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Tech Tree Update

This month we have added the tech tree which will give you the choice of how you unlock your blueprints, this has also led to a huge update on item crafting recipes, tiers and the loot you will find in airdrops and heli/bradley crates.

03 December 2020
Devblog
Tech Tree
In November 2017 I implemented Workbench experimenting which allowed the player to use scrap to gain a random unknown blueprint. Since this time we've added nearly an extra 130 items which has made random experimenting both costly and frustrating. Say goodbye to experimentation and say hello to Tech Trees. Each level of workbench has its own tech tree composed of all of the items within its tech level. This new system allows you to see the entire tree of items and allows you to unlock them in a linear fashion, choosing paths and allowing you to specialize. This should make it much more comfortable for a new player to unlock weapons and armor instead of having to pray to the RNG gods to find a SAP in a crate. Keep in mind you can still find and research items you find in the world using the Research table as normal, this hasn't changed. But if you're not having any luck you can at least make progress and know that you are working towards the items of your desire. We're not expecting the balance to be perfect so expect changes going forward, we'll be reading feedback and adjusting accordingly for January patch which will be a mandatory blueprint wipe across all servers.
Balance Changes
This month after implementing our own and considering hundreds if not thousands of common community balance concerns we went ahead and made over 300 balance changes, touching nearly every item. Here are some of the most notable change:
  • Majority of crafting times reduced
  • Reduced all Electrical crafting costs
  • Majority of electrical items now stackable
  • Hazmat suit now uses condition
  • Road sign armor crafting cost reduced
  • Increased Rocket Launcher deploy time
  • Smoke grenade now craftable and researchable
  • Removed blueprint drops from barrels and crates
  • Complete reblance of torso underarmor clothing
  • Large medkit now provides small amount of instant health and cheaper to craft
  • Greatly reduced the amount of dehydration when consuming anti-radiation pills
  • Reduced Medical Syringe crafting time
  • Reinforced window bars now have glass
We'll be keeping an eye surrounding these changes and hopefully see a slight shift in the meta. The full extent of these changes can be found within the changelog at the bottom of this page or viewed here.
Airdrop Rework
Rust's airdrop has been unchanged since it's inception in 2013, the airdrop has become iconic over the years, yet unchanged. It was long overdue an art update. Tom Butters has given the airdrop a makeover bringing its visuals up to date with Rust 2020 standards. This includes actually attaching the parachute to the airdrop with wires. Wow. The loot tables for the air drop have been completely rewritten from scratch and work by rolling for specific categories of items several times. You're now guaranteed to find at least two pieces of decent armor and one very good, or two decent weapons. No more Wood armor, longswords, landmines, or stone spears. P.s. We will be addressing the Helicopter and Bradley loot in the near future but note that for now we have greatly reduced the chance that you will find an aforementioned crate with crappy loot such as a single CCTV camera or Laptop.
Procedural Boat And Horse Spawns
As promised last month, we have now once again enabled procedural horse and motorboat spawns around the world but at a slightly lower rate than before. Additionally, we have lowered the purchase cost of the motorboat and rideable horses.
Build Optimizations
I've spent quite some time this month on figuring out why our builds were slowing down a lot over time when using Unity's Asset Database v2. What we had noticed was that importing assets that had changed takes a lot longer on v2 than on v1. The solution is naturally to avoid reimports, which isn't exactly trivial when you have to use asset processing at build time for client and server builds or rely on parameters that should update automatically on the prefabs whenever needed so there's no danger we forget to update / commit those changes and accidentally break everything. All of this was amplified by the fact that EditorUtility.SetDirty no longer seems to work right for prefabs. You now have to call SavePrefabAsset or SavePrefabAsAsset depending on which prefab edit mode you're using. Of course the docs don't make any of this clear, but after figuring it out our build times improved a whopping 25% from this change alone.
Steam Networking Improvements
We had to temporarily disable Steam Networking on official servers due to a race condition that could corrupt the connection state and lead to all sorts of inexplicable side effects. Thankfully it was an easy fix once we noticed that it was caused by an async disconnect callback, so we will once again enable Steam Networking on all official servers this month. While I was digging around I also added support for maxreceivetime to Steam Networking, which improves client performance. I also disabled some features we didn't need that were adding some additional packet overhead on the server.
Movember
There's now over 20,000 Movember Moustaches floating around Rust. Together with a donation that Facepunch made, it means that together we raised ~$80k, making us together one of the single biggest donors to Movember UK this year - thank you! if you want a laugh, you can see some of our efforts to grow moustaches here during November too. It's not too late to donate to or learn about Movember either, which is working to make a difference in men's mental health & suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
Rust 7th Birthday
Rust turns 7 this month and we’ll be celebrating for one day only on 11th December with a birthday cake and hat item. In the near future, we plan to talk more about how the last year has gone and what we learned as well as some information about how Rust has performed.
Kayak paddle update
The kayak model has now been updated, along with improvements to the viewmodel animations. After the paddle initially went in-game, Paul spotted some issues and gave some good feedback on area's that hadn't translated from concept to model. This included proportions, details, and the fact the world model didn't really stand up from a 1st person perspective. We wanted to rectify these issues so Tom went back & made the necessary changes to the model. As the proportions had changed, the animation also needed to be updated to account for the new grip position. I took the opportunity to correct some issues raised on the viewmodel posing as well: Going forward we're hoping for stronger collaboration between concept/model & animation. This includes Paul giving me a very rough block out mesh that I can rig & get straight in-game for an initial prototype. From there we will be much better placed to see where details are needed, what proportions will work best, & viewmodel posing. Tom can move forward with a final model knowing how it will work in-game.
Rust+
We released an update for Rust+ earlier this month with a redesigned user interface, notification history, the ability to promote team members to leader, and server logos! Team leaders can now promote other team members to leader by tapping on a player's avatar on the Team chat tab and clicking the Promote button. You do not need to be playing on the server to do this so no more problems if your team leader forgets to change it! We have also added server logo images as a new configuration that server owners will need to set up. Simply set the server.logoimage convar to your logo URL and you're good to go. The logos are circular (on a squared image) and, for best results, should fit into this guide image: Make sure to check for updates in the settings menu by swiping from the left to open the server switcher and then tapping on the gear icon!
Cinematic Additions
We've added a few new useful console commands this month for cinematic content creators:

