4:00pm EST - The update and devblog are live! We're hosting JonnySomething with some fresh wipe gameplay action!

2:00pm EST - Our update stream is live! twitch.tv/rustafied

11:20am EST - Update day is upon us and we’re not only seeing a bunch of progress on long term projects, we’ve got some new dynamics with trees.

Our update stream goes live at 2pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Tree minigame

Another notch off the roadmap this week as the tree harvesting minigame has been added. Similar to the node minigame, this allows you to gather resources faster by hitting the right spot.

The tree minigame doesn’t have bright shiny hotspots though. Instead, X marks the spot. Head up to a tree, hit it once, and a red X will appear somewhere on the trunk. Continually hit the X’s to gather more per hit (starting at 16 wood with a metal hatchet, the gather rate increments by 2 per hit till you get to 30).

You will notice a slower gather rate if you choose not to participate in this minigame, as the wood per hit on a metal hatchet stays at 15.

Given this was just added, I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers and / or graphics change in the near future.

Falling trees

The mini game isn’t all that’s changed with gathering wood - realism has been upped slightly this week as Helk added falling trees. This is purely a client side visual effect at the moment. Instead of trees just disappearing once they’re harvested, they fall down.

This does shift how much wood is gathered while chopping. You'll get less per hit while the tree is standing, then you'll recieve half of the tree's resources when it falls.

Also note, if you have rockets to waste, you can take trees down with them. Not very practical, but a cool effect nonetheless.

Keep in mind, this is an initial implementation, so more may be added to this in the future (I’m thinking piles of wood which spawn after a tree falls would be pretty sweet).

Audio fixes

Along with adding new sounds for trees falling, the team has implemented several fixes to various audio issues. Most exciting: a failsafe fix for the rare stuck bush rustle bug! There’s also some tweaks to cave reverb and music.

Hair fixes

After its inception last week, hair is seeing various fixes this week. Along with some miscellaneous tweaks to graphical issues, hair now deforms to the beanie hat. Also, an issue where beards wouldn’t show has been resolved.

Long term progress

Much of the team's work this week was with long term projects set to go live with the next forced map wipe (on December 7th). Although we won’t see any of this in game this week, we’ve got some exciting additions next month including building 3.0, junkyards, new Christmas content, dungeon improvements, Hapis tweaks, and more!

Check out the devblog later today for more specifics on this progress.

Other stuff

Workbench can no longer be locked (bug fix)
Fixed foot flipping around like pinball flippers when player was on stairs
EAC SDK update
Tweaks to navmesh - now processes before server starts again

AU blueprint wipe

You may have noticed some downtime with our Australian server. Unfortunately, our server host in that region (OVH) totally shit the bed and lost all the data on the box. That means a complete wipe (including blueprints) has taken place for that server.

Sorry about this, failures of this magnitude are rare but do happen sometime. In light of this, we’re setting up some automated offsite backups for our servers in the near future.

Charitable Rust is two weeks away!

That’s right! Our yearly charity event is just over two weeks away. On December 2nd starting at 11am EST, we’ll be doing a 12 hour livestream event to raise funds for Direct Relief. The event takes place on a custom server with games, challenges, races, competitions, a whole ton of prizes, and your favorite Rust celebrities! Check out charitablerust.com for more information.