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Upgrade hard, raid harder

This month's update brings you Workbench upgrades, the new Mortar, improved Tin Can Alarm, as well as model refreshes and remakes, plus many QoL improvements, bug fixes, and more!

07 May 2026
workbench upgrades
Adam W
Workbenches have received a whole new upgrade system - along with nine upgrades to find and customise your benches with!
Each upgrade provides a different bonus effect, and you can mix and match them to find your favourite combos.
These upgrades are not craftable and will not be commonly found, so keep them safe!
Open the workbench's inventory to add your upgrades. They each have their own visual, which will alter the way the workbench looks.
If you get lucky and collect 'em all, you'll have a fully upgraded workbench - both in terms of bonuses and visuals!
Mortar
octo
We're adding a new anti-personnel/raiding deployable weapon: Mortar!
Functionally really similar to cannons, but is instead placed on flat land and allows for launching projectiles over long distances. Firing a mortar requires mastery through trial & error as there is no visual guide to help you land shells exactly where you want them. Instead, you'll need to pair it with binoculars to estimate how high to aim the mortar for it to land on your target.

To prevent repeated shots, the mortar has recoil that slightly bumps the mortar up on every shot, as well as a small inaccuracy that changes how far each shell lands. 

You can choose between two mortar shells, one aimed to deal high damage to players while the other focuses on destroying structures.
Tin Can Alarm changes
Flavien
The tin can alarm is getting a small update. You can now trap them with a bunch of different items.
How it operates has not changed, crossing its wire will trigger the trap and cause a loud clatter, alerting anyone nearby to your presence.

And you can deploy it anywhere from your base to inside monuments. Use it strategically to cover access points and defend your positions.
When triggered, it'll throw the loaded item in place.

It supports:
  • F1 Grenade
  • Molotov
  • Bee Grenade
  • Beancan Grenade
  • Flashbang
  • Smoke Grenade
  • Supply Signal
  • Flare
  • Firecrackers
Watch your step!
Vending Machine UI Refresh
Ian Henderson
The vending machine UI was in need of a refresh and some improvements.
We've totally redesigned the administration page and given the purchase page a new lick of paint.

The new administration page comes with a few features: being able to quickly setup vending orders via its in built inventory, selling skins individually, and being able to reorder your existing sell orders without deleting and recreating them.

Crypt Stone Building Skin

We’re launching a new much-requested building skin to the permanent store this month; the Crypt stone building skin. Available now from the Rust store, this building skin allows you to change the visuals of your stone tier base. 


Your new home for eternity, or at least the next wipe.


Purchasable from the in-game store or Steam item store. 
discord x rust shop

Starting today (May 7th), we’re launching the official Rust Shop directly inside Discord.

We’re actually only the second game to do this, and the goal is pretty simple: making it easier to grab the skins and DLC you want, while you’re already hanging out with your team, browsing the goods right where you coordinate your raids.

To get things moving, we’re running a launch celebration for the first two weeks.
 
From May 7th to May 21st, every single piece of Steam Item Store DLC released before 2026 will be 20% off.

This is experimental for us, the first time we've run a store sale. We don't have plans to run these regularly, and future sales will only include older store items, never new.  

If you’ve been eyeing that specific building skin or hazmat suit for the last year, this is the time to snag it - or gift it to that special team mate.
It’s pretty seamless - anything you buy through the Discord Shop links straight to your Steam inventory. You can find the shop via our Official Discord or through the Discord Shop.

Check it out and let us know what you think in the #feedback channels!

And check out Discord's official blog for even more information.

Notable Changes
Computer Station now requires power
Time to put that power supply to use
Grenade throw consistency
Fixed some issues with 3rd person grenade throw animations
Floating City Vendor
Floating City Boat Vendor now sells modular boat parts to get you back on your feet if you lose your boat (and a cheaper DPV too!)
Monument Building Radius
Monuments which feature multiple no build zones now correctly display each one
Monument Road Signs
Road signs are now correctly spawning in Outpost, Junkyard and Water wells
Boat Bow Drag
Drag has been greatly increased for boats with a flat bow. Build accordingly
Reskinning DLC barrels
Jarryd Campi
We've now released several variants of the horizontal and vertical storage barrels but due to the fact that they don't have a common vanilla item (as opposed to something like the Tool Cupboard skins) they weren't compatible with the Spray Can/Repair Bench for swapping the skin.
We've fixed that this month, allowing you to freely swap between the barrel skins. This will also be fixed for future versions of other DLC items we've released (eg. single and half height shelves).
New Achievements
octo
We're adding a new set of achievements related to the recent Naval Update. There are plenty of easy ones you should be able to get by just exploring the deep sea, as well as some more complicated hidden achievements that are a lot rarer in comparison - but should still come up within normal play.
Can you spot them all?
Fix held animations stopping early
Martyn Chapman
There has been a longstanding issue where if a player uses the last item in a stack, the viewmodel and player animations for using that item will stop immediately upon the item having been spent. Without affecting the timing of when items are determined to have been used (as changing this would have gameplay/balance implications), we now have a means of setting up animations to stick around after the item has been spent so they can be play out nicely before stopping. This has been applied to all grenade types, as well as the bandage and medical syringe, and will be applied to the other held items over time.
Server Browser Update
Ian Henderson
We've made some changes to the server browser.

