Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! The Christmas Event is once again live! If you haven't been around for this before, here's what you can expect:

Every once in a while you will hear the sound of jingle bells. Run outside and look for a gift! Two gifts are spawned per player, in a radius of about 40m from where you are standing. Run up and bash it open to receive your Christmas presents. They come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. If you have enough small presents stashed, you can "trade up" to a medium. If you choose to unwrap a present, the contents in each will vary. I won't blow the surprise here, but you'll find a mix of resources, weapons, and candy. Some players may receive coal for being absolutely worthless human beings.



Once again, you will be able to find Santa hats and reindeer antlers, both of which can be worn and provide a decent amount of protection. There’s also a lickable candy cane club, and two types of stockings. If you hang a stocking inside your base when the jingle bells ring the stocking will fill up with loot. The larger stocking has a higher chance for better items and both last around 5-10 refills.



You may notice a different look to a few other aspects of the game but we won't spoil them here. Have fun!

We've also added some holiday themed items to the Rust Item Store including some Deluxe Christmas Lights, Check them out!

• Xmas content enabled
  
• Fixed high bite protection causing animal attacks to heal the player
  
• Fixed monument labels on map flickering when adding/removing markers
  
• Fixed scientist loot panel displaying random numbers - now reads "Scientist"
  
• Fixed being able to reload chainsaw while attacking
  
• Fixed not being able to save workshop models from the Workshop UI
  
• Fixed a duplicate MIDI binding on the bass guitar
  
• Fixed the sharp note bindings not working on instruments
  
• Reduced chance of tree minigame markers going under the ground

The Instruments DLC pack is now available on Steam for purchase with a 10% launch discount! It includes 10 new instruments with a completely overhauled music input system as well as MIDI support for actual hardware input from compatible devices.



Not sure what all of this is about? The Instrument Pack is our first paid DLC which includes 10 new playable instruments. They all use a completely overhauled music system that allows you to play specific notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) across multiple octaves. They also support MIDI input, so you can hook up physical instruments as well as a variety of MIDI related software to really unleash your musical abilities.

The pack includes:

• Wheelbarrow Piano (200 Wood, 100 Metal Frags)
  
• Junkyard Drum Kit (200 Wood, 100 Metal Frags)
  
• Shovel Bass (50 Wood, 75 Metal Frags)
  
• Sousaphone (100 Metal Frags)
  
• Jerry Can Guitar (25 Wood, 50 Metal Frags)
  
• Xylobones (50 Bone Fragments)
  
• Plumber's Trumpet (75 Metal Frags)
  
• Cowbell (35 Metal Frags)
  
• Canbourine (25 Metal Frags)
  
• Pan Flute (20 Metal Frags, 5 Cloth)

Click the image above to read the full blog and changelist!

The annual Steam Awards nominations have started and we hope you’ll vote for Rust to win the “Labor of Love” award.

Rust is nearly 6 years old now and it’s got better every year with more people playing it than ever. In the last year or so alone we’ve seen vehicles from boats and hot air balloons to minicopters and also horses with horse armor. We added new areas like the Scientist Compound and the Bandit Town plus of course, Monuments like the Oil Rig. We put electricity in the game. In the last few months we introduced Killer Mummies at Halloween, the most epic trees you’ve ever seen and (soon) we’ve got our first ever DLC with musical instruments like the Wheelbarrow Piano and Canbourine. Also, Rust looks and plays a hell of a lot better than in Legacy days, so there’s that.

We’re really grateful for all the support the Rust community has shown over the years and we hope this award will recognise that too. All you need to do is click the `Labor of Love 2019` box above for our eternal gratitude!

Big announcements this month! Rust console is coming, Instrument DLC, Charitable Rust, and submarines?

https://rust.facepunch.com/blog/community-update-218

Halloween is over, trees are fixed and more optimizations, fixes and improvements.

• Added team chat.
  
• Added chat pop-up menu when clicking a chat message.
  
• Added chat muting.
  
• Added "mutelist", "unmute" and "unmuteall" console commands.
  
• Added Hover Loot, default keybind is hold H.
  
• Can now hold down on the Give, Take and Drink buttons to automatically transfer water.
  
• Added new map marker for multiple vending machines in close proximity
  
• Added teleportlos admin console command to teleport along the line of sight
  
• Can open debug log file from console screen
  
• Added in game report system (halloween patch)
  
• Added notification system on main menu
  
• Added Medium Battery
  
• Added "rWm/Rust Watt Minutes" energy storage system
  
• Added manual Depth of Field mode
  
• Fixed the delay before firing the second shot with each new bow.
  
