

• Minigun

• Paddle

You should see no visible changes if it's all working correctly.

AI PERFORMANCE FIXES

I've investigated and addressed a couple of AI performance issues that were causing the AI to take longer to process than necessary, especially on servers that have been running for a while.

This should help with AI server performance across the board.

EFFECTS PERFORMANCE

After noticing occasional framedrops during gunfights, I've spent some time investigating the issue and found out that our impact effects prefab warmup wasn't working as intended.

All impact effects are now warmed up correctly during loading times.

This should drastically reduce the stuttering when spawning a big amount of effects prefab for the first time (e.g when a fight starts and bullets start flying). This has a very little if no impact on loading times.

MAP UPLOADING

Procedural maps are now automatically uploaded from game servers to our backend so players can just download them instead of generating them when they first join the server.

This should significantly reduce the time it takes to join a server for the first time after it wipes. It may also reduce the number of players seeing "Rust is not responding" popups while joining servers for the first time.

HARMONY 2

Harmony is Rust's built-in modding platform shipped with the server. It powers modding frameworks like Oxide & Carbon, as well as standalone mods.

We upgraded from Harmony 1.2 -> Harmony 2.3 which brings us up to date with the latest features & additional stability.

This requires mod authors to recompile their Harmony mods. Fortunately the majority of mods only need to change a single line.

Before using Harmony;

After using HarmonyLib;

Players shouldn't need to worry as the majority of large servers already started updating their mods before the update went live. Server owners please keep an eye out for mod updates as every Harmony Mod will needed to be updated.

ELECTRICITY CHANGELOG

Tesla Coil, Igniter To stop them from self-destructing, they are now disabled upon reaching <10% of their max health. No longer take damage when picked up

Electrical Branch Reduced minimum branch out power from 2 to 1

Button Reduced press time from 5s to 1s

Storage Monitor Will now recognize partial stack changes and pass power through when removing or adding a items to a stack

Splitter Fixed power distribution issue when not all outputs were used

Memory Cell Fixed side inputs triggerable by 0 power circuits

Timer Switch Fixed an issue where its side input was triggered inconsistently by circuits update (e.g: industrial conveyor updating its state)

Counter When set to 'Show Passthrough', it now displays its passthrough even if nothing is connected to its output No longer requires a connection to its output to display its passthrough when set to 'Show Passthrough'

RF Receiver Updated recipe:

• Metal Fragments 100 → 150
• Tech Trash 1 → 0

RF Broadcaster Updated recipe:

• Metal Fragments 100 → 150
• Tech Trash 1 → 0

RF Transmitter Updated recipe:

• HQM 5 → Metal Fragments 100
• Tech Trash 1 → 0

RF Pager Updated recipe:

• Metal Fragments 50 → 100
• Tech Trash 1 → 0

AND, OR, XOR Switch No longer emit light when unpowered

Industrial Conveyor Can be placed upside down again

Industrial Light No longer referred as Simple Light when looking at IO connection handles

Smart Switch No longer referred as Switch when looking at IO connection handles

CARGO SHIP DOCKING

We’ve given both Harbors a fresh coat of paint this month, with a significant amount of visual and gameplay changes. These changes support the new Cargo Ship docking process, which allows the ship to adjust it's course and dock with the harbor.

Each harbor has a new island that can be reached by crossing a rotating bridge, floating containers or a daring set of jumps across cranes. This island becomes a stronghold once the Cargo Ship docks as it becomes sheltered from the rest of the harbor.

The ship will pick the first harbor it passes to dock and will only dock once. Once docked, the cranes in the Harbor will spring into life and move several containers from the docks onto the deck of the ship. These containers have openable doors and can be hidden in, so they present a new way to smuggle aboard the ship and another threat for players already on the ship to contend with. These containers will be deposited in locations that are generally above the deck, in some cases by several meters. This should present an interesting tactical situation when attacking the ship as well as defending it.

