The Arctic Update roundup Rust update 4th February 2022
This RUST update video is brought to you by Shadowfrax!
Happy RUST update to all! This month’s update packs in more content than a can of sardines, and it’ll take a bit to go over it all, so here are the highlights for you. This month’s most notable additions were the arctic research bases–a new monument added into the snow biome.
New RUST monument: Arctic Research Base
The research base contains all sorts of delicious crates for you to loot, similar to the undersea labs. You’ll find a biome-specific mode of transportation on campus–the snowmobile–tucked just out of sight behind a keycard puzzle. A recycler is also on-site to increase your farming joy. So, enjoy your visit, but bring some extra firepower along as the scientists here have leveled up their medic training.
Polar bears replace regular bears in the arctic biome
To make the arctic biome more authentic, you’ll encounter polar bears instead of the regular bears we love oh so much. Polar bears have more health, do more damage, and harvest for more resources, so if you bring one down, you’ll have plenty of fuel for the snowmobile you plan on acquiring. Server owners can modify the polar bear population with a new admin command.
Spray cans for everyone
The spray can is now live and a default blueprint to craft for a cost of 100 metal fragments. You can now reskin your deployed items without needing to pick them up and place them inside a repair bench. You must have building privilege to use the spray can.
Round 14 of Twitch drops went live yesterday with the update and will continue through February 11th.
Other highlights in this RUST update include:
- The new Arctic Research Base monument is live in the arctic biome
- Arctic base scientists spawn with the chance to heal themselves
- The arctic base contains a puzzle behind which a snowmobile can be found
- A recycler is on-site at the arctic base beside the radar tower
- Polar bears have replaced the regular brown bears in the snow biome
- Snowmobiles are now live and are fastest on snow and sand but slower everywhere else
- Snowmobiles can sit one or two players and have 300 health
- The new Arctic pack skin pack is available on the permanent item store and contains 3 skins
- The arctic suit is a new skin for the hazmat suit and provides a boost to cold resistance
- The Tomaha snowmobile skin in the Arctic Pack can reskin the snowmobile
- The Assault Rifle ICE skin in the Arctic Pack is a new skin for the ak and makes it look iced over
- The spray can tool is now live and is a default blueprint. Craft one for 100 metal fragments
- Players can reskin deployed items using the spray can to select from a list of player-owned skins
- Tool cupboards now have dedicated storage for tools!
- Autowalk and toggle crouch options are now available
- Patrol heli will now show its location on the map when the event is active
- Wounded team members now show orange on the team UI
- The Contact System now has the ability to sort by most recent seen
- New UI to manage muted players
- New defender mode for SAM sites to defend against MLRS rocket fire
- Multiple improvements to the tech tree system and cost calculation
- Looting wounded players no longer kicks you out of their inventory
And with that, you’re here to watch his video!
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Video Transcript
Greetings, survivors and friends, Shadowfrax here, and today a roundup of the imaginatively titled ‘Arctic update’ that was merged to the main branch this week just in time for spring, or autumn, I guess, depending on where you are.
And before I go further, did you know the arctic suit was already sneakily shown to us nearly a year ago, as a number of people have pointed out to me – thanks, chaps – it was actually hiding in plain sight on the jacks in the poker game all along. So I guess you could say for a while it’s been ‘on the cards.’
YEEEEEEAHAHHHHHHHH
Anyway, more on that in a moment, don’t forget to subscribe if you’re not already and get yourself in that ring-a-ding-ding club pronto.
So now there’s a new Arctic research base monument, exclusive to the cold biome – which has loot, heaters (that I’m still hoping will one day be a deployable), snowmobiles, and Scientists ‘doing science.’ And they don’t like you interrupting their science. Also, now some of these scientists are so good at science that they’ll spawn with the ability to heal themselves scientifically. Eventually, this level of scientific know-how will spread to the rest of the island, too, uh-oh.