• It is no longer possible to accidentally drop an item in the space between your inventory and your belt.
  
• Fixed several ways in which the chat window could get stuck open, without input, leaving you unable to move or chat.
  
• Improved reliability of tree harvesting mini-game
  
• Fixed hot air balloon parenting exploit
  
• Fixed late entity pop in when moving very fast
  
• Fixed minicopters floating in the air if the ground they were resting on was destroyed
  
• Fixed horses floating in the air if the ground they were resting on was destroyed
  
• Increased horse frame budget from 0.334ms to 1ms (smoother horses)
  
• Fixed Cargoship hull interior culling on low object quality
  
• Fixed missing dune meshes at the water well
  
• Fixed small refinery placement on ice, rocks and uneven surfaces
  
• Fixed deploying on Cargoship rudder
  
• Fixed compound awning culling
  
• Loot actions are now queued so that items are looted one after another, instead of simultaneously.
  
• You can now right click an inventory item to move it to your belt.
  
• You can now drag items directly into/between locker slots without having to swap sets first.
  
• Added clothing icon to locker clothing slots.
  
• Extensive rework of monument LODs
  
• Campfire flames and smoke now move directly upward, even if placed on a slope.
  
• Large furnace can be placed on world layer (rocks)
  
• Small water catchers can now be placed on construction

HALLOWEEN COMES TO RUST

From now til November 7th 2019 we have a bunch of spooky new features...

NEW NPCS: KILLER MUMMIES AND SCARECROWS

Get ready to go up against creepy mummies and scarecrows spawning around the world, armed with pitchforks, butcher knives and chainsaws. Good night and good luck - you’ll need it.

NEW EVENT: TRICK OR TREAT!

During each ingame day in Halloween you’ll be able to join trick or treat hunts for as much candy as you can get your hands on (while everyone else tries to do the same, naturally). Once you have enough candy you can craft loot bags that open to reveal goodies, or collect 10 loot bags to upgrade from small to medium and so forth, with chances for better loot each time.

HALLOWEEN ITEMS

There’s exclusive Halloween-themed items like graveyard fences and cobwebs to decorate your base. We’ve also got a bunch of Halloween exclusive content both new and old on the Rust Item Store. Spookify your base with candle packs and skull door knockers. Impress your teammates with your bloody Surgeon Scrubs. We also welcome back some favourites like Strobe Lights and the one and only Fogger 3000 fog machine.

We've added horse equipment, Crafting, Inventory, Map and Death screen improvements and various other fixes, balances and improvements ...

• Added grass.distance convar (range 100-200, default 100)
  
• Added headlerp convar (adjusts head snapback speed after alt look)
  
• Added headlerp_inertia convar (smoothens the head snapback motion after alt look)
  
• Added admin refillvitals console commands (fills health, calories and hydration)
  
• Added admin heal console command (same as calling hurt with negative values)
  
• Resdesigned death screen
  
• Can now place a marker on the map
  
• Added screen mode (Fullscreen exclusive, Fullscreen Borderless, Windowed) option to Screen settings
  
• Added FPS Limit slider to Screen settings
  
• Shift-middle mouse drag to split a third of an item stack
  
• Right click the item split bar to type an exact split amount
  
• Middle/shift-middle mouse click the splitter bar to set it to half/third
  
• Left click and drag your inventory screen player model to spin it around
  
• Right click a Quick Craft icon to remove it from the crafting queue
  
• Right click an item in the crafting queue to move it to the start of the queue
  
• Added a Crafting Favourites system
  
• Added keybinds to drop a single/full stack of the the currently selected/active item to the Inventory settings section
  
• Added "unable to repair" reason chat notifications
  
• Added Tesla Coil
  
• Added Horse Wood Armor
  
• Added Horse Roadsign Armor
  
• Added Horse Shoes
  
• Added Saddlebags
  
• Horse breeds actually impact horse statistics
  
• Added Ammunition information panel
  
• Added Electrical wire flow indicator
  
• Added double door skins
  
• Fixed lerp convar exploit (now admin / dev only and clamped to a sane range)
  
• Fixed exploit to disarm landmines from any distance
  
• Fixed exploit to free underwater loot crates from any distance
  
• Fixed exploit to interact with excavator from any distance
  
• Fixed bullet impact glow effect not following vehicles after impact
  
• Can no longer drag/throw items when you're wounded
  
• Can no longer combine world items of non-full condition to get a free repair
  
• Consumable item information panel no longer shows default values the first time you inspect one
  
