What's New in Rust's "Freight Transit Line" Update

The Freight Transit Line update landed in March 2021 and it's the one that put a whole new layer underneath the map. Train entrances started appearing next to monuments, and following them down leads to a procedurally generated underground rail network with drivable workcarts, hostile tunnel dwellers and progressively better loot the deeper you go. Bandit Camp also got a gambling room upgrade, and a round of Twitch drops ran alongside the patch.

The rail network

Train entrances are scattered across the world, typically next to existing monuments. On the surface they don't look like much, but venture inside and deep below the terrain you'll find a vast rail network. Getting down is done via huge spiral staircases that penetrate deep into the terrain, or - central to the stairs - a much faster and considerably less safe elevator shaft.

Everything in Rust wants you dead and the tunnels are no exception. At the bottom of the shafts you meet the first of the tunnel dwellers, and you'll encounter many more the further you explore. The trade-off is straightforward: the loot they protect is worth the risk. Each rail platform holds more dwellers and increasingly better loot, and at the end of each platform sits a drivable workcart.

Facepunch explicitly framed this as a first pass at a new dungeon system. The stated plan was new track segments, bespoke entrances at each monument, puzzles, new NPCs, and eventually using the same system to procedurally generate the cave network.

Workcarts

Each station has two Workcarts facing opposite directions. They run on Low Grade Fuel and let you cross the map fast. There are 6 throttle settings - 3 forward, 3 reverse - and, importantly, the cart keeps running after you leave the cabin.

Deep in the tunnels you'll run into NPC barricades. Hitting a barricade or another workcart at high speed damages your cart, so slow down on approach; a proximity alarm sounds when a collision is imminent so you have time to adjust the throttle. Approached slowly, barricades break without damaging your cart at all. At track junctions you pick your route with the left or right strafe key. Damage reduces a workcart's speed, and you can repair it with a hammer and metal fragments.

Slot machines at Bandit Camp

Three new Slot Machines were added to the gambling room at Bandit Camp. You mount one, deposit Scrap, and start betting. Each bet costs 2 Scrap and payouts range from 20 all the way up to 1500 Scrap. As with everything at Bandit Camp, remember to collect your winnings and any unused betting Scrap before you walk away - the machine doesn't hand it back for you.

Server browser

The server browser had well-known problems, and while Steam's implementation means you'll likely never see every Rust server, several internal changes went in to improve discoverability:

• Empty servers are now hidden by default, except on the official, friends, history and favorites tabs where they always show. In practice this means you'll sometimes need to turn empty servers back on deliberately.
• The "Show Empty" filter now applies its filtering within Steam, so with it off you should see no empty servers at all - and more real ones as a result.
• Toggling "Show Empty" forces a refresh of the community and modded tabs.
• Tags look considerably less terrible.

A broader server browser UI refresh was flagged as in progress, along with ongoing work removing servers that spam, advertise or lie about themselves to climb the list.

Server performance

Profiling turned up entities updating and sending data more often than they needed to, with buoyancy entities (boats) and horses as the two biggest offenders. Both now avoid updating when there are no players around or they aren't in use. Combined with fixes to entity flag networking, servers should handle more players better in both CPU and bandwidth terms.

Steam family sharing disabled

Players abusing Steam family share to dodge bans and continue malicious behaviour was a persistent problem, and on February 17th Facepunch disabled Steam family sharing for Rust for the foreseeable future. The devblog was blunt about it: there were no plans to re-enable it.

Improvements and fixes highlights

• Bandage and syringe 3rd person animations now play when used on another player.
• Fixed Oil Rig RF being constantly enabled and spamming the frequency.
• Smoother horse movement over bumpy terrain.
• Small boxes can now be placed under the mixing table, by popular demand.
• The marketplace charges a flat delivery fee instead of a per-quantity one.
• Compound no longer spawns in the arctic/snow biome.
• All puzzle room loot is destroyed before respawning, so no more half-looted boxes.
• Radiation removed from all roadside substations.
• The skin picker moves the last picked skin to the front of the queue after closing the UI.

The full changelist adds a couple of thousand characters more: Sheet Metal Gloves became skinnable, vending machines at different heights now group together on the map, the Gong's crafting cost was reduced, holding an RF Transmitter no longer flags you as hostile, and there was a long tail of viewmodel and volume fixes - Thompson finger clipping, bow thumb clipping, an oversized fridge prevent-building volume, XL neon signs blocking windows, and heavily charged batteries showing the wrong time remaining because they used a 12h format. One known issue shipped with it: clipping under terrain inside a safezone could leave the client stuck in safezone state.

Twitch drops

Twitch drops ran from the update's release through March 11th, with unique skins earned by watching participating Rust streamers. The lineup was blooprint, Ricoy, Bnans, Willjum, deathwingua, Shroud, Swales, iRiskpvp, albin, r00t, Vice Versa Gaming and TwinkleCave, each with their own drop - the Blooprint SAR, the Shroud Pants, the Willjum Wolf Poncho and the Ricoy23 Garage Door among them. The month's regular store items leaned into the rail theme too, with the Workcart AR and Old Subway Doors. Drop skins from limited windows like this one tend to be the interesting ones to watch long term - you can look them all up in our skin tracker.