3:00pm EST - Our update preview stream is live! twitch.tv/rustafied

11:00am EST - Garry just added ‘last wiped’ information and sorting to the server list!

12:00am EST - With just two weeks before the big update we’re seeing various improvements to the main menu UI along with some great progress with ongoing projects.

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

UI Improvements

Garry, as a continuation of his Steamworks integrations, has completed some significant changes to the UI in Rust. Upon loading the staging branch, you’ll immediately notice the main menu has been cleaned up. Gone is the busy screen full of recent servers, news, friends, workshop items, and stats. Now, there is simply a clean menu on the left, small icon links on the right, and a subtle scene in the background looking up at some trees.

Some of the sub menus have shifted around, but the overall functionality is still the same. Also, some handy new features have been added such as the ability to see which friends are in which servers on the server listing. On top of all that, the server browser is more optimized and now has a virtual scroller, meaning it should behave snappier and load quicker.

This is still a work in progress, so there are still some issues at play. In addition, we can expect some more functionality to be added (like wipe date and time on the server browser). Long and short, expect to see these improvements go live for the next update on June 6th.

Edit: Sure enough, Garry added last wiped information and sorting to the server list!

Edit 2: Some more changes have been applied today including background videos. See what it looks like here.

Environmental shaders

Vince is working on a new branch for environmental shaders. Although there are no visuals yet given this work is still on a separate branch, it appears some shifts to cliffs among other things are being experimented with. We’ll keep you posted as work progresses and this branch is merged in.

Water shifts

Helk has tweaked some things with regards to water storage. First, water jugs now spawn with less water than before. Also, you can now pick water barrels up after placing them (with a hammer). Do these changes relate to a larger body of work on the way? That remains to be seen, but we’ll keep you posted as always.

Weapon texture and VFX optimizations

Petur continues his work on weapon texture and VFX optimizations. As you may recall from previous weeks, this body of work involves tweaking various textures and effects of weapons with the intention of improving overall performance. Although there may be some shifts to visuals, it appears the main priority with this branch is optimizing performance.

Other stuff

More work on the Giant Excavator monument
Puzzle reset pauses timer when players are in its radius
Tweaks to last weeks ‘step up’ player movement addition