The December 2024 Update: 11th Anniversary Highlights and Game-Changing Features
The RUST December 2024 Update, Polish and Progress, is packed with exciting changes and improvements to celebrate the game’s 11th anniversary. With many content additions, quality-of-life updates and fixes, Facepunch Studios continues to refine the gameplay experience. From enhanced wolf AI to vending machine statistics to its new upgraded modular Car Radios, there’s much to look forward to. Here’s a breakdown of what’s in store for this month’s update.
RUST’s 11th Birthday Celebration
RUST turns 11 years old on December 11th. In-game festivities will include birthday cake, balloons, and a 50% discount on the purchase of RUST for 10 days starting December 9th. Now’s the time to get your friends, family, and foes to grab the game!
Car Radios for Modular Vehicles
Modular Car Radios have arrived in RUST, bringing entertainment to your vehicles; if you own the Voice Props Pack, you can craft a Car Radio for 120 Metal Fragments, and if you don’t, the pack is on sale for 40% off from December 9–19, 2024.
Once crafted, the Car Radio can be placed on the cockpit module of your modular car and will operate only when the car engine is engaged. After installation, any player can interact with the radio, while players with vehicle authorization can use a Hammer to pick it up and move it around as needed. The Car Radio offers the same built-in and internet-streamed stations as the Boom Box, allowing you to enjoy your favorite tunes while cruising across the map.
Wolf Pack Rebalance
Wolves were rebalanced, once again, to address issues with counterplay, making them challenging but fair. Changes include improved effectiveness of fire to keep wolves at bay, reduced stalking distances, fixes for unrealistic jumps, and merged wolf packs exceeding four members.
Players attempting to sneak around wolf packs are now more manageable, and the developers made adjustments to ensure players with limited weapons have a better chance to counter wolf attacks.
Junkyard Shredder Now Shreds Helicopters
Player-purchasable helicopters can now be shredded at the Junkyard using the magnet crane, yielding Scrap based on their type and health percentage.
At full health:
- Minicopters give 200 Scrap
- Scrap Transport Helicopters give 300 Scrap
- Attack Helicopters give 500 Scrap
This feature adds a strategic option to dispose of unwanted or stolen helicopters while earning valuable resources.
Modifications to the Node Sparkles
If you’ve jumped into the grind and swung your fair share of pickaxes and hatchets before, you’re not likely a stranger to the sparkle minigame. The minigame’s behavior on nodes in RUST has been updated to improve performance and align with the tree “X” marker system.
Sparkles now appear only after the first hit, which counts as a “sparkle hit” and rewards resources, slightly buffing the ore and wood collection. This change helps to reduce server load by removing around 4,500 unnecessary networked entities per server and includes memory optimizations for improved client and server efficiency. Everyone wins with this enhancement!
View Vending Machine Statistics
In this update, Vending Machines received much love from the developers. They will now provide detailed statistics, including transaction history, best-selling items, and highest-revenue items, viewable across various timescales from 30 minutes to all-time.
Additional long-term stats include total sales, unique and repeat customers, and identifying the “best customer,” offering insights into vending machine performance.
Server owners can manage data with new console variables for limiting, processing, and clearing vending machine stats, ensuring efficient operation and control over historical records. So, those who enjoy playing the markets can now get some serious analytics on your sales interactions and history.
Exchange Vendor’s Scrap Prices Have Changed
The RUST developers had previously introduced a dynamic pricing system for items bought from NPC vending machines, but now they’ve also added it to items sold for Scrap.
Items players sell will start at 50% less value per sale at the start of a wipe cycle but can increase up to 100% extra value if those items are unsold over a more extended period. This change aims to make selling items more rewarding as the wipe progresses, with adjustments being monitored by the developers as needed. The RUST community has a knack for finding exploits to features like this.
Upgradable Wooden High External Walls & Gates
High External Wooden Walls and Gates can now be upgraded to their stone versions when using a Hammer, provided you have the corresponding stone piece in your inventory and the proper authentication level.
High external walls will also now be crafted in batches of three, with the stone versions requiring one Sheet Metal per craft. High External Stone Gates have also been updated to require one sheet metal, only three gears, and reduced crafting costs (4000 Wood/Stone instead of 4500) for better inventory management.
Placing New Legacy Wood Shelters Will Automatically Destroy Older Ones
Legacy Wood Shelters will now automatically destroy your previously placed shelter when deploying a new one, fixing the issue of being unable to place another after death. These shelters now take a few seconds to place, providing a warning in the chat about the destruction of the old shelter and preventing their misuse in PvP situations. This update balances functionality and gameplay fairness for shelter deployment.
16x Scope is Now a Variable Zoom Scope
The 16x Scope has been renamed to the Variable Zoom Scope and now supports three zoom levels: 4x, 8x, and 16x, making it more versatile and practical than previous scopes. This change addresses its underuse by providing better adaptability for various combat situations and quick target acquisition.
If you are trying to figure out how to adjust the zoom now, the default keybinds are Page Up and Page Down. We highly recommend rebinding this function to your mouse wheel for a more natural interaction.
