What's New in Rust's Naval Update: Buildable Boats and Deep Sea
Water travel in Rust just got a serious overhaul — modular boats, a whole new Deep Sea area, and floating settlements to explore.
Rust's Naval Update is exactly what it sounds like — a major overhaul of everything related to water, building on the basics covered in our boats and water travel post with genuinely new systems rather than small tweaks.
Buildable, Modular Boats
Instead of just choosing between a rowboat and an RHIB, players can now construct their own boats piece by piece — steering wheels, sails, engines, anchors, cannons, planks, and ramps, combined however you like. This brings boats much closer to how modular cars already work, letting a water-based build reflect real player choices rather than picking from a fixed catalog.
Deep Sea and Tropical Islands
A new Deep Sea exploration area, only intermittently accessible, adds an entirely new tropical islands biome to explore — a genuinely new frontier for players who've already cleared the map's land-based monuments and want somewhere new to push into.
Floating Cities and Ghost Ships
Four variants of Floating Cities now dot the water, complete with docks, NPC vendors, a casino, and even farming barges — effectively player hubs out at sea. Ghost Ships, by contrast, are stationary, scientist-guarded loot locations, adding a new high-risk monument type to the naval side of the map.
Armed Naval Combat: the PT Boat
A proper armed vessel with dual turrets, the PT Boat brings genuine ship-to-ship combat potential to the water in a way the previous boat options never really supported.
Smarter Naval AI
Scientists guarding oil rigs, ghost ships, and the new deep sea islands got upgraded AI that relies on sound rather than being able to see straight through walls — a meaningful change for anyone used to exploiting older, more predictable scientist behavior, and relevant if you've read our scientist NPCs guide. Deep Sea also introduces scientist-controlled patrol boats, adding a mobile naval threat that didn't previously exist.
Performance Work Behind the Scenes
A significant chunk of this update is backend optimization to support all this new naval activity — parallelized physics, batched buoyancy calculations (reportedly up to 4x faster with large numbers of boats present), and reduced networking overhead for auto turrets.
Also Included
An Artist DLC pack added a paintball gun, paintable targets and canvases, and various decorative frame options; the SKS rifle was added to the Steam Workshop for community skin submissions (see our post on how the Workshop pipeline works); and the building planner gained a first-person viewmodel.
Do I need a specific boat type to reach Deep Sea?
Given it's described as only intermittently accessible, timing and access likely matter as much as boat choice — check current server-specific behavior, since exact access mechanics can be adjusted over time.
Are Floating Cities safe zones like the Outpost?
They function as player hubs with NPC vendors and other amenities, similar in spirit to land-based safe-zone monuments, though it's worth confirming the specific PvP rules for these locations rather than assuming.
Is the modular boat system similar to modular cars?
Yes, conceptually — building a boat piece by piece from individual components mirrors the same approach covered in our vehicles guide for modular cars.
Where can I read the full official announcement?
Facepunch's complete Naval Update write-up is available at rust.facepunch.com/news/naval.