Rust cover
Rust screenshot
Genre: Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Indie

Rust

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



[previewyoutube="K7vmP1f3f1g;full"]

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.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701720/Rust_Soundtrack/

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:

Spotify
Apple Music
Bandcamp
YouTube Music
Amazon Music
And many more digital music stores!


Improved vehicle body visuals





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!

[previewyoutube="psAEewE_4_E;full"]

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.

Learn more at twitch.facepunch.com.


Merch Update



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.




The Tiger Mask can be purchased on the Rust item store.

Sky Lantern



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.

The Sky Lantern can be purchased at the Rust item store.


New Year Items



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.



An interactive recap version can be found here.

DLC



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.


Learn more at twitch.facepunch.com.

Labor of Love Award Final Voting

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.

[previewyoutube="LbtGFI1hLw8;full"]

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.

[previewyoutube="OKa8KNdPN9Q;full"]

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.
  • Fixed LOD issues on the excavator

Steam Awards 2021 - Rust Nomination

The Steam Awards are upon us once again and this year we’d like to get your nominations in the `Labor of Love` category by clicking to vote above!



We think the description of the award sums up Rust perfectly, Rust is our baby, quite a big baby at nearly 8 years old but we still continue to spend every day helping it grow, there’s been joy and tears and many sleepless nights but we still strive to bring out fresh content every month for you, our players, to enjoy.



Looking at just the last 12 months, we’ve bought you Tech Trees as another way of researching the items you need, The Marketplace in safe zones so you can efficiently purchase from vending machines using drones, The Freight Transit line and train carts for a new way of exploring and traversing the map, The Poker Table and Slot Machines as a new way of earning more of that precious scrap, Gestures for new ways of expressing yourself along with the Contact System to sort out friend from foe, A World Revamp which brought new life into your surroundings including monuments, rocks, flora and fauna.



We made the ocean a new place for adventure, submarines to get around and new underwater monuments with Labs to visit and earn loot from along with threats from the newly added sharks or you could just sit and relax with a bit of fishing to stock your food supplies.

Each month we bring a whole host of Improvements, balances and fixes mostly from the feedback we get from you, without you there wouldn’t be the passion we have for making the game what it is today and we look forward to bringing you another year of planned updates and many more to come.

Permanent Store

Store Update - Nomad Suit



[previewyoutube="OKa8KNdPN9Q;full"]

Today we're excited to announce the launch of Rust's permanent in-game store. The new store will feature premium cosmetic items and skins.

To kick things off we're 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.




Additionally, we're also launching some new items such as new lights, underwear and even a used sofa.

We received a lot of feedback and comments after the recent store announcement so we'd like to address them here:

Why launch this now?


We've found over the years that players really value being able to choose different skins and items to enjoy Rust, like the Spacesuit hazmat skin, or fun seasonal stuff like Christmas lights or fireworks packs. We're also very aware that Rust has grown in popularity but many new players won't be aware that they have these options.

Our idea is to expand that by having a core offering of permanently available, premium, cosmetic items and skins items that all players (new and old) can buy and use to have more fun with Rust. It also gives us more scope to experiment with things we think you'll like - we often have ideas for skins and items but they haven't always found a place (e.g. not big enough to justify a DLC pack, don't fit a monthly themed update).

Will you still do limited availability skins and DLC?


Yes, we'll still regularly launch timed-availability skins and items, especially working with Rust community creators, as well as our DLC packs (Instruments, Sunburn and Voice Props).

Will the new skins and items be tradeable?


No, at present items and skins sold on the permanent store will not be able to resold on the Steam marketplace and hold no resale monetary value, nor can these items be traded on Steam. This is to help differentiate them from the other types of skins/items we've sold in the past and will still sell. We're going to keep all this under review.

Will there be more items coming to the new store?


Yes! We'll be releasing more over the coming months and getting feedback from you on what works and what doesn't.

Other stuff worth knowing


Items on the permanent store may be discounted or discontinued at a later date but we'll give you a heads up when we plan to make this happen.

We look forward to reading your feedback and suggestions.


Additional Store items



In addition to the Nomad Hazmat skin we're releasing the following items:


Sofa - Pattern


A beat up, used, stained, discarded sofa with a floral pattern.

Still comfortable, though.


Coconut underwear


Sets of island underwear made form coconuts, leaves, and grass.

Comes in 2 variations
No crafting required!



Industrial Lights


Industrial lights to illuminate your base. can be placed on floors, ceilings, or walls.

Comes in Red, Green, and White variations.


Factory Door


A grey industrial door with a large window.

Metal Door skin


Nomad Suit


The ultimate wasteland warrior.

Hazmat skin

MLRS & desert base update

DESERT MILITARY BASES



We added fully procedural Military bases containing the MLRS equipment this update, these will be different on every server, every wipe. They are built from a pool of individual modules and fill 4 different templates.





Each has a few points of entry, regular loot with a sprinkle of oil and you will face some resistance from scientists as well.



MLRS



The new Desert Military Base monuments each have a parked Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). This vehicle doesn't move - you won't be driving it around the map - but it can be set up to fire rockets to any target. Except safe zones, naturally.