• Minor Hapis Island fixes
  
• Fixed campfire description
  
• Fixed recycler description
  
• Fixed errors when entering site B (Hapis Island)
  
• Fixed scrap transport helicopter oil rig exploits
  
• Fixed APC crates falling through the ground
  
• Disabled status effects in god mode
  
• Disabled food and hydration depletion in god mode
  
• Disabled radiation poisoning in god mode
  
• There's now a small 0.75 second buffer when the Quick Craft list refreshes to help prevent miss-clicks
  
• Added an Electrical category to the crafting screen and re-categorised all electrical items
  
• Added a Favourites category to the crafting screen
  
• Cleaned up some ambient and foliage sounds
  
• Updated bear sounds
  
• Updated pressure pad sounds
  
• Updated collectible resource sounds
  
• Cleaned up barefoot footsteps a little bit
  
• Evened out and increased attack helicopter rotor sound volume
  
• Electrical wires now have normal mapping and a 3d look
  
• Spas-12 has a slightly higher fire rate
  
• Shotgun slugs are more accurate and do more damage
  
• Shotgun slugs have a closer damage falloff
  
• M92 has a slightly slower fire rate
  
• Simple Sight is now a default blueprint
  
• M39 swapped with L96 as bandit camp
  
• Bradley loot table improved
  
• Bradley is more vulnerable to HV rockets
  
• Bradley top turret has been enabled
  
• Excavator yield increased by 30%
  

The new Transport Helicopter arrives along with changes to auto turrets and various other fixes and optimizations

• Unity 2019.2.0f1
  
• Players are automatically authed to placed cupboards
  
• Benchmark mode fixes
  
• Added powerline wires to Monument Puzzles
  
• Added an in-game Screen options menu for resolution, fullscreen and vsync settings
  
• Client is now using IL2CPP instead of Mono
  
• Server is available as IL2CPP version on the "release-il2cpp" branch
  
• World generation is now server authoritative (faster load times, more robust)
  
• Added doppler shift to some sounds
  
• Added texture streaming
  
• Added Transport Helicopter
  
• Added Horse Leading
  
• Added Fuel Generator
  
• Fixed steam refresh overlay not closing after opening bag
  
• Fixed possible exception when retrieving market prices
  
• ServerInfo will retry multiple times if failed to get info
  
• ServerInfo will fail gracefully if failed to get info after multiple attempts
  
• Fixed titles getting cut off in pie menu
  
• Fixed loading screen cancel button being 1 pixel smaller than the bar to its left
  
• Fixed steam friend inconsistencies
  
• Fixed unexpected palm trees behavior when helicopters would fly over
  
• Player map position now updates correctly when injured
  
• Fixed erratic map scrolling when using the left mouse button to drag
  
• Hotspot visuals now get cleaned up correctly when ent-killing
  
• Disabling the UI no longer allows you to see through smoke effects
  
• Can no longer spam drink back to full health
  
• Completing a tutorial achievement will no longer mark the whole tutorial as complete temporarily
  
• Fixed item icon staying on screen if inventory is closed while dragging
  
• Fixed High External Gates not playing SFX correctly
  
• Fixed compound sometimes spawning underwater
  
• Fixed exploit using water projectile penetration
  
• Fixed snapback issues when dismounting while moving fast
  
• Fixed swimming slightly under the waves not showing underwater properly
  
• Fixed crashes on AMD Phenom
  
• Fixed swamp fog too bright at night
  
• Fixed lighting on some particles (e.g. helicopter damage smoke)
  
• Fixed NRE on ent kill cargo ship
  
• Game log is written to output_log.txt in the game install folder again
  
• Fixed deflated HAB having inflated collision and wrecking minicopters
  
• Fixed rendering TopBunnies UI element all the time
  
• Optimized Notices UI layout
  
• Neatened up Notices UI
  
• Tweaked "new content" label on main menu
  
• The map now re-focuses on the player's position when injured
  
• The console input field now auto-focuses when opening or changing tabs.
  