We’ve also added two ship doors above the water line that allow access to the lower interior level of the ship and provide additional ways to board or traverse the monument while the ship is docked.

By default the Cargo Ship replenishes it's loot every 10 minutes - up to 3 times. When the ship docks at the harbor it will attempt to trigger one of those loot refreshes, although if all three have already happened it will be unable to spawn any more loot.

The Cargo Ship horn will sound 60 seconds prior to it's departure - once you hear that horn it's time to get moving or you might end up back out at sea.

We think these changes combined will lead to Cargo Ship being a much more contested PvP environment for groups of all sizes. We're also interested to see how a traditionally lower intensity monument like the Harbors adjust to periodic bouts of high intensity action.

OILRIGS

The Oilrigs receive an upgrade this month, with an underwater access. This new way to get onto the Oilrig will add a path into both structures Level 3 floors.

This provides a different, and possibly safer way into the monument. It is also a way to counter the players on board by short circuiting the docks at the rigs water line.

The extra rooms inside see the addition of a CCTV desk that allows you to observe in place the camera feeds of the monument.

MINIGUN

The iconic minigun has been added to the game which is used by the Heavy Scientists. It takes a moment to spin up, but when it does, it unleashes a massive amount of ammunition, making targets much easier to hit.

It's a rare drop useable by players and you must be at a workbench level 2 to add ammunition to it as it cannot be reloaded in the field. It also takes 1.5 seconds to spin up and lowers your movement speed while the spin is engaged.

RETRO TOOL CUPBOARD

We're thrilled to announce Rust's first-ever tool cupboard DLC skin! The Retro Tool Cupboard can be crafted as usual using the skin picker or applied to an existing Tool Cupboard using the Spray can item.

The Retro Tool Cupboard monitors display live information such as upkeep time, resources, and the number of blocks used to calculate upkeep costs. However, the data is only visible on the monitors when authorized.

The Retro Tool cupboard doesn't require power, the lower half of the Retro Tool Cupboard behind the glass panel displays current inventory upkeep amounts and tools.

When approaching the Retro Tool cupboard design, we felt aesthetics were critical. The tool cupboard is the heart of any base and should be instantly recognizable.

You can purchase Retro Tool cupboard skin in-game or at Steam's item store.

MILITARY FLAMETHROWER

In addition to the minigun, the Heavy Scientists have had their arsenal upgraded with a new, military tier flamethrower. This weapon deals massive damage to targets up to 12 meters away and creates walls of fire - which can be used for area denial.

I've also modified how flamethrowers deal damage to players making them an extremely effective PvP weapon.

PATROL HELICOPTER IMPROVEMENTS

The patrol helicopter was one of the largest banks of 'older' code still in the game. It's stood up well, but there were a bunch of fixes and improvements that needed to happen. Let's start with the improvements.

Orbital Strafing/Strafing Changes

The regular helicopter attack strafe was getting pretty old. It followed a regular pattern and most of our values were fixed internally. This has been changed. During an attack run the helicopter will randomise a bunch of values, including: rocket amount, drop off distance, turn speed etc. These are relatively minor adjustments, but they should help make each new fight with the helicopter feel a little more fresh.

We also added a new attack phase in the strafing run. The helicopter will turn, begin orbiting your position and pummel you with rockets from all directions. This will randomly happen after each strafe. It's super fun to play, and helps bring back the excitement and danger of taking heli.

Aggro Improvements

A new 'zones' feature has been introduced. These are invisible to the player. When a player damages heli a zone is updated/created and the zone is assigned a score. This score is based on how much damage heli has taken from that specific zone.

Heli will now seek out targets based on zones and damage scores rather than the perceived randomness of before. When there are minimal players and by extension - minimal zones. Heli will work similarly to before, but when more zones are introduced heli will prioritise attacking the people that are attacking it, in a more controlled and deliberate manner.

You are still free pickings to the side gunners, but your house shouldn't be blasted anymore in the confusion.

