We wanted to get some trains onto the above-ground rails this month.
We have some more train content in the works, but for this initial release we're mostly reusing existing assets in order to provide something to try out until that content is ready.
The above-ground Work Cart closely resembles the underground one, but now has coupling points at each end that can connect to other train cars. The bogies (also known as trucks - the wheel assemblies) have also been updated to rotate with the track more realistically.
We've taken some static train wagon models that we had and made them functional. These don't actually do anything special yet, but they spawn along with Work Carts on the new rail sidings and they can be shunted around.
The Work Cart train engines take low grade fuel as usual. Their target speeds at low/medium/high throttle are constant, but their acceleration and pulling ability are affected by gravity and how many couples wagons they're pulling as you'd expect. If your long train can't make it up a hill, it's possible to use multiple Work Carts in a multi-engine coupled setup for more power.
Coupling happens automatically when wagons collide at a low to moderate speed. High speed collisions will not couple, and may take damage instead. Uncoupling is manual - simply interact with the coupling point.
Rail Network Branch Lines
The rail network has received secondary lines that branch off the main line and merge back onto it. This all happens entirely procedurally with no need for predetermined prefabs aside from the rail mesh itself, which results in a very flexible system that can cover a wide range of use cases as we expand the rail network in the future. For now, these branch lines are just where the trains are spawning. We will see how things work out and go from there.
Rail and road foliage improvements
The foliage / bushes spawning next to rails and roads have received some optimizations to eliminate their overhead as you move around the world. They now also spawn in larger clusters with varying coverage, resulting in some dense areas and some open areas, which allowed us to also reduce their total count as a performance improvement without having it affect the visuals too much.
Zipline Improvements
Ziplines seemed to be well used last month, but there were too many cases of ziplines failing to connect, leading to zipline platforms with no connections. I've improved the procedural generation process this month in a few different ways.
Ziplines are now better at routing around obstacles, allowing ziplines to go via 2 separate mid-points before arriving at their destination. I also added zipline arrival points at Sewer Branch, Stables, Lighthouse and Dome.
All of these changes combined have improved the number of ziplines on procedural maps by about 40%.
Death screen Improvements
The death screen has been improved this month with many NPC's getting custom icons and proper translations. We've also improved how we show your death information if you suicide while downed. Previously doing this would result in the death screen showing your death as a suicide, preventing you from seeing the name and weapon of your attacker. This is now fixed and you will see the last attack details even if you suicide while downed.
Client Performance
Client performance was identified as a growing issue last month so we all put some time aside to try and improve performance this month. We've made good progress in some key areas:
Fixed a regression introduced last month that was generating a lot of garbage and causing stutters. This was deemed high enough priority that we released it in a hotfix early in the month.
Identified a bug that was preventing lasers and some other heavy systems from budgeting their performance correctly (This was also affecting server performance).
Significantly reduced network traffic from planters and plants getting watered by sprinklers.
Performance is always a high priority for us and we've got more improvements being worked on for future updates.
General QOL
SAM Site Damage - SAM Site can no longer be damaged by bullet type damage
Junkpile scientists - NPCs have returned to junkpile spawns
Community UI Improvements
We've integrated several pull requests from the Community UI Github project this month, bringing improvements like blocking keyboard input while in text boxes, better item and skin rendering as well as fixing a handful of bugs. Thank you to Ailtop, Jake-Rich, shooter46 and Mughisi for the contributions.
We have some more improvements to this system in the works, specifically to improve rendering and network performance on rapidly updated UI displays.
Hapis Island
Some of you have been waiting for Hapis Island to return after last year's graphical overhaul broke it. This is just a little heads-up to tell you that we are aiming for it to finally go live again in next month's patch.
Twitch Drops
Starting from today till May 12th 23:59UTC Twitch drops are enabled for Rust Twitch streamers. You can earn special and unique skins simply by watching your favourite Rust Twitch streamers.
During the final 24 hours of the Rust Twitch drop campaign, all drops will be moved to general.
Learn more at twitch.facepunch.com.
Changelist
Added rail network branch lines
Added above-ground trains
Added 4 type of train wagons
Improved client performance
Improved zipline placement and monument integration
Reduced network traffic of sprinklers watering large amounts of filled planters
(Community UI) Added support for natively showing item icons (thanks Mughisi)
(Community UI) Added support for read only and multi line InputFields (thanks shooter46)
(Community UI) Added support for the NeedsKeyboard component
(Community UI) Adding "needsKeyboard" to an InputField will block keyboard input only while that input field is focused
Improved and fixed several issues in collection of official server analytics
Improved rail and road foliage performance and visuals
SAM Site can no longer be damaged by bullet type damage
Reduce the chance of vehicle parts from junkpile_j
Fixed grenade launcher reload error when first person spectating
Fixed long ziplines disappearing when the player is at the end of the line
Fixed a bug that was disabling the performance budget of budgeted systems (lasers, walk animations, etc)
Fixed incorrect prevent building bounds when building around zipline wires
Fixed very long ziplines disappearing when a player was near the end of the line
Fixed several overly strict antihack configs resulting in unable to damage construction
(Community UI) Fix countdown not working (thanks Ailtop)
(Community UI) Fix RectTransform only being added when a graphic component is added (thanks Jake-Rich)
Fixed junkyard keycard not respawning
Happy Easter
Easter Hunt
For the next week, 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!
