Rust — POWER TRIP

PLAYER MAINTAINED MONUMENTS

This month we're releasing a set of features we call Player Maintained Monuments - tying together our existing monuments in new and interesting ways while pushing players to interact with each other in the process.

POWERING UP THE POWER PLANT

Using new Heavy Fuses, the power plant can be fired back up to unlock several new gameplay features for everyone around the island.

Heavy Fuses can be found as loot and must be inserted into the new special fuse boxes located at the power plant. Not everything will be unlocked all at once - some things connected to the power plant require more fuses than others to become functional.

Once the power plant has started providing power, the powerline poles with transformers (the white cylinder-looking things) which appear alongside roads can now provide power for electrical circuits. These powerlines can also now be climbed - no need for a ladder, just approach the powerline and jump.

Green recyclers (the ones outside of safezones) have received a 10% nerf to their baseline efficiency of 50%, being restored to 60% with sufficient power from the power plant and additionally receiving a duration buff from 5s to 4.5s once the power plant is at maximum power. Yellow recyclers (inside safezones) remain unchanged from their previous behaviour. We have also added a single special new red recycler with 75% efficiency to the power plant, only usable at maximum power.

SATELLITE CRASH

A new in-game event!

Power up the new Satellite Control Computer at the Launch Site with tech trash and an aiming module and then take control of a satellite of your choosing.

Use the thruster buttons to target the crash location before locking it in. It doesn't come with a manual though, so you'll have to figure out which thruster button does what, first!

Once locked in, the satellite will start its descent, visible to all players on the server. After a short while it will impact and spill its new satellite loot crates.

Once they've cooled down, they're ready to loot - but the whole server knows about them too!

DOME PUMPING

Once the Power Plant is running, a new switch on the Large Oil Rig will become usable. This controls the flow of crude oil to Dome. Once activated, this will pump Crude for 20 minutes.

However, you can't retrieve it by yourself - you'll need to use the Tanker vehicle module to drain the oil and then transport it to a car lift to extract it.

There is also a switch on Small Oil Rig that pumps at half the rate. You can enable both switches at once to get 1.5x the Crude.

SUPERMARKET FREEZER

There is a new freezer located inside the Supermarket that provides a steady stream of chilled food so long as it is receiving power from the power plant.

Every so often, it will provide a larger food cache than usual. Happy shopping!

WATER TREATMENT PLANT PRODUCTION

Water pipes will now spawn around the roadsides of the map. To start, the pipes will be empty and won't produce any water. To get them to start pumping, the Water Treatment Plant will have to be maintained.

Two gearboxes have been added inside the monument, and turning them pressurises the new intact water tank at its centre. To get a gearbox moving, the powerplant's grid needs to be live, then you'll need to place a gear into the gearbox and interact with it to start the valve wheel spinning. Gears are consumed as the wheel turns and can't be pulled back out once inserted.

When the tank reaches full pressure, the blades will start spinning and clearing up the blockages, restoring water flow across the map. After that, coming back every once in a while to keep the pressure up and the blockages clear will be much easier than a cold start.

GAS STATION CAR GARAGE

In Oxum's, the car garage has received a tune-up. When the power grid is active, or when the backup generator around the side is turned on, the garage will power up with some new features.

The garage door can be opened or closed with a switch on the outer wall, so long as that switch has power.

Inside the garage, the car lift will be operable and ready for business. Lower it down using the controls and drive a car on to start using it just like any other car lift. When you're done, raise the lift back up and head down into the cave for a chance at higher quality car part spawns!

AIRFIELD TERMINAL TOWER

A newly refreshed control tower has hit the airfield. On the second floor, you'll find two new terminals that charge up from fuse boxes connected to the power grid.

The smaller terminal will increase the rate at which air drops fall across the map when charged.

When the _larger _terminal is charged, a Chinook resupply crate can be called in to drop a crate near the airfield tarmac.

