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Rust gets 'biggest update to gunplay since launch'




Cruel yet compelling survival sim Rust released one of its biggest updates in recent memory yesterday, making sweeping changes to the game's gunplay that for the most part seem to have been welcomed by players (even if some of those players seem happy mainly because the update will make other players unhappy)...
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Combat Update



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Combat Changes[/h2]

Today, we're releasing an update to the gunplay in Rust. The initial implementation of the weapons in Rust was done nearly 7 years ago and hasn't been significantly modified since it's inception. While these changes will be controversial, We believe these changes are necessary for the health of the game.

[h3]Recoil[/h3]
The old recoil system in rust had some issues. It was loved by some, and hated by others.

If you didn't have hundreds if not thousands of hours practicing the recoil in rust, Firing at people in the game would often feel like attempting to align two like poled magnets. Frustrating would be an understatement.

Ultimately, being good at first person shooters and having the drop on someone wasn't good enough. If the other person had thousands of hours of training their aim you stood very little chance.

This was fun for people who could spend thousands of hours training their aim, or morally bankrupt individuals who would choose to use scripts to gain an advantage. This was not fun for 99% of the population, and it's time for a change.

Instead of pattern based recoil, we now implement a gradient based aim drift and inaccuracy for automatic weapons. That is to say, the longer you hold down the trigger, the more inaccurate the weapon becomes. It still takes skill to try and keep it centered on the target, but it is not the same with each burst. We've also updated aimcone (inaccuracy of bullets relative to where you are aiming )to use a weighted system, so that roughly 20% of the shots will land in the center. This means that automatic fire at a long range effectively decreases DPS. This encourages players to use the right weapons in the right situations and to improve their tactics and burst discipline. There should be less 200m beaming going on. What this has done is compressed the skill ceiling, and we think this is a good thing.

Perfectly replicated recoil also meant that mouse scripts could be abused to put 30 rounds on target at 200m, every time.

In addition to the aforementioned recoil changes, we went through and modernized some other elements of the 'first person shooter' experience.

[h3]Sounds[/h3]
The most immediately noticeable change is the sound effects of most of the guns have been updated. This might take some getting used to but the quality has improved significantly.

[h3]View models[/h3]
The View Models have had their dynamic animations updated. You'll notice the walking bob is much improved, as is the sway when looking left/right/up/down. It's a small change but helps to bring things into this decade.

View Models also have a crisper punch back when firing, and they animate the main camera during reloads to emphasize the hand actions.



We've added head bob which is active when sprinting, it's a small touch but adds to the experience. You can turn this off in the options.



All of these elements combined gives the weapons in rust a much cleaner and modern feeling.

[h3]Hit punch & directional markers[/h3]
We also felt that there were some issues knowing where you were taking damage from, with large splotches of blood covering most of the screen during high damage encounters.



We've changed this so that you now receive a smaller semicircle blood splat indicating the direction you took damage from, and a small amount of Screen Shake. Please note that silenced shots will not produce a damage indicator on the victims HUD.

[h3]Hit cross[/h3]
We've added a visual hit indicator to accompany the sound you're all familiar with. Upon landing a successful hit onto another player or AI you'll now notice a hit marker cross briefly appearing.



[h3]Crosshair[/h3]
10 years ago in legacy rust, people would tie dental floss to the top and sides of their monitor to create a crosshair in the center. Now everyone can simply enable one on their monitor or using third party software. Because of this we decided to add a crosshair to the game natively.



The crosshair will give you a rough idea of your accuracy based on the weapon you are holding and your stance. We'll be looking at crosshair customization options in the future, as well as specific crosshairs for different weapon types (melee/throwing, etc.) The crosshair can be disabled within the options menu if you hate it and third party crosshairs are allowed to be used.

As always, this is a work in progress, We're going to review all the feedback and continue to make adjustments until we get this right. Everything is subject to change.


[h2]Handmade LMG[/h2]

The handmade light machine gun is a new tier 3 craftable weapon, with high damage, a high rate of fire, and low accuracy but great at suppressing fire.



Crafting cost: 30 HQM, 1 rifle body, 2 metal springs and 3 gears.



[h2]Extended magazine[/h2]

The extended magazine is a new tier 2 weapon attachment which can be attached to most guns, providing an additional 25% ammo capacity.

Crafting cost: 10 high quality metal.


[h2]Mixing Table Ammo[/h2]

Hate standing around crafting ammo? You can now craft basic ammo types from the mixing table. Players are still required to have the ammo blueprint unlocked.



[h2]General QOL[/h2]

  • Rail Speed Boost - Horses on train tracks receive the same speed boost as on roads
  • Coupled Car Display - The train's screen now shows the number of connected cars
  • Land Mine - The Landmine is now scaled down
  • Projectile Invalid - We've resolved a number of invalid projectiles whilst shooting under low ceiling
  • Vehicle Sensitivity - Vehicles will now grab all mouse input leading to smoother control
  • Compound Bow - Now loses less durability while held back

An artifact of fixing vehicle sensitivity is players are used to the incorrect sensitivity. If your vehicle still feels difficult to control, please use the in-game options menu "Vehicle sensitivity" slider or the console command 'vehicle_sensitivity 0.8' (whatever value you want) to adjust to your liking.


[h2]Launch Site AI[/h2]

Scientists have been added to the main building at the Launch Site monument. You can expect to see them patrolling the various floors as well as the rooftop area.