It was possible in the past for server owners to be able to spoof ping information through various means. This would make servers show lower in ping that were actually higher in ping to you, possibly picking a server which would end up feeling laggy when your intention was to pick a local server.
We're rolling out a new system: country mapping. Based on the servers IP we get an estimate of what country the server is in, as well as its coordinates. We use those coordinates to sort servers close to you. This means that servers can no longer spoof where they are located. 

For the above system to work we also need to estimate where you are located (in order to show your servers nearby). This is located at the top left of the play menu and can be overridden by you. This override is saved between sessions if you'd rather have it done manually.
For Server Owners
We are using a third party service called MaxMind to detect which country your server is based in.
Most of the time this is correct but occasionally it can display your server as being in the wrong country.

If this is the case please submit a data correction request here

If you have a host then also bug them about it.
They can ensure MaxMind uses their Geofeed data - this will make sure all the servers from that host are displayed in the correct country
Binocular Refresh
Binoculars have had a whole refresh!
The model, animations and UI have all been updated to feel more modern.
Right click to peer through the binoculars and Left click to cycle the three zoom levels.
And it pairs nicely with the new mortar!

Crafting cost has been reduced too!
Salvaged Cleaver Remake
Alfie B
Last month we revisited the Salvaged Axe, with a full visual and animation overhaul. This month, we’ve given the same treatment to another legacy favourite — the Salvaged Cleaver !
The Salvaged Cleaver has received a complete remake, featuring a brand-new high-quality 3D model, updated HD textures, and an entirely new animation set.

The result is a weapon that looks like it was lovingly rebuilt from junk… and still very much wants to live in your enemies’ ribs.

New Workshop Skinnable: Electric Furnace
matt.i

This month’s workshop skinnable is the Electric Furnace

There are so many possibilities with skins for this item, especially as it lights up. We can’t wait to see what the community cooks up!

To make your own Electric Furnace skin, head over to the in-game workshop and locate the Electric Furnace deployable item. From there, you can download the model file and add your own materials.
Performance: Batched Player Processing
Daniel P

Removal of UsePlayerUpdateJobs 0/1

Last update I mentioned that I was planning to remove old player processing code. The vanilla (UsePlayerUpdateJobs 0) and our first version of batching (Jobs 1) mode code has been removed. You can still set UsePlayerUpdateJobs to lower than default 2, but it won't have any effect and it'll run as if it's set to 2.

UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 still experimental

This patch we've made a couple bug fixes and tweaks that should both reduce number of garbage allocated for creating tasks every frame (our fork of UniTask can now reliably pool internals) and improved scheduling of physics queries for our server-side player checks. We're going to be switching some of our servers for Jobs 3 mode and seeing how they run over next month. If it holds, we'll promote it to default.

Going forward

Alongside above, we're also working on eliminating some of the bottlenecks that prevent us from more heavily relying on parallelization:
  • The way our Pool is implemented causes a lot of contention on a singular lock - I'd like to ship an improvement in Jobs 3
  • We still have a lot of player state that's stored in a way that prevents us from converting to Burst code and having to run recaching logic every frame - it would be gradually completed in Jobs 3 and future modes
  • We need to find a way to make entity saving multithreading safe (which means no Unity API calling) - hoping to tackle for Jobs 4
We're slowly getting to the point where player processing is not the slowest part of the server workload. I'd like to squeeze out as much benefit as I can while it's still worthwhile before moving to the next big server performance problem.
Deep sea loot balance
We've reduced the amount of loot you can find in the Deep Sea.
Loot found in that side of the map was a little too generous compared to the other monuments and areas in the game.