The terminals will slowly lose charge after they are activated. Once they've drained the residual charge completely, they will be available for use again.

BAR GAMES PACK DLC

This month we’re serving up the Bar Games Pack.

Get your buddies together and come on down to the Bar Games Pack. Featuring the unique and complex mini-games Pool and Darts, and a range of bar game-themed items to turn any base into the hottest joint in town.

Both the Pool Table and the Dart board are self-contained mini-games for both solo and multiplayer fun. Deploy them in your base, interact and play them in real-time, setting your score for others to beat.

The Pool Table allows one/two players to have a classic game of pool! It can be placed down as a normal deployable. Players will then walk around the table, jump on to get ready to hit the cue ball and pick their desired power amount before flicking their mouse up to shoot. Standard pool rules apply!

Other items include an interactive Juke Box deployable, skins for the Mini Fridge and Shotgun Trap, unique bar stools seating, and themed wallpapers and sprays.

The Bar Games Pack can be purchased in-game or from the Rust Steam item store.

STONE SCULPTURE ITEM DLC

On the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Oxidemandias, king of grubs:

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”

Leave a lasting legacy with the Stone Sculpture. This interactive deployable lets you carve away at stone until you create the shape of your heart’s desire. Or just sculpt your favourite appendage. Either is a surefire way to stand proud.

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

RESPAWN POINT IMPROVEMENTS

You can now toggle a respawn option (bag/bed/etc) to display on the compass. Only one can be marked at once, and you need to interact with the bag directly to enable it. The thinking is that this will free up the standard "home" map marker.

You can also now Favourite bags on the death screen, these bags will appear first in the respawn list.

RECYCLE BIN WORKBENCH UPGRADE.... UPGRADE

The Recycle Bin workbench upgrade got an upgrade of its own!

It now has its own inventory, which can be accessed by interacting with the bin itself.

All bonus items returned by the Recycle Bin upgrade now go directly into this new inventory, ready for you to collect at your convenience!

It's take-only though, so you can't fill it with loot yourself.

NODES IN SAFE ZONES

Ore nodes and woodpiles can no longer spawn in safe zones.

As they could only be harvested using a rock, they tended to pile up and eventually drained the global spawn population, preventing new nodes from appearing elsewhere on the map.

WOLF HEADDRESS BALANCE & QOL

The Wolf Headdress has always been a strong option early and mid wipe, providing good head protection and the ability to be combined with a bandana. To give other helmets a chance as a viable alternative in early bow fights, we have decided to lock its crafting behind needing a Tier 1 workbench.

Also, a quality of life improvement is coming to the lunar new year animal masks. These have always had the same stats as the Wolf Headdress, and have now been set up as skins, allowing you to freely re-skin between all of the variants, and avoiding clutter in the crafting menu.

TOGGLING SHIELDS

You can now swap between having the shield on your back and aiming down sights vs. having it to the side and blocking with it.

To do so, go to your settings panel and set up the bind. Once you have it set, you can switch between the two stances every couple of seconds.

We added a cooldown to the stance switching to prevent players from spamming it - it'd lead to more randomness in gun fights rather than players strategically sticking to one stance.

HIGH WALL UPKEEP

Players have found ways to claim large areas of the map by spamming deployables as long as the game has been alive, whether it's been pillars, TCs or high walls. Changes in the past have helped address this, such as upkeep and adding a sheet metal crafting cost to high stone walls. This is another step forward to reducing the effectiveness of blocking access to large areas of the map.

High walls now have a static upkeep cost of 20%. This brings them in the middle of building blocks (10% -> 33%) to keep them the intended way to make compounds while discouraging spamming them.

This makes it more expensive and a hassle to come up with enough upkeep for external TCs if you don't want to keep refilling them. It should also help clear up old compounds after a base is raided.

WATER WELL VENDOR STOCK

Water wells are a great stepping stone into the world of farming by allowing you to get a taste of tea buffs and high level tools. However, over time (and especially with the extra influ