DOF Target Mode

A new 'target' mode has been added to the debug camera's depth of field setting. This mode allows DOF focus distance to be locked onto a specified entity or object, either during demo playback or live gameplay.
Use the command dof_mode 2 to switch to targeted focus mode whilst in debug camera view. To set a focus target, use one of the following methods:
  • dof_focus_lookingat - Sets the focus target to the entity which the camera is looking at.
  • dof_focus_target [entityID] - Sets the focus target to a specified entity ID. You can find entity IDs during demo playback by using ent_find_radius [number] which prints out a list of entity names + IDs in a defined radius near the camera's position.

Parented Dolly Movement

When parenting the debug camera to an entity, the previous behaviour for dollying, aka moving the camera closer or further away (as seen above), was done by using the mouse scroll wheel. We noticed a lot of creators preferred binding mouse scrolling to perform other tasks such as adjusting focus distance, so instead we added convars to allow manually binding keys for dollying the camera in or out of a subject. Use the following commands to set a key bind for parented camera dollying:
  • bind [key] +debugcamera_dollyforward
  • bind [key] +debugcamera_dollyback

Demo HUD - Target Readouts


The demo playback HUD has been updated to include two new readouts:
  • Camera parent target - Name and ID of the entity which the camera is currently parented to (if any) as indicated by a chain-link icon.
  • DOF focus target - Name and ID of the entity which the camera's DOF is currently targeting (if any) as indicated by a target icon. This only appears when DOF is set to target mode.

