Halloween is right around the corner! With Rust's Halloween update arriving next week, the developers are putting the finishing touches on the festivities while continuing work on new weapons, livestock, character customization, and a whole lot of performance improvements. Here's what's happening in Rust development this week.

Halloween update preparations

Rust's Halloween update is set to arrive next week, and the developers are getting everything ready for the spooky festivities. Recent commits have enabled the Halloween event, scarecrow populations, seasonal dungeons, and spooky versions of regular collectables. The Frankenstein table has also been set to craftable by default.

A number of fixes have been made ahead of the event, including preventing Halloween NPCs from spawning in safe zones, stopping seasonal dungeons from appearing inside building privilege areas, and fixing invisible or disconnected players blocking candy spawns. Halloween dungeons also received a fix for missing navigation meshes, while Frankenstein pets should no longer get stuck due to missing navigation components. Other improvements include fixing floating loot crates, preventing candy from persisting after server restarts, and adding a proper interaction prompt when exiting seasonal portals.

Halloween DLC

Alongside the event, the developers are preparing this year's Halloween DLC and limited-time items. Recent work includes Halloween string lights, a new alien costume, a Skull Wall Lamp, and improvements to the tuna can skull lamp. The string lights have received deployment and collision fixes to prevent players from getting stuck when walking over them, while the skull lamps have received updated models, sounds, and destruction effects.

The alien costume is also getting additional texture and first-person model work. Store icons, crafting requirements, and item configurations are being finalized for the limited-time offerings ahead of next week's festivities.

New Uzi 9mm

A new Uzi 9mm continues to take shape, with the developers making progress on its animations, effects, and weapon handling. The latest commits include updates to firing and dry-fire animations, magazine timing, an item icon, and various adjustments to the weapon's setup.

One interesting aspect of the Uzi is its collapsible stock, which is being configured to affect aiming and recoil depending on whether it's extended or folded. The developers have also been tweaking magazine capacity, fire rate, and aim-down-sights behavior, along with fixes to the weapon's animation states. It's still in development, but this new addition to Rust's arsenal is coming along nicely.

Livestock progress

Work continues on the upcoming livestock system, with the developers refining how animals eat, interact with players, and behave in groups. Cows and sheep are getting new reactions when petted, including animations, sounds, and improved behavior when facing players. First- and third-person scratching gestures are also being worked on, along with new jumping animations.

Feeding mechanics have received additional attention, with animals now continuing to eat from troughs even when grass is available. The amount of food consumed depends on how much grass is in their enclosure, although grass alone provides less nutrition. Herd sizes have also been limited to five animals, with detection ranges increased to 40 meters. Meanwhile, digestion boosters are being refined so animals prioritize booster items in troughs and receive their effects throughout the eating process. Work on shears is also progressing, including support for triggering their animations.

Fruit trees

More progress on fruit trees this week as the developers work toward adding apples and coconuts to the environment. Apples are being configured to spawn on select oak trees, with a 15% chance of appearing on two specific variants. The spawning system has also been adjusted to place fruit at the correct location on the tree.

Coconuts are receiving similar treatment, with loot spawns being added to several smaller and medium-sized tropical palm trees. Larger palms have been excluded for now because their movement doesn't match the coconuts, making things look a little wonky. All of this remains in development as the developers continue expanding ways to gather food in the wild.

Character customization and tattoos

The upcoming character customization system continues to receive improvements, with work on lighting, camera positioning, and the customization interface. Players will be able to click directly on body parts to focus the camera, while DLC-exclusive customization options are getting badges to identify them. The developers are also refining character presentation with adjustments to lighting, field of view, and camera settings.

Tattoo development is seeing some interesting additions, including a layering system that separates existing tattoos from new edits. Tattoos are being designed to fade over time, including from radiation exposure, and a restoration tool is in the works to bring faded tattoos back to their original color. A new stencil system is also being developed, allowing players to stamp predefined designs directly onto their bodies, complete with full-color, tinted, and grayscale options. Additional work is laying the groundwork for players to tattoo one another using a dedicated tattoo chair.

Underground train expansion

Work continues on the underground train network expansion, with more attention being given to the environments players will eventually explore. Recent commits include progress on break rooms and kitchen areas, additional room variations, forklift variants, and elevators.

The expansion remains on its development branch as the developers continue building out these underground spaces.

High Stakes DLC

The upcoming High Stakes DLC is getting another round of polish, with attention focused on the electronic chessboard and Russian roulette items. The chessboard has received improved textures, updated models, destruction effects, and optimization work, while the Russian roulette item has received additional setup changes.

