11/28 @ 8:00am EST - Server was down for a couple hours. This was my bad, I forgot to disable stupid auto windows updates on our new box. We're back up now and I loaded the map. Sorry for the downtime.

8:20pm EST - Maurino just gave a warning to anyone on the dev branch: No context menu is visible. You can track the bug on the trello card. Also, I added some notes below on Zons work on the animals survival branch (I missed that earlier).

4:20pm EST - Maurino is at it again, just killing it with fixes and functionality:

Fixed melee attacks not registering (fucking awesome!)
Lots of melee ranges have changed (see details here)
Increased health of storage boxes
Fixed material for large wood storage
Made campfires less deadly
Added audio to the furnace
Destroying crates spews the contents
Fixed lantern material
Arrows now have sound, a slight trail and are much faster.

1:19pm EST - Just got word the devblog is coming tomorrow. Will keep you updated as the day progresses.

11:55am EST - It’s friday! You know what that means, devblog and update time! Although no client update is confirmed today, I have a strong hunch one is coming. Before we get into it...

A request for your support

I am committed to keeping fans up to date on the latest Rust news while providing the best server experience possible.

Before I get into the update today, I have a question for you: Do you want me to keep doing what I'm doing? If so, I'm going to ask you for money. I don't plan on asking you again, but I am asking now.

Why now? I've been hosting our server off of a VPS and the bill for this month just came in at $400. "That is a fucking insane amount to pay to host a Rust server!" you say. I agree, but when the experimental code was released, VPS hosting was the best solution I found to give me full control and flexibility. Thankfully, I have found a better solution: A more powerful, dedicated box. This will allow me to host more slots, a modded server (stay tuned), and save about $200 a month in operating costs. We just switched to this new box last night and we're running great so far.

I rely 100% on donations. I don't have ads on the site, I think they're obnoxious. I'm unwilling to add clutter and ostracize you all by offering "sexy singles in your area now." To those who have donated already, I am forever grateful. Unfortunately, my operating costs have far exceeded the donations thus far (~$1,000 out of pocket since I started 2 months ago).

All donations will support the ongoing operation and growth of Rustafied. Give what you can, $20, $10, $5, it’s all good. If enough of you give, it will add up and really make a difference.

Thank you all for the support, I will continue staying on the pulse of Rust for as long as it has one.

Best,
Bugs
Owner, Rustafied.com

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p.s. Stripe forces me to collect shit like phone number and address. I promise never to use that information for anything at all.

Server performance

I've got good news and bad news when it comes to server performance. The good news is, server performance held up for over 13 hours yesterday! Since the building update launched last Friday, this is the longest we've been able to last. The bad news is, mass drops keep happening, seemingly more frequently. When the server drops everyone, it needs to be manually restarted or it will keep mass dropping people every couple of minutes. From what I can tell, all community and modded servers are suffering from this. I know Garry is looking into it so, hopefully, a solution is on the way.

1:13pm EST - Update from Garry on the mass drop issue: He has has formed a solution and finished coding it today. Unfortunately, it is tied up with the weapon recode so it's unlikely to be done till mid next week. In the mean time, I'll keep restarting the server as soon as we mass drop.

Yesterdays update

A client update came out yesterday and it included several changes:

Footstep dust is back with a vengeance
Some improvements on building textures, most notably, stone
Swinging tools is slower. Also, there have been multiple reports that swing speed is based on FPS again (meaning lower fps, lower swing speed)
Ground textures have been noticeably tweaked (and very dark in places)
You start with a torch (which does the same damage as the rock with a slightly speedier swing)

Animal AI improvements

Zon is doing some more work on the animal survival branch. Today he has made it so animals search in a spiral pattern. This responds to obstacles and resets if it runs out of space to search. They also avoid deep water now (because yeah, it's weird to see a wolf in 30 feet of water). Pretty cool!

Low graphics = no lighting

If you play on the graphics quality setting of fastest or fast, you'll notice the light from your torch and campfires don't actually illuminate anything. This is a new bug introduced yesterday. To see in the dark, you have to change your graphics.quality to 2 or higher in console (or set it when you start the game). Link to bug report here.

Crafting / quantity changes

Yesterday, Maurino rocked out a shitload of great changes. We can expect these to take effect on the next client update.

Smash skulls into bone fragments with right click
Smaller placement radius for sleeping bags
Spear attacks nerfed (damage lowered 10 points, longer swings)
Stone spear now cost 300 wood and 100 stones (instead of just 200 wood)
Large wood storage has 24 slots, small is now 8
Bandages now cost 3 cloth (as opposed to 100)
Craft 4 bullets per session (instead of 1). Note: This does not include shotgun shells or arrows

Rumor mill

RustyNails, owner of rustguide.info, was in the London debug server last night and had the chance to speak with Maurino in game. Here's the juicy gossip:

Large wood storage is coming very soon and it will be lockable
Raiders will be able to break the box. When they do, it'll drop half the items inside at random, and destroy the other half.

This is not confirmed yet, but a cool piece of news I wanted to share.

Weapon refactor

Garry has done a couple commits to the weaponrefactor branch today. Nothing of significant note yet, however, I'm very happy to see this is being made a priority. The weapon / PvP system is still pretty fucked.