It's update day and Bugs is across the country getting his face literally punched and kicked, we have a few welcome additions and some forward looking changes coming into the game today!

Update summary video

Here's the latest update video from Puddy.

Semi-auto Pistol cost

The semi-auto pistol has been the source of many threads on Reddit and other forums after it's nerf a couple of months ago. It's been used fairly rarely since then, but that might change today. With the removal of a spring and at a cost decrease the "P250" looks like it's ready to make a comeback.

Old cost:

1 Metal spring
1 Metal pipe
1 Semi-automatic body
15 High quality metal

New cost:

1 Metal pipe
1 Semi-automatic body
8 High quality metal

Node Mini-game

Another surprising addition today is the node mini-game. Hitting the shimmering spot with a tool will cut the amount of hits to harvest a node in half. It might take some time to get used to, but this should help speed up node farming... especially when farming with a friend. Currently it's only visible in the day, but it can be seen at night with a miners hat. Alistair has mentioned that hitting the spot might increase the yield in the future as well. Expect to see these in caves soon!

Icebergs

Andre has been working on bringing icebergs back into the game, while we won’t see them this week it will be interesting to see how they are implemented now. There is no word on whether or not they will be something you can build on, or there to help the aesthetic of the game.
 

Game tips

This week Garry has added a few tips for fresh Newmans to adapt to the Rust island a little faster. At the moment only a couple of tips are in game, but we expect more in the future. Steps like these are an important part of moving the game forward and ideally out of early access.

UI and menu screen changes

This week we will see a few improvements to the UI and menu screens including a "Find Game" button and the welcome addition of an exit confirmation screen.

Retiring DX9

DirectX 9 is singing its swan song with this update now that it’s been removed in favor of an OpenGL based fallback when DX11 isn’t available. At this time the game simply launches into DX11 mode. We haven’t heard if OpenGL will be a selectable option prior to the launch screen
 

EAC update

Andre has worked on a fix for the "EAC Disconnected" error. It’s unclear what exactly this resolves but we are hopeful that players will see fewer errors that kick them out of the game this week.

Other stuff

• Changed some item descriptions
• Campfires displace grass
• Grass displacement around ore nodes
• Terrain grass is 10% shorter
• Increased brightness of ore nodes in temperate to stand out more
• Sulfur nodes show a more distinct yellow hue
• Metal nodes show more oxidation
• Stone nodes are overall more desaturated, more gray to stand out against other nodes
• Added Gibs models for every node picking stage (to be implemented later @helk)
• Snow biome nodes should be more visible and easier to differentiate
• Nodes are overall slightly smaller
• Cave ores are much smaller and biome nodes are gray again