1:00pm EST - Our update preview stream is live! twitch.tv/rustafied

12:00am EST - Rust Christmas is just about here and will be showering Newmans with gifts throughout the new year!

Our update stream goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Patch day: Saturday, Dec. 16th

To start all these festivities off, a mandatory client and server update is needed. Both will likely hit at normal time, 2pm EST / 7pm GMT on Saturday (12/16). This will not force a wipe.

All of the below is subject to change. I’ll update this post as any changes come to light.

12/16 Edit: The Xmas update is live in an optional client and server update as of this morning. Happy holidays!

Winter Drops Fest

Get ready for some festive drops this holiday season with the Winter Drops Fest. Tune to your favorite streamers on Rust starting this Saturday (12/16) through the end of the month to receive several exclusive winter drops. Head over to the Facepunch Twitch page to ensure your accounts are linked.

Gingerbread building skin

A festive new building skin is on tap for the update. Looking like it will be available to all, Gingerbread is a skin of the wood building tier. It will likely be available for the duration of the Xmas event to all who wished to use it. Like other building skins, this only changes things cosmetically, there’s no change to statistics or colliders.

Edit: I originally said this was a stone tier - this was incorrect, it is a wood building tier skin.

Gingerbread mines

Making a return, Gingerbread mines are spawning around the map. With around 12 per normal size map, these gingerbread houses behave similar to the portals at Halloween. To enter a gingerbread mine, simply go up to one of the houses, enter the door on the outside then go through the door inside.

Once teleported, you’ll find yourself in a small mine (dungeon) with some loot (see examples below) and enemies in the form of gingerbread people. With 2 to 6 per dungeon, they are armed with candy canes and the occasional MP5 and drop scientist loot with some additional Christmas goodies (small presents, snowball gun, snowballs). To exit the mine, just go back through the door you came through.

Example loot from mines:

smg body
2x small pres.
sheet metal
15x scrap

2x tech trash
2x small pres.
sheet metal
15x scrap

3x tech trash
2x med pres.
sheet metal
15x scrap

21 hqm
tesla coil
small pres.
med pres.
2x metal pipe
15x scrap

2x tech trash
smart alarm
med pres.
small pres.
semi auto body
15x scrap

rifle body
strengthened glass window
2x metal pipe
2x medium pres.
15x scrap

Decorations at monuments

You’ll notice some extra festive areas of the map during the Rust Christmas season. Specifically, fishing villages, bandit camp, and compound are all decorated for the holidays.

Presents!

If you’ve been around for previous Rust Christmas events, you’ll be familiar with these. Every in game day, a jingle will sound, and around every player in the game will spawn a couple presents.

Whack them a bit (they have 30 health) and you’ll be treated to 1 or more small or medium presents. These presents can be unwrapped or upgraded to higher tiers, which yield better loot.

Small Present

Possible Contents
~100 to 200 stone
Candy canes
~3 to 4 chocolate bars
1 snowball
~5 to 15 scrap
~200 to 400 wood
Candy cane club, wrapping paper and 1 snowball
~25 to 35 LGF and 2 snowballs
~25 to 50 metal frags
~Eoka and 9 to 11 handmade shells
Reindeer antlers

Upgrade to medium
10

Medium Present

Possible Contents
1000 stone
Pipe shotgun and 10 handmade shells
150 LGF
Small stocking
Salvaged cleaver
Pookie bear
Snowball Gun and 4 snowballs
Star tree topper
~3 to 4 short ice walls
Decorative baubles
Sled
Tree lights

Upgrade to large
5

Large Present

Possible Contents
250 Crude Oil
60 HQM
Super stocking
Supply signal
Revolver and 20 pistol bullets
Custom SMG and 20 pistol bullets
Pump shotgun and 12 buckshot
Flame turret
Holosight, Weapon lasersight, Silencer, Flashlight

Santa’s Sleigh

Airdrops are much more festive with Rust Xmas in full swing. Instead of the soulless drone of the C130 overhead, the skies of Rust will be graced with festive sleigh bells and Old St. Nick with his team of reindeer, dropping huge presents with sparkling star trails. Not only does this sound and look festive as fuck, the airdrop loot includes some extra presents!

Stockings

Hung around the chimney (or campfire) with care, this duo of deployables loads up with items over time - a long time. You’ll know when there’s some goodies inside when they start dazzling sparkles from the top.

Small Stocking

~250 wood
~150 stone
~25 metal frags
Eoka + ~10 shells
Reindeer antlers
Candy cane club
~5 Chocolate Bars
Coal
Santa Hat

SUPER Stocking

~250 wood
~150 stone
~50 metal frags
Eoka + ~10 shells
Waterpipe shotgun + ~10 shells
Medical Syringe
Coal
Snowball gun
4 snowballs

Other Xmas goodies!

Rust Christmas comes with a slew of other fun seasonal items. With things like Ice Walls, Sleds, Snowball Guns, Lights, Snow Machines, Snowmen, and more, players will have their fill of festivities.

Sleds

A favorite Christmas pastime is back in Rust. Sleds allow players to travel fast and free down snowy slopes. Deployed on the ground - similar to how boogie boards work - these sleds will start sliding down hills the moment you mount them.

They can be picked up with a hammer and slide well on snow (but not much else). Find them in medium presents!

Ice Walls

Also, two frigide types of wall are back! Both made of ice (with icy spikes on the top), these walls will block your greatest of foes — or at least slow them down. Coming in short and high variants, these walls cost stones (300 and 1500 respectively) and are default blueprints for crafting.

Snowball Gun

The Snowball Gun, also known as the ‘Blizzard Blaster,’ is akin to a fast-firing nerf version of the grenade launcher. Feed this puppy one snowball and you’ll get 50 rounds in return. Fire at will to ‘lay waste to your foes with Christmas cheer.’

Dropped in Christmas loot during the event, you won’t need to craft or purchase this one.

Craftable Christmas Tree

As with previous years, a Christmas Tree can be crafted by players. For 500 wood and 30 cloth, you too can have your own Tree in your base to celebrate the holidays properly. Open the tree up (like a loot box) to decorate with Baubels, Candy Canes, Pinecones, and Gingerbread Men.

Advent Calendar

Another way to partake in the holiday festivities is with the Advent Calendar. Available to craft as a default blueprint, this deployable will allow you to claim a new present every real life day.

Cost
100 wood
20 cloth
Workbench level 1

Other stuff

The team is working hard on some quality of life, optimizations, and more for January and beyond. Here is a summary of the commits from this week:

Added corpseinfo convar
Removed GenericLerp, fixing some lerp jitter with server-side ragdolls
Removed BuoyancyFixedUpdate calls if there's nobody around
Fixed skinning knife not dropping player heads
Fixed incorrect repair costs, causing some items to be too cheap to repair
Fixed Grenade throws parenting
Fixed team markers being left on the map if the player reconnects to another server
Increase boats weight to reduce ragdoll effects (Stats updated to match current behavior)
Added io_budget_health to split different IO budget systems into specific queues by type

See you next year!

Development slows down for the holidays as the devs take some well deserved and needed time off. Given this, we’ll be back in January for the update and forced wipe on the 4th. Have a wonderful holidays and a happy new year!