NVG in Demos


During demo playback you can now use the command togglenvg 1/0 to enable night vision goggle effects whilst in debug camera view. This should prove useful for creators wanting to utilise the existing NVG effects in their own custom camera angles.
Server List Issues
We're aware of the issues, in some cases, where the in-game list only populates a handful of servers. We've discovered this is a problem with the current Steam Beta. We are working with Valve to ensure a proper fix is handled. In the meantime, if you are experiencing these problems, please opt out of the Steam Beta build and it should repopulate the list. Steam Client settings >> account >> Beta programs (opt out of it)
Christmas Patch
We'll be releasing a mandatory patch on December 17th at 19:00 GMT / 14:00 EST to enable this year Christmas festivities.
Patch Name Tech Tree Update
Changelist Title 236
date_range Thursday, December 3, 2020
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Features

  • •
    Added Workbench Tech Tree
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Improvements

  • •
    Kayak Paddle model and animation update
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    AND Switch Stackable
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    Audio Alarm Stackable
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    Binoculars no longer require a workbench
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    Blocker Stackable
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    Boats and rideable horses now spawn procedurally again
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    Button Stackable
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    Can now pick up Kayak with hammer, loses 25% condition each time it's picked up
  • •
    Chainlink Fence Stackable
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    Chair Stackable
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    Counter Stackable
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    Diving Fins can be recycled
  • •
    Diving Mask can be recycled
  • •
    Diving Tank can be recycled
  • •
    Door Controller Stackable
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    Double shotgun now requires two pipes and an additional 25metal fragments
  • •
    DropBox Stackable
  • •
    Electric Fuse Stackable
  • •
    Electric Heater Stackable
  • •
    Electrical Branch Stackable
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    Elevator Stackable
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    Flasher Light Stackable
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    Floor grill Stackable
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    Floor triangle grill Stackable
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    Fluid Combiner Stackable
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    Fluid Splitter Stackable
  • •
    Greatly reduced the amount of dehydration when consuming anti-radiation pills
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    Hazmat suit can now be repaired
  • •
    Hazmat suit now uses condition
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    Hide Vest protection rebalance
  • •
    Hide Vest reduced crafting cost
  • •
    Holosight workbench Tier 2
  • •
    Hoodie crafting cost reduced
  • •
    Hoodie protection rebalance
  • •
    Igniter Stackable
  • •
    Increased Long Sword condition
  • •
    Increased Mace condition
  • •
    Increased Machete condition
  • •
    Increased Prison Cell Gate health
  • •
    Increased Prison Cell Wall health
  • •
    Increased rocket launcher deploy delay
  • •
    Increased Salvaged axe crafting time
  • •
    Increased Salvaged Cleaver condition
  • •
    Increased Salvaged Sword condition
  • •
    Large medkit now provides small amount of instant health
  • •
    Large Solar Panel Stackable
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    Laser Detector Stackable
  • •
    Launch site floodlight towers now have radiation
  • •
    Long sleeve T-Shirt protection rebalance
  • •
    Memory Cell Stackable
  • •
    Nail gun reload time now matches animation (reloads slightly quicker)
  • •
    OR Switch Stackable
  • •
    Paddle no longer requires a workbench to be crafted
  • •
    Prison Cell Wall Stackable
  • •
    RAND Switch Stackable
  • •
    Reduced 8x weapon attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Advanced ore tea yield to 35%
  • •
    Reduced AND Switch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Assault Rifle crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Audio Alarm crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Auto Turret crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Bass crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Beancan crafting time
  • •
    Reduced bear rug crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Bed crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Binoculars crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Blocker crafting cost
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    Reduced Bolt Action Rifle crafting time
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    Reduced Bone armour crafting cost
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    Reduced Bone Armor crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Bone Helmet crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Bone Helmet crafting time
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    Reduced Bucket Helmet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced building planner crafting time
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    Reduced Burlap Gloves crafting time
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    Reduced Burlap Headwrap crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Burlap Shirt crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Burlap Shoes crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Burlap Trousers crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Button crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Clatter Helmet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Coffee Can Helmet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Computer Station crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Counter crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Cowbell crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Custom SMG crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Door Controller crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Double armoured door crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Double Barrel Shotgun crafting time
  • •