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.
Have fun!
Easter Store Returns
A number of items are hopping back into the store this year:
Egg Hat
Bunny Hat
Easter Wreath
Zipline & Rail Update
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Procedural Rail Network
The first iteration of the procedural rail network is now live! Any map size 4250 or larger should have a single railway in the shape a ring going around the entire island.
This is just a tech test / proof of concept for now, so there's no official gameplay element to it yet. Please report any weird looking areas you might encounter.
In the near future, you can expect driveable above-ground trains.
Powerline Ziplines
Powerlines have had an upgrade this month, with new platforms and ziplines now appearing across procedurally generated maps. To access the zipline you'll need to climb to the top of the new platforms that are attached to some powerlines. Once at the top, you can use the zipline to travel to another platform further along the chain of powerlines or to nearby monuments.
You can speed up on the line by holding forward and jump off at anytime with the jump key (just be careful of the drop!). Colliding with anything solid while on the line will also knock you off the line, this includes trees, players and vehicles, so use with care.
We'll be improving the generation of these over time to connect more monuments, as well as exploring ways for players to place their own ziplines in the future.
Achievements
Since launching out of early access in 2018 Rust's achievements have served as a way for new players to learn the basics of the game. Unfortunately they haven't kept up with the amount of new content added to the game every month so we've made a set of 18 new achievements to earn. As usual, achievements can only be earned on official servers.
Monument Lighting Continued
We have continued improving the lighting setup for our monuments. This month we have focused mainly on the monuments such as; Lighthouse, Fishing Villages, Stables, Excavator, Arctic Research Base and Airfield.
The degree of improvements varies depending on the monument. Some of the newer monuments like Fishing Villages, Stables and Excavator received only minor updates. This includes changes such as adding darkening volumes to interiors, adding new ambient lights and enabling interior lights during the daytime.
Other monuments like Lighthouse and Arctic Research base received more extensive upgrades, which includes a whole lot of new lights, that will make the monuments significantly brighter during nighttime and more atmospheric during daytime.
The monument that received the biggest upgrade this month is the Airfield. Here we have added not only new lights and darkening volumes, but also tweaked some materials and added a lot of new prop dressing to bring it to the same level of quality of our newer monuments.
General QOL
Landmine Update - The landmine has received a visual refresh
Loading Background - Loading screen image will now alternate between images
Magnet Crane - Further improvements to the junkyard magnet crane handling
Steam Networking
We have updated Steam Networking to the latest version, which comes with a number of important performance improvements. It's still disabled by default, but we will run some tests on various official servers to provide feedback to Valve regarding any potential issues. In the medium term, we hope to switch all servers to Steam Networking by default.
Official server analytics
Balancing Rust can be a daunting prospect given the wide variety of play styles and content. With that in mind, this month we're releasing our first pass of server analytics for official servers so we can start to gather some data about how you play Rust. While this will be invisible to you, we're hoping to use this data to better allocate resources to parts of the game that need work as well as identifying balance issues.
If you're playing on an official server, thanks in advance for helping us out. We'll be sure to share any interesting stats that pop up.
Twitch Rivals
On April 14th at 8:00 pm GMT a team of 80 well known Twitch creators with 40 players from North America (team Disguised Toast) will face off against a team of 40 players from Europe and Latin America (team Alexby11) in this massive global Rust competition, taking place over 48 hours with a prize pool worth $100k.
During the Twitch Rivals event, Rust Twitch drops will be enabled for 3 days from selected participating channels, well-known streamers such as hJune, xQcOW, Welyn, Silithur, BaboAbe, sykkuno, Ray__C, LakshartNia and of course the team captains Alexby11 and Disguised Toast.
Over the course of the 48 hours, teams will build up their bases and supplies. During this time, teams can gain access to additional resources by getting kills, completing objectives, and claiming crate drops. The final hour of the competition will be an all-out battle, as both teams try to raid the opposing base. The team that collects the most dog tags will win.
We'd like to thank Rustoria for working with us and Twitch to make this event possible.
Learn more at twitch.facepunch.com
Easter Event
On April 14th at 19:00 BST / 18:00 UTC / 14:00 EST we'll be releasing an optional update to enable this year's Easter egg hunt event, more details to follow in an upcoming blog on the 14th.
Changelog
Powerline ziplines
18 new achievements
Server analytics on official servers
Added dog tags (for event use only)
Generic snowmobile model updated to include visible lights
Updated landmine model
Magnet crane pedals now animate and have IK for the driver's feet
Added a blue light to the Magnet Crane cockpit. When the magnet crane cabin is within 10 degrees of facing straight forward, it lights up
Holding the crouch key while in the Magnet Crane now automatically rotates the cabin back to zero
Debug camera controls while spectating or in demos now uses the players movement bindings instead of WASD
Made lighting improvements to Airfield, Arctic Research Base, Excavator, Fishing Villages, Lighthouse and Stables monuments
Loading screen now alternates between a selection of images
Hopeful fix to prevent certain crashes when switching servers
Fixed missing passthrough name on DLC industrial wall lights
Fixed camper module rear lights not working correctly
Fixed magnet crane physics behaving strangely when the magnet arm was extended far out in front
Magnet crane is now much less prone to 'digging in' its magnet arm, getting it stuck in the ground without being able to easily back out
Fixed players being able to grip on to the sides of the train tunnel elevator shaft while falling down it
Fixed not being able to kick passengers from the taxi module
Fixed not being able to hear notes played from deployed instruments while mounted to something
Fixed the helmet slit overlay blocking the status effect UI, and fixed the scope overlay being in front of the helmet slit overlay
Fixed the autoturret idle animation moving more slowly at higher server framerates
Fixed Rust's graphics Quality setting defaulting to 0/6 ("Super Potato") on first install. Set the default to 4/6 ("Good")
Fixed loading screen text overflow
Fixed Ice AK showing an extra particle effect in first person
March 2022 Update
Monument Lighting
This month we’ve made visual improvements to some of our older monuments to get them more consistent with the quality of our new content. This includes changes such as adding darkening volumes to interiors to prevent them from becoming too bright during the day, adding new lights and effects, tweaking existing lighting and other minor visual improvements.