Small Tweak to Homemade Landmines
Homemade Landmines in RUST now have a 15% chance to explode when players attempt to disarm them, adding an extra layer of risk when clearing minefields. This change restores the intended gameplay behavior, fixing an old bug preventing this feature from working as intended. One might argue that it would be best to exercise caution when attempting to disarm Homemade Landmines to avoid unexpected explosions.
Underwater Visibility Increased
RUST’s underwater visibility has been improved from its previous state, nearly doubling the clarity and distance players can see beneath the surface. Another related enhancement, players will now see an increase in the depth at which oxygen depletion begins. This slight adjustment allows players to survive underwater longer before running out of air and also reduces the risk of drowning due to swimming in larger waves.
Twitch Rivals: Team Battle V
Get ready for the action—Twitch Rivals: Team Battle V is just around the corner! Starting Monday, December 9th, and running through Friday, December 13th, up to 150 Twitch creators from around the globe will compete in this highly anticipated annual RUST PvP competition. Contests in the event have a $100,000 prize pool up for grabs, and the audience can claim 16 exclusive Twitch Drops during the event.
Custom Maps & Modding Prefabs
This update has introduced various new prefabs, including tiled cubes for concrete, wood, and road surfaces and radiation and toxic water volumes. It also adds admin-spawnable invisible objects, static decorations like fire, spray can decals, Xmas lights, and birthday cake prefabs from previous years. Additionally, fixes have been applied to material changes for glowing and glass cubes.
Built-in Server Profiler
RUST server owners can now utilize a built-in server profiler to help track performance issues and optimize gameplay for smoother experiences for their vanilla and modded servers. This profiler will allow server owners and developers to quickly identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies on their servers, creating better experiences for their players.
Careful consideration has been made with the new Snapshot Tool to make the tool as straightforward as possible while limiting the impact and interruptions it may cause to active players on the server. It’s available for Windows-based servers currently, while Linux support is in development. This tool can significantly impact the game and we’re very excited to see these tools made available to server owners.
Native ARM64 Hardware Support
RUST now supports native ARM64 builds on Apple Silicon hardware for Mac while they continue to support Intel-based Macs without any changes. If Facepunch is successful, they plan to explore expanding native ARM64 support to other platforms, with Windows laptops as a potential next step. However, further development on Windows ARM64 depends on third-party software compatibility and may take additional time, so there are no deadlines or promises made by the developers.
RCON Security Enhancements
Server owners and admins, take note: Server security for RCON has been enhanced with stricter password requirements, prominently warning about insecure passwords in your consoles. It will even prevent the RCON server from starting in extreme cases.
Facepunch has also introduced safeguards against brute force attacks, temporarily banning IP addresses after five failed password attempts, which admins can configure in their server convars. In addition, they’ve enabled options for permanent IP or network bans.
A series of new convars allow server owners to customize ban durations, log failed attempts, and manage RCON bans with greater control, improving overall server security. Server owners and admins appreciate the extra love, Facepunch!
Improvements to the Native Queue System
Have you ever been stuck in a long queue while joining a RUST server? You can expect a slightly improved experience as the queue system has been improved to provide better client awareness, informing players when they enter or exit a queue and displaying Steam’s Enhanced Rich Presence while waiting or connecting.
Modded server owners can now customize the “menu tip” message displayed during loading screens, allowing for more relevant tips and better integration with unique game modes. We will likely see some interesting uses and abuses of this custom menu tip feature.
These queue system changes maintain backward compatibility for existing loading screen plugins while introducing new customization options, with only servers listed in the modded section permitted to use this feature. So, community server owners, you’ve been warned: don’t get your server blocked.
Quality of Life Improvements
Here’s a quick rundown direct from Facepunch’s Polish and Progress post:
- Peacekeeper Turret Hostile Indicator – A turret icon now appears next to the usual hostile indicator when you are hostile and near a peace keeper auto turret.
- Workcart Storage – A small box has been added to all Workcarts so you can store that extra loot.
- Waterpump Depth Change – Waterpumps now work with a smaller depth of water, perfect for the new rivers.
- Propane Tank Stack Size – Propane tanks can now stack up to 20.
- Dropbox Input Increase – Increased to 4 input slots.
- Junkpile Despawn – Junkpiles will now be eligible to despawn after they are partially looted.
- Fridge Storage – Fridge storage increased to 48 slots
- Homing Missiles – Homing missiles have been added to Bradley and attack helicopter loot crates
- Tesla Coil – Reduced tesla coil maximum power usage from 35 to 25 (no difference in time to kill)
- Storage Monitor – Added a passthrough slot to the Storage Monitor
- Elevators speed – Increased speed of player placed elevators by 50%
- Battery full charge indicator – Added an output slot for when your battery is fully charged
Conclusion
The December 2024 update celebrates RUST’s history while paving the way for future enhancements. From exciting festive events to gameplay refinements, there’s plenty for players to enjoy this holiday season. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to experience all the new features and make the most of RUST’s 11th anniversary.
Join the conversation on Discord and follow us for the latest RUST updates. Share your thoughts on the new changes and let us know how you’re celebrating this special anniversary. Don’t forget to tune in to Twitch Rivals for epic gameplay and exclusive Twitch Drops!
