6:30pm EST - A small client update just came out. Fix for Sound NRE (shotgun/heli). No server update required.

3:50pm EST - The update and devblog are live!

2:00pm EST - Our update stream is live! twitch.tv/rustafied

10:10am EST - We have confirmation from the official Rust Twitter that the update will hit in a couple hours. Also, new skins are live!

12:20am EST - After delaying the update last week, the team is pushing to release the patch today. Will it launch? Helk and Co. are definitely shooting for it - we'll keep you posted if that changes. Like all first updates of the month, a wipe will be forced if and when the update hits.

What's in store? A new animal AI, improved sounds and models, better large furnace placement, a fresh version of Unity, along with a bunch of other changes and tweaks. Our update stream goes live at 2pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day. Let’s get into it...

Update summary video

Here's an update summary video from Puddy!

New animal AI

After weeks in development, the new system for animal 'intelligence' is set to go live with this update. Although the Rust wildlife will still look the same, they should move much better than before - no more jutting up and down sheer cliffs or running through stuff. Some also now have meaty gibs!

As with any first iteration - especially one of this magnitude - there is still a lot of work to be done. This launch is the baseline functionality. Once in place, the team will be able to build over time; adding new models, animations, sounds, and hopefully creating unique behavior for each animal.

Don’t be surprised to see bugs, glitches, or just overall wonky animal behavior this week and expect more improvements and optimizations to AI over the coming patches.

Better large furnace placement

A great quality of life improvement this week, large furnaces are now much easier to place on uneven terrain. Also, their foundations extend down further than before. 

Wood armor helmet added

A last minute addition to the update this week, the wood armor helmet is in. As Helk told me, it's basically an upgraded burlap headwrap. Here are some pictures and details...

Cost
200 wood
1 rope

Crafting time
60 seconds

Rust Hack Report is back

After being silent for over a month, the Twitter feed of game banned cheaters, @RustHackReport, is back. How better than to come back with a bang? It added ~2,400 bans to the still growing list (although much of that is probably backlog). Hopefully those bans keep coming; this hacker situation has been out of control lately.

New footstep sounds

A whole slew of new sounds have been added, mainly footsteps based on where you’re walking and what type of footwear you’re sporting. This accounts for barefeet, boots, burlap, hide, and hazmat on surfaces like grass, dirt, sand, snow, concrete, carpet, metal, wood, stone and more! Great work by Alex on this one, walking around is much more dynamic now.

Updated models and animations

Mihn has done a ton of tweaks and fixes to animations and viewmodels for various items in game. Although nothing may be immediately apparent, it's likely you'll notice some differences as you settle in this wipe.

Deer meat added

Supplementing the new animal AI, a fresh type of meat has been added. No longer do deer yield chicken - deer meat is now an item.

Unity 5.6

A big step forward for the underlying engine which runs Rust - Unity has been updated to version 5.6. This is a significant change, as up till now, Rust has been running on Unity 5.4.2f2.

What does this mean for you? Well, along with making the new animal AI possible (Navmesh), Unity 5.6 boasts better tools for developers, improved performance (or so they say), better graphics, and a slew of bug fixes and improvements. You can find more on Unity 5.6 here.

Performance concerns

As always, with large launches months in the making, a major concern is performance. Although the team has made strides forward in both client and server performance over the past several weeks, this new version of Unity (and specifically Navmesh) currently causes some issues.

Mainly, starting a server is now a much longer process due to the Navmesh creation. During that time, CPU usage on the server box shoots up to 100% and holds there for up to 5 minutes. This generates lag and sometimes mass kicks on all other servers running on the box - which stands to be a big issue, especially for servers on shared hosts (you know, like most of them).

On top of that, with any change this massive, you can’t really know how server performance is going to hold up with 300+ people in one server until you actually have 300+ people in the server. This is all to say, we’re entering a bit of untested territory with this update; fingers crossed it all goes smooth.

Other things

• New skins added
• Garry made the old hazmat froggy boots skinnable
• Helk removed froggy boots from the game entirely :(
• A bunch of language fixes to various item descriptions
• Rcon.web is now enabled by default. (set rcon.web 0 if you’d like to revert it)
• Fixed underwater bubbles continuing to play after surfaced
• Fixed large furnace being destroyed when buildings modified nearby
• Shift clicking a server in the server list will copy its IP to clipboard
• The new dungeon art (airfield underground and launch site) will not be making it in today (next forced wipe at the earliest)

Edge-ucation Volume 2: Harvesting

With the official launch of Edge last week, we released our first in a line of videos to teach people how to play Rust. We’re back with a new edition this week as we cover: Harvesting. 

I know this is rudimentary stuff, but we wanted to cover the basics first. Expect more advanced videos in the coming weeks!

A huge thank you to everyone who has made these videos possible by subscribing to Edge. The EU Edge server will be coming online next Thursday. We've got more events and new content planned over the coming weeks. 

Community Building Event continues!

Our community build event for April continues with the forced wipe this week. This month we're asking players to build the best "Place of Business" that they can. Shops, Hotels, Bars, Casinos - if it's a place of business, it's acceptable. The winner has a chance at some nice prizes too!  

Check out the full details and rules on our forums!