As a result, the interiors should feel much darker and more atmospheric. The monuments that we’ve changed so far are the Supermarket, Oxum's Gas Station, Bandit Camp and Launch Site and we plan to improve more of them over time.
Soundtrack Release
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This month we're really excited to announce the release of Rust's official soundtrack - available now on Steam, music streaming services and a handful of digital stores. This initial release (Volume 1) is comprised of 29 tracks clocking in around 1 hour and 45 minutes of music.
Alex originally wrote a lot of these songs for our update videos but he's been expanding them into more fleshed out, standalone pieces of music. There's also some songs he has written to fit the occasional calm moment in game that you won't have heard at all yet.
Alex is in the process of getting these songs chopped up and implemented to playback dynamically in game as well. Around half of the new tracks are ready in this update, and the rest should follow shortly.
Listen now on your favourite music streaming platforms, including:
This month we've been exploring new ways to improve the visual experience when driving vehicles. While we initially explored dedicated viewmodels for vehicles (floating arms in front of the camera) we settled on using the full body mesh with tweaked hand logic. You can see this most obviously on the Snowmobile, the driver seat of Modular Cars and the Workcart, while it's visible but less obvious on the Minicopter and Scrap Transport Helicopter.
This approach allows us to highlight the hand IK on vehicles like snowmobiles and cars so you can see your arms turning. There's also some subtle camera movement if the player model leans or moves (like on the Snowmobile).
Magnet Crane Cleanup
We looked at the junkyard magnet crane this month to see if some bugs and the general feel of it could be improved.
It's now a bit more stable to drive, and old issues like the driver not quite visually syncing up with the cabin as it rotates are fixed.
Another concern with the crane was that with its controls being pretty complex, it was easy to burn through your fuel just learning them. To combat that, we've reduced the fuel it uses at idle by 80%, and the maximum fuel it uses when not holding anything by 25%. So if you're just practicing moving the magnet arm and rotating the cabin, your fuel will only be being consumed at 20% of the rate it was before.
Snowmobile Cleanup
We added some small final touches to the snowmobiles.
Most were minor bug fixes, but an obvious one is that animations are improved, with the driver now getting visually bumped around at times, and showing an idle animation cycle. Audio is improved as well, with the snowmobile revving more realistically when driving up hills.
For game balance, the arctic base snowmobile no longer comes loaded with any fuel.
World Model Update
There are some assets that need world models and some that needed refreshing so towards the end of last year Tom completed a number of new and updated world models, these are now in-game!
General QOL
Slower Car Decay - Cars decay 4x slower when left outdoors
Alt Look Restrictions - Restrict how far up a player can look with alt look while looking down
Water catchers & barrels now decay - Should lower the number of catchers and barrels that are left outside
Large Furnace Heat - Large furnaces now provide comfort and heat
Monument Loot Hiding - Monument loot no longer spawns when players are within 20m of the spawn point
Phantom Footsteps- We believe we've now fixed a long standing issue of hearing phantom footsteps
Night Vision and post fixes
We've had reports of the NVG effect being blown out for a while. When we looked into it, we realised that it only looks incorrect on procedural maps.
After a lot of digging, we found that there was a post process volume placed inside one of moon pools set to global rather than local erroneously.
This means that it was being applied all of the time and messing with exposure settings. This also means that it's had an effect on the overall exposure of the game for while also, although this has been a bit less apparent than with NVG.
Search and loading screen update
The loading screen was long overdue for a revamp, you'll now see server stats and a more clear tooltip sections while loading into the server of choice.
In a future update, the background image will randomly change through a preselected gallery on each load.
Additionally, we've added support for tag filtering to the server browser to make finding servers of interest easier.
