Card Games: What you need to know
The Card Games branch has been merged with staging! This article summarizes all you need to know about card games in Rust, along with some other notes on Rust development this week at the bottom.
Our update preview stream goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.
Card Games Overview
As mentioned above, the first iteration of card games in Rust has been added to staging. That means when the next update hits (April 1st @ 2pm EST) you’ll be able to play them on any server! Keep in mind, this is still a work in progress - much might change and more will very likely be added in the future. I’ll do my best to keep this article up to date with any changes in the coming weeks.
What can you play?
As of now, Texas hold ‘em is the card game of choice for Rust players. It does appear that other card games may be planned in the future - I’m looking at you, Blackjack - but as it stands, Texas hold ‘em is where it’s at.
Where can you play?
There are currently 5 tables on the Rust map to play Texas hold ‘em — all at Bandit Camp. As expected, the first table is in the same room as the roulette wheel and slot machines. The second table is directly through the door to the left of the roulette wheel (in the same room as the recycler). The other 3 tables are in other Bandit buildings (one with produce exchange, another with the building supplies NPC, and a third next to the workbench near Airwolf).
There are no other tables on the map as of writing this post. Also, the tables cannot be crafted and placed in bases, so you will need to haul your ass to Bandit to play.
Edit: 2 tables have also been added to Hapis (6 chairs and 3 chairs)
How many people can play?
A total of 17 people can play poker on a server at any given time. This is split up as follows: 4 players on the first table (in the roulette / slot room), 6 people at the second table (in the recycler room), 3 at the building supplies vendor, 2 next to the workbench near Airwolf, and 2 at the produce exchange vendors building.
You need at least 2 players before the game will start. Players can come and go as they please, you’ll automatically wait for the next hand if you sit down while one is already in progress.
Edit: Turns out there was another table - I’ve updated above accordingly.
How do you play?
When it comes to playing Texas hold ‘em in Rust, it’s pretty straightforward. You sit down at the table and open the small stash in front of your seat. This brings up the ‘card table’ UI, which allows you to drag scrap in to ‘buy in’. Once you’ve done that, simply escape out of there and click ‘e’ to start the game.
Texas hold ‘em is one of the most popular variants of poker. To be honest, I’m no poker expert, so I’m not going to attempt to explain the rules or how to play. That said, there are tons of resources online which cover the basics and more advanced strategies. Here are two simple overview videos and the Wikipedia entry to get your feet wet.
What do you bet?
As expected, Texas hold ‘em uses Rust’s de facto reserve currency, scrap. To buy in at a table, you need a minimum of 100 and a max of 1000 scrap. You can leave the table between hands and your scrap is automatically put into your player inventory when you get up.
Controls while playing
Performing various actions during a hand is accomplished by a couple key binds:
SPACE - Hold to dismount
C - Check (or Call)
F - Fold
R - Raise
A - All in
UP/DOWN - Raise amount
Other things of note
The playing cards have a special Rust theme to them - love it!
There are 30 seconds per turn (if you don’t play your go, it will auto fold you)
Joining late into a round will make you wait until the hand has finished
Balance is shown for all players on the left side of your screen
When it is your turn, your name on the left side of your screen goes green
When you stand up, all the scrap that you won will auto deposit onto your character
Players standing around your table can’t access your scrap deposit or see cards
When sitting at a table, your in game chat switches from global to only include others playing poker. This allows you to shit talk and the like without it broadcasting to the whole server. This is automatically turned off when you leave the table.
In other development news…
There has also been a bunch of work completed on other things. Here is a summary of what else is going on in development. Check back next week for a full rundown of what is coming in the update.
A new gestures wheel is in! (hold B to bring up)
An update from Double11 on the Rust Console Beta
Easter content coming next week
Slot machines now have modifiable betting (2 min, 10 max) and shifted payouts
A bunch of random performance optimizations have been added
Contacts system being worked on (not clear what this is yet but a guess is it could be related to NPC launched missions coming soon)
Some more Hapis changes coming (mainly looks like shifts to monument puzzles and keycard locations)
Fixed a bunch of description typos and updated some outdated descriptions to be more helpful to newer players
Convar to show / hide blood added (global.showblood)
More work on AI changes / improvements
More work on HDRP backport and improved effects / performance