Industrial system overview

12:00am EST - Rust’s new industrial system goes live in a couple weeks with the February 2nd update. This post summarizes the basics of how the industrial system works and how you as a player may utilize it. Long and short: this is a game changer!

Our update preview stream (where we’ll be going over all of this) goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the week.

Overview

The industrial system includes several new items which allow players and groups to automate transferring items, crafting, smelting, and more. It opens up a world of possibilities for players and offers a level of base automation never before possible! The whole thing is pretty intuitive, especially if you’ve used electricity and hoses before.

Live on the AUX2 branch now, you can join by right clicking Rust staging in your steam library, going to properties, betas tab, then select AUX2 from the list (your client will run an update and you’re good to go).

When will this be in the game? Expect to see the Industrial system go live in the game for the February 2nd update and forced wipe. Still a work in progress, all of the stuff below is subject to change and many numbers / stats might be placeholders. I’ll update this post periodically through the month as things shift and get added.

Industrial conveyor

This is basically the engine of the entire industrial system. With the Industrial Conveyer, you can not only move, but filter which items move to various things around your base.

For a simple example, place one on the wall, connect the power, pipe a box from the input and one to the output. From there, the conveyor will move any item from the input box to the output box automatically.

They UI for the Industrial Converyor

Now here’s where it gets interesting: you can set up filters for specific items or category (I.E. weapons, clothing, etc.). When a filter is set, it’ll only move those items or items in the selected category. You can also set min and max amounts:

• Min: Only start transferring if there is this amount in the input box or more

• Max: Stop transferring when destination container has this many

And this isn’t only a go-between for boxes. With the adaptors (see below) you can hook any number of items up to inputs and outputs — using conveyors, filters, and electricity to drive actions all over your base. As far as speed at which it moves the items, this appears to be shifting in development as we test, so I’m going to hold off on stating any specifics. That said, things seem to transfer at a good clip.

Industrial Conveyor

Crafting
150 metal Frags

Research
20 Scrap

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 1

Industrial crafting

One big functionality of the industrial system, crafting can now be automated with the Industrial Crafter. Placed on a workbench, the crafter has 1 input and 1 output (for items) and an input and output for blueprints (and requires electricity). Given a blueprint and the required ingredients, it will produce the item and send them through the ‘output’ socket.

The set up is pretty simple. First, place the crafter on a work bench and supply power. Next, using the industrial equipment (adaptor, conveyor, and pipe), run a box with the required ingredients to the input of the crafter. Then, pipe from the crafter output to a storage box (to collect your crafted items). To obtain the blueprint of the item you’d like to craft, use a research table like usual (although based on commits, this might change).

The workbench must match or be higher than the required WB level to craft the blueprint item. Also, you can pick up the crafter with a hammer if you need to.

Industrial Crafter

Crafting
3 HQM
1 tech trash

Research
75 Scrap

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 2

The UI for the Industrial Crafter

Industrial smelting

Another large piece of the industrial system is smelting. Using the new Electric Furnace, along with the other industrial equipment, players will be able to automate the processing of their resources.

For example, using this new industrial equipment, you can set up a resource dropbox at the front of your base, pipe those items inside, filter them based on resource type, send them to an Electric Furnace to process (or just a normal large furnace), then pipe them to a more secure box deep in your base for storage.

As it stands, the Electric Furnace is still a work in progress, so it is hard to fully test. That said, it appears to be using 100 Rust watts to run, and will do basically what a normal furnace does, just without the wood and charcoal.

Electric Furnace

Crafting
200 stone
100 wood
50 low grade

Research
Default Blueprint

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 0
 

The UI for the Electric Furnace

Pipe tool

The pipe tool is the hose tool / wire tool equivalent for industrial stuff. It behaves just like its two cousins, with a max length of 30m and the ability to go through walls. Also, for ease of management, you can change the color of pipes by holding R (just like the wire and hose tool).

Pipe Tool

Crafting
2 HQM

Research
Default Blueprint

Time
1 second

Workbench
Level 0

Storage adaptor

Next we have the storage adapter. You’ll need to place one of these on any storage container or deployed object to allow the contents to be used with the other industrial items. Each storage adapter has an industrial input and industrial output. 

Storage Adaptor

Crafting
3 HQM
1 tech trash

Research
75 Scrap

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 2

It can be deployed on the following:

• Large Wood Box

• Wood Storage Box

• Furnace

• Large Furnace

• Electric Furnace

• Tool Cupboard

• Drop Box

• Fridge

• Locker

• Vending Machine

• Small Oil Refinery

• Coffin

Industrial splitter

The industrial splitter does just what it sounds like: allows an output pipe to be split into 3 pipes. It can be rotated by pressing R.

Industrial Splitter

Crafting
75 metal frags

Research
20 Scrap

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 1

Example: Box filtration

• Place 1 drop box and add an adaptor

• Connect adaptor output to a conveyor input and set to filter stone, metal ore, sulfur ore

• Connect the conveyor output to a splitter

• Each of the 3 outputs of the splitter connected to their own conveyor

• Filter each conveyor for specific type of ore

• Pipe the output of each conveyor to the input of an adaptor for each box

• Viola, you now have automatically filtered ore boxes!

Industrial Combiner

The Industrial Combiner is basically the inverse of the splitter: it takes 3 inputs and gives 1 output. This can also be rotated with R.

Industrial Combiner

Crafting
75 metal frags

Research
20 Scrap

Time
30 seconds

Workbench
Level 1

Example: Secure dropbox

• Place 3 drop boxes, each with adaptors

• Connect all 3 adaptor outputs to a combiner’s input

• Connect the combiner’s output to a conveyor not filtering anything

• Connect the conveyor output to a box in your loot room

• Tada, quick dropping loot that auto moves to a secure part of your base and can be easily sorted at a later time

Other stuff in development

There’s also a bunch of miscellaneous other stuff going on in development. Here is a summary:

• RC Drones and RC auto turrets are in the works

• Weapon racks are making good progress

• Chat emojis are on the horizon

• Procedural bunker dungeons coming soon

• Restored chair.invisible.static (now intended only for use by modders)

• Fixed the spectate button in the admin panel sometimes spectating the wrong person if there were multiple people on the server with an identical name

• Fixed server name appearing in Rust+ menu if streamer mode is active

View the full article