As we all know, no Arctic research station would be complete without its resident cuddly-wuddly polar bears. Actually, was this a viral marketing campaign from Facepunch? The timing is highly sus. Hmph. Anyway, polar bears are exactly what we’ve got now, in the cold biome at least, and the ‘normal’ bear has retreated from the arctic in shame and is less aggressive and has less health as a result.
To escape a polar bear, you need to either:
- Stay very still and hope the ground spontaneously opens up and swallows you.
- Runaway and hope that you’re faster at running than someone else in the vicinity.
- Have one of these.
A Snowmobile spawns in one of the research base’s garages behind a ‘puzzle’ ahem. Kind of a one-piece puzzle, if you ask me. No, not like that. It can be driven on sand or snow fast and everywhere else slow. The passenger can equip things, but the driver cannot.
On the permanent store, there’s now an Arctic pack, which includes not 2 skins, not 4 skins, but 3 skins. Namely, the Tomaha snowmobile – which is actually a skin and not a separate snowmobile, the ice AK and of course, the Arctic suit skin for the hazzy.
As mentioned last week, the suit skin has different stats and isn’t pay-to-win at all. Actually, the stats have been SUBJECT TO CHANGE since I showed it to you last week, and the trade-off is now greater.. the suit’s rad and cold protection has dropped further to only 33% each. But it’s still a precedent, as this is the first time that reskinning an item actually changes its stats. Tell me what you think about all this in the comments, please. Hey, imagine if you could reskin horses to make them faster?
Talking of skins – if you have the arctic pack – to change the look of the snowmobile, you’ll need a spray can, which is good because this is now a default item costing 100 frags to craft. You can reskin deployed items easily with it now, meaning it’s a great way to look out of your door only when you need t, as long as you’ve bought the Factory door skin on the store or got the Industrial Door Twitch drop skin all those months ago. It won’t necessarily let you look into other people’s bases, though, as you can’t use it when building-blocked.
The other spray can functions, such as decals and painting, will come in a later update as they require a bit more tweakage.’
QOL next, but first, I have a quick Rusty sponsor.
Now, there have been a lot of QOL changes that have been building up and which have now flooded onto the main branch of the game. You can see the full list at the bottom of the dev blog, but here are some of the most important ones.
There’s now a hammer repair notice, which shows how much is needed. The ‘Tool’ cupboard now actually takes tools.. and has 4 storage slots that will hold a hammer, building plan, hose, and wire tool. The Tech trees give more info on research costs and how much scrap you have, plus you can click and hold to unlock items.
There are Auto walk and toggle crouch keybinds, although only the auto-walk can be set in the options at the moment. SAM sites have a defender mode option, which will make them only react to Rockety McRocketface rockets and not helis. Plus, they now have three outputs, a la turrets.
There’s a map marker for the Heli. You can manage muted players in the UI and sort your recent contacts by last seen. Wounded teammates will show as orange in the TEAM UI, and there’s a vehicle dismount hold time slider in the options, which by default is set to 0.
Something we haven’t spoken about for a long old time is performance, because, well, why would we? There’s nothing to worry about on that front, is there? Well, whatevs, there is actually a section on the dev blog this month to say that a performance fix was made after something that caused a predictable dip in framerate was identified.
TL;DR it was something to do with the recent changes to tree population, so really it’s all your fault for not gathering enough vood. But this should now be fixed and give you more of those delicious frames, especially when near bushy and tree-filled areas like the bandit camp etc.
In works in progress. Hapis is still lingering just out of reach but is still getting love.
There’s a new land mine model being made, no images yet, but I’ll get them for you as soon as I can, and the next round of Twitch drops has just started.
Let me know your thoughts on this month’s patch below. Leave a like if you want and follow me on Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and my Steeeeam group. You can support me directly as always, either through YouTube memberships, Patreon, or via my Merch store. I shall catch you all soon, but in the meantime, keep calm and stay Rusty, cheerio.
