Rust March update: Underground Transit Line, slot machines, more

Every month Facepunch Studios, the team behind Rust, put out new content for their much-loved survival game.

March's release is one of the most anticipated yet with the Freight Transit Line allowing players to traverse the map on a series of workcarts.

(Picture: Facepunch Studios)

This update brings one of the biggest map changes yet, with a huge underground railway network. This system of tunnels is full of dangerous dwellers hiding precious loot, awaiting the bravest of players to grab it. You can enter Freight Transit Line through entrances located next to existing monuments.

These tunnels are huge, so the most efficient way to traverse them is by Workcarts, but you definitely won't be the only player using them, so be careful! And other players are not the only danger that lurks deep beneath.

(Picture: Facepunch Studios)

As developers explain, this is just the first step in building a complex dungeon system, and with future updates, they will continue to improve it and add more content to it, including more puzzles, new NPCs, and more.

Three new Slot Machines are another interesting addition. They can be found in the gambling room of Bandit Town, and if you are lucky, you can win up to 6,000 Scrap.

We also have good news for those of you who enjoy watching your favourite content creators on Twitch: Rust Twitch Drops are available again!

Rust March full patch notes

Server Browser
As I'm sure many people are aware, there are quite a few issues with the server browser. You will likely never be able to see every Rust server out there due to how Steam implements this functionality, but it can be improved. I made a few internal changes to the server browser to improve the discoverability of servers:

• Empty servers are now hidden by default
  • Unless you're on the official, friends, history, or favourites tabs (they will always be shown here)
  • Note: This means you will need to enable showing empty servers sometimes
• The "Show Empty" filter will now apply filtering within Steam
  • This means when "Show Empty" is off you should see no empty servers and see more of them
  • Toggling the "Show Empty" filter will force a refresh of the community and modded tabs

I also made the tags look less terrible. We're working towards a UI refresh for the server browser so the filtering will improve even more in the future. We're also always working on cleaning up the server list to remove servers that are spamming, advertising, or lying to try and get ahead.

Server Performance

Whilst looking through the server profiles recently, I noticed that certain entities were updating and sending data more than they needed to. Two of the biggest offenders were entities with buoyancy (boats) and horses. Now we try our best to not update them if there aren't any players around or they aren't in use.

Combining these fixes with some fixes that Jarryd made with entity flag networking, servers should handle more players a bit better both in terms of CPU and bandwidth usage.

Steam Family Share

Players abusing Steam family share to circumvent bans and other malicious behaviour is not uncommon, on February 17th we disable Steam family sharing for the foreseeable future.

We currently have no plans to re-enable Steam family share.

For more Rust news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or take a look at some of our Guides & Tutorials just below: