Some cool stuff happening in Rust development today. Garry is still cranking on the UI Reboot and other team members are making some cool visual changes. Before we get into it, lets discuss update frequency...

Update frequency

Last week, we were seeing client updates launching every day (or multiple times a day). It does not look like that will be the case this week. Garry is working on redoing the whole UI, which is no small task. Also, Andre is changing a bunch of things about how the procedural maps generate. When the changes are made to how the map generates, servers have to wipe. If you’d like to see the progress this week, you can always opt into the beta branch and check out the lastest build on our dev server. Warning: Given all these changes, wipes are very frequent on our dev server.

How to opt into beta:

• Right click Rust on your steam library
• Click properties
• Go to the betas tab
• Select "Development - The latest updates"
• Hit ok and run the update

UI Reboot

Some big changes to the UI are on the way. Garry is heads down in the UI Reboot branch, making several commits today. First, he pushed the sleeper screen (the 'click here to wake up' button and such). Then, he got back into the server list view. Will the server list actually have working history, favorites and filters when this launches? I really hope so!

New sand

Andre added a new sand texture today (because the old one was killing him). It’s live on our dev server but here are a few preview pictures:

Animal AI

Zon is still doing a lot with the animal AI. One thing you’ll notice, if you're playing on the dev server, is wolves are even faster! There is an issue happening on the main branch which causes server consoles to spam an NPCLocomotion.Move error. Unfortunately, this slows server FPS down and effects performance for all clients. A temporary solution is to set ai.move false on the server side. This stops the console spam (and boosts server FPS) but also causes all animals to just stand still. I’m toggling this on and off on our servers as needed, so if you see an animal not moving at all, this is likely the culprit.

Map changes

Andre is also doing a lot of changes around the procedural map generation. The seed number on our dev server hasn’t changed in a couple days, however, the map has completely transformed. Right now, it looks a little flat in some places. I’ll be testing other seeds out to see what the variations are.

Long sleeved T-shirt

We’ve got a new addition to the wardrobe on the way. Xavier has added in the models, textures and prefabs for a new long-sleeved t-shirt. This is not in the game yet, however, I imagine well see it in the next big update.

Loot tweaks

Maurino is still making some tweaks to the loot tables today. We chatted briefly last night and he shared his plan to make the loot in rad towns better overall. I mentioned how many people would like to start with the ability to craft the hunting bow and arrows. Although he’s not going to do that, he did say he will make them more common in loot drops. He also has made the torch craftable by default and the furnace more expensive:

Satellite finished

Vincent has done some work on the satellite and officially declared it complete! Here’s some updated shots of the new model:

Comments? Questions? Feel free to chat on Rustaforum.