What's New in Rust's "Airborne" Update

The Airborne update hit in September 2023 and did exactly what the name promised: it dragged Rust's combat into the sky. In one patch you got an attack helicopter with a proper gunner seat, a homing missile launcher to knock it back down, parachutes for silent insertions, and armor plating for the humble hot air balloon. Air superiority suddenly became a real part of the meta, and the counter-play arrived in the same box.

Attack Helicopter

The Attack Helicopter went on sale at the Air Wolf store in Bandit Camp for 2250 scrap, and its defining feature is the two-person setup. The gunner seat controls a front-mounted turret similar to a deployable auto turret - equip a gun and ammo - plus side pods that load rockets, HV and incendiary types only. Interacting with the gunner monitor puts you in business: Fire1 (left mouse) shoots the turret, Fire2 (right mouse) launches rockets, and the rocket targeting diamond isn't a static crosshair - it marks the exact point the rocket will hit if fired at that moment.

The pilot flies but can also fire rockets (left mouse by default), just without the gunner's exact-impact guide, and can load standard flares into the rocket storage to fire out with right mouse. Gunners and passengers with flares in their inventory belt can also throw them manually to deflect incoming homing rockets - a new ability for passengers in all Rust helicopter types, not just this one. For all its firepower, the attack heli isn't invincible: a couple of well-aimed rockets will still bring it down.

Homing Missile Launcher

The counter to all this air traffic is the craftable Homing Missile Launcher. Load a Homing Missile, aim at a flying target, and a lock-on bar starts filling; once locked you can fire, but you must keep aiming at the target or the missile flies off course - switching weapons or reloading also breaks the lock. Pilots aren't defenceless: every helicopter now plays a warning audio cue when a missile is fired at it, the lock requires direct line of sight (so putting something solid between you and the launcher works), and flares disrupt incoming missiles. Even the NPC-piloted Patrol Helicopter was upgraded to automatically fire flares when targeted.

The launcher needs a Workbench Level 2 and costs 20 HQM, 3 Metal Pipes, 1 Tech Trash and 1 CCTV Camera to craft. Homing Missiles are also Workbench Level 2, with two missiles crafted per 3 Metal Pipes, 200 Gun Powder and 1 Tech Trash.

Parachutes

The Parachute is a new craftable that slows your fall and lets you travel silently over long distances. It occupies a new dedicated backpack slot on your clothing bar - a special clothing type that works alongside full-body items like Hazmat suits - and deploys with Space while falling. Movement keys steer: tilt forward to speed up, back to slow down, left and right to turn. You can use weapons mid-flight, but doing so locks your steering until you holster again.

Flights end when you hit something solid or cut your lines with the dismount key, after which an unpacked parachute drops in front of you - hold the pickup key for 8 seconds to recover it. Each use costs 20% condition, and a worn chute gets harder to control: it falls faster, flies forward slower, and at extreme damage levels you can even take fall damage on landing. Hit something at top speed and you can take up to 80HP of impact damage. Parachutes can be targeted by SAM Sites and Auto Turrets mid-air, the locker interface gained a slot so you can store them with loadout kits, and crafting takes a Tier 2 Workbench, 2 Tarps, 2 Sewing Kits and 50 Cloth.

Armored Hot Air Balloon

The Hot Air Balloon got a new armor upgrade, purchasable from the Bandit Camp vehicle parts vendor, boosting the balloon's health while adding cover for its passengers. The balloon itself also became purchasable at Bandit Camp for 150 scrap, got slightly cheaper on fuel, became cheaper to repair, and stuck balloons now decay much faster (with an occasional physics nudge to try to dislodge them first).

Global Networked Bases

Perhaps the sleeper feature of the patch: player structures normally render only ~300m away, but the experimental Global Rendering system cranks that to 1500m. No more SAM Sites appearing out of nowhere after the missiles are already flying - you can spot enemy bases and roof-camping towers long before you're in range, and the world feels far more alive with player activity visible everywhere. The new rendering system pushes most of the work to the GPU, keeping performance parity while rendering 25x the number of bases. It shipped disabled by default - look for "Global Rendering" in the options menu, and lower shadow quality if you hit performance issues.

Weapon Racks and QOL

The Weapons Rack Pack arrived on the Rust item store, adding three sizes of wall-mounted weapon rack (Workbench Level 1) and a floor-standing weapon stand (no workbench needed) for displaying and organizing your arsenal. Elsewhere in quality-of-life territory:

• The Pumpjack and Quarry models got a visual refresh
• Furnace skin glow was fixed and improved, with correct emission colours
• Fluid Switches and Pumps now stack in the inventory
• Blueprints now clearly show when they're learned, default, or can't be learnt
• Airdrops that land on a tugboat now become lootable
• The end-of-wipe F-15E flyby got a new 3D skybox model

A neat world-boundary change also shipped: instead of killing players and vehicles that crossed the map edge, the game now applies a force to boats and aircraft making escape impossible - and boats left idle for 2 hours slowly drift back to shore (tunable via the secondsUntilShoreDrift convar).

Housekeeping and Events

Facepunch announced that from October 28th, Rust would no longer support Windows 8.1, ahead of Microsoft ending its own support in January 2024. A Twitch Drops event ran September 7th-14th featuring community creators - streamer skins from that campaign, like the g0bbba AR, Coma SAR and SebbyK Garage Door, can still be traded today, and you can follow their market prices on our skin tracker. The blog also debuted Rust Insights, a new dashboard-driven segment sharing wipe data from official servers - from wood harvested to the most-used gun - with more varied stats promised in future months.