What's New in Rust's "Devblog 138" Update

Devblog 138 arrived on December 1st, 2016, with a server wipe and the payoff of months of underground work: the natural caves finally entered world generation. The default map grew 30% to make room for them, the M92 pistol joined the arsenal, and military weapons stopped being craftable - a change that would quietly reshape the endgame loot chase.

Caves Are In

Vince's natural caves - the nine-layout system of jumping puzzles, death pits, and deep-underground build rooms teased since September - went live in world generation. Andre spent the week fixing procedural placement issues, addressing minor gameplay concerns, and optimizing them with the interior culling volume system built the week before. One trade-off: some terrain texturing adjustments around caves were disabled because they hurt world loading times, to be re-enabled once loading gets its overhaul.

A Bigger World

The default world size increased from 3000x3000 to 3500x3500 - a 30% surface area increase - giving world generation more room to work with. The team called it "the gameplay sweet spot for medium sized servers" and highly recommended server owners try it. To keep loading times from getting "even more insane" with caves plus bigger maps, generation of larger worlds was slightly optimized - and Andre announced the bigger plan: a December project to fix loading times once and for all, with a new system that would also let server-side mods change world generation and eventually allow servers to share community-made maps.

The M92 and Uncraftable Military Weapons

The M92 pistol went fully functional: about 15% more damage than the Semi-Auto Pistol, 50% more ammunition capacity, and - per Helk - it "looks badass." You'll find it in helicopter loot crates and supply drops.

Bigger picture: military weapons - the M92, MP5, LR300, and M249 - were made uncraftable, cementing them as loot-only prizes. Helk openly solicited feedback, floating the idea that uncraftable status might warrant a damage boost. One asterisk: the MP5 stayed craftable temporarily, because there was no way yet to apply skins to already-crafted items - a fix promised for the following week.

Balance: Spears, Loot, and Cheaper Bases

The Spears got a rework in both directions: increased attack radius (easier stabs), about 20% more melee damage, and a slight range bonus for the Stone Spear - offset by roughly 20% less throw damage. Helk admitted he'd originally nerfed throws all the way down to stab damage, but "the overwhelmingly negative response" brought it partway back.

Loot tables were de-junked: no more finding garbage like sewing kits in actual crates, with green crates instead gaining a chance at piles of Pipe, HQM, and Turret parts, and the worst-case barrel now paying double metal fragments. Meanwhile a long list of overpriced building pieces - floor grills, prison gates and walls, chainlink fences and gates, shopfronts, metal/armored/wood bars, and both embrasures - had their costs halved or quartered. Ladders dropped from 5 Rope to 3, Satchel Charges to just 1 Rope, and salvaged tools got their blade cost tripled ("sorry!") pending the component-repair fix.

One beloved quality-of-life change: Codelocks no longer auto-unlock when you enter the code. Entering the correct code now simply authorizes you with a notification sound while the door stays locked - no more entering a code just to immediately relock it.

Exploits: Foundation Stacking and Rapid Fire

Andre closed a number of exploits enabling extreme foundation stacking in base designs - carefully hedging that claiming a permanent fix "would likely be hubris," but the versatility of the technique was significantly limited. He also found and fixed the hole in server-side weapon firing rate verification that had let a growing crop of rapid-fire cheats slip through over recent months. Deployables can no longer be placed partially inside constructions, pillars and walls stop respecting prevent-building volumes, and the lighthouse no longer occasionally spawns far out on the ocean.

Explosives Get Their Hands

All three explosive charges - C4, Satchel Charge, and Survey Charge - shipped with complete viewmodels, holdtypes, world models, LODs, and sound setups, after animation code was reworked so quick successive throws trigger properly. Thrown items also now orient correctly to their throw and landing positions. Clothing world models neared completion, harbor prop work continued (finished fuel tanks and forklift, new industrial power generators, an abandoned truck begun, and junkpile ground mounds started), and sounds landed for the bota bag and water bottle with the M92's audio nearly done.

With caves live, a bigger default world, and the military tier now loot-only, Devblog 138 closed out the component system's first month by making the world itself more worth exploring. The workshop kept churning through it all - era skins like the Battle-Scarred AKS47 and Red Lumberjack trace back to this stretch, and you can see how they've held up on our skin tracker.