As with some of the other recently added Scientists, these ones can use healing items, too.

[h2]Covered Work cart[/h2]



There's a new Work Cart train variant that will sometimes spawn on the above-ground rails, which has some more cover at the back. It's marginally slower than the other one, but otherwise behaves the same.



In the near future, we have a proper new locomotive and more rail system updates on the way.


[h2]Rail Sidings[/h2]

Expanding upon last month's rail network changes, this month we added closer rail sidings to sections of the rail network. Train spawns have been moved to those sidings in order to free up the main rail for traffic.



[h2]Graffiti Pack[/h2]

The spray can has received an upgrade with the Graffiti Pack available in the Item store. Once purchased, you can choose from a variety of decals to spray in the world, as well as a free paint mode letting your creativity run wild.


Once purchased, hold Reload (R) to browse the decal options or to switch to free spray mode. While in free spray mode you can press Interact (E) to change spray size and Reload to change colour or switch back to decal mode.



Found some graffiti on your base? Simply interact with the spray while holding something filled with water (Bota bag, bucket, bottle, etc) to clear the spray off.

By default sprays should last three hours. There is a cap on how many sprays can be sprayed by a given player (25 at the moment) that we'll keep an eye on and raise if possible in future updates. Streamers should note that sprays sprayed by other players won't be visible when "Hide Signs" is active, although your own signs will still be visible.

The reskin ability remains unchanged and is still available to everyone.


[h2]Hapis Island[/h2]

For those of you who prefer more familiar surroundings, we're releasing the updated Hapis Island today, which has been AWOL ever since our last graphical update broke it. It should all be pretty familiar, with the exception that we decided to expand the desert in the south, and make it a proper desert this time.

We've also added a few more secondary islands, along with some other small additions that I'll leave you to discover. Later on I expect we will add the new railroads to it as well, but for now we just wanted to get it out there.

All blueprints on Facepunch Hapis Island servers will be wiped today.




[h2]Steam Point Store[/h2]

We're finally releasing the updated Rust Steam Point store today, Lewis and Paddy have been working hard on improving the quality and quantity of the store assets.



We'll be expanding the collection over the coming months. Visit the store now by clicking the image above.


[h2]Changelog[/h2]

  • Updated recoil
  • Added Hit cross
  • Added directional hit markers
  • Added hit punch
  • Added Crosshair
  • Added Handmade LMG
  • Added extended Magazine
  • Added Spray Can Decal Pack
  • New covered work cart train
  • Added invisible spawnable loot prefabs for map makers
  • Added Scientists to the Launch Site monument
  • Added sidings to rail network
  • Parenting to an entity in a demo shot will now properly be recorded in the shot
  • Compound bow now loses less durability while held back
  • Reduced landmine size
  • Add "autofocus" option to input fields for Community UI
  • Improved performance when picking up resources
  • Jittery magnet crane rotation is smoother
  • Added SedanRail entity for admins. Spawnable only on rails
  • Horses now get the same speed boost on rail as they do on road
  • WorkCart monitor now shows the number of connected train cars, beeps when a new one is connected, and the whole monitor display is 40% brighter
  • Added FPS counter configs to the options menu
  • Improved loading screen on ultra widescreen
  • Basic ammo types can now be crafted from the mixing table
  • Fixed some UI layout issues on the answering machine UI
  • Fixed helicopters being visible when idle at long distances (also applied same behaviour to Hot Air Balloons)
  • Fixed Spear Gun not appearing in players hands correctly when equipped (affected players and NPC's)
  • Fixed auto turret missing open/close UI sounds
  • Fixed footstep sounds always being barefoot sounds after changing to other footwear
  • Fixed cargo ship RHIB being unusable after server restart (RPC error)
  • Fixed cargo ship RHIB leaking fuel and storage entity after server restart
  • Fixed solar panels pointing to the sun's location in the server's central sky dome instead of the sun's true direction. Light angle on solar panels now always matches visible sun position
  • Fixed floating wooden barricade cover
  • Fixed invalid projectiles when shooting under low ceilings
  • recoilproperties.version will be removed within the next 2 weeks while we evaluate feedback

Survival game Rust might be playable properly on Linux and Steam Deck soon

Rust, the massively popular and quite brutal survival game from Facepunch Studios is working towards Easy Anti-Cheat support for Linux and Steam Deck with Proton.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/05/survival-game-rust-might-be-playable-properly-on-linux-and-steam-deck-soon

Above-ground Trains Update

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Above-Ground Trains[/h2]

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.



[h2]Rail Network Branch Lines[/h2]



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.


[h2]Rail and road foliage improvements[/h2]



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.

[h2]Zipline Improvements[/h2]



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%.


[h2]Death screen Improvements[/h2]



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.



[h2]Client Performance [/h2]

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.

[h2]General QOL[/h2]

SAM Site Damage - SAM Site can no longer be damaged by bullet type damage

Junkpile scientists - NPCs have returned to junkpile spawns


[h2]Community UI Improvements[/h2]

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.


[h2]Hapis Island[/h2]

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.

[h2]Twitch Drops[/h2]

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.


[h2]Changelist[/h2]

  • 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

[h2]Easter Hunt[/h2]

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!


[h2]Easter Store Returns[/h2]

A number of items are hopping back into the store this year:

Egg Hat


Bunny Hat


Easter Wreath