No-Go Zones

When taking heli, the basic principle is to get, and keep aggro. No-Go zones make this a little more difficult, and now encourage some movement when taking heli. When a zone performs enough damage to heli too quickly, then that zone is marked as a no-go zone. Heli will flee the area, and attempt to avoid it as best as it can. This is to encourage heli to get out of areas that are going to kill it too quickly. Encouraging bigger groups to chase, build defenses as they go and bring more PVP to the whole map.

Bug Fixes/Changes

A bunch of legacy bugs that existed with heli are now patched. These include being stuck on targets, disappearing mid-fight, not exploding in the ocean, as well as a bunch of proxy issues that were fixed by the aggro adjustments. Other adjustments have also been made to how heli patrols work, and you should see it moving around a bit more now, rather than just sticking to the monuments.

Server Convars

• patrolhelicopterai.use_danger_zones - this will enable/disable the no go and aggro zones. When turned off, the helicopter will largely behave the way it used to with target picking and aggression.

• patrolhelicopterai.flee_damage_percentage - this sets the required percentage of damage done to heli in order for it to flee and create a no-go zone. A value of 1 or over will effectively disable no go zones and stop the flee mechanic.

It will no doubt need some further revisions and changes after this release. Keep us updated on how your heli takes go. Have fun!

ELECTRICITY

This month we are taking care of our fellow electricians! Bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and major changes are coming to electricity.

CHANGES

First of all, we removed any power requirements from all logic gates.

Being creative and adding logic to your circuits won't be at the expense of acquiring a linear or exponential amount of power any more. While being a great quality of life for master electricians, we also believe that removing this pain point will increase the use of electricity in general.

Therefore, the following components won't require power or drain batteries anymore:

• Splitter

• Electrical Branch

• Blocker

• Root Combiner

• Memory Cell

• RAND Switch

• XOR Switch

• AND Switch

• OR Switch

• Timer

• Switch

• Smart Switch

• Counter

• Pressure Pad

• Button

Any other active components like turrets, sensors, lights, etc.. remain unchanged and will still need power to function.

BUG FIXES

These power limitations were also overly amplified by a multitude of power drain bugs and unintended behaviors that we worked on fixing.

Here are the most important ones:

• Fixed AND, & OR gates draining batteries on both sides instead of only the side with the highest power input

• Fixed auxiliary inputs/outputs draining power unnecessarily

• Fixed memory cell draining battery on both sides instead of from the active output

• Prevent electrical branch from draining power when nothing is connected to its branch out side

• Fixed unpowered components draining batteries, much more common now that branches do not waste power anymore

QUALITY OF LIFE

Along these changes, we worked on improving how you deploy electrical components: Fixed the differences between the deploy guide and the actual position where your component is placed Components are now aligned to walls and won't rotate based on your view angle You can now align your components together when deploying them on walls by holding left shift

This applies to all electricity, industrial and fluid items. We're planning on extending it to any type of deployable in the future.

NEXT STEPS

There as more fixes and improvements that didn't make it into this patch. Expect more in the coming months, including plans to rework some components and extending their functionalities.

Many thanks to our electricians community for pointing out bugs and suggesting ideas.

FULL CHANGELOG

Splitter

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Now distributes power evenly across all outputs and add any remaining power to the earliest outputs, ensuring no power loss

Electrical Branch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Won't drain any power when nothing is connected to its left side

Blocker

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

Root Combiner

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

Memory Cell

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Fixed draining battery on both sides instead of from the active output

• Fixed power passthrough being shown on both outputs instead of on the active one

• Side inputs won’t drain power any more

RAND Switch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Now passes power when ON and blocks power when OFF

• Now resets to OFF

XOR Switch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

AND Switch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Fixed batteries getting drained when only one side is powered

OR Switch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Fixed batteries getting drained on both sides instead of only the side with the highest power input (if both input have the same power, the first input is chosen by default)

Timer

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Side inputs won’t drain power any more

