Rust Arctic Update Live Alongside Patch Notes

A massive Rust update — the Arctic update — is live with new content, brand new features, and a variety of fixes and improvements to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One game. In addition to dropping the first big update of 2022, developer Facepunch Studios has provided the patch notes for the update, which are extensive, and reveal and detail everything you need to know about the update, minus the file size. 

At the moment of publishing, it’s unclear what the file size of the update is on any platform, let alone all three. That said, be prepared for a meaty file size as the update itself is meaty. In other words, prepare to spend some time downloading the update before jumping in.

Below, you can find the complete patch notes minus the accompanying images (for the patch notes with the accompanying images, click here)

Arctic Research Base:

• In this month’s update, a new monument has been added. The Arctic Research Base will spawn exclusively in the arctic biome. Those who are not afraid of the cold winds and frigid temperatures will be able to explore various lab modules and buildings scattered around the base. You will find there a bunch of loot to scavenge, or take a little break to warm yourself next to an electric heater. But most importantly, the Arctic Research Base will spawn snowmobiles. Keep in mind, however, that scientists won’t appreciate your presence and will shoot you on sight.
  

Snowmobile:

• We’ve added a new vehicle that’s only available through a puzzle at the Arctic Base: Snowmobiles. Snowmