Boat bases ahoy! Rust Update 7th July 2023
This RUST update video is brought to you by Shadowfrax!
Happy wipe day to all! July’s Deep Sea update is now live for all servers. This update brought us the new driveable Tugboat, the Ferry Terminal monument, the long-awaited new water system, and of course, a fancy new skin pack–The Abyss Pack.
The new RUST Tugboat
The Tugboat is a celebration of firsts for RUST. In addition to being the largest of the player-driven vehicles in the game, the Tugboat is also the first vehicle in the game to allow players to deploy a large variety of items inside and out. Our team did extensive testing on item deployments for the tugboat and compiled a list of the items that can be placed for anyone curious to see what can and can’t be used onboard.
The Tugboat only has 3,000 hit points, making it a somewhat fragile mobile base. And if another player sinks the tug, all items onboard go down with it, so it may not be the place to store all your gunpowder unless you’ve got immediate plans to use it.
The Ferry Terminal
We’ve seen it in the commits for quite a while, and now the ferry terminal monument is finally live, albeit not fully operational. The Nexus system may still be a ways off, but for now, players can visit the ferry terminal to forage for a variety of loot options, recycle, research, repair, and other various activities. Check out our Ferry Terminal monument guide for a deeper dive into the monument.
Abyss skin pack
What better way to explore the depths (or attempt salvage of a sunken tug) than in a newly-minted diver suit? The new Abyss Diver Suit is a new premium skin for the hazmat suit like the Arctic and lumberjack variants with three randomized helmets. All versions are purely cosmetic and provide no benefits to the owner other than the potential of looking like a Big Daddy, but otherwise, the stats are the same as the generic hazzy. The Abyss pack also comes with a soggy ak skin, a pickaxe, a hatchet, and the coolest-looking torch skin yet.
Other changes in this RUST Update
- The new water system is now merged with release and provides more realistic waves, improved shorelines, and reaction to weather.
- Spray cans no longer lose durability when reskinning deployables.
- The combat knife now quickly cuts through underwater crate rope .
- Shipping container building skin floors now appear corrugated when they are not built over.
- Lighting in caves have been fixed in areas where the lighting was too dark or bright.
- New shoutcast stations added for boombox following BBC retirement of their shoutcast support.
- Various improvements to the shader backend will pave the way for visual improvements in later development.
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Thanks for reading, and see you in the next RUST update!
Video Transcript
Greetings, survivors and friends; Captain Jack Shadowfrax here with a round-up of exactly what happened in July’s big patch, the “Deep Sea” update… too soon? Nah, probably not. Anyway, unsurprisingly, it’s all about Rust’s watery environs to some degree or another, and there are a number of new things that can be enjoyed now and some stuff for later on.
Oh, and thanks to the TEAM at Facepunch, I have a giveaway for you today, so stay tuna’d.
First up in this patch is a bigger boat and potentially a floating base to boot. The tug is here, based on the model you’ve seen before but this time sailable. Rare-ish – 2 should spawn in each harbor by default and is built more for comfort than speed.
It runs on low grade and needs a bit of room to turn around. But it does have a sonar to detect subs, and you will be able to fit an entire Zerg on it; plus, as a first for Rust, you can place a certain amount of deployables here too.
To claim your tug, clamber aboard and authorize yourself at the helm, just hold E to see options much like a tool cupboard, and once done, you’ll be able to throw some doors and locks on it on either side of the control room and another on the entrance to below decks.
And this is where the fun all happens because this is basically a free p3 x 2-ish base where you can place as many chests, beds, furnaces, benches, and campfires as you can squeeze in there. Restrictions – at the moment – are no electrical, water, or industrial systems, turrets, traps, large deployables, of course, or indeed a tool cupboard because that’s already part of the boat itself.
Not only but also you can place deployables on most of the first couple of decks, too, in case you want to fortify your floating fortress some more or bbq some prawns. It’s up to you.
The tug has 3000hp, and you can repair her with wood and metal frags. And if damaged enough, she’ll sink to the depths, at which point the authorization will be removed, and salvage operations can commence.
Interestingly, hobo barrels do fine underwater, and so does Chippy.
As default, tugs will start to decay 24 hours after spawning and fully decay two days after that, but every time the engine is started up, it will reset the onset of decay by 24 hours.
Oh, and I’m told that keeping one indoors – if you were thinking of building a dry dock big enough – won’t stop the rot, so don’t bother.
Decay is SUBJECT TO CHANGE for server owners, though with the following two convars as shown here…
So if you’re looking for a tug and there are none in the harbors, try looking in the corners of the map.
Next up is a new monument, not fully functional yet; presumably, this will be where you catch a ferry to another linked server once the nexus system finally arrives, but as shown in the last update vid, it is at least worth a quick visit in the meantime. No NPCs or radiation yet, and here you’ll find some basic amenities such as a car lift, recycler, research table, repair bench, phone, and entrance to the subway system.
There’s now some loot, too, with a number of barrels, and crates around, so at least the place isn’t a complete waste of space at the moment, but stay tuned for news of when it becomes more useful in the future.
Next, the new Abyss hazmat DLC is here on the permanent store, and the price point is the same as the Arctic and Lumberjack sets and includes several skins. First, not one but three variations of a divers suit reskin for the hazzy. Which variant you get when you reskin is completely random, but no extra benefits; just look and the fact that they will make you totally stand out in any bushes you are in. Shhh.
There are also 4 item skins, an Abyss AK complete with seaweed and anchor instead of shovel handle.. a pickaxe – unsurprisingly an anchor – .. a drippy, barnacle-encrusted metal hatchet, and most exciting of all, probably the sexiest torch you’ve ever seen, that also works underwater!
Not only but also I have a copy of this DLC to giveaway, thanks to Facepunch, so you’ll find a link to enter in the description below.. and I’ll randomly pick a winner this Sunday.
Now, if these briny shenanigans weren’t all exciting enough, the whole ruddy sea has also had a makeover, as finally, after two years in development, the new water redo has been merged in, and I must say it looks so much better down where it’s wetter now.
Waves realistically move towards land, the shoreline is tons better to look at and walk along, there’s a fancy new transition line between above and below the surface, and storms really ramp things up and make the water choppy when they get going. All in all, there are a lot of small improvements here that hopefully add up to one big one, but what is your experience of this so far? Let me know in the comments below.
In other news, Shipping container skin floors are now conditional and will be metal on both sides unless you have something built over them, in which case they’ll be ply on top. Combat knives now untie underwater crates more rapidly. Spraycans won’t lose durability anymore when reskinning deployables.
And lastly, something a bit techy, but bear with me here; on the devblog, there’s a section at the bottom on shader improvements. Now this might seem a bit back end and not very relevant, but a significant overhaul to shaders is coming and as well as better memory usage and loading times. Hopefully, it should open up a lot more for artists, including getting more out of decals, better lighting, new surfaces to work with such as brushed metals, satin and silk fabrics, and subsurface scattering so that ice, silicone, marble, and wax can all be more realistically rendered, potentially for skin creators too.
Anyway, give it a read if that interests you. As for what we can expect for development in the rest of July, it will probably be a slower month, but there are quite a few things in the pipeline that I know are being worked on, and I will give you some more concrete info as soon as I get my hooves on it.
Whatever the case, you are now up to date. Leave me a like and a sub; please, if you enjoy my content, come join me on Twitch and my socials, such as Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and my Steeeeam group. Plus, you can support me in various ways, including through Youtube and Patreon; links are all below; I shall catch you all soon, but in the meantime, keep calm and stay rusty, cheerio!