• Now configurable when unpowered

Switch

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Fixed aux inputs draining power

• Fixed aux inputs passing power through

• Fixed red LED not showing up when receiving power but toggled off

Counter

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0 Max target number: 100 -> 999

• Side inputs won’t drain power any more

• Fixed power passing power through when under their target value

Pressure Pad

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

• Fixed blocking power passthrough for a bit when triggered

Button

Power Consumption: 1 -> 0 Active Usage: 1 -> 0

Laser Detector

• Now deployable on any surface angle

• Tweaked handles position to make it easier to wire

Ceiling Light

• Fixed being powerable using only 1 power instead of 2

Flasher Light

• Restored blue material emission when ON

• Tweaked handles position to make it easier to wire

Reactive Target

• Now resets itself automatically only after being knocked down

• Won't generate and pulse 1 power when lowered manually

• When both lower and reset inputs are powered, the one with the highest power takes over

Industrial Conveyor

• Fixed aux output passing 1 power regardless of the current energy

Industrial Crafter

• Now drains 1 power correctly when ON

Small Generator

• Aux inputs won’t drain any power any more

ANTI-CHEAT UPDATE

At the beginning of the year, In the development blog Surviving a Decade, I mentioned, "This year we're dedicating more resources into anti-cheat than ever", this is a commitment we're dedicated to, and I want to share more information about what we've been up too.

Over the past couple of months, we have slowly eliminated or limiting information leaks which cheaters abuse to aid them in several ways. For example, players health, Tool Cupboards and turret authorization lists could be read in the network data, allowing cheaters to use and gain a further unfair advantage. These are now fixed.

In continuing efforts to battle cheaters and clean up many long-standing issues, especially around information leaks, buried stashes are no longer networked, meaning cheaters will no longer know where stashes are buried.

There is much more to be done in this area, and we are working on it.

Expanding the support team size over the past year has allowed us to get more support staff focusing on anti-cheat, which includes going in-game and dealing with and disrupting cheaters directly based on player reports. Some staff over the coming months will be dedicated solely to anti-cheat measures full-time. This isn't limited to Facepunch servers, but across the board.

In addition to the above, we've deployed some stricter measures surrounding anti-cheating, eliminated several priority exploits, and will deploy further measures soon.

In the last month:

• 26,954 bans have been applied

• 22,542 of which were permanent

• 4,412 of which were temporary

• 949,422 cheating reports received

• 90.8% of bans were applied automatically

• Since the 1st January 2024:

• 84,753 bans have been applied

• 71,371 of which were permanent

• 13,382 of which were temporary

• 3,116,133 cheating reports received

• 92.9% of bans were applied automatically

Based on fiscal quarters:

• 72,849 bans applied in 2023 Q1

• 65,608 bans applied in 2023 Q2

• 81,682 bans applied in 2023 Q3

• 55,672 bans applied in 2023 Q4

• 81,084 bans applied in 2024 Q1

Notes

• Bans are placed for multiple reasons, the numbers above do not strictly reflect only cheat-related bans, but cheat-related bans do make up the vast majority of bans.

• A single player can receive multiple bans, for example, if a user is temporarily banned and then later switched to a permanent ban, this is counted as 2 bans in the above metrics.

BRADLEY SCIENTISTS

The Bradley has some new passengers this month!

Scientists can now deploy from the Bradley to help defend it with some extra firepower.

This applies to both the Launch Site Bradley and the Bradley that spawns along roads at the end of the month.

IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES HIGHLIGHTS

Seed Sack World Model

Added new seed world model

Mushroom World Model

Added mushroom world model

Monument CCTV Station

New dedicated CCTV station within monuments

SRV DNS SUPPORT

I added support for SRV DNS record to Rust. This means you can now create nice domain names for your servers without needing to specify the port (or be forced into the default port).

I also used this added information to improve the favorites list. Servers that have a working DNS record set up would save the domain name when favoriting so that favorites should never break as long as the domain name is pointing to the right place.