• Max value of gc.buffer is now 4096 instead of 2048
  
• Log warning when doing emergency garbage collection
  
• Enabled crunch texture compression on workshop skin bundles
  
• Performance text no longer updates when nothing changed (avoids GC)
  
• Performance text always prints GC counter for one second after GC runs
  
• Simplified "perf" convar (1=FPS, 2=frame time, 3=memory, 4=ping, 5=everything)
  
• Debug Camera: R resets the camera
  
• Debug Camera: Q/E move the camera vertically
  
• Debug Camera: Z/C and +/- control zoom
  
• Debug Camera: Arrow keys control roll
  
• Debug Camera: Disabled inventory and crafting menus when in debug camera
  
• Debug Camera: Disabled vehicle controls when in debug camera
  
• Debug Camera: Disabled noclip control when in debug camera
  
• Debug Camera: Added debugcamera_save and debugcamera_load (multiple save names are supported)
  
• Debug Camera: Added debugcamera_autosave and debugcamera_autoload
  
• Debug Camera: Added camzoomlerp (likecamlerp but for zoom)
  
• Small maps have large monuments again (excluding launch site and excavator)
  
• Updated NPC helicopter sounds
  
• Reduced texture memory footprint (by ~1 GB) via texture streaming
  
• Reduced mesh memory footprint (by ~700 MB) via model optimizations
  
• Improved TSSAA and motion blur quality on vegetation and cloth affected by wind
  
• Optimized high-quality shadow mode = 2, now 25% faster
  
• Added new very-high-quality shadow mode = 3
  
• Pressure pads can now be hidden under rugs
  
• Pressure pads generate a small amount of electricity when stepped on
  
• Grenades have a more predictable landing position
  
• F1 grenades have a fuse length of 3 instead of 3.5
  
• Rocket Launcher need T2 WB( Instead of T3 )
  
• HV Rockets need T2 WB( Instead of T3 )
  
• Autoturrets never miss more than 3 shots in a row
  
• Autoturrets now make use of the electricity system
  
• Removed Vulkan graphics API
  
• Removed Linux client

Excavator monument and more optimizations and fixes

• Added Excavator Monument
  
• Added force triggers (excavator belts)
  
• Added terrain anti hack protection
  
• Fixed binds not working with "cinematic_play" and "cinematic_stop"
  
• Fixed "monuments" console command being abused to find caves
  
• Fixed weapon reload issues at extremely low FPS
  
• Fixed RF Broadcaster being placed through walls
  
• Fixed being stuck when dismounting helicopter on top of Compound buildings
  
• Fixed accidentally pressing "Create Team" while dropping items on low resolutions
  
• Fixed text overflow on team dock when players have long names
  
• Fixed team member map font being unreadable
  
• Fixed large furnace placement under the terrain
  
• Fixed scope overlay being extremely small on larger screen resolutions
  
• Fixed misclicking accept would reject the team invite
  
• Fixed hunters jacket skin being black
  
• Fixed some volumetrics not disappearing during day time
  
• Fixed broken train cart coal material on powerplant monument
  
• Fixed some materials turning black on lowest shader levels in powerplant monument
  
• Fixed duplicate networkable objects (e.g. doors) when playing demos
  
• Fixed passengers being able to access minicopter fuel
  
• Fixed horses eating too much food at hitching posts
  
• Optimized some server side player packet verifications
  
• Entity parenting triggers now support compound triggers and exclusion zones (excavator arm)
  
• Removed large monuments and mountains on smaller maps (now limited to 3500 world size or larger)
  
• Barren now has harbors, oil rigs and water wells
  
• Barren prefab mountains no longer spawn in the desert
  
• Allow deployables to be placed under Water barrel
  
• Increased the cost of lowgrade at Compound
  
• Increased server browser timeout limit to 90 seconds
  
• Hapis Island fixes and tweaks
  
• Optimized server-side water buoyancy
  
• Optimized terrain shader

Horse breeds and hitching posts, client and server optimizations and more!

• Added cinematic animations for video creation (see devblog)
  
• Added player tick rate convars to the server (see devblog)
  
• Added Streamer mode to options menu
  
• Added new horse model and breeds
  
• Added Hitch-Trough deployable
  
• Added Minicopter fuel gauge
  
• Added Minicopter pilot IK
  
• Added 'hattip' gesture
  
• Added a bunch of secret achievements
  
• Fixed exploit to stack foundation steps
  
• Fixed swamp fog too bright at night
  
• Fixed water purifier disappearing after going out of network range
  
• Fixed misclicking accept would reject the team invite
  
• Fixed Rustige Egg not taking splash damage
  
• Fixed being able to pick up sam site when it contained ammo
  
• Optimized distant tree networking (client memory savings)
  
• Optimized physics queries by removing collider batching entirely (previously disabled)
  
• Optimized all entity queries
  
• Optimized buoyancy physics transform sync
  
• Optimized server player updates and transform sync
  
• Optimized server packet handling
  
• Optimized client inventory update
  
• Optimized monument memory use
  
• Optimized ocean wave foam rendering
  
• Optimized gpu-side wave simulation for rendering
  
• Optimized cpu-side wave simulation for buoyancy
  
• Horses require far less food