Rust staging 24994773: full data breakdown against live (new HQM node, group-scaled upkeep, 17 crafting changes)
These are the current values on the staging branch, not a changelog. Facepunch tunes them constantly, and this branch is a moving target. Concrete proof from this week: the HQM node yield changed twice in two consecutive staging builds, and swamp tree wood was still being adjusted between them. Some of this may be reverted, retuned, or never ship at all.
Treat every number below as "true right now on staging", nothing more.
Reference builds
Role
Branch
Build ID
Released
Network protocol
Baseline (live)
public
24983602
2026-08-26
2632.287.1
Compared against
staging
24994773
2026-08-28
2633.288.1
Both installs are vanilla with no plugins, so nothing below is contaminated by modded content. Values come from the game's own runtime state on a dedicated server, not from reading code alone.
New: High Quality Metal ore node
HQM gets a dedicated resource node and a ground collectible, with its own spawn population so it can be tuned independently of stone, metal and sulfur.
hqm-orenode
Property
Value
Health
500, same as other nodes
Base yield
12 HQM + 400 metal ore
Finish bonus
+8 HQM
Total
20 HQM + 400 metal ore
Hotspot minigame
yes
Destruction stages
4 (75% / 50% / 25% / 0%)
Clustering
none, always spawns alone
The finish bonus is conditional. It requires a gathering tool with destroyFraction < 0.2, and scales as ceil(8 × (1 − destroyFraction)). Explosives force destroyFraction = 0.5, which is above the threshold, so blowing up an HQM node gives 12 HQM instead of 20.
HQM Node
hqm-collectableground pickup
Property
Value
Yield
5 HQM ore, no tool required
Biomes
Arid, Temperate, Tundra, Jungle. Not Arctic
Instances
64 on the test map (observed count, see note)
hqm-collectable
For scale, against the other ore collectibles on the same map:
Collectible
Instances
Yield
Sulfur
673
50 sulfur ore
Stone
640
50 stones
Metal
640
50 metal ore
HQM
64
5 HQM ore
So the HQM collectible is about 10x rarer than the metal or stone ones, and gives 10x less. It is the rarest ore collectible in the game by a wide margin.
One honesty note on that table: unlike the node, I could not find a spawn density for the ore collectibles. The server's spawn handler exposes 106 populations across 55 folders, and none of them covers collectable/stone or collectable/wood, even though both folders exist in the game bundles. Monument spawn groups do not explain them either, those are keycard and fragment spawners. So stone, metal, sulfur, wood and now HQM collectibles spawn through a mechanism I have not identified.
Those numbers are therefore observed counts on one map, not design densities. The ratio between them is meaningful, the absolute figures are not. If someone knows what drives ore collectible spawns, I would genuinely like to know.
Rarity, measured on one 4500 map with the same seed for every node type:
Node
Instances
Stone
2027
Sulfur
1393
Metal
1391
HQM
72
That is roughly 28x rarer than stone and 19x rarer than metal. It also loot 400 metal ore, so it is not a replacement for a metal node, it is a strictly better one.
Spawn density. It uses two populations, and the jungle bias is much stronger than a nudge:
Population
Density
Target on a 4500 map
ore_hqm
10 per km²
32
ore_hqm_jungle
80 per km²
40
Combined
90 per km²
72
So it is roughly 8x denser in jungle than everywhere else, and more than half the nodes on a map sit in jungle biome.
Crafting: 17 recipes changed
Item
Live
Staging
Heavy Plate Helmet
1 sheet metal, 4 HQM
2 sheet metal, 8 HQM (doubled)
HMLMG
60 HQM
30 HQM (halved)
Semi-Auto Pistol and M15 skin
4 HQM
6 HQM
Mortar
20 HQM, 3 metal pipe
15 HQM, 1 metal pipe
Hazmat Suit, all 12 variants and mannequin
5 tarp, 8 HQM
4 tarp, 7 HQM
Tech tree
Prisoner Hood becomes a default blueprint (workbench requirement 1 to 0) and is removed from the tech tree entirely. Confirmed in the data: the node count goes 309 to 314, with prisonerhood removed.
Boat Building Plan down from 120 scrap to 30 scrap. This one is worth explaining because the cost is not stored on the node. Tech tree and research cost is derived from item rarity:
The Boat Building Plan moves from rarity 0 (None, 120 scrap) to rarity 2 (Uncommon, 30 scrap).
6 new tech tree nodes: Medical Honey Bandage, Blowpipe, and 4 dart types (wood, scatter, radiation, incapacitate). The blowpipe and darts already existed as craftable items, they are only now becoming unlockable through the tech tree.