The developers have also been preparing Steam item configurations, skins, and localization for the pack. No release date has been confirmed in the commits.

Weapon refreshes

Beyond the Uzi, several other weapons are receiving attention. The flare refresh continues with updated first- and third-person effects, lighting, and ignition handling, along with fixes for animation issues and the behavior of thrown flares.

The nailgun refresh has received initial support for skins, while work continues on first-person models and animations for a flail and Dweller Mace. These newer weapons are still in early development, with model rigging and placeholder animations being worked on.

Controller support

Controller support continues to receive a substantial amount of work, particularly around Steam Input integration and general gamepad functionality. Players will be able to rebind firing and aiming to different buttons instead of being restricted to the default triggers.

Numerous fixes are also being made to improve switching between controller and keyboard/mouse, preventing stick drift and lingering controller inputs from interfering with gameplay. Other changes include improved inventory navigation, updated controller configurations, clearer interface prompts, vehicle vibration adjustments, and radial menu optimizations. Several of these improvements have already been merged into main.

Performance optimizations

A hefty round of optimizations this week as the developers tackle gunfire, building privilege checks, networking, and memory usage. Gunfire improvements reduce unnecessary effects and processing when shooting, while a new building privilege caching system has cut certain calculations from 4.6ms to just 0.09ms in testing. Networking improvements are also underway, reducing unnecessary updates from animals, turrets, and other entities, with one test showing a 6% reduction in outbound server traffic.

Memory usage is getting some love too, with optimizations to skins, fonts, and deep sea loading. Workshop skin changes eliminated nearly 100MB of unnecessary RAM usage in one test, while loading deep sea assets only when needed could save around 260MB of RAM and 270MB of VRAM. Server startup times have also seen significant improvements, dropping from 254 to 138 seconds in testing, alongside various rendering, sound, and particle optimizations.

Other Stuff

Handmade SMG damage increased from 20 to 21.
Wild modular cars now spawn with approximately half their engine slots filled with low-quality parts, making them easier to get running. These parts cannot be removed until the car is placed on a modular car lift.
Sprinting now consumes twice as many calories and fluids by default, with a server setting available to adjust the multiplier.
Berries now have an Extract option, allowing players to obtain one seed per berry without eating it.
A new accessibility setting allows players to change the color of wild hemp plants to make them easier to spot.
Military Tunnel monument blockers outside the entrance now require explosives to destroy, matching the blockers protecting red card rooms.
The crafting menu is being reorganized, moving 62 decorative and entertainment-related items from Items into the Fun category.
A search bar is being added to the mixing and cooking interface.
A new cake is in development for Rust's upcoming 13th birthday.
Map markers can now be repositioned using the middle mouse button.
The hackable crate map icon has been updated.
Chainlink gates fixed to open at the intended speed after previously opening twice as slowly.
Shotguns and other weapons with partial reloads now correctly reload their full capacity after switching ammunition types.
Magazine drop effects improved so magazines tumble and briefly remain on the ground.
PT boat targeting improved to prioritize visible players and fix an issue where boats could prematurely abandon targets above sea level.
Hardcore mode upkeep values adjusted for an upcoming November change, with lower upkeep for smaller bases and increased upkeep for larger ones compared with the current Hardcore values.
Food refrigeration and milk skimming behavior standardized, including refrigeration from Arctic environments.
Thin trees are now slightly more forgiving when struck, reducing frustrating missed hits.
Snowmobile wheel jitter fixed when stationary.
First-person weapon laser visibility fixed.
Ballista and catapult sounds fixed, along with ballista breakdown animations, quarry bucket effects, and metal detector swing sounds.
Scarecrows, gingerbread NPCs, and junkpile scientists fixed to prevent them floating slightly above the ground.
Halloween loot crates fixed to prevent them floating in tunnels.
New crow flock models, materials, and wing-flapping effects are in development.
NPC phone conversations are progressing, allowing conversations with NPCs across the map without requiring their character models to be loaded nearby.
Work continues on the Scrap King building skin, including updated textures, colliders, and additional visual details.
Triangle spiral staircases received a missing upkeep component fix.
Spray can reskinning fixed for double doors at low graphics quality.
Neon sign sounds now respond to sound occlusion.
First-person turn-in-place animations are being tested behind a disabled-by-default setting.
The developers are working on backend support for uploading player-created signs, sculptures, and voicemails.
Weapon racks received a fix related to flamethrowers.
Rain particles optimized, with additional fixes for rain falling through certain roofs.
Rendering pipeline improvements continue, including native render passes, occlusion culling, water rendering fixes, and additional graphics optimizations.