Following last week’s massive Power Trip Update, the developers have spent much of the week cleaning up issues, adjusting some of the new monument systems, and getting back to work on features further down the road.

Along with two post-update hotfixes, this week brings another balance pass for Player Maintained Monuments, continued expansion of the underground train network, a huge batch of new world models, the first work on a Scrap King building skin, more Nexus development, and a handful of smaller projects starting to take shape.

Hotfixes

Two hotfixes have landed since last week’s update, starting with a small optional client update on Thursday containing an exploit fix. A larger client and server update followed on Friday with fixes and adjustments across several of the new features.

Increased Heavy Fuse lifespan at Power Plant.
Increased the audible range of the Satellite Crash event.
Fixed Deep Sea island textures.
Fixed the Stone Sculpture UI remaining open if the player was killed while sculpting.
Fixed several issues with the Airfield computer terminal Chinook event.
Fixed submarines missing their oxygen status.
Fixed hunger and hydration bars not updating immediately when consuming something.
Fixed several pool issues.
Improved the darts scoreboard UI.
Fixed several errors.
Updated store media.
Additional exploit fixes.

A few more cleanup items have been worked on since then, including fixes for shields causing ADS jitter, Night Vision Goggles appearing black with shadow caching enabled, monument chainlink fences disappearing on low object-quality settings, Gas Station vehicle-part loot failing to respawn after a server restart, and the Industrial Torch being audible from much farther away than intended.

Player Maintained Monuments

With Player Maintained Monuments now live, the developers have already started making some more substantial adjustments to how the system behaves. Heavy Fuse deterioration at Power Plant has been reworked so the three weakest fuses decay at the full configured rate, while all remaining fuses deteriorate more slowly at individually randomized rates. The minimum rate for those slower fuses has also been bumped slightly, and a new server command has been added for checking the condition of every fuse currently installed.

Water Treatment is getting an even larger balance pass following feedback. Fully turning one of its wheels now adds 180 pressure, equivalent to around three hours of water flow, while the tank can hold a maximum of 360 pressure and loses one point per minute. Water output scales with the remaining pressure, topping out at a default 1,020 water per minute when fully pressurized. Once the tank reaches zero, flow stops entirely and water already sitting in the pipes begins evaporating. The current numbers are being aimed at making a fully powered roadside pipe roughly twice as productive as a freshwater pump.

Underground train network

Work continues on expanding Rust’s underground train network, with a mix of new rooms, puzzles, and station layouts taking shape this week. Development has progressed on a new large crashed train station, while medium and small stations are being split into more distinct rooms and fitted with additional doors and puzzle setups.

Smaller randomized rooms are also receiving more set dressing, spawning logic, and visual development, along with a new tunnel-end piece for the small station. This is all still very much work in progress, but it looks like the developers are putting together a much more varied set of underground spaces than the stations players currently encounter.

World model overhaul

A surprisingly large amount of work this week has gone into replacing generic dropped-item appearances with proper world models. Rust has historically used the trusty Burlap Sack as a stand-in for plenty of items when they're sitting in the world, and the developers are continuing a broader effort to give those items actual models of their own.

The current pass covers a long list including Blood Bags, Snow Machines, Disco Balls, Strobe Lights, Drones, Door Keys, Fog Machines, Fishing Tackle, Weapon Racks, Tin Can Alarms, Floor Spikes, Landmines, Workbenches, Netting, Ladders, Corn, Sleeping Bags, Bandages, and numerous electrical items. Tuna Can Lights, Torch Holders, and Hoppers are also getting dedicated models. Many of the new models are being optimized so even their highest-detail version is cheaper to render than the Burlap Sack they previously relied on, making this a visual cleanup pass with some performance benefits attached.

Scrap King building skin

The first signs of another building skin DLC appeared this week under a new Scrap King branch. Work is still at the very beginning, with initial materials, textures, test building blocks, and additional texture development making up the first batch of commits.