Changelog
Added support for tag filtering to the server browser
Added new in game music
Added 14 new world models
Updated loading screen
Improved arm and body visuals on some vehicles
Improved 3rd person keycard animation
Can no longer reskin doors that are open
Can now switch to and from Ice Rifle skin regardless of ammo or attachments
Added support for infinitely scrolling MIDI knob convar bindings (see MidiConvar.BindKnobRelative convar)
Restricted how far a player can alt look up when looking down
IO Entities can now decay (fixes Water Barrel, Water Catcher, Above Ground Pool, Boom box, CCTV, Connected Speaker, Counter, Disco Floor, Sprinkler, Wind Mill, Car Lift, Paddling Pool, SAM turret, Search Light, Smart Alarm, Solar Panel, Sound Lights, Telephone, Water Pump not decaying when placed outside of a base)
Removed slot 8 input bind
Renamed slot 7 input bind to "Holster Item"
When opening the inventory the currently equipped belt item will automatically be selected
Modular cars take 4x longer to decay
Increased local player voice volume when recording a cassette
Junkyard magnet crane is more stable to drive
Junkyard magnet crane now uses 80% less fuel when not driving around, and 25% less fuel when not carrying anything on its magnet
Added Always Sprint to the game options. If enabled, sprint key behaviour is inverted. Player sprints by default, and holding the sprint key will return them to walk speed
Improved lighting in the Supermarket, Oxum's Gas Station, Bandit Camp and Launch Site
Large furnace now provides a small amount of heat and comfort
Added BuildingDark and BuildingVeryDark volumes for map makers
Polar bear should no longer migrate to warmer climates
Horses now trigger pressure pads
Fixed a case where changing weapon while gesturing would lead to incorrect viewmodels (missing attachments)
Fixed case where changing clothing while inventory was full would sometimes incorrectly delete an item
Fixed rounding issue when using Pure Ore Teas leading to an ore node giving 1501-1505 resources (now gives 1500)
Fixed some out of date radio stations
Fixed phantom footsteps continuously playing
Fixed incorrect sfx footsteps playing
Fixed modular cars using no fuel if they had multiple engine modules and one of those modules had no components
Fixed magnet crane arm movement speed slowing down at low server framerates
Fixed magnet crane driver not syncing up visually with the crane itself when rotating the cabin
Fixed magnet crane magnet hurting the driver if it was positioned as close as possible to the cabin
Fixed magnet crane treads sometimes animating in the wrong direction when turning
Fixed the snowy edges of ice lakes also being considered ice by modular cars and snowmobiles
Fixed the Tomaha suspension snapping to the wrong position when active updates stopped
Fixed a sleeper loot exploit
Fixed CCTV clipping exploit
Fixed BBQ looting exploit
Fixed pickle jar desc typo
Fixed Excavator puzzle reset bounds exceeding the prevent building volume, causes player to die when logged out
Fixed missing passthrough name on DLC industrial wall lights
Fixed oil hunt mission reward only being 50 scrap
Arctic base snowmobile no longer comes with 20 low grade fuel
Arctic base snowmobile garage no longer spawns puzzle loot
Arctic Update
This months update brings a new monument, the Arctic Research Base, snowmobiles, polar bears, AI update, spray can item, QOL changes and much more!
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Arctic Research Base
In this month's update, a new monument has been added. The Arctic Research Base will spawn exclusively in the arctic biome.
Those who are not afraid of the cold winds and frigid temperatures will be able to explore various lab modules and buildings scattered around the base. You will find there a bunch of loot to scavenge, or take a little break to warm yourself next to an electric heater. But most importantly, the Arctic Research Base will spawn snowmobiles.
Keep in mind, however, that scientists won't appreciate your presence and will shoot you on sight.
Snowmobiles
We've added a new vehicle that's only available through a puzzle at the Arctic Base: Snowmobiles.
Snowmobiles take low-grade fuel and have a small storage container on the back. They're fast on snow and sand and slow everywhere else. They drive smoothly even over rough terrain but take some skill to control well. When you find one in an Arctic Base, it'll have 20 fuel ready to go.
A passenger can sit on the back and face any direction, allowing them to shoot to the sides or even directly behind.
POLAR BEARS
You'll now be encountering the polar bear in the arctic biome. The polar bear is the strongest and most hostile animal in the world but yields extra resources when harvested compared to its bear cousin.
The regular bear will no longer be spawning in the arctic and receive slight health and hostile reduction.
AI Update
We've added the ability for scientists to use medical items to heal themselves. Scientists have a chance of spawning with the ability. We've initially enabled this at the new arctic research station and we'll add it to other areas of the game soon.
We've also made some timing, balance and movement tweaks to the scientist AI.
Spraycan
The Spraycan is a new default tool that can be crafted for 100 metal fragments that allows you to reskin items that have been deployed in the world. Instead of having to pick up items and use a Repair Bench, you can simply use RMB while holding a Spraycan to open up the skin options and select a new skin.
You may have seen some further spray functionality on the Staging branch this month, however these features had some issues so we've had to delay them for a future update.
The spraycan can not be used while building blocked.
General QOL
Jarryd spent some time working on some more General QOL features this month, see the changelog for further info or check out some highlights below:
Tool Cupboard Storage - Added slots for tools in the Tool Cupboard
Tech Tree Improvements - Show total cost to reach an unlock and show how much scrap is being held
Auto Walk and Toggle Crouch - Native auto walk keybind and toggle crouch option
SAM Defender Mode - Added Defender mode to SAM site to defend against MLRS rockets only
Patrol Helicopter on Map - Show the Patrol Helicopter's current position on the Map
Mute Menu - Manage your muted players with a new UI
Wounded Player Looting - No longer kicked out of the inventory when looting wounded players
Recent Contacts - Contacts can now be sorted by recently seen
Tech Tree Unlocking - Added the ability to click and hold to unlock items in tech trees
Wounded Team Members - Wounded team members now appear as orange when wounded in the team UI
Performance
Recently it came to our attention that performance had degraded more significantly than it probably should have based on the recent updates to the game. Whilst attempting to confirm this, we noticed that the framerate would predictably dip significantly for no apparent reason, then recover. The higher your base framerate was, the more severe these dips would appear to be.
