1:20pm EST - We are in the second day of Rust development for the week and there are some exciting new things showing up. No client update for a while now and I wouldn't expect one till Friday at the earliest. Lets get into it...

Structural integrity

Garry's focus so far this week is on adding a structural integrity component to the new building system. We saw some teaser screens yesterday and today he tweeted this preview video.

This is a very interesting addition to building and will introduce a whole new dynamic, not only when designing bases but when raiding them too. When building, you will have to make sure the parts of your building have enough support. When raiding, you'll want to notice and exploit structural vulnerabilities. I can picture scenarios where a team on the ground is taking out critical supports while another team is finding a way to jump in once the supports fall. Very cool stuff, I'm excited to see this in action.

This branch has been merged into main already so it is safe to say it will be live when the new building system launched. When will that be? My hunch would be this Friday but we'll have to wait and see. In the mean time, if you're really itching to try out this new system, you can opt into the development branch. Do this by going to your steam library, right click on rust, go to properties, hit the betas tab, and select development from the drop down. Your client will run an update and then you'll be able to start the game and join a server running the development code. Remember, you'll need to switch this back if you want to go back to the main version of the code.

World size

Andre has added a new cvar to control the size of the map. server.worldsize can be set anywhere between 2000 and 8000 (with 8000 being the default). Along with this, the ProceduralSmall level has been removed. I’m happy to see this addition because it gives server owners much more control. The two options that existed up to this point don't suit all needs. The small map is very cramped and the regular size is a bit large for smaller server populations. This will allow server owners the ability to find a map size that is just right for their population.

Footsteps

Goose has been working on some footstep wonkiness. Basically, in certain conditions, multiple footsteps are being played. He’s cleaned this up so the footstep sounds should be more in sync with character actions when the next update launches.

Operation: Unsuck the environment

Howie just uploaded a paint over he did of an ingame screenshot. This looks like a step in the right direction! Here are some of his comments:

quick paint over i did of an in game screenshot, i think the open field areas need some more variation in terms of grass/ground color, grass height, and fields of wild flowers to inject some highlight colors
Also another thing I noticed was all the elements like rocks and bushes are too evenly spread out. They should form unevenly shaped clumps. Mix together rocks and bushes more too

Also, here's another image he just posted:

See more about operation: unsuck the environment on the trello card.

Edit: Also, check out Howie's inspiration pininterest.

Satellite

Vincent has been working on the giant satellite model. It’s coming along nicely, now they just need to fuck it up a bit with a digital hammer and it'll look like it actually belongs in Rust.

Lighthouse

Daniel is working on some lower quality versions of the lighthouse. This is one of the monuments I have yet to see appear on a map in game but it looks like it’s getting close!

Ragged meat

Xavier has been working on some pretty gruesome looking pieces of meat. See more on the trello card.