CARGO SHIP DOCKING

We’ve given both Harbors a fresh coat of paint this month, with a significant amount of visual and gameplay changes. These changes support the new Cargo Ship docking process, which allows the ship to adjust it's course and dock with the harbor.

Each harbor has a new island that can be reached by crossing a rotating bridge, floating containers or a daring set of jumps across cranes. This island becomes a stronghold once the Cargo Ship docks as it becomes sheltered from the rest of the harbor.

The ship will pick the first harbor it passes to dock and will only dock once. Once docked, the cranes in the Harbor will spring into life and move several containers from the docks onto the deck of the ship. These containers have openable doors and can be hidden in, so they present a new way to smuggle aboard the ship and another threat for players already on the ship to contend with. These containers will be deposited in locations that are generally above the deck, in some cases by several meters. This should present an interesting tactical situation when attacking the ship as well as defending it.

We’ve also added two ship doors above the water line that allow access to the lower interior level of the ship and provide additional ways to board or traverse the monument while the ship is docked.

By default the Cargo Ship replenishes it's loot every 10 minutes - up to 3 times. When the ship docks at the harbor it will attempt to trigger one of those loot refreshes, although if all three have already happened it will be unable to spawn any more loot.

The Cargo Ship horn will sound 60 seconds prior to it's departure - once you hear that horn it's time to get moving or you might end up back out at sea.

We think these changes combined will lead to Cargo Ship being a much more contested PvP environment for groups of all sizes. We're also interested to see how a traditionally lower intensity monument like the Harbors adjust to periodic bouts of high intensity action.

OILRIGS

The Oilrigs receive an upgrade this month, with an underwater access. This new way to get onto the Oilrig will add a path into both structures Level 3 floors.

This provides a different, and possibly safer way into the monument. It is also a way to counter the players on board by short circuiting the docks at the rigs water line.

The extra rooms inside see the addition of a CCTV desk that allows you to observe in place the camera feeds of the monument.

MINIGUN

The iconic minigun has been added to the game which is used by the Heavy Scientists. It takes a moment to spin up, but when it does, it unleashes a massive amount of ammunition, making targets much easier to hit.

It's a rare drop useable by players and you must be at a workbench level 2 to add ammunition to it as it cannot be reloaded in the field. It also takes 1.5 seconds to spin up and lowers your movement speed while the spin is engaged.

RETRO TOOL CUPBOARD

We're thrilled to announce Rust's first-ever tool cupboard DLC skin! The Retro Tool Cupboard can be crafted as usual using the skin picker or applied to an existing Tool Cupboard using the Spray can item.

The Retro Tool Cupboard monitors display live information such as upkeep time, resources, and the number of blocks used to calculate upkeep costs. However, the data is only visible on the monitors when authorized.

The Retro Tool cupboard doesn't require power, the lower half of the Retro Tool Cupboard behind the glass panel displays current inventory upkeep amounts and tools.

When approaching the Retro Tool cupboard design, we felt aesthetics were critical. The tool cupboard is the heart of any base and should be instantly recognizable.

You can purchase Retro Tool cupboard skin in-game or at Steam's item store.

MILITARY FLAMETHROWER

In addition to the minigun, the Heavy Scientists have had their arsenal upgraded with a new, military tier flamethrower. This weapon deals massive damage to targets up to 12 meters away and creates walls of fire - which can be used for area denial.

I've also modified how flamethrowers deal damage to players making them an extremely effective PvP weapon.

PATROL HELICOPTER IMPROVEMENTS

The patrol helicopter was one of the largest banks of 'older' code still in the game. It's stood up well, but there were a bunch of fixes and improvements that needed to happen. Let's start with the improvements.

Orbital Strafing/Strafing Changes

The regular helicopter attack strafe was getting pretty old. It followed a regular pattern and most of our values were fixed internally. This has been changed. During an attack run the helicopter will randomise a bunch of values, including: rocket amount, drop off distance, turn speed etc. These are relatively minor adjustments, but they should help make each new fight with the helicopter feel a little more fresh.