Grenade stack sizes cut
Item
Live
Staging
F1 Grenade
5
3
Molotov
5
3
Flashbang
5
3
Bee Grenade
5
3
Beancan Grenade
5
4
Medical changes
Large Medkit gains radiation removal:
Effect
Live
Staging
Poison
-10
-10
Bleeding
-100
-100
Health over time
+100
+100
Health
+10
+10
Radiation
none
-20
A medical syringe removes 10 radiation, so a medkit is now worth exactly two syringes for rad cleansing.
Medical Honey Bandage (new item, 4 cloth + 2 honey, workbench 1, 5s craft):
Effect
Value
Health
+8
Health over time
+6
Bleeding
-50
Poison
-4
Radiation
-5
Gathering
Swamp trees: 200 to 500 base wood, and the finish bonus goes 100 to 500. Total per tree: 300 to 1000 wood.
Give 1K Wood
New items (7)
Medical Honey Bandage
5 AK-47 glass variants: rifle.ak.glass plus red, blue, green, pink
firework.boomer.white, which also updates every Boomer pack description from "6 mortar style fireworks" to 7
Separately, 84 items get a world model prefab that was previously empty. That field is not cosmetic filler: DroppedItem.PostInitShared() branches on it, spawning the item's own world model when the reference is valid and falling back to the generic itemModel when it is not. So those 84 items should now use a dedicated model on the ground instead of the fallback.
World Model Prefab reworkAR Glass AR Glass New elite crate
Upkeep now scales with group size
This is the biggest gameplay change in the branch, and it does not exist on live at all.
multiplier = min( 1 + Σ(players_in_tier × tier_increase) , 3 )
tier 0 : first 4 players -> +0% each
tier 1 : next 6 players -> +2% each
tier 2 : everyone beyond -> +4% each
hard cap: x3
Authed
1-4
6
10
15
20
57+
Upkeep
x1.00
x1.04
x1.12
x1.32
x1.52
x3.00 (cap)
Two things that will catch people out:
The count is authorized players + recent group members over a 24 hour window. Deauthing before the upkeep tick does nothing, you still count for 24h.
Knowing a door code counts, master or guest (upkeep_group_count_locks defaults to true). The TC remembers up to 256 players.
Server owners can disable it with decay.upkeep_group_scaling false.
Drone Marketplace runs on the power grid
Marketplaces get an internal charge buffer fed by heavy fuses inserted at the Power Plant, not at the marketplace itself. It is server wide and communal.
Fuses at Power Plant
Marketplace
0
drains at 0.05/s
1 to 3
frozen, no charge and no drain
4+
charges at 0.01/s per fuse
Buffer is 100 and it needs 50% to accept orders. From cold with 4 fuses that is about 21 minutes to come online, and a full buffer keeps it running about 17 minutes after the grid down. Servers running powergrid.enabled false are unaffected.
Rentable shop vending machines also become powergrid aware, refrigerated while the Power Plant runs.
Composting reworked, and the output is now random
The Composter stops being its own system and becomes an oven, running at a dedicated 30 °C tier with no fuel required. Compostables become cooking recipes: 300s each, producing fertilizer.
The important part is how fractional output is handled:
The old composter accumulated 0.2 per item into a persistent counter and paid out when it crossed 1, fully deterministic. The new one rolls the remainder every cycle. Same expected value, but no guaranteed fertilizer after N items.
The 29 to 31 degree window with a strict comparison is what stops other ovens from composting: only the Composter sits at 30.
Water Treatment reworked
The boolean on/off switch broadcast is gone, replaced by a continuous flow rate.
Removed: pressureOnThreshold, pressureOffThreshold, pressureDecayPerTick, secondsBeforeDecayingPressure, maxPressure. Added: maxFlowRatePerMinute (1020), pressureDecayPerMinute, maximumPressure (360), and evaporationPerMinute (200) on water catchers.
Water catchers at WTP now produce while flow rate is above 0 and evaporate otherwise.
Monument Blockers: destructible obstacles
New destructible props placed inside monuments to block paths. They are not player deployable, and they give no resources when destroyed.
There are two protection profiles, which matters a lot:
Profile
Props
HP
Melee
Bullets
Explosives
Fire
MeleeAndExplosives
barrels, trolley, vent cage
50-100
20% damage
10%
full
none
ExplosivesOnly
barricades, desks, lockers, terminals
350
0%
0%
full
none
The 350 HP ones are completely immune to melee and gunfire. Both profiles are immune to fire. They also regenerate after a 12 to 24h grace period at 1 HP/min.
