9:55pm EST - Man, what a shit day for the development branch. Builds were either failing or held up with Steam all day. It seems one build finally went through, however, it's a 12mb update which crashes on load and essentially uninstalls your game (you have to download 1.2 gigs to switch back to the main branch). This is extra frustrating because there's a ton of awesome new shit just out of our grasp as the dawn of update day approaches.

3:10pm EST - We are just one day away from this weeks update and there are some cool new things in store. As Garry mentioned last week, his main focus is adding new items to the game. Along with the candle hat, we’re now seeing floor spikes, 3 new types of barricades and maybe even water tanks.

Unfortunately, builds for the development branch are currently failing, hindering my ability to test all these new things (and resulting in our dev branch server being down). I’ll have more details and visuals with my weekly update summary post, due out early tomorrow morning. Before we get into the new items though, I’d like to touch on Hapis...

Is hapis unsucked?

I streamed gameplay from this updated map last night for about 4 hours to get a feel for the changes. I’m excited to report, all signs point to: Hapis is unsucked! On top of 3 new rad towns (which do have loot), barrel and node spawns appear to be greatly improved. My one concern is rock nodes may still be a little sparse, but as long as they aren’t respawning under the ocean, some resource scarcity may be a good thing.

The rad towns are lit up a night and look great! Most interesting, the satellite rad town doesn't have any radiation. This means people can build right inside of it, introducing an exciting new gameplay dynamic. I’m really stoked to see these changes go live tomorrow and experience it with 150 people at once (yes, I'm going to increase the slots on our Hapis server).

Note: This update will force a wipe on all Hapis Island servers.

Ammo changes

Helk has made ton of changes to how ammo works. Specifically, he’s been playing with functionality to allow guns be able to use different types of ammo. No, you’re not going to be firing shotgun rounds off with your AK, but you will be able to fire any type of round from the Eoka.

High velocity rocket

Along with the changes to ammo type, Helk has also added a new type of rocket, a high velocity one. This rocket is more accurate and travels farther, however, it deals less damage. No details on the cost or specific damage yet as these changes are tied up in the currently fucked dev branch.

Floor spikes

Garry implemented a new defense for bases today: Floor spikes. Limited details available at the moment but expect a full write up soon.

New barricades

Three new types of barricades have also made it in: Concrete, stone, and sandbag. As with the floor spikes, I haven’t been able to test these out yet.

No more building inside rocks

Given the advent of a new exploit for getting inside of rocks (which I will not be telling you how to do), Garry has made it so building is no longer possible while inside a rock. This should help stem the tide of those dirty, dirty glitchers.

New fire

While putting the flame on the candle hat, Garry tweaked the way fire looks across the board. It is now brighter and more radiant.

Gunshot sounds

Expect some new auditory experiences with the update tomorrow. Alex, along with updating many animal footstep sounds, has started tweaking the sound of gunshots.

Blood mist

Minh has added some extra blood mist when a shot lands on animals and Newmans. Although not as obvious as the hit indicator of legacy, this should make it a little easier to tell when you've actually hit your target.

Tip: Steam overlay popping up when you jump?

One really annoying thing that has been happening lately is the steam overlay sometimes randomly shows up when you’re jumping. We’ve found a helpful remedy for this frustrating bug:

• Press enter to bring up chat
• Click your mouse on the box where you type in chat
• Hit your escape key

This should (at least temporarily) stop the spacebar from bringing up the steam overlay. Alternatively, you can just disable chat entirely in the F2 menu.

Live update stream

I'm trying something new tomorrow. Starting around 4pm EST, I will be doing a live stream from our dev branch server, showing off the many new items this week and answering questions from the audience. We'll track the status of the update and, as soon as it goes live, I'll switch over to a fresh start on the newly unsucked Hapis map. Follow the Rustafied twitch to know exactly when we go live.

Question? Comments? Join the conversation at Rustaforum.com

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