We also added a new attack phase in the strafing run. The helicopter will turn, begin orbiting your position and pummel you with rockets from all directions. This will randomly happen after each strafe. It's super fun to play, and helps bring back the excitement and danger of taking heli.

Aggro Improvements

A new 'zones' feature has been introduced. These are invisible to the player. When a player damages heli a zone is updated/created and the zone is assigned a score. This score is based on how much damage heli has taken from that specific zone.

Heli will now seek out targets based on zones and damage scores rather than the perceived randomness of before. When there are minimal players and by extension - minimal zones. Heli will work similarly to before, but when more zones are introduced heli will prioritise attacking the people that are attacking it, in a more controlled and deliberate manner.

You are still free pickings to the side gunners, but your house shouldn't be blasted anymore in the confusion.

No-Go Zones

When taking heli, the basic principle is to get, and keep aggro. No-Go zones make this a little more difficult, and now encourage some movement when taking heli. When a zone performs enough damage to heli too quickly, then that zone is marked as a no-go zone. Heli will flee the area, and attempt to avoid it as best as it can. This is to encourage heli to get out of areas that are going to kill it too quickly. Encouraging bigger groups to chase, build defenses as they go and bring more PVP to the whole map.

Bug Fixes/Changes

A bunch of legacy bugs that existed with heli are now patched. These include being stuck on targets, disappearing mid-fight, not exploding in the ocean, as well as a bunch of proxy issues that were fixed by the aggro adjustments. Other adjustments have also been made to how heli patrols work, and you should see it moving around a bit more now, rather than just sticking to the monuments.

Server Convars

patrolhelicopterai.use_danger_zones - this will enable/disable the no go and aggro zones. When turned off, the helicopter will largely behave the way it used to with target picking and aggression.
patrolhelicopterai.flee_damage_percentage - this sets the required percentage of damage done to heli in order for it to flee and create a no-go zone. A value of 1 or over will effectively disable no go zones and stop the flee mechanic.

It will no doubt need some further revisions and changes after this release. Keep us updated on how your heli takes go. Have fun!

ELECTRICITY

This month we are taking care of our fellow electricians! Bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and major changes are coming to electricity.

CHANGES

First of all, we removed any power requirements from all logic gates.

Being creative and adding logic to your circuits won't be at the expense of acquiring a linear or exponential amount of power any more. While being a great quality of life for master electricians, we also believe that removing this pain point will increase the use of electricity in general.

Therefore, the following components won't require power or drain batteries anymore:

Splitter
Electrical Branch
Blocker
Root Combiner
Memory Cell
RAND Switch
XOR Switch
AND Switch
OR Switch
Timer
Switch
Smart Switch
Counter
Pressure Pad
Button

Any other active components like turrets, sensors, lights, etc.. remain unchanged and will still need power to function.

BUG FIXES

These power limitations were also overly amplified by a multitude of power drain bugs and unintended behaviors that we worked on fixing.

Here are the most important ones:

Fixed AND, & OR gates draining batteries on both sides instead of only the side with the highest power input
Fixed auxiliary inputs/outputs draining power unnecessarily
Fixed memory cell draining battery on both sides instead of from the active output
Prevent electrical branch from draining power when nothing is connected to its branch out side
Fixed unpowered components draining batteries, much more common now that branches do not waste power anymore

QUALITY OF LIFE

Along these changes, we worked on improving how you deploy electrical components:
Fixed the differences between the deploy guide and the actual position where your component is placed
Components are now aligned to walls and won't rotate based on your view angle
You can now align your components together when deploying them on walls by holding left shift

This applies to all electricity, industrial and fluid items. We're planning on extending it to any type of deployable in the future.

NEXT STEPS

There as more fixes and improvements that didn't make it into this patch. Expect more in the coming months, including plans to rework some components and extending their functionalities.

Many thanks to our electricians community for pointing out bugs and suggesting ideas.