There is not enough here yet to say exactly what the finished set will look like, but the name suggests something decidedly more cobbled-together than Rust’s cleaner building skins. We’ll keep an eye on this one as more pieces start appearing.

Nexus work

Development on the Nexus system picked up again this week, particularly around how it is presented in Rust’s newer menus. The server connect screen is being updated with a zone list and Nexus map, while additional work is underway to show Nexuses without requiring a completely separate menu tab.

There has also been some work behind the scenes, including a fix for Nexus player authentication following a backend endpoint change, changes to how player IDs are stored, and several server-side cleanup items. A few of these fixes have already made their way back into the main branch.

Livestock and wildlife

Livestock work continues with more attention on sheep this week. New leaning and reaction animations have been added, alongside updated skinning and LOD work for the model.

There are also some early test assets appearing for frogs, seagulls, and jellyfish. These are explicitly marked as testing for now, so don't start building the world's saddest aquarium just yet, but they do show the animal work extending beyond the livestock we've been watching over the past several weeks.

Flare refresh

The Flare is getting a small visual and audio refresh. New cap-popping sounds have been added, along with adjustments to its third-person throwing animations so the flare returns to the player's hand more naturally.

The developers have also created a world model for the cap itself and cleaned out a collection of older flare models, materials, rigs, and animation files as the refreshed version replaces them.

Controller improvements

More work is being done on Steam Input and gamepad support. Gamepad configuration ConVars are being exposed as proper menu options, a menu cursor problem has been fixed, and a debug overlay has been added to help continue development.

Not the flashiest work of the week, but anyone trying to navigate Rust with a controller will probably appreciate fewer fights with the menu before getting into the fights that actually matter.

Electrical performance experiments

A Hackweek branch is experimenting with a fairly substantial rewrite of how Rust processes electrical circuits. Rather than checking every circuit each time to see whether something has changed, the new setup keeps track of only the circuits that actually need rebuilding.

The developers have also been reducing collection allocations during circuit evaluation and optimizing the drain-processing pass, with the new approach specifically described as being much better at scale. This is experimental Hackweek work for now, so there is no guarantee it reaches the live game in its current form, but large electrical builds are an obvious place where these sorts of optimizations could eventually matter.

Other stuff

As usual, there are plenty of smaller changes floating around alongside the larger feature work this week:

Fixed Gas Station's improved vehicle-part loot not respawning after a server restart.
Fixed monument chainlink fences becoming invisible on low object-quality settings.
Removed duplicate lights from Military Tunnels.
Fixed the Industrial Torch using the wrong sound configuration and being audible from too far away.
Added a temporary consumption sound to the Large Medkit.
Fixed the Stone Sculpture radial menu referring to signs instead of sculptures when using the Lock option.
Disabled mip streaming on Stone Sculptures to address blurry textures.
Fixed ADS jitter when carrying a shield on your back.
Fixed Night Vision Goggles appearing black when shadow caching was enabled.
Fixed some console ConVar values being rounded after opening the settings menu.
Reduced the Desalination Tank from a large collection of separate colliders down to a single mesh collider.
Fixed swing seats incorrectly marking attackers as hostile.
Added more automated animation-effect testing and cleaned up several warnings.
Continued work on a new network profiler interface and packet capture system.
Around 20 classes are being converted from older RPC and Proto networking to SyncVars.
Additional rendering work is underway using Unity's newer RenderGraph API.
Improved command-buffer naming to make graphics warnings and errors easier for the developers to diagnose.
Added a speculative crash fix related to terrain holes.
Continued work on a refreshed Glass AR admire animation.
Added the Small Backpack to the Twitch Drops rendering scene.
A new Workshop Voting branch has appeared, although it currently contains only its initial baseline work.
The Satellite Crash trail has been adjusted to taper and fade more naturally shortly before impact, followed by a fix for a visual glitch.
Several experimental Hackweek projects have also appeared, including an arcade-related prototype, a searchable command palette for developer tools, and a possession mode for the newer demo viewer.