After doing a bunch of profiling, we noticed that there were some significant stalls on the render thread and our tree impostor system was most likely the cause of the issue, even though the population had only been tweaked very slightly recently.
With the fix, framerates should be a lot more consistent again (as long as what's being rendered is consistent) and should overall be slightly higher in general, particularly in areas with a lot of bushes and trees like Bandit Camp.
Permanent Store - Arctic Pack
This month we're introducing a new addition to Rust's permanent store, the Arctic Pack. The Arctic Pack contains 3 items which can be seen below.
Arctic Suit
The Arctic Suit is a hazmat skin that can be applied while crafting the hazmat or skinned using the repair table. The arctic suit offers slightly higher cold protection but at the cost of lower radiation, melee and explosive protection.
Tomaha Snowmobile
The Tomaha snowmobile cosmetic skin can be applied by using the spray can on the snowmobile which can be found at the arctic research station monument.
ICE ASSAULT RIFLE
The Ice Assault Rifle is a cosmetic skin for the assault rifle. The skin can be applied when crafting the assault rifle or added by placing the weapon inside the repair table.
Twitch Drops
Starting from today till February 11th 23:59UTC Twitch drops are enabled for Rust Twitch streamers. You can earn special and unique skins simply by watching your favourite Rust Twitch streamers.
During the final 24 hours of the Rust Twitch drop campaign, all drops will be moved to general.
Our friends at For Fans By Fans have released a new drop of Rust merchandise - we've got a new Rust logo snapback hat, a heat sensitive mug, new stickers and posters as well as a No Mercy mousepad (inspired by the legendary No Mercy skins). Check them out!
Changelog
Added Snowmobile
Added Arctic bases
Added Spraycan tool
Added Polar bear
Added fire damage volumes for map makers
Native auto walk and toggle crouch options
Mute menu for managing muted players (next to chat input box)
Added slots for tools in the Tool Cupboard
Show total cost to reach items in Tech Tree
Show how much Scrap you are holding on the Tech Tree
Hide the Cancel button on the respawn screen to prevent accidental disconnects
No longer get kicked out of looting if a player suicides while downed
Show Patrol Helicopter on map
Add option to require holding Jump to dismount vehicles
Added popup to show repair costs when a repair fails
Show downed teammates in orange in Team UI
Added IO outputs to SAM site (similar to Auto Turrets)
Added Defender mode to SAM site to defend against MLRS rockets only
Can now sort Contacts by last seen
Community UI is now scaled by client UI scale setting
Add teleport2autheditem command (similar to teleport2owneditem)
Using "ent who" on a sleeping bag will now show who the bag is assigned to
Added a keybind to focus the player on the map screen
Research bench will now warn you if researching an item that you already know
Pattern boomers will now be censored by the censor signs setting
Can no longer report the same player more than once every three minutes
Physicssteps now admin-only command
Hobo barrel can now be picked up
Hobo barrel can now be repaired
Reduced inventory size for crate_fuel
Bears no longer spawn in the arctic
Bears have less HP
Bears are less hostile
Fixed some map icons flickering when opening the map
Fixed XOR switches sending a small burst of power during server restarts
Fixed offset powerplant tire_stack mesh
Fixed elevator exploits
Fixed MipMap exploit
Fixed Phone VM's clipping into the camera at wide aspect ratios
Disabled Lunar new year fire crackers
Lunar New Year
Happy Lunar new year to everyone! To help everyone celebrate we have added some new and old items to the Steam item store.
First off, throughout the Lunar New Year celebration, everyone will be able to craft a set of throw-able firecrackers to make a racket. Traditionally set off to scare away evil spirits, many people would set them off when opening the front door before they went out. We somehow doubt these will scare off a dedicated door camper but you can try!
Tiger Mask
To celebrate the year of the tiger we have created a beautiful Tiger Mask with jiggling chin tassles. Similar to last years Ox Mask, it replaces the wolf headdress.
New this year is the Sky Lantern. When ignited with a lit torch the sky lantern will take to the skies and is able to carry one item in the direction you're looking.
Available to be crafted in five colours: white, purple, green, red and orange.
In addition to this year's tiger mask and sky lantern, we’ve added items back from prior years sale to the item store, the Dragon Door Knocker and the Chinese Lantern.
New Year Gong
Dragon Door Knocker
Chinese Lantern
Onwards and upwards
2021
Servers are now wiped, Santa is packing up and clearing out the bodies, we hope you enjoyed the Holiday Season. We're getting back to work after a couple of weeks off which is why this is a light blog and we're looking forward to the journey ahead in 2022!
2021 was an exceptional year for Rust in almost all regards, after 8 years of continuous development Rust has gone from strength to strength. In 2021 Rust blew up on Twitch, we saw record-high player counts, released Voice Props DLC Pack, World revamp, missions, freight trains, underwater labs, gestures, submarines, MLRS and so much more.
July 1st we released Voice Props DLC Pack which quickly became our best selling DLC to date.
[previewyoutube="mxLpbJPlD6M;full"]
Console
In May Double11 released Rust console after a number of years in development. This allowed a whole new player base to finally experience the harsh world of Rust.
