A new game-mode is coming to Rust this week! The first new officially supported mode since inception of the game, Softcore provides a more forgiving environment to play Rust. This article summarizes all the main features of this new type of play.

Overview

At a high level, Rust: Softcore is a new game-mode - the first of potentially more - officially built into the game. It aims to be a little more forgiving of an experience, catering to new players and smaller groups. Softcore accomplishes this with lowered team / auth limits and providing the ability to reclaim loot (and respawn) in safe zones.

Softcore will launch with the February 4th update and forced wipe. Keep in mind, this is the first iteration of a brand new functionality. As such, it is highly subject to changes and tweaks. Also, as of testing, some of it isn’t complete. As always, I’ll do my best to keep this article up to date with any changes.

Spawn in safe zones

A main feature of Softcore gameplay is the ability to spawn in safe zones. As it stands, the two options available are Compound and Bandit camp. When you die in Softcore, you’ll see two extra bed options for respawn.

These beds have the normal cooldown times and will also display a hostile countdown timer if you’ve acted a fool at either location in the recent past. Now safe zone spawns are nice and all, but let’s be real about why most will respawn there…

Recover loot

That’s right! The biggest feature to note in Rust: Softcore is the fact that not all loot is lost upon death. Added to the two safe zones are reclamation centers right near where you spawn. Simply go up to any of these terminals to gain access to a selection of loot from your previous life.

Now this is where it gets a little murky as there appears to be a level of randomization with regards to what’s actually recovered and what isn’t. Below I’ve done my best to cover the main points.

2/2 Edit: You can now also claim your loot in a separate small stash bag found next to your corpse. That means you don’t have to reclaim in a safe zone if it’s more convenient to get to your corpse. This is still a work in progress, more details to come.

How does this work?
On death, some items are transferred from your body to a reclamation terminal which can be accessed at either Bandit Town or Compound. Items not moved will remain on your corpse as per usual.

What items are saved?
It seems like about half of the items in your inventory upon death will be saved. This does appear to be highly randomized as sometimes more is saved and sometimes less. There does not appear to be any priority on higher valued items versus lowered value items (with the exception of the initial rock and torch, which are never saved). So basically, it’s luck of the draw.

What about the items in my hotbar?
They are grouped the same as above. About half, luck of the draw.

What about the clothes I’m wearing?
Those stay on your corpse.

Do items from multiple deaths accrue in the reclamation center?
Yes, it’ll keep adding items to the bottom of the reclamation center inventory.

How long do my items stay at the reclamation center?
Items will last for 2 hours at the reclamation center. After that time, they disappear and are lost forever.

How much does the reclamation center hold?
At the moment there are 42 slots in the reclamation center. There is also a message notifying players when the inventory is full.

Can anyone else access my items in the reclamation center?
No.

Does it matter how I die?
No, it doesn’t. PVP, PVE, and suicide deaths all put items into the reclamation center in the same way.

Can I place items in the reclamation center?
Yes and no. You can’t just drag items from your inventory to the reclamation inventory. That said, if you drag an item from the reclamation inventory on top of another item already in your inventory, the two will switch (essentially letting you deposit). Keep in mind though, there is a two hour limit on any item in this box.

What if I’m downed but not dead yet?
If you’re in the downed (or wounded) state, no items will transfer to the reclamation center. This means players who just downed someone else can loot the entire inventory and downed players will be more incentivized to suicide immediately to protect their loot.

Team size: 4

Another feature of Rust: Softcore is the limitations on team size. With a normal cap of 8 in a team in vanilla Rust, it is very easy for the scales to be tipped away from the favor of the little guy. Slashing that cap in half, Softcore should make it a bit harder for larger teams to organize, ideally shifting some balance towards smaller groups.

Authorization limit: 4

It’s not just the teams that are limited in Softcore. Tool Cupboards now limit the number of authorized users to 4 as well. As with the team size limitation, this will further limit the abilities of larger groups.

Note: as of testing this on staging, there are no current limitations that we could see. We assume Tool Cupboards will be limited, but it’s also possible code locks might also have this limit applied.

Edit: These limits must be set by the server owner using ‘maxteamsize’ cvar

This is all subject to change

Keep in mind, this functionality is in its infancy. There are surely things which have not been accounted for yet and unintended abilities for exploitation which will likely be shored up. Don’t be surprised if things shift.

Where can I play Softcore?

Facepunch announced they will be launching some Softcore official servers on February 4th when this all goes live. There will likely also be a number of community servers which decide to run this new game-mode. Rustafied will not be opening a Softcore server immediately, but we will consider doing so over the coming weeks / months.

Running a Softcore server

It’s easy for any server owner to switch game-mode on the fly - it doesn’t even require a server restart. To do so, simply put in the console command: “gamemode.set softcore”. Upon entering this, all players in the server will die and respawn.