Contacts are here!

12:00am EST - Update day has arrived and with it some exciting new features in the game!

The update is expected to hit at normal time (2pm EST / 7pm BST). Our update stream goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Contacts

A new way to keep track of all the random Newmans around the map is here. Contacts is a new functionality that takes note of everyone you come in ‘contact’ with and allows you to categorize them as friend or foe. The bulk of this happens automatically in the background - as you come across people they will be added to your list of ‘seen’ individuals.

Accessed through the top of the tab menu, the new contacts UI then allows you to manage all the people you’ve interacted with. Initially listed under the ‘seen’ tab, you can go through each person, view their mugshot (a screen captured at the time you met them), take notes on them, and categorize them as a friend or enemy.

Similar to the team system which displays your teammates name tags in green, the contacts system will show your friends in blue, enemies in red, and ‘seen’ people appear in the normal white text. If you have binoculars, you can actually see a colored dot above their head from quite a distance (this does not work with scopes or other weapon attachments). 

The system will also help you automatically categorize players in certain instances. Specifically, if you come across someone you’ve ‘seen’ and they kill you, that player will be added to your enemy list. Players marked as friends who happen to kill you will remain friends unless otherwise set by you. Enemies who kill you will of course still be marked as such.

Another cool feature with this whole contacts system involves the wave gesture. If you’re far away from someone, but still in render distance, and you wave at them, your name tag shows up over your head for them in big text. This can allow you to essentially announce yourself to oncomers and allow them to know if you’re a friend, foe, or new contact.

New animals / AI

You’ll notice some spiffy new animal models as you roam the plains of Rust post update today. The long awaited animal updates have made their way in this month. These include new animations, models, fur, textures and the like for the bear, boar, stag, and wolf.

Not only do these animals look fresh as ever, their behavior has shifted too. This is due to the updated AI system also going live with the update today. Instead of using 3 separate AI systems like previously, all AI is now run under one roof. Although much of these changes occurred under the hood, you will notice some new behaviors not previously seen from animals before.

Specifically, wolves and deer will now form packs if they happen across each other in the wild. Wolves will gather in groups up to 3 and deer will congregate in packs up to 5. Also, given the entirety of this AI overhaul, animals and NPC’s in general will be acting a bit different than before.

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Poker improvements

Fans of Texas Hold ‘Em will be happy to hear about the several improvements to gameplay coming this month. Specifically, community cards and poker chips on the table update based on the current hand being played. Gone is the static art that sat on the table, now players and spectators alike can see the game progress in real time. In addition to this, several improvements to the UI have made their way in too.

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Demoshot

Content creators of Rust rejoice this update with the launch of the demoshot branch. This body of work has completely redone the UI elements of demo playback, providing a ton more functionality and ease than previously available.

Colored wires and hoses

Electricians and plumbers of Rust will be happy to see additional color options when it comes to running wires and hoses post update. With a total of 4 new colors, both the hose and wire tools now allow users to easily swap out that dreary default with their selection of red, yellow, green, and blue. To do so, simply hold ‘R’ with one of those tools out and a nifty radial menu will pop up, allowing you to select a color.

Solar panel art update

Going green in Rust has never looked so good with the updated art for solar panels coming this update. The functionality and everything else is still the same, they just look cooler now.

Other stuff

• An Ocean DLC coming soon? Evidence of such spotted on staging.

• Giant Excavator has been downgraded to default priority as opposed to highest priority

• Version ‘C’ of the mining quarry has been downgraded to match the other quarry priorities

• New on-screen tip that explains how the throw and drop mechanics work the first time you use a grenade

• Small Battery placement improvements, rotation ability prior to deployment, and can be placed on tables / boxes

• Censorplayerlist now enabled by default

Rustafied player quality of life upgrades

After running servers for around 8 years, it’s easy to get into the thought process that things are just the way they are. Hackers are going to hack, toxicity will reign supreme. That’s just how it is.

That’s not how it has to be though. My team and I set out to look in-depth at everything we do at Rustafied and ask the question, “How can we make this better for our players?” This led to a number of revelations and a game plan for improving the quality of life for the players on our servers.

Stage 1 of that game plan is live today. Expect more changes in the coming months. If you have any suggestions, feel free to join our Discord and share them.

Discord player reports
Having to log into a website and fill out a form to submit a ticket for a player report sucks. We’re phasing that out, and introducing a new player report system which is entirely Discord-based. For more information, join our Discord and check out #report-a-player.

Improved wipe / server info
We’ve also streamlined our wipe schedule and server information in Discord. Now split up by each region, you can easily see when each server wipes along with automatically updating direct connection links for easy joining.

Other discord improvements
Chat bots suck. They’ve been joining popular Discord’s (including ours) and trying to scam people out of their skins. We’ve introduced a brand new verification system for people joining the server which should significantly cut down on these bots. 

We’ve also moved some things around, removed some channels, improved the look of certain items, and more in our Discord.

Reducing hate speech 
Toxicity is inevitable in any online game, especially Rust. That said, it’s no reason to give a pass certain, especially hateful, language. Given this, we’ve added a filter for in game chat which will mute players who use certain heinous language.

More to come
This is just the beginning of a large body of work we’ve scoped out to improve players' experiences. Stay tuned for more enhancements in game and our Discord including map previews, improved seed selection, crash reports with specific rollback times, in game player reports, and much more!

Thank you for your feedback and support!

Much love,
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