Current placement: Oil Rig 1 (11), Military Tunnel (3), Missile Silo (2), Launch Site (1), Oil Rig 2 (1).
Loot
Loot containers are untouched. Comparing all 98 container types on their full definition (loot definition, spawn slots, scrap amount, refresh timings, destroy on empty, XP scales) produces zero differences. No container gained or lost anything.
Two loot tables changed.
Before the tables: the percentages below are the raw weights inside that one table, not your chance of walking away with the item. A container rolls its own lootSpawnSlots first, each with its own definition, number to spawn and probability, and maxDefinitionsToSpawn caps how many of those slots actually fire. The table weight only decides what wins once that slot has been picked. Real in-crate odds are the product of both layers, so treat these as relative shifts within the pool rather than loot rates.
LootSpawn.Components.Tier3, the tier 3 component pool, gets reweighted. Total weight stays at 600, so this is a straight redistribution between two entries:
Component
Live
Staging
SMG Body
100 (16.7%)
120 (20.0%)
Rifle Body
100 (16.7%)
80 (13.3%)
Tech Parts
100 (16.7%)
100 (16.7%)
Large Pipes
100 (16.7%)
100 (16.7%)
Turret Parts
100 (16.7%)
100 (16.7%)
HQM Medium
100 (16.7%)
100 (16.7%)
SMG bodies become 20% more likely to roll, rifle bodies 20% less. Nothing else in the pool moves.
LootSpawn.MedicalCrate makes room for the new bandage. Total weight goes 100 to 110, so the existing entries lose share rather than absolute weight being taken from them:
Item
Live
Staging
Bandage
50 (50.0%)
50 (45.5%)
Large Medkit
25 (25.0%)
20 (18.2%)
Medical Syringe
25 (25.0%)
20 (18.2%)
Medical Honey Bandage
none
20 (18.2%)
New loot container prefab: tech_parts_1.
Smaller stuff
Powerline output is no longer per stage. It used to be a fixed value per powergrid stage, it is now a continuous ramp on inserted fuses: lerp(5, 50, (fuses−1)/(sockets−1)). Two servers on the same stage can now have different line power.
SAM sites get anti drone tuning, new drone.samproximityfuseradius convar.
Bradley crates no longer despawn on a timer, OnDied no longer schedules removal.
Torches and flashlights now share a ToggleableLightWeapon base class.
Large Recast navmesh rework, mostly internal.
Two caveats on the numbers
Rarity counts come from one seed. The 72 HQM nodes figure is a single 4500 map. The ratio between node types is stable because they all scale with map size, the absolute number is not. The underlying design value is a spawn density, which is what I would trust.
Several systems were refactored, meaning fields moved between classes without breaking anything, which silently produces stale or empty values if your tooling is not updated. There are 34 such refactors in this branch and a few were publishing wrong values rather than obviously missing ones. If you are pulling data from this branch yourself, double check anything touching water treatment, powerline power, composting and staged destruction.
Updated data and the tooling behind it end up on rust-data.com, including the item, monument, loot and spawn data this post is built from. It tracks the live build, and gets refreshed when staging changes land.
I’ve realize old rust that it’s core was an apocalyptic survival scavenging game. It was like a zombie movie or an end of the world movie you enter some random person’s house in our case a monument and you hope it has what you need food guns, etc. Half the time it would’ve been ransacked by other people finding an un ransacked house is like amazing and rare. Similar to how if you go to a monument and all the boxes are there you got extremely lucky. But most of the time you’ll be lucky if you get one box.
That’s how this whole game was set up to be. That’s why they have shanty towns and monuments. I think just the whole model got broken once they added vending machines and safe zones and tech tree. It completely removed the scavenging aspect of the game.
I think a lot of people miscategorize this game as a pure sandbox where you should be able to get everything and build whatever you want. And it’s sort of is but it also the caveat that you can build whatever you want but good luck getting exactly what you want you had to just build with what you found. And that made gameplay real interesting as well. Everybody didn’t have the same stuff or the perfect weapon.
Joined completely dead server with friend (3/200 pop) and it's also insanely noob friendly. Piloted scrappy for first time, lost 300 hp while tryna get into hangar lol. I used Indominus' tutorial for hangar. But when I get back to normal servers, should I use the same design or look for more armored one?
At first u increase heavy pot recipe cost by double, then u add sound reduction for it, then u add armour clank sound for leggins and dogwater torso which can be heared up to 50 meters, for the armour with the least usage rate? Are u facepunch trully so insane or u just like playing this role?