    Reduced double metal door crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Double Sign Post crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced double wooden door crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Electrical Branch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Elevator crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced F1 Grenade crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Flame Thrower crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Flame turret crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Flame turret crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Flasher Light crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Fluid Combiner crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Fluid Splitter crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Fluid Switch & Pump crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Flute crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Gate external high stone crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Gate external high wood-crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Guitar crafting time
  • •
    Reduced gunpowder crafting cost of landmine
  • •
    Reduced HBHF Sensor crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced HE grenade radius and damage
  • •
    Reduced Heavy Plate Helmet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Heavy Plate Jacket crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Heavy Plate Pants crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Hide Vest crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Hitch and Trough crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Hitch and Trough crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Holo sight attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Hoodie crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Hose Tool crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Huge Wooden Sign crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Icepick crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Igniter crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Incendiary 5.56 rifle ammo crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Incendiary Pistol Bullet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Jerry Can Guitar crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Kayak crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Key lock crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Key lock crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Landmine crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Landscape Photo Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Landscape Picture Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Lantern crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large Banner Hanging crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large Banner on pole crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large Furnace crafting time
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    Reduced Large Furnace crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large medkit crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Large medkit crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large Photo Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large Rechargeable Battery crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Large Solar Panel crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Large Wooden Sign crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Large wooden storage box crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Laser Detector crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Laser sight attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Longsword crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Longsword crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Mace crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Medical Syringe crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Medium Rechargeable Battery crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Medium Wooden Sign crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Memory Cell crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Metal Chest Plate crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Metal Facemask crafting time
  • •
    Reduced metal Pickaxe crafting time
  • •
    Reduced MP5 crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Muzzle booster attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Muzzle break attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Oil Refinery crafting time
  • •
    Reduced One Sided Town Sign Post crafting time
  • •
    Reduced OR Switch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Portrait Photo Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Portrait Picture Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Powered Water Purifier crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Prison Cell Gate crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Prison Cell Wall crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Prison Cell Wall reduced crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Prison Gate reduced crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Pump Shotgun crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Pure ore tea yield to 50%
  • •
    Reduced Python Revolver crafting time
  • •
    Reduced RAND Switch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced reinforced glass window health (350)
  • •
    Reduced Repair Bench crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Research Table crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Research Table crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Revolver crafting time
  • •
    Reduced RF Broadcaster crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced RF Pager crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Riot Helmet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Road sign jacket crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Road sign jacket crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Road sign kilt crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Road sign kilt crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Root Combiner crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Salvaged Cleaver crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Salvaged Sword crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Satchel crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Search light crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Sign Hanging crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Silencer attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Simple sight attachment crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Siren Light crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced small furnace crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Small Generator crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Small Rechargeable Battery crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Small Wooden Sign crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Spinning Wheel crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Splitter crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Sprinkler crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Stash crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Stone spear crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Stone Stone spear crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Stone tools craft time