More information on how to set this up is on the wiki.

PING ESTIMATION

If you have searched for new servers in the browser you probably noticed the large amount of fake ping: it's impossible to have 30ms ping to both a US and EU server. This is a side effect of certain forms of DDOS protection and has forced us to create a custom system to estimate ping rather than use steam's ping value.

There is a new checkbox below "Use Cache" called "Estimate Ping". We will enable this by default in the future once we confirm the estimated values are more accurate than the existing ones.

[

FULL BLOG POST

](https://rust.facepunch.com/news/waves-of-change)

TUTORIAL ISLAND

A common story we hear from new players is that they have seen their friends/Twitch Streamer/YouTuber playing Rust, so they pick up the game and then bounce off it due to how harsh and unforgiving the new player experience can be. This month’s Tutorial Island is our attempt to provide new players with a safe environment to learn the basic controls and mechanics of Rust before being set loose in the main game with other players.

Everyone will be prompted to start the tutorial when they first spawn this month, if you’re a long term player feel free to decline the tutorial and we won’t ask you about it again. Once the player starts the Tutorial, they will be respawned on a dedicated island where an NPC will guide them through the first half hour of gameplay. This island is tightly controlled and cannot be reached by other players.

Throughout this process players will learn some key concepts:

• Basic movement

• Crafting

• Building bases

• Upgrading bases

• Respawning

• Basic combat

• Resources

• Looting containers

• Cooking

• Using Furnaces

• Workbenches

• Using a vehicle

This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list of everything there is to learn in Rust, but we feel like this is a good starting point for a new player. Our guiding principle when designing this sequence has been - if a player emulates exactly what they did on the Tutorial Island once they get into the main game, will they have a fighting chance?

The tutorial itself should take less than 30 minutes if you’re familiar with general FPS controls and concepts, likely around an hour if you are not a regular FPS player. Once complete you will be dropped off into the main game with the same resources as any other player - completing the Tutorial Island does not give you any advantages in regular gameplay.

For server owners running mods that change core gameplay features, you may find that parts of the tutorial don’t work or maybe showing the tutorial isn’t appropriate for your server (minigame servers for instance). You can control whether the tutorial is active via the “server.tutorialEnabled” convar - it's false by default. While false players won't be prompted to start the tutorial on your server and they will not be able to manually start the tutorial. We’ve added a server tag to help players find and filter servers by their tutorial compatibility, add “tut” to your server tags to advertise your tutorial compatibility. Brand new players will have this filter on when they first use the server browser.

VENDOR UI REFRESH

Our outdated tooltip popup for checking vendor stock urgently needed an upgrade. It felt out of place when compared with the marketplace UI. Thus, a plan was devised to merge both into a single unified system. This update will be rolled out in two parts, with this being part one. This first part fully replaces the old blue tooltip popup with an interface that's clearer, more user-friendly, and scalable. Now, it's easy to understand what you're purchasing and how much is costs. Overall, this first pass on the vendor UI provides a great foundation to expand on.

New Single Vendor Interface

Items are now displayed clearly with the cost and stock counts easily visible.

New Multi Vendor Interface

Accordions are used to hold vendors with large amounts of listings. This keeps everything easy to read, whilst still giving users flexibility to add a bunch of listings.

While working on this, we noticed some QOL issues with finding items before purchasing. The marketplace offers useful features like search and filtering that the standard map doesn't have. It would be great to have these abilities everywhere.

Part two will unify the marketplace UI with the new vendor UI. You will still have to travel to the marketplace to buy things via drone, but the actual underlying UI will be merged together. This will provide the same search/filtering functionalities as enjoyed at the marketplace to the regular map vendor UI, whilst bringing the improved style and ease of use of this new vendor UI to the marketplace.

