11:28pm EST - So we didn't quite make the schedule I was hoping for today. The server performance has been dropping after about 7 hours. I just had to wipe again. We have less players at night meaning we should run smoother a bit longer. I will let it ride till the morning and check performance then. Hopefully we see an update soon which fixes this shit.

4:58pm EST - We had a mass drop just now, although, this one is a bit different because no one could connect even after the reload. Had to wipe (1 hour) early, sorry.

10:27am EST - Checked in again, performance had gone to shit with 40 people in there. Just wiped.

7:25am EST - Performance does appear to only severely dipping when more people (50+) are in the server. 10 hours since last wipe and still running fairly smooth with 25 people in now. Will check on population and performance at 10am, if it's still running smooth, I won't wipe until it goes to shit. Sent Garry some saves and reports from the server to help him debug. He's adding some more logging in today so hopefully we can get to the bottom of this and see some improvements soon!

2:58am EST - Early morning edition here. More updates on the teams progress later today.

Yesterday's server update

Long and short: Things are better than before, however, server performance still goes to shit after 8 or 9 hours. Also, we are still experiencing mass drops every 2 or 3 hours. When this happens, all players disconnect. They can reconnect but continue getting dropped every several minutes till the server is restarted. I set up alerts for when this happens and will restart the server as soon as I can. See more info in yesterday's post.

Oh, one thing I didn't mention yesterday, the thompson world model is fucked (pink).

Wipe schedule

Given performance goes to shit after about 8 or 9 hours, I'm putting the server on an 8 hour wipe schedule till the next update (when I will re-evaluate and adjust accordingly). Here’s the schedule till further notice (all times in EST):

• 10:00 am
• 6:00 pm
• 2:00 am

Community building

I had some of the most fun in Rust in a while yesterday by teaming up with people and building little communities. After both wipes, groups of people teamed up by the satellite and build bases close to eachother. Both times, we had to fend off raiders and bandits, all the time struggling to know who was friendly and who wasn’t.

Here’s some pictures of both communities:

To those of you who were part of that: thank you, it was a blast! I highly encourage this behavior in the server. It’s cold out there alone and, with wipes this often, its hard to get anywhere by yourself. Here’s some tips for forming a community:

Join teamspeak
Want to be part of a town? Join the Rustafied teamspeak (ts52.gameservers.com:9372) and start organizing. Note: Trolls in teamspeak will not be tolerated. Only members and allies of the town are welcome in the our teamspeak. Any groups or individuals are free to attack any town, that’s half the fun. That being said, joining teamspeak just to infiltrate / troll the town will result in a ban.

Don't publicize in all chat
Unless you've fortified a perimeter and have some weapons, I wouldn't recommend advertising the location of the community on all chat. That is just asking for bandits to attack you and, if you're not ready for it, you'll easily loose the town. It’s amazing how quick everything goes to shit when waves of people start attacking a bunch of unarmed people standing around.

Set a dress code
In the heat of combat, it is very hard to keep track of who is friendly and who isn’t. I recommend you setting up a community dress code so people can tell friendlies from bandits.

Location, location, location
The dish is an easy point to meet people but it’s also a magnet for everyone in the server. It may be difficult capturing and maintaining hold of this area. Especially given the maps are now ¼ the size we're used to, it may be easier to find another, less conspicuous location to set up shop. That being said, dish towns rock!

PvP issues

We all know PvP needs improvement. Thankfully, in the past few weeks, your view of other players has gotten overall less jerky. Especially after fresh wipes, player interactions are generally pretty smooth. Even so, there are some serious issues with the hit registry during PvP encounters.

One in particular is having the experience of hitting an invisible wall when shooting or using your spear. I did a lot of fun PvP last night, mainly with a shotgun, and multiple times I landed a direct hit on a naked with a spear directly in front of me. Did he die? No, the buckshot hit an invisible barrier a couple inches in front of me and no damage was dealt. This is very frustrating and I hope we see some resolution to this as Garry continues the weapon refactoring stuff.

Rustafied in Italian

Enne, the owner of Playrust Italia, contacted me to see if he could translate our guides into Italian and give a link back. I’m totally cool with this and happy to have the guides help a global audience! Here’s a link to how to find your friends in Rust, in Italian.

Building guide update

Speaking of guides, I've been working on updating my two building guides. I wanted to have them live already, however, most of my Rustafied time since Friday has been spent trying to keep the server running smooth and updating you all on the state of the game. Expect the updated guides to launch next week sometime. In the mean time, here’s some tips and observations about the new build system:

• A wood wall has 200 hp and can be demolished with a hatchet in about 40 seconds.
• Stone walls have 500 hp and are best taken down with salvaged axe. It’ll take about 16 minutes and 40 seconds for 1 person to get through.
• A pickaxe can also take down stone walls in about 20 minutes.
• Stairs are only half the height of a story. That means you need two (with a block under the second) to make a ramp to the second floor. A cheaper way is to just put one block down and duck / jump onto it. It’s not as fast but it is a hell of a lot cheaper.
• Walls which are not at full health are a darker color.
• There is an inside and outside to each wall. You can rotate them with your hammer using right click.

Rabbit model is done

The rabbit model was completed yesterday. Here’s some shots:

Reflected water

Andre has been working on some improvements on reflected water:

Tip of the day: Box placement

Space in your base can be tight and boxes laying all willy nilly every which way sucks for organization. Here’s a way to maximize your storage space.

• Build a railing (or block) in your house
• Place 3 boxes on top
• Remove the railing with your hammer or a hatchet
• Place 3 boxes below, where the railing was

Here’s a shot of the finished product:

Note: I fucked this one up a bit, the bottom boxes are too far behind. Ideally, you place them evenly. Also, boxes are currently invincible, so if you misplaced, you have to deal with it.

Shout out to Redwire for this tip.