2:55pm EST - Quicker than expected, the client update just hit! Updating our servers now...

2:50pm EST - The server update and devblog are live, however, the client update has not hit yet (thank you steam summer sale!). Follow @Rustafied to get notified when the update hits.

1:00pm EST - Our update stream is live!

12:42pm EST - The update is not quite live yet, however, double click crafting has been added to prerelease, awesome! Stay tuned for our update stream shortly... 

12:00am EST - Another week of Rust development, and one week closer to the launch of the XP system! As expected, we’re not seeing a ton of new things hitting the main branch today - most of the focus is on prerelease in preparation for the July 7th launch. 

Our update stream will go live at 1pm EST today (we keep changing start times, I know...) and follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day. Let's get into it...

Item Ownership

Helk has been hacking away at item ownership. Functionally almost ready to go, this new concept of owning tools and even resources stands to change the way you look at every item in the game.

As I chatted with him earlier, Helk shared the bigger picture of how this'll start to shift earning XP away from simply harvesting and more towards the actual items being used. Long and short: It’s a big pyramid scheme. Little bits of ownership, split between possibly many little pies - all trickling down to the various parties involved. Sound confusing? Don’t worry, it'll soon become a bit more clear.

Expect a more detailed explanation (with some numbers and shit) from Helk in the devblog and stay tuned here for more information as this new feature launches.

Hud changes

Garry has been on a UI frenzy this week - reworking a ton of things with the hud for the XP and crafting menus. Along with modifying the level / XP status bars to make more sense, he’s added a helpful display for upcoming unlocks. Also, locked items now show up each category view. Here are some screens...

Menu changes

Garry didn’t stop there, he’s also retooled the options menu so it doesn’t “look like a hairy bag of dicks.” Not only does it look better, some handy tooltips have been added to clarify what options do. Check it out:

We can craft rocks!

At long last, you’re not completely fucked if you accidentally toss your rock in the grass - they can now be crafted. This most basic of melee weapons and gathering tools costs a meager 10 stones and crafts in 1 second. Available to be crafted at level 1, you won’t need to unlock this blueprint.

Keep in mind, as with pretty much everything this week, this change was added to the prerelease branch, so unless you're already playing on there, it’ll be July 7th before you craft any rocks.

Other things

The team has also completed a ton of miscellaneous changes, here are some highlights:

• Rock hit speed is much faster
• Some shader updates and water tweaks (shits looking nice)
• Motion blur (nauseous mode) is back (and can be turned off in the swanky new options menus)
• Line of sight fixes for caves
• Fixed glowing eyelashes
• Dragging items makes the icon bigger
• More aim throwing progress (not ready to launch yet, though)
• Some new dungeon textures (no visual yet, expect closer to the forced wipe)
• EAC has been updated
• Cleaned up some benchmark stuff (and added benchmark for Barren map)
• Some tweaks to help people from getting stuck on building blocked (known bug)
• Fixed rockets traveling through chain link fences instead of detonating
• Alex is working on more music! Tune into the devblog for some samples.