NIGHTLIGHT

Today, I'm addressing an issue we often hear about from the Rust community. Navigating the game during nighttime. While the night cycle is a cruicial element of the rust gameplay loop, it can be a literal stumbling block not seeing what's directly ahead. The problem of "gamma hacking" (where players unfairly enhance their night vision by tweaking monitor settings), has been a thorn in our side, necessitating a pitch-black darkness (RGB 0,0,0) to counteract such exploits.

To that end I've come up with the "Nightlight" feature. Basically it's a shader that subtly illuminates a small radius around the player, mimicking the effect of natural moon light. This localized lighting ensures that while you can see just enough to navigate at night, the vast darkness beyond remains dark. Distant pixels are kept at absolute darkness (RGB 0,0,0), effectively rendering gamma hacking useless for spotting far-off threats or resources. ( beyond a few meters)

We believe this approach strikes a good balance, enhancing the night experience without compromising fair play. I hope it helps!

IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES HIGHLIGHTS

Rangefinder

Rangefinder added to binoculars

Attack Helicopter Flare

Attack helicopter flares now take 30 seconds to reload

Safe Metal Detecting

Metal detectors no longer able to find loot in safezones

Attire Conflict

Visual feedback when switching attire conflict

ITEM STORE UI UPDATE

This month, we’ve made improvements to the store interface. These changes are part of a UI overhaul for the menu screen that we’re currently working through. One of the main improvements is adding in a custom view for each of the general store items, giving a better look at what an item looks like or what is contained within a pack. For example, the Abyss pack, we now show a cut-down version of the trailer, the items contained within the pack in a 3D turntable, media and a bit of information about the pack.

These changes are aimed at improving the experience of using the store, more transparency in regards to what you’re potentially purchasing, and improving it from a visual point of view too.

Store Interface

Re-designed view, with improvements in regards to scaling and legibility of the items.

Store Item Model

We've improved the interface for the model that appears when you tap on an item. A new key addition being an animated 3D version of the skin.

General Store Model

We've added a new view for each general store item. Some of these include cut-down trailers, items contained within as a 3D turntable as well as media and general information about the item. These new views hopefully give a better understanding of what you're getting in the purchase.

HAPIS & OBSERVER ISLAND RETIREMENT

Hapis Island and Observer Island custom maps are being retired today from Facepunch servers. Observer Island was first released in November by community members CollapsedOrange and wheatleymf and Hapis Island was brought back to celebrate 10 years of Rust.

If you're a server owner and wish to host your own Hapis or Observer Island, you can check them out at the following links:

• Observer Island - Lone Design

• Hapis Island - Lone design

What's the future for custom maps? We're going to continue working with our amazing map-maker community and highlight and host custom maps.

If you would like to start making your own map, check out Rust's wiki.

RUST X DAYZ Bundle - Pioneer Survival sale

Rust and DayZ have teamed up for a bundle featuring both games at 40% off!

The Pioneer Survival Pack on Steam features both titles at 40% off from March 7th 6PM GMT to March 14th 6PM GMT.

Both DayZ and Rust celebrated their 10th anniversaries in December, with in-game events, limited items, and Twitch Rivals competitions, marking many years of updates, changes, and content to the games that have kept them thriving with old and new players alike.

DayZ, with its realistic post-apocalyptic world, has evolved far beyond its origins as a hardcore survival mod. It now stands as a deeply immersive experience that continually draws in players with its intricate blend of survival mechanics, open-world exploration, and player-driven narratives, all while fostering a strong and passionate community.

Rust has transformed from a mere survival game to a global phenomenon. There’s always something interesting or dangerous (or both) happening on the island, captivating all kinds of players with its unique blend of challenges, creativity, ways to play, and community spirit.

Head here to grab both games now!

EASTER UPDATE

On March 21st at 19:00 GMT we'll be releasing an optional update to enable this years Easter events and releasing the Chicken costume.

During the Easter event every 24-38 hours in-game hours an Easter egg hunt will begin. You'll have 3 minutes to collect as many eggs as you can. The top 3 players are given special eggs as a reward. These eggs can be cracked open for various types of loot ranging from scrap all the way up to an M249!