These MLRS rockets can do significant damage to bases. They can be countered by SAM sites, but a full barrage of 12 rockets will only be mostly repelled by two SAM sites, and completely fought off by three.



Using the MLRS


1. First you'll need to acquire an MLRS Aiming Module which can be found in locked hackable crates and one to twelve MLRS rockets that are found in elite, APC and Attack helicopter crates.


2. Interact with the back of the MLRS and insert your rockets.


3. Get in the MLRS and open the Aiming Module slot, and insert your aiming module, which will activate the weapon systems.


4. Interact with the targeting screen and set your desired target.


You can click-and-drag to move the map around, and click to place the target. If you've set a marker on the main map view earlier, it'll show up here as a red marker, which should help with targeting bases.

A red crosshair indicates where you want to aim. A white circle indicates where the MLRS will actually hit. These will usually match, but can differ if the MLRS is still moving its aim into position, or if there's an obstacle in the way. The MLRS shoots high in the air, so mountains and so on won't usually be a problem, but the white circle will show you if they are.

The target circle shows the total area that might be damaged by an MLRS attack - not all rockets will hit the exact same spot, though there is a bias towards the centre of the circle. No damage will be done outside of the target circle area.


5. Press button to fire. The MLRS will shoot all the rockets you have loaded, and break down for 10 minutes (or whatever the brokenDownMinutes console variable is set to).




Improvements & Fixes Highlights



Painting Undo - Added undo & redo support for painting

Marketplace Search - Added search option when browsing shops at marketplace

Crouching Gestures - Can now use hand gestures while crouching



Check out the changelog for more changes.

Blueprint Wipe



On December 2nd, in line with Rust's next major update patch, we'll be forcing a blueprint wipe across all servers.

Additionally, we'll be looking at retiring a number of lower populated Facepunch servers.


Twitch Drops - Charitable Rust Nov 20 -21

A special edition of Twitch drops will be enabled on November 20-21 for charitable Rust. Charitable Rust has raised $540,786 over the past 6 years supporting various charities such as Rise Above the Disorder, Pencils of Promise and charity: water. This year the charity charitable Rust is supporting is Preemptive Love.

Preemptive Love provides aid in countries of conflict with food, water, medical care relief and much more for families on the frontlines of violence.

[previewyoutube="QwYz8pwGs0M;full"]

Check out the charitable Rust website (https://www.charitablerust.com/ )for more details.

Pumpkin Carving Competition



Last week we announced Rust's first in-game pumpkin carving competition in the Halloween update blog post. If you wish to enter you have until November 7th 2021 23:59 UTC.

https://rust.facepunch.com/news/halloween-2021#pumpkincarvingcompetition

SteelSeries Competition



To celebrate the release of SteelSeries GameSense with Rust, SteelSeries has launched a desktop battle station contest. Head over to their Discord and post your best RGB and desk setups with SteelSeries gear in the #Rust-Desk-Contest channel for a chance to win a copy of Rust + DLC and an Aerox 3 wireless mouse.

https://steelseries.com/blog/discord.gg/steelseries

Ends on November 16th.

Changelog



Features



  • Added MLRS
  • Adding 4 desert military base monuments
  • Added MLRS Ammo
  • Added MLRS Targing module item


Improvements



  • Undo Redo support for painting
  • Search option when browsing shops at marketplace
  • Can now loot items in campervan storage while it's on a lift
  • Can now use hand gestures while crouching (doesn't apply to dances)
  • New entity.downloadsign convar downloads sign data to the game folder in png form (admin only)
  • Reduced horse dung
  • Added "hits" to combat log (how many previous objects a projectile has hit)
  • Added "integrity" to combat log (how much of its maximum damage % a projectile did)
  • Added "travel" to combat log (the time a projectile has travelled for)
  • Added "mismatch" to combat log (how much the client trajectory differs from the server trajectory)


Fixed



  • Fixed "Too close to monument" errors appearing when other placement problems were to blame
  • Diving mask UI is now lit better while underwater in daytime
  • Fixed screen overlays (Diving goggles, heavy plate helmet) being affected by UI scale
  • Player inventory doesn't open up for a frame when a player is looted in a demo
  • Fixed tool cupboard stacking using table deployable
  • Fixed multiple rock terrain gaps
  • Fixed various TC stacking methods
  • Fixed a small gap in armored door double's hatch
  • Fixed armored door inconsistent hatch LODs behaviour
  • Fixed bonkers AO map on wooden doors gibs
  • Fixed foundation.steps.stone wrong gibs assigned
  • Blocked double jump through gas station extension ceiling
  • Fixed Player IO ent button LODs kicking in way too soon
  • Fixed floating decor in water_well_a
  • Fixed grass missing in front of supermarket
  • Fixed floating electric wire at stables_a
  • Fixed missing keypad on compound farming vending machine
  • Fixed a hole by Military tunnels mine entrance rocks
  • Fixed inaccurate shadow proxies of lighthouse
  • Fixed multiple deployment issues with beachchair


Removed



  • Removed Halloween