[previewyoutube="KdgCEc7B_N0;full"]
8 Years
In December Rust celebrated its 8th Birthday. 8 continuous years of development and no plans to stop.
Stats
2022
What can you expect from us in 2022? More of the same! guaranteed monthly updates every first Thursday of the month along with occasional hotfixes and holiday events.
Below is a sneak peek of a new upcoming arctic monument which we'll be releasing in the very near future.
In addition to new monuments, this year you can expect to see new weapons, deployables, events, vehicles, animals and so much more.
In February we'll be releasing a heap load of quality of life changes.
We're excited to see what we can accomplish in 2022 and we thank each and every one of our players for continuing to enjoy our work.
EgoLand 2 Twitch Drops
Starting from tomorrow (Friday 7th) till January 14th Twitch drops are enabled for Rust Twitch streamers with a focus on supporting the Spanish creators of Egolands. You can earn special and unique skins simply by watching your favourite Rust Twitch streamers.
During the final 24hours of the Rust Twitch drop campaign, all drops will be moved to general.
We'll be doing another round of Twitch drops in February featuring a number of long-standing Rust streamers.
Thanks to everyone that nominated Rust for the Labor of Love award. We have now reached the final stage of voting so we need your votes once again!
You can do so now by clicking the vote button above and to show our appreciation if Rust wins the Labor of Love Steam award, we'll give you (the community) control on designing a new deployable item in the game!
If you haven't already voted we'd like to show you in some words, pictures and videos why Rust is a Labor of Love for us!
Rust came to life because Helk and Garry felt there was something missing in the games they were playing and set about making a game they could play how they wanted to play it, Rust was started in Unity Engine 4 and was playable in a web browser and keys were sold in a dutch auction and as the player base grew the game was made into a standalone version and released on Steam in early access on 11th December 2013.
Work continued at pace, new features being added like the research bench, a new water system along with a new sky system, bugs being squashed, some quite serious.
It was decided we needed a better way of telling guys what we were doing in the background so weekly updates were started and with that came the Friday blog in March 2014.
Not long after this, we realised Rust was getting too big for Unity 4 and we were getting seriously limited on how much we could grow which would impact on how you could play and enjoy the game, it was decided we would switch to Unity 5 and while you continued to enjoy playing the game we would completely rebuild the game from scratch. It was a huge decision and task but made Rust what it is today.
In July 2014 we started the Community Blog which would showcase what our players and creators were doing in Rust from builds and raids to erm ... rituals to Garry.
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By the end of 2014 the groundwork for the Rust reboot was set, instead of the same map on every server, the island could be generated procedurally giving every server it's own identity.
Custom weapons were designed and modelled to give more of a hand crafted feel
New tools were created to help you get the resources you need, including the iconic rock and the hatchet. Useful for farming the animals that were added for food and more resources.
Having resources meant you were going to need a nice base to keep them in and the building system came to life, not only could you create the design you wanted with new building pieces you could now upgrade it to different materials to give your base more strength. This progressed from late 2014 into early 2015 as a system you might recognise today and you could also use a Tool Cupboard to give ownership to your base!
2015 continued to build up on the groundwork set and the islands got more procedural features like roads and power lines between the monuments.
Everyone had the same male character so It was decided we should add more varieties and also a female character which could all be randomly assigned to players, we also gave them armour for protection from each other.
By the end of the year we had added Beartraps, Assualt Rifle, Pump Shotgun, C4, Attack Helicopter, Ambient Sound, Gibbing, Decay, Paintable Signs, Rocket Launcher, Monuments, Assigning sleeping bag to friends, Repair Bench, Guitars, Building Upgrades, Player skin colours, Wounding, Hapis Island, Rivers, Research Table, Barricades, Bullet Penetration, Large Furnace, Loot, Decals, Ammo Counters, Blueprints System, Grenades, Horses, Landmines, Water Catchers, Crossbow, Code Locks, Draw-able Maps, SMG, Supply Signal, Floor Spikes, Language Selector, Pistol, Ladders, Throwables, Pickable arrows/spears and load of bug fixes, optimizations and visual improvements.
Rust also got it's first Christmas Event!
Shortly after, we realised weekly updates weren't really ideal for us, we'd lose a day of development time preparing the update and dealing with any issues that came up post update, this downtime would be less noticeable over the period of a month so the switch was made to the monthly updates you know today and have been happening since.
As you can see, the first two years kept us really busy, skip forward and the last two years have been just as busy pushing out content month after month. Here are some of the highlights and the associated update trailers!