BACKPACKS

Backpacks have been one of Rust's most highly requested additions for several years, and what is a survival game without backpacks? This month, we're excited to bring you the small and large backpack, allowing players to carry more loot.

Inventory space has become more scarce as more items have been added to Rust over the years.

Small Backpack

The small handmade backpack provides 12 slots & can be crafted for 50 cloth and five sewing kits at a T1 workbench. It is a default blueprint and will take 30 seconds to craft.

Large Backback

The military-grade backpack carries a whopping 28 storage slots and is uncraftable, found in military loot.

How To Use

Both are worn in the backpack slot and drop off your character on death. They can be looted on the ground (be careful if dropping one in a safe zone!) or from inside your own inventory. They take 3 seconds to pickup off the ground and despawn slower when filled with valuable items (up to 2 hours).

Currently, there are no negative effects from using a backpack.

NEW PLAYER REMAINS BACKPACK

To help differentiate regular player remains from the new backpack models we’ve given the player remains a visual refresh. This new model has a new open and closed visual state so you can tell at a glance if a bag has been opened by anyone. There is also some visual debris around an opened bag if the bag has more than 3 items in it.

METAL DETECTOR

The new metal detector allows you to find metal objects hidden beneath the ground.

Use the green lights to find the general area of an object, then when the green lights are all fully lit, hold the right mouse button to start sweeping the ground more closely and illuminate the yellow lights.

When all the yellow lights are also lit up, a flag will be placed. Dig this flag up with any melee tool and grab your treasure!

Different areas of the world will yield different types of loot, for example, what you may find on the beach will be different than what you find at the roadside or fields.

WEAPON CHANGES

I've modified the animations for the SAP/SAR and they should feel a bit less floaty and more snappy when reloading and aiming. I've also reduced the additional recoil added while moving when using the SAP. Over the coming months I plan to take a look at each and every weapon and do another pass at balancing them. This means timings, handling, recoil, and aimcone. I'm not saying the changes will be drastic but I'm aware there are elements that need changing. Stay tuned.

IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES HIGHLIGHTS

Legacy Shelter Limit

Players can now only have one shelter placed at any one time

Safezone Warning

When attempting to log out in a safe zone a warning now appears

Compass Death Marker

Death marker now appears on the compass UI

Repair Cost Fix

Some deployables such as the autoturret were unintentionally expensive to repair, this is now fixed.

Rotate Doors

Doors, hatches and embrasures can now be rotated while being deployed using R

Ripe Ripeness

Increased all plants ripe stage duration from 4h to 14h

MILDER SCREEN POST PROCESSING

A recurring community comment is the on-screen hurt, cold, warm and radioactive post-processing is hash, it impacts the screen too much. To address the comments we have made the post-processing more mild.

Above are a few examples, you can find more (https://commits.facepunch.com/469306).

REDUCING SERVER SIDE ENTITY COUNTS

As mentioned in our start of the year blog post, memory usage is a key area of concern this year. One aspect I’ve been looking at lately is entity counts. Anything that gets networked in a Rust server is an entity, so every tree, building block, player, vehicle, etc. What might seem counterintuitive is that many Items in your inventory are also entities, specifically an entity we call a Planner. This is the blue sheet your player visually equips when they are deploying something (eg. a sleeping bag). Any Item that can be deployed in your inventory will have a corresponding Planner entity. This entity is created when the item is created, and will exist on the server (typically in the players hands or at the world origin if they are in a container) until that item is used or destroyed. We need this entity as it handles all the logistics of spawning the deployed version of the item.

To illustrate how many entities this creates we looked a list of entities on Facepunch EU2 towards the end of the November wipe last year. Out of 362,299 entities, 32,455 of them were Planners and are the largest count of entity (the next largest was Walls at 26,015). Since Planners are technically only needed when the player has the item equipped on their belt, this is a big waste of memory and processing time as well as needlessly bloating server save files.