  • •
    Reduced Switch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Tall Picture Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tambourine crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tank Top crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tesla Coil crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Thompson crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tier 1 Workbench crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tier 2 Workbench crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tool Cupboard crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Trumpet crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tuba crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Tuba crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Wall external high stone crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Wall external high wood crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Watchtower crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Watchtower crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Water Barrel crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Water catcher large crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Water catcher small crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Water pipe shotgun crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Water Pump crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Wind Turbine crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Wire Tool crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced Wood Armor Pants crafting time
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    Reduced Wood Chestplate crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Wood Storage Box crafting time
  • •
    Reduced Wooden floor spikes crafting time
  • •
    Reduced XL Picture Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reduced XOR Switch crafting cost
  • •
    Reduced XXL Picture Frame crafting time
  • •
    Reinforced Glass Window renamed to Strengthened Glass window
  • •
    Reinforced window bars health reduced (500)
  • •
    Reinforced window bars now have glass
  • •
    Reinforced window bars renamed to Reinforced Glass Window
  • •
    Relaxed rug placement to allow deployment on ceilings again
  • •
    Ripe potato plants yield more potatoes
  • •
    Root Combiner Stackable
  • •
    Scarecrow Stackable
  • •
    Secret Lab Chair Stackable
  • •
    Shirt collared requires cloth instead of leather
  • •
    Shirt protection rebalance
  • •
    Siren Light Stackable
  • •
    Small oil refinery now uses similar deployment behaviour as the Large furnace
  • •
    Small Stash Stackable
  • •
    Smart Alarm Stackable
  • •
    Smart Switch Stackable
  • •
    Smoke grenade craftable and researchable (T2)
  • •
    Smoke grenade now stacks to 3
  • •
    Snap Trap Stackable
  • •
    Snowman Stackable
  • •
    Splitter Stackable
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    Sprinkler Stackable
  • •
    Survival Fish Trap Stackable
  • •
    Switch Stackable
  • •
    T-shirt protection rebalance
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    Tank Top no longer requires workbench
  • •
    Tank Top now requires cloth instead of leather
  • •
    Tank Top protection rebalance
  • •
    Tesla Coil Stackable
  • •
    Timer Stackable
  • •
    Wetsuit can be recycled
  • •
    Wooden barricade cover no longer requires workbench
  • •
    XOR Switch Stackable
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    Can now use Delete or Backspace in Code Lock UI
  • •
    Planters will now slowly fill up with water when exposed to rain
  • •
    Can now equip sunglasses with more face and head attire (including moustaches)
  • •
    Added Phone Booths to Harbor, Supermarkets and Gas Stations
  • •
    Added maxconnectionsperip server convar to limit the number of connections from the same IP (default=5)
  • •
    Added build_terraincheck server convar to protect against exploits to build inside terrain (default=true)
  • •
    Monument markers fall back to root game object name when phrase is not set
  • •
    Added assets/bundled/prefabs/modding/monument_marker.prefab for custom map monument markers (displayed name is taken from the PrefabData "category" string)
  • •
    Added support for maxreceivetime to Steam Networking (client perf)
  • •
    Fixed async disconnect callback race condition in Steam Networking (could result in corrupt connection)
  • •
    Optimized Steam Networking packet processing server overhead
  • •
    Metal Embrasures now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Glass Window now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Garage door now Workbench level 2
  • •
    RF Detonator now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Rand Switch now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Memory Cell now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Laser Detector now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Storage Monitor now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Smart Switch now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Smart Alarm now Workbench level 2
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    Tesla coil now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Advanced Horse Shoes now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Roadsign Horse armour now Workbench level 2
  • •
    High External Gate now Workbench level 2
  • •
    Saddle price reduced to 75 scrap
  • •
    Boat cost reduced to 125 scrap
  • •
    Rhib cost reduced to 300 scrap
  • •
    Revamped Air supply crate
  • •
    Updated APC event crate
  • •
    Updated Attack helicopter event crate
  • •
    Chainsaw never takes more than 3 attempts to start
  • •
    Chainsaw uses 75% less fuel
handyman

Fixed

  • •
    Fixed Stables safezone overlapping other monuments
  • •
    Reduced Stables safezone slightly
  • •
    Fixed top gap when placing vending machine inside a doorway
  • •
    Fixed broken cave_large_sewers_hard culling volume section
  • •
    Fixed unable to plant next to Pumpkin in phases mature, fruiting and dying while planted in a planter
  • •
    Fixed modular car chassis allowing repair with a hammer (had no useful effect, only modules should allow for repair)
  • •
    Fixed some spacing issues on sleeping bag buttons on death screen
  • •
    Fixed some issues with Skull Spike skins
  • •
    Fixed gib issues on Skull Spikes and crate_basic
  • •
    Fixed camera clipping on vm chainsaw when wearing jacket
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Removed

  • •
    Removed blueprint drops from barrels and crates

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