Instruments DLC - For our first DLC we gave you the opportunity to get together and jam with your friends or annoy your neighbours. [previewyoutube="rMUkhKv5Zb8;full"]
Modular Turrets - Since it's creation, the turret came with an included assault rifle, we gave you the option to add any weapon (or trumpet) to your turrets! [previewyoutube="n456XX1H3HI;full"]
Farming 2.0 - Brought you new ways of growing your own crops with automated watering systems to keep you supplied with food and cloth. [previewyoutube="Sz8cWHyRKGA;full"]
Rust+ - The companion app for your phones to help you organise your Team, control your electronics and receive notifications from in game. [previewyoutube="XSJVlAkTCZg;full"]
Modular Vehicles - A new way of getting around the Rust island in a variety of setups depending on your needs, [previewyoutube="_WecFdlQXug;full"]
Sunburn DLC - Our 2nd DLC full of summer essentials from lazing on a rubber ring in your pool to water pistol fights on the beaches. [previewyoutube="6jsyzm1wZ-M;full"]
Tech Tree - We gave you the option of unlocking blueprints on a linear path rather than having to find each blueprint in loot [previewyoutube="czIy3qlYwvY;full"]
During the Christmas holiday period of 2020 Rust received a massive boost when we were joined by a variety of well known streamers and content creators with events being run by OfflineTV and their friends and Egoland and their friends who spotlighted Rust to viewers who had probably never seen Rust or thought of joining us and gave us a huge boost with record player counts and viewership. This gave the developers a boost and spurred us on to bring more content for players to enjoy. [previewyoutube="BNhDPOWOn1I;full"]
Freight Transit Line - A new underground system throughout the whole map which gives you another option for getting around the monuments. [previewyoutube="XG41f-llelM;full"]
Voiceprops DLC - Our latest DLC for recording and playback of voice and audio to making your own in game disco. [previewyoutube="mxLpbJPlD6M;full"]
Underwater - Another new way to explore the environment, submarines to transport you around and underwater labs to explore and loot! [previewyoutube="RDByZVpm3tI;full"]
We hope this gives some insight into why we bring updates month after month to bring more content and new ways for you, our players to enjoy Rust and on behalf of everyone at Facepunch Studios we'd like to wish you a Happy Holidays and we look forward to what 2022 will bring!
P.S Have you voted yet ? ːrustː
Season's Beatings!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
From everyone at Facepunch, we'd all like to wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!
The Christmas Event is once again live! If you haven't been around for this before, here's what you can expect:
Every once in a while you will hear the sound of jingle bells. Run outside and look for a gift! Two gifts are spawned per player, in a radius of about 40m from where you are standing. Run up and bash it open to receive your Christmas presents. They come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. If you have enough small presents stashed, you can "trade up" to a medium or large. The contents of each present vary, but you'll find a mix of resources, weapons, and candy. We've also added wrapping paper allowing you to wrap up items as gifts to other players, perhaps sold in your vending machine...
Once again, you will be able to find Santa hats and reindeer antlers, both of which can be worn and provide a decent amount of protection. There’s also a lickable candy cane club, and two types of stockings. If you hang a stocking inside your base when the jingle bells ring the stocking will fill up with loot. The larger stocking has a higher chance for better items and both last around 5-10 refills.
Have fun!
New Festive Items
Snowman Hat
Get in the festive Rustmas spirit with the new Snowman hat! The Snowman hat new paid cosmetic skin is available from the store.
Pattern Boomer Firework
Create your own firework pattern and broadcast your "art" to the whole server with the new Pattern boomer firework.
Once your design is complete, wait till dark and set alight the firework using a torch, or a flamethrower if you're feeling brave.
Available now on the Rust item store!
Advent Calendar
The advent calendar is a new craftable deployable available to everyone. Once placed you can claim a surprise every in-real-life day.
Returning items
We have brought back the following items from previous years, now purchasable from the Rust Item Store.
The festive garland pack now includes a double door garland. If you've already purchased this pack you'll now be able to craft this item.
Deluxe Christmas Lights
Snow Machine
Snowman
Festive Garlands Pack
Christmas Door Wreath
Santa Beard
Neon sign pack
Rustmas Base Decorating contest
We're excited to announce Rust's first Rustmas base decorating competition!
We're looking for the best festive base Rust has ever seen!
The Christmas content update is now live and will stay in game until January 6th, 2022. Hoping this Rustmas will be the best one yet. Go big or go home, right?
Winner £75 worth of skins of their choosing and two Rust DLC keys.
Runner up £50 worth of skins of their choosing and one Rust DLC key.
How To Submit
Once you’ve completed decorating your base, take a screenshot and upload the image to Twitter using the hashtag #Rustmas2021
The winner and runner up will be announced from Rust's official Twitter account on January 13th.
Evaluation
Submissions will be judged based on the following: Creativity Design Judging will be performed by Facepunch Staff.
Terms
This competition is run by Facepunch Studios Ltd at Concept House, Elmore Green Road, Bloxwich, Walsall, UK. The competition ends on January 6th 2022 23:59UTC. No more than three entries per person. The winner and runner-up will be selected based on which Facepunch thinks is the most original/creative and any decisions Facepunch makes will be final. The winner and runner up must claim their prizes within one month of the closing date (which Facepunch may exchange for an alternative of the same or greater value). Our terms of service apply to any content you make for the competition: https://facepunch.com/legal. Winning entries must pick items from the Rust marketplace with market value.
December Update
Excavator
The excavator has received a massive production buff. One unit of Diesel fuel will run the excavator for 2 minutes and produce any one of the following yields :
100 HQM
2000 Sulfur Ore
10,000 Stone
5000 Metal Fragments
In addition to this, a terminal can now be found next to the generator. While the excavator is powered on, the communications relay will charge. Once it has charged for 100% (10 minutes or 5 diesel by default) you can use the terminal to request airdrop supplies to the excavator.
Hopefully these changes to the excavator will see it be a more viable and widely used monument.
