4/12 @ 12:40pm EST - Disregard the tweet below, Alistair just told me the update is still planned for tomorrow.

4/12 @ 9:50am EST - Looks like there isn't going to be a patch again this week.

4/11 @ 4:20pm EST - Not a ton to report as the team is primarily just getting the launch of everything below ready for this week. Check back Thursday for an update.

4:58am EST - It's official, the update will not be launching today. Regardless, all Rustafied servers will wipe today at these times:

EU Servers
5pm GMT

US Servers
3pm EST

2:10am EST - Just heard from Helk that the update probably isn't going to launch today. Given the state of things, I'm relieved. If this is the case, all Rustafied servers will wipe today regardless at the following times:

1:20am EST - Today marks the monthly forced wipe for Rust, and with it comes the long awaited animal AI, a new version of Unity, some fresh footsteps, and more.

Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day. Let’s get into it...

Edit: Given there is no update, we will not have an update stream today. We will be streaming from our Edge Trio server after the wipe.

New animal AI

The biggest shift this week is with wildlife. An entire new AI system is in play, which Garry has been working on for weeks. Animals still look the same, but there is more going on upstairs.

Animals now more strategically navigate the terrain, meaning they no longer fly up and down sheer cliff faces or run through shit all willy-nilly. This also opens up the possibility for much more intelligent behavior in the future.

Given it's a first iteration, there is still work to be done. Everything attacks, so you may find your naked self running for your life from deer. Animals also seem to be prone to narcoleptic behavior - these motherfuckers are sleepy!

Long and short: AI is still rough around the edges, but animals are not running up and down cliffs or through rocks anymore.

Unity 5.6

A big step forward this week for the underlying engine which runs Rust, Unity has been updated to the latest version. This is a significant update given till now Rust has been running on Unity 5.4.2f2.

What does this mean for you? Well, along with making the new animal AI possible, Unity 5.6 boasts better tools for developers, improved performance (or so they say), better graphics, and a slew of bug fixes and improvements (including full screen exclusive mode).

New footstep sounds

Expect to hear some new noises while walking around Rust this week. Alex has merged his work on footsteps, providing a bunch of new sounds depending on what you’re walking on and what type of attire you have equipped.

Deer meat added

Supplementing the new animal AI, a new type of meat has been added. No longer do deer yield chicken, as Helk has added deer meat into the game.

Hapis improvements

Petur has given some love to the Hapis over the past couple weeks. Most of the focus has been on reworking and improving the radtowns. Along with those fixes, he’s added radiation to those areas and done a couple other miscellaneous fixes.

Although not merged in yet, these changes might go live today. He shared with me there are still many more things planned, this is simply an initial pass. Expect more improvements to this map over the coming weeks.

Edit: Petur just told me he's likely to wait till the launch site dungeon is complete then roll out all these changes at once. That means we probably won't see any changes to Hapis till the May forced wipe at the earliest.

Dungeon art

Between an underground section for the airfield and an entirely new launch site, Vince and Damien have been doing some awesome work on dungeons in the past several weeks. At the moment though, it’s unclear if either of these additions will make it in for the update. Stay tuned here as we get closer to launch time...

Performance concerns

I’ve been thrilled to see the improvements to server performance over the past two weeks. A big acknowledgement to Andre, Helk, Diogo, and everyone else at Facepunch for the steps forward as of late.

Unfortunately, I sense we might take a few steps back with this update. On the ‘Help us test the staging branch’ Reddit post, open issues currently include client and server performance being ‘less than stable’. I can attest to this - specifically from a server standpoint.

When I start a server on the staging branch, the entire dedicated box lags out for 5 minutes, with CPU at a steady 100% while the start process builds the navmesh.

What's navmesh? It basically provides NPC’s the ability to navigate around complex terrain without running through objects and shit (ring a bell?). As great as that is, there appears to be a huge overhead which comes with using navmesh. Not only does starting a server lag out the entire box - along with any other server running on that box - server FPS, once started, is a fraction of what it normally is.

The developers are aware of this, and have a couple ideas in mind for optimization, so hopefully this won’t be a huge issue. But with the update potentially going live today, we’re down to the wire, and I’m pretty concerned about how servers (especially those with 300+ players) are going to run once the update hits.

Other stuff

@RustUpdates commit feed removed. RIP :*(
New skins added
Searchlight fixes/balance/visual improvements

Rustafied Edge is live!

Although the update may not go live today, Edge definitely will! Here's a trailer video by the talented Swemba:

Get Edge

Edge-ucational video series

As part of Edge, we're developing a new video series aimed at educating the masses in the ways of Rust. We're starting with 1 video which cover the very basics of the game - more planned in the coming weeks!