This month we’ve rolled out a change that will only spawn a Planner for these Items once the Item is in a players inventory, then delete the entity when it is moved back into an inventory. This should dramatically cut down on the number of entities taking up memory for no real reason.

We also applied this change to Syringes and Bandages, specifically because these item types also don’t need an Entity if they aren’t in the players inventory and are often stored in large quantities (5,769 and 1,206 respectively in the above EU2 sample). Syringes in particular have been a performance bottleneck for the Industrial system due to the need to create and destroy an Entity every time the item is moved, so this change should have flow on server performance improvements there as well.

We think this change should reduce entity counts on the server by roughly 6-9% but we’ll be monitoring the results over time.

INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE

We received reports from several servers this month with Industrial performance issues. After investigating we found some extremely complex conveyor systems moving large amounts of Syringes as the culprit. The above changes to Entity counts will largely solve the issue, but I’ve also added a new convar (Server.industrialTransferStrictTimeLimits) to better handle time budgeting in these situations. While the Industrial system is time budgeted per frame (eg. Only process three conveyors per frame) it struggled if one conveyor took an excessive amount of time (eg. One conveyor takes 15x the allocated budget).

This new convar will allow the conveyor system to stop half way through a transfer if it is taking too long. Crucially it will then resume the transfer from where it left off on the next tick, so the final results should be the same, they may just take longer in real time. From the players perspective, this may result in conveyors splitting things in unintuitive ways (eg. a conveyor splitting into three boxes might do 2 on the first tick, then the last one on the last tick) but it should eventually produce the same result. Therefore we’d recommend turning this on selectively if a server is experiencing Industrial performance issues.

As well as this new convar some general performance optimisations were made, so things should be a little faster across the board in the Industrial system.

MEMORY OPTIMIZATIONS

Despite having some guards in place, asset memory can easily run ouf of control. We keep adding awesome new content and, unfortunately, it keeps increasing our memory footprint. In order to be able to sustain this rate of content expansion, memory usage has to be low and stable, regardless of world complexity. Until we can implement more aggressive and effective streaming, every once in a while we have to sit down and look at what we missed and make the necessary corrections.

On this update we nuked almost 3 GB of memory usage in shader assets, plus a few hundred MB on textures and meshes. This is a bit of a soft start, in regards to textures and meshes, but we expect to reduce memory usge by a few more gigabytes in the coming months.

We do care about memory and performance, and we're actively working on it. This is just the first stage of many that will target not only improve memory usage but also frame rate.

IMPROVED TEXTURE QUALITY

Modern games universally depend on asset compression to maximize the efficient utilization of available system memory. To justify the efforts invested in compression, developers often turn to lossy techniques, which, particularly in the realm of textures, frequently lead to a compromise in image quality. Rust was long overdue for a texture quality review. Below is a before and after.

The improvement in detail and color fidelity can be striking in some cases (right). This is an ugly texture but it's a good example of how compression can ruin a high frequency image. Regions of pixels get merged together and color shifts slightly (left).

Texture compression was being used quite aggressively and, after tweaking some settings, we were able to significantly improve image quality without sacrificing memory. In the end, because a lot of textures had untapped potential for savings, we actually ended up saving runtime memory, at the cost of disk space, while still improving overall image quality.

TEAM MARKERS WITH NV GOGGLES

These were quite mis-aligned while wearing NV Goggles, especially near the screen edges, where they would sometimes float above seemingly nothing. This has now been fixed.

IMPROVED DOOR/GATE VEHICLE BEHAVIOR

Doors and Gates have been cancelling their open/close animation when hitting a vehicle since Modular Cars were introduced, however that would sometimes lead to cases where the animation cancelling would crush vehicles if they hit the Door/Gate from the opposite side. This has been improved this month and colliding with an animated Door/Gate in the direction that it is moving will no longer cause the animation to cancel. This should lead to less cars getting crushed.