Excavator Tummy Tuck
We have frequently heard from you about the limited real estate left available on some map seeds. One of the main complaint was about the Giant Excavator monument. It was meant to impress by its sheer scale when first introduced, but we have come to recognize that it does sacrifice a good amount of play area. As a result I have remodelled the terrain surroundings of the monument, and shrunk the overall surface it consumes by a good 30%.
First Person Spectate
Spectating players should be a more pleasant experience this month with a revamped First Person Spectate mode. We've tried to mimic the actual gameplay perspective as much as possible, supporting proper weapon viewmodels, better camera perspectives, alt looking and much of the standard game HUD like the compass, vitals, hotbar and teams.
This new mode will automatically activate when spectating in first person, it also works when playing back demos. I've also added a button to easily spectate a specific player in the admin UI tab.
Hopefully this will make spectating players more enjoyable for admins, as well as providing some new cinematic options for demo users.
Improvements & Fixes Highlights
NVG Clarity -Reduced NGV grain and overlay intensity
Vehicle Animal Attacks - Animals will no longer attack players inside cars
MP5 Costs - MP5 research cost increased and drop rates lowered
MLRS Barrage - MLRS rockets cluster less towards the centre
Compound Bow Changes - Compound Bow now unlocked from Tier 1 Workbench
Tech Tree T2 - Electricity and car parts now on a separate branch
Check out the changelog for more changes.
AI Cleanup & Tweaks
This month we were finally able to remove two more of the various AI setups that we've had in Rust over the years. Now pretty much everything is running on one system. This meant we were able to remove a ton of code and prefabs - this is better for maintenance and long term development of the AI. There should also be some slight performance improvements.
We've also made some tweaks to the animal and human AI, such as fixing some annoyances and increasing responsiveness.
There's more improvements to come in this area now that the bigger features are finished.
Forest Density
Since the World Revamp update, we've received a lot of player feedback surrounding forest density, the aim of world revamp update was to upgrade Rust's visuals without sacrificing performance/FPS. While balancing performance to visual fidelity we were conservative with foliage density values while trying to match them closely as possible to the prior procedural generation.
Today we've slightly but noticeably increased forest density, we hope this will bring back some much-needed forest density while keeping performance under control.
Blueprint Wipe
With today's update, all servers will have their Blueprints wiped and player progress reset.
Permanent Store Launched
If you missed our announcement last month then here is a summary of the launch of Rust's permanent in-game store. The new store will feature premium cosmetic items and skins.
We kicked things off by releasing the Nomad skin. The Nomad skin is a hazmat reskin replacement that can be applied when crafting the hazmat suit or by placing the hazmat suit into a repair bench.
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Additionally, we've also launched some new items such as new lights, underwear and even a used sofa.
Full details of the permanent store can be found HERE
Rust's 8th Birthday
Rust turns 8 this month and we’ll be celebrating for one day only on 11th December with a birthday cake and hats. In the near future, we plan to talk more about how the last year has gone and what we learned as well as some information about how Rust has performed.
Facepunch Servers
We've retired the following Facepunch servers:
EU 11
EU 12
EU 13
EU 14
EU 15
EU 16
EU 17
EU 18
EU Small 9
EU Small 10
EU Softcore 7
EU Softcore 8
EU Softcore 9
US Softcore 3
US Soft core 4
US East 5
US East 6
US Small 4
Additionally, some Facepunch servers have had their max player limit increased and EU1 has changed to a new IP address.
Christmas Update
On December 16th at 19:00GMT / 14:00 EST we'll be releasing a mandatory server and client update to enable the Xmas event and some festive features!
Changelog
Enhanced First Person spectate
Excavator supply drops
Excavator 2.5x more yeild
Failed code lock entry for after 8 failed attempts now locks out user for 15mins
Exposed bear, boar and chicken populations in Server Admin UI
Increased human AI line-of-sight responsiveness.
Compound Bow moved to T1 Techtree
Compound Bow loses condition while drawn back
Reduced NVG grain and overlay intensity
Fish can now be sold for more scrap at fishing village exchange
MP5 NPC drop chance lowered
Watch tower decay, health and craft time higher
Table item craft no longer need metal fragments
Higher forest density
TechTree T2 electricity and car parts now on a separate branch
[MLRS] Increased the target hit area, and rockets cluster less towards the centre. In general it's now better for larger bases vs. precision targeting.
[MLRS] Increased the MLRS UI map zoom a little to make targeting easier (remember that it will show a marker you've placed as well).
[MLRS] The MLRS UI now supports characters from other languages.
[MLRS] The MLRS rocket explosion ground effect now plays at the true hit point rather than directly below the main explosion.
[MLRS] Reduced MLRS rocket world model size and mass to 25% of actual size and mass. No more giant rockets.
Fixed skull rock skin missing sound effects
Fixed case where ammo would be lost when an auto turret reloads a weapon
Animals no longer continue to attack player corpses.
Animals will no longer attack players inside modular vehicles.
Fixed desync exploit abused by some private hack providers
Fixed gap exploit abused by a large number of hacks
Fixed missions UI enabled on first open and requiring double click to close
Fixed some mission typos, incorrect text and wrong reward amounts
[MLRS] Fixed MLRS rocket backfire effects flashing on when entering LOD range.
[MLRS] Fixed cassette recorders not sticking correctly to MLRS moving parts.
Fixed SAM sites not shooting hot air balloons anymore
The info panel for rocket ammo now shows their true maximum range instead of a semi-fabricated one.