However, Scientist boats will also have less guns overall.

Windows Server 2016 EOL announcement
andre
We are currently in the process of upgrading to Unity 6. This means Windows Server 2016 / Windows 8 and older will no longer be supported. The minimum required version will be Windows Server 2019 / Windows 10 Version 21H1 (Build 19043) or newer.

From our metrics none of our players are still on Windows 7 or Windows 8, so we aren't concerned about that. However, we suspect some server hosts are still running Windows Server 2016. If you run a Rust server, consider this the first and final notice that you need to upgrade to at least Windows Server 2019 by the end of the month.
Twitch RIVALS - base invaders
Twitch Rivals - Base Invaders is back!

Watch and earn an exclusive Twitch Rivals HMLMG skin for one day only! 
This drop will be tied to the Twitch Rivals channel and only active during the broadcast window. 

20 teams of 5 will battle it out, while 5 general Twitch Drops are available for 5 days only!

Drops start: May 13th - 11AM PT/ 2PM ET/ 7PM BST 
Drops end: May 18th Midnight PT / 3AM ET / 8AM BST

Connect your accounts to claim your drops! https://twitch.facepunch.com/

Patch Name Upgrade hard, raid harder
Changelist Title May Update
date_range Thursday, May 7, 2026
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Features

  • •
    Workbench Upgrades
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    New Mortar deployable
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    Vending machine UI refresh
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    Binoculars refresh
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    New Server Browser region system
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    Tin Can Alarm can be rigged with explosives
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    Computer Station now needs power
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Improvements

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    Improved consistency of player boat drag-by-angle system - boat shaped boats are faster than box shaped boats
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    Many light fixtures in monuments have been remodeled and updated
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    Can now use spraycan to reskin barrels
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    Improved 3p animation when throwing grenades by left clicking (rather than holding)
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    Reduced range of Armored Ladder Hatches SFX
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    Added split-out "dump" convar commands for each category of information
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    Improved Network Grid memory usage by reintroducing lazy-initialization
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    Internal constant GamePhysics.DefaultMaxResultsPerQuery is now a ServerVar
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    Improved UniTask pooling to consistently pool internals
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    Replaced StableObjectCache with StableObjectArray which can be more cache efficient
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    The boat vendor in the Floating City now sells boat building items and a cheaper DPV (and no longer sells kayaks or torpedos)
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    ownerid and moderatorid commands now set the connection authlevel, was only done after relogging in, removeowner and removemoderator remove it
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    Optimised the deep sea island navmesh generation
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    Horse network optimisations
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    Improved search in item list, typing 'wood' will show the wood item first
  • •
    Improved items and vehicles list grid scaling, works better with any resolution and different UI scale
  • •
    Scaled up the progress image on weapon attachment item icons
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    Buying items on the Steam web store will now show a notification in-game
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    Animations on grenades, syringes, and bandages now play out correctly when using the last in a stack
  • •
    Smoothed out admin 3rd person camera mouse scroll zoom
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    Pressing F3 to change admin camera viewmodes will now only toggle between standard 1st/3rd person. Must now press Shift+F3 to cycle through the additional available viewmodes
  • •
    Connecting to a server via the console will now correctly add it to the Quickjoin menu history
handyman