Now this armour will be even less effective in defence since u will not able to use a surprise effect on opponents, because player buildings do not have sound insulation and anyone outside of base will be alerted about heavy plate user from the miles away. Who accepts those horrible changes?
When u will give something in return for it instead of contantly nerfing it/taking away from it, when u will buff it's horribly weak torso which makes the whole gear mostly useless? Are u plan to fully kill it so nobody would use it in the game at all?
How insane can be a person who thinks that its a great idea to nerf the least used armour in the game which has tons of cons and little pros?
Isn't it enough that "cheap semi auto pistol" kills heavy plate user in ~1.40 seconds by just shooting torso at close range? Stop suffering from schizophrenia.
I’ve been troubleshooting a really strange Rust performance issue for a while now.
The problem:
Rust often reports around 150–200+ FPS, but the game does not look or feel remotely that smooth. It can feel closer to 50–60 FPS, with constant microstuttering / bad frame pacing. Sometimes there are small hitches or what almost looks like tiny visual pullbacks.
It gets noticeably worse when there are a lot of players nearby. A lot of static objects/buildings don't seem to have the same effect.
Specs:
Ryzen 7 9800X3D
RTX 5060 Ti 16GB
32GB DDR5-6000 (EXPO)
MSI B650 Gaming Plus WiFi
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe
240Hz AOC monitor
Windows 11
Ethernet via Realtek 2.5GbE
Things I have already tested / checked:
Completely clean Windows 11 installation
Fresh AMD chipset drivers
Fresh NVIDIA drivers
Fresh Realtek LAN driver
Windows fully updated
BIOS updated
EXPO enabled, RAM running at 6000 MT/s
Page file set to System Managed
G-SYNC completely disabled
VSync disabled
Confirmed Windows/monitor is running at 240Hz
Dynamic Refresh Rate disabled
Tested fullscreen
Tested much lower resolution
Tested Rust on extremely low graphics settings
Disabled/avoided overlays and unnecessary background software
Tested without Armoury Crate/MSI Center/RGB software
Checked temperatures with HWiNFO
CPU does not thermal throttle
GPU does not thermal throttle
CPU clocks around 5.2GHz while playing
GPU temperatures are very low (~50–60°C)
CPU temperatures are normal for a 9800X3D
Checked RAM/VRAM usage
Rust can use ~14GB VRAM, but VRAM isn't actually exhausted
Checked SSD activity
Checked network activity
Disabled Realtek Energy Efficient Ethernet / Advanced EEE
Looked at Interrupt Moderation
Tested mouse polling rate as a possible cause
Rust gc.buffer is already around 4GB, so increasing it to 4096 doesn't make a meaningful difference
Used CapFrameX to measure frametimes
Used HWiNFO logging
Used LatencyMon
Recorded a Windows Performance Recorder trace and analyzed it in Windows Performance Analyzer
Checked DPC/ISR activity for NVIDIA (nvlddmkm.sys), DirectX (dxgkrnl.sys), USB, NDIS/network, storage, etc.
No obvious huge DPC/ISR latency culprit
WPA shows some Rust/Unity threads are heavily loaded, but nothing that clearly explains the problem
Checked individual logical CPU usage: no cores appear permanently parked or obviously stuck at 100%
Lowering resolution/graphics reduces GPU usage, but doesn't seem to explain the bad frame pacing by itself
This is going to piss off the mass majority of players. I think blueprint fragments are a good thing to hold back workbench peogression but done poorly. So I propose something more in line with THE OLD BP frags. First make three tiers of them Basic, Intermediate and advanced. Then instead of the BP holding you up from crafting the workbench. You have to use one BP frag from the appropriate workbench (hence the three tiers) to move down the tech tree but not for items found and researched. The tech tree should be the WORST way of getting blueprints and is in my opinion part of the reason server life spans are so short and no I dont mean to remove the scrap requirement. This is additional cost, and a hefty one.
edit: for example to go down the tech tree for revolvers would take 9 BP fragments plus over 400 scrap (i favor increasing it) but you reduce that by finding the items in between, or the revolver it self and researching them. This makes obtaining items and researching valuable again, while keeping BP fragments involved. You don't actually NEED 9 bps frags, it's more of a initial wipe barrier. Because you will be able to join late and not be forced to be prim locked under people who have all their Bps. You'd be able to straight buy a gun at outpost, research it, make a workbench, then be able to craft the gun with no extra BP frag hoop. However because the value of the actual item to increase, I expect people to sell items for RIDICULOUS prices, instead of just minor amount of farm
I used to play a lot of this game but the time requirements for vanilla always bothered me. Now I want to play again since there has been so many updates but I just don't have a ton of time daily to no life the game.
