4:00pm EST - Looks like the update won't be today as hoped. That's ok, better a solid launch later than a broken launch sooner!

2:40pm EST - The weaponrefactor branch was just merged into main. That is a good sign an update launch is coming soon!

2:00pm EST - We're at the halfway point for this week in Rust development. We have not seen an update since last Tuesday as the team is still getting the weapon refactor branch ready to go. There is a whole ton of exciting stuff coming in this next update. I'm trying to be patient, but holy shit, I want it now!

Build slow!

I’m pretty confident we've narrowed down the main source of server performance going to shit: Building a lot of things at once creates an overload in the code which causes the game to lag out for everyone. To exacerbate this issue, people can pretty easily use the dupe exploit to create mass amounts of wood, allowing them to build huge structures in no time. Last night, once again, we had to wipe after only a couple hours because some asshole was running around putting foundations everywhere. Thankfully, they have been banned (along with several other dupers).

Please limit your building to no more than 20 pieces at a time. Once those pieces are placed, use a hammer to get them to full health before placing anymore items. Placing a massive amount of items at once will force a server wipe. Anyone caught building huge structures or carrying an ungodly amount of items in their inventory is subject to being banned.

It appears the weapon refactor branch include a bunch of optimizations which will hopefully make this a thing of the past. In the mean time, please build slow!

Duping fix

Maurino has saved the day again by fixing the dupe exploit. Reports of people being killed with 10,000 bullets and 3 million wood should soon no longer happen. Till the next update comes out, if you find someone with a crazy amount of shit, please despawn it.

Cupboard exploit

This was reportedly fixed in the update last week. Unfortunately, even though it is harder to do, it is still possible. Thankfully, there is another fix on the dev branch which should make building in a blocked zone impossible.

Weapon refactor

Garry and Maurino are still working on getting the weapon refactor branch ready. They are doing a lot of work in the realm of damage protection and armor, specifically fixing a bunch of issues arising from the new weapon system (snow jackets making you immortal, damage protection being applied twice, etc). Another thing I'm really happy to see are optimizations for the building block health networking (given this is the primary suspect in server performance drops).

All in all they appear to be making great progress. This is a huge body of work so it’s hard to tell when it’ll be ready. I'm really hoping for a launch today or tomorrow, however, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to wait till Friday.

Clothing protection

Maurino has added protection values for clothing. This is pretty cool because it means clothes like t-shirts and burlap actually offer some form of protection (as opposed to now where they don't protect from anything). There are now 5 forms of protection: bullet, melee, cold, heat, explosion and radiation. I'm compiling these numbers and will be updating them on our armor / damage guide shortly.

Urban clothing

Maurino has changed the green tshirt short name to urban_shirt. He’s also brought back the red jacket (urban_jacket) which has been missing from the game for a month or so.

Hammer sound tweaks

Alex has improved and tweaked the sounds for the hammer. I really hope this means that random loud “thunk” sound is gone once and for all… I really fucking hate that.

AI Improvements

Zon has continued his work on the animal AI system. They are getting smarter and smarter and I'm excited to see it in action!

Terrain tweaks

Andre is still working on fixes to the terrain. The big one, which I hope will be fixed by the next update, is the differences between procedurally placed items (rocks, monuments, caves) on Mac versus PC. He's also updated water to the latest version so it may look a little better than it does currently.

Animal animations

Minh has completed a bunch of animations for the animals. Specifically, the running attack for wolf and the eating animations for the boar, stag, bear and wolf.

Updated map buildings

Daniel is continuing his work on the updated map buildings. He added this new work in progress, complete with ninjas for scale!

Rad bear

Paul posted his first go at some rad bear concepts. Looking gross and good!

Portuguese translation

One of our regulars, Strib, has started translating our guides into portuguese. You can check it out here. Thank you, Strib!