Fixed

  • •
    Fixed some interactions breaking when hanging up a phone mid-call by changing weapon
  • •
    Fixed players not always transferring between mainland and deep sea with their boats
  • •
    Fixed dropped items often clipping through player boats and cargo ship
  • •
    Fixed deploy guide on flame turret being too bright
  • •
    Fixed contacts (and images) being added for players that are not actually visible
  • •
    Fixed player elevator cables sometimes appearing in the wrong location
  • •
    Fixed players getting killed when jumping underneath the elevators at Launch Site
  • •
    Fixed players being killed by elevators even if there is a surface between them and the elevator
  • •
    Fixed being able to deploy parachutes when standing on top of other players
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    Fixed an exploit allowing players to pass explosives through walls
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    Fixed players taking damage if they are crouched under a surface and there is an explosion on the other side of the surface
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    Fixed an exploit in Softcore allowing players to override auth of destroyed TC's
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    Fixed food cache not spawning at Water Well B
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    Fixed Armored Ladder Hatches getting culled at some view angles on low quality settings
  • •
    Fixed recycler not stopping and unloading a loaded weapon if the weapon was inserted while recycler is active
  • •
    Fixed code locks on cars disappearing after a player enters the wrong code too many times
  • •
    Fixed exception when renaming a shot and the shot name already exists (Demos)
  • •
    Fixed not being able to descend on Vines
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    Fixed terrain rendering issues on some older hardware
  • •
    Fixed bug when trying to auth a friend at a TC/Turret with blocked visibility
  • •
    Fixed HasCloseConnections not seeing connections in a >128m range
  • •
    Fixed being able to jump on the side of the train and stick to it as it moves
  • •
    Fixed cases of noclipping through walls using helicopters
  • •
    Fixed cases of falling through helicopter floor
  • •
    Fixed a rare bug that could cause NREs when corpses appeared in trigger volumes
  • •
    Fixed the Fire Rate tooltip on guns referencing attachments
  • •
    Fixed deep sea marker masking issues on the MLRS map
  • •
    Fixed server admin ui player panel health rounding issues, it matches the health vital now
  • •
    Fixed wallpaper planner errors
  • •
    Fixed performance issues caused by the friends menu for player with a large friend list
  • •
    Fixed RF receiver adding itself to the listener set when changing its frequency while unpowered
  • •
    Fixed console auto complete preventing you to go through the history when open
  • •
    Fixed console autocomplete not scrolling when using the arrow keys
  • •
    Fixed client convars with an empty default value showing as [?] in the console
  • •
    Fixed wallpaper not showing on wood, stone and armoured roof LOD1 models
  • •
    Fixed salvaged axe not showing skins in third person
  • •
    Fixed door and window deploy guides snapping to the origin of the boat when placing on a finished boat
  • •
    Fixed deep sea loot spawning on top of each other after a server restart
  • •
    Fixed F1 menu tools tab not showing in demos
  • •
    Fixed cannonball using seimic sensor level 3 instead of 1
  • •
    Fixed battering ram head not showing its health
  • •
    Fixed HBHF sensor retaining its detection state if powered off while detecting someone
  • •
    Fixed HBHFSensor detecting player through doors and thin wall in some cases
  • •
    NPC’s now temporarily hide their held item whilst performing a gesture, like players do
  • •
    Fixed various spectating functionality only working in 1st person view
  • •
    Metabolism values now update immediately upon spectating a player
  • •
    Metabolism values now get recorded for all players in demo recordings
  • •
    Fixed player name of the currently spectated player being invisible in 3rd person
  • •
    Fixed 3rd person camera mouse scroll zoom being inverted. Old behaviour can be restored with ‘client.invertthirdpersoncamzoom'
  • •
    Whilst spectating in 1st person the camera viewmode should now update to the same viewmode of the spectated player if they interact with something which sets a new camera viewmode
  • •
    Fixed not being able to change viewmode if the spectated player is using something which overrides their current viewmode
  • •
    Fixed not being able to use additional viewmodes during demo playback
  • •
    Fixed breasts becoming uncensored if mounting a ballista in 3rd person if nudity setting was set to pixelated
  • •
    Fixed fog density decreasing if spectating a player who is using a computer station
  • •
    Fixed chainsaw viewmodel VFX visibility issues
  • •
    Fixed hover looting weapon attachments inside the gun inventory being inconsistent
  • •
    Fixed an issue with invisible players appearing in some monuments with great height differences
  • •
    Fixed legacy shelter door and cooking workbench bbq not having an owner id assigned when placed
  • •
    Fixed some parenting volume issues with trains
  • •
    Fixed items with custom names / icons stacking together
  • •
    Fixed custom item names / icons not being preserved when splitting a stack
  • •
    Fixed a community UI error with closable layers
  • •
    Fixed elevators being able to kill players through ceilings
  • •
    Fixed planters not being filled with water after reskinning via spray can
  • •
    Fixed launch site elevator killing players jumping underneath
  • •
    Fixed not being able to harvest planters on boats in the deep sea
  • •
    Fixed road signs no longer spawning inside some monuments
  • •
    Fixed health bar showing up for unbreakable softcore containers
  • •
    Fixed only 4 servers showing up in the server browser until scrolling for the first time
  • •
    Fixed being able to plant multiple seeds in the same planter slot
  • •
    Fixed building blocked preview not working well for monuments with multiple zones (harbor, abandoned cabins)
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Removed

  • •
    Removed UsePlayerUpdateJobs 0 and 1 code
error

Known Issues

  • •
    Deployable snapping currently has issues, will be addressed in a hotfix

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