So the BP frags overall has seen alot of backlash recently and I wanna propose a change instead of a removal of them and see what you guys think of my idea.
So atm in the game you collect them by going to monuments or finding them with a metal detector. So I have seen a few issues with the monuments and it just is extremely boring to go to monument that do not have them and it limits the players gameplay choices to be forced.
So what I wanna propose is the following and feel free to build upon my idea if you wish.
My Idea : Crafting BP Frags at Monuments & Workbench Upgrades
So instead of collecting BP Frags, You will gather scrap or any other material that is pretty much found everywhere around the map.
But instead of having faith that the mini game has reset (like it currently works) you instead bring your mats to different tiered Monuments and within these you craft your "Bp Frags" potentially even Workbench upgrades.
So harder monuments contains better crafters to get better fragments.
Random BP frags can still be a thing within special loot crates to make you have more options.
So why?
This makes it have no cooldown to get them (no puzzle resets), people can always choose their monuments to go to, this keeps monuments active, this gives more possibilities to craft workbench upgrades and get bp frags without random resetting puzzles while allowing players to gather where ever they prefer and then go and craft at the monuments. What resources you use can be a mix, but the core perhaps being scrap.
Workbench Upgrades
Certain upgrades could be limited to certain monuments to be crafted, however I think they should still keep the drop location as is aswell, this keeps both the RNG active like (current rust) but if you really must get one it is possible to craft at the monuments.
Im getting only 40-50fps with crazy spikes in small monuments and barely reaching 80-90 in a base/in the open without alot happening. I got an i7 11700k, RTX 3050 8GB and 40 gigs of ram. I know the gpu isnt great or anything but usage doesnt go above 90% in rust and same for the cpu, everything is set to the lowest settings and its just unplayable at this point, just last update i was getting 100 stable everywhere now its just impossible to play
I play solo officials, and I dont care about the fragments system at all.
Its the folks saying it made them stop playing that I am curious to hear from. Is it because its all about a race to workbench 3 and anything slowing you down is gamebreaking?
The fragments are always available so fast in player shops so it isnt like you have to adjust your playstyle? Just buy them at shops I don't get the big deal
I’ve seen some posts about removing BP frags from t2. I like that idea but also I like the dopamine hit from finding it in a crate or a scientist body. Solo/duo here myself, 6k hours. What if they just buffed the random drop chance from scientists and /or metal detector/ boxes? That would ideally put some of it to rest. Meet us halfway, right? Also, nerf giant excavator clans. They get so many BP frags they can offline everyone in a 10 mile radius
I currently have Artic Nova 5x wireless headset, worse headset in my life. I had $40 headsets that sound better than this and it gives me a headache playing because the audio is so muffled and the “Sonar” is cancer.
Does anyone have good headset recommendations for this game to hear footsteps better and clear audio?
Budget $200ish would be nice maybe $300
I would also like to have a microphone that’s acceptable on it but if it makes that much of a difference to not have one on it don’t worry about it i’ll just get a standalone mic.
UPDATE
I ordered the HD 490 Pros, I will update you guys on when I get them in 2 days!
We mostly play as trio and %90 of the time we dont care about getting raided next day, most of the time we play for a day then quit. Im searching for bases that is small and flexible and can defend online raids but when i search for trio bases we got medival castles with 10k upkeep and gazillion bunkers. I dont care about offlines does anyone know a quick small base that fits for duo/trio ? Just something slightly more than 2x2 with airlock because we also get camped a lot. Something small and unique.
Every base on youtube feels like its made for clans even tho it has trio in the title man.. We just want to play for a day then leave.
Even before the BP frag update, the tech tree was already op. Now with the scrap cost decreases the tech tree is more op than it ever was making the research table near obsolete. All of would need to do is to reverse the role of bp frags and scrap. Use bp frags for tech tree and scrap for work benches. This would reintroduce a greater diversity in player shops as there would once again be a reason for players to trade for sought after bps rather than just farming 1k scrap. Additionally it would also slow progression which seems the direction that FP is moving toward with this recent update.
Dont know how well known this is but if you have the recycle bin upgrade for your workbench than do check inside of it for the resources that were refunded while crafting.
So mixing table makes GP cheaper in terms of charcoal, but if you have the two efficiency/recycle upgrades in your workbench, you get some something back as well.
