10/18 @ 12:40pm EST - The Halloween stuff was just merged into staging. There are a bunch of spooky items - working on a full write-up now.

10/17 @ 6:30pm EST - Just got word from Helk, the Halloween patch is delayed till Friday. I’ll post a full article describing the Halloween event once it gets merged into staging. Rustafied servers will still wipe on Thursday at their regular scheduled times.

10/11 @ 12:00am EST - An exciting new mode of transportation is on the horizon - literally! Hot Air Balloons are making their first appearance on staging this week along with a couple miscellaneous fixes and such.

Our update preview stream goes live at 3pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Hot Air Balloon on staging

That’s right! The Hot Air Balloon is on the staging branch… technically. At the moment, it doesn’t do much other than float around after you spawn it, so much of its functionality is still in development.

Spawned via the ‘spawn hotair’ command in console, the Hot Air Balloon quickly lifts into the sky, randomly travelling higher and higher until the inevitable POP! Just kidding, it just despawns.

Of course, this is not its final form. According to Helk, the Hot Air Balloon will not only be available for purchase, you’ll be able to craft them too. Once in your possession, you’ll deploy, board, and take to the sky’s!

Looking around the interior, you see a red ‘ignite’ button on one handrail along with some makeshift controls up top. How exactly you pilot this new vehicle remains to be seen.

The cost and other specifics are also up in the air (rim-shot). That said, the team is making some great progress on this, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are fully inflated and ready to go come the November 1st update. As always, we’ll keep you posted with its development throughout the month.

10/12 Edit: The Hot Air Balloon is now fully functional on staging! Flying it is very difficult, you can just climb or descend as the wind takes you. Check out Shadowfrax’s video for more info.

L-96 admire

Newest weapon in the game, the L-96 has received its admire animation. Like all other weapons, simply press ‘b’ while holding one to see for yourself (after the November update that is).

Cargo Ship fixes

After being added last week, the newest server event has gotten some expected fixes. Mainly, the developers fixed the trajectory of arrows when fired on the cargo ship during a turn.

Edit: A small optional update just came out to fix several small issues with the Cargo Ship.

Hidden goings-on

As with the previous weeks, there have been tons of “This commit has been marked private, so it is hidden.” What exactly are the developers hiding? Although there are some rumors circling the community, there has been no official word from Facepunch on exactly what this body of work entails.

Other stuff

• Halloween event starts next week!

• Work on Drone meshes, textures, and prefabs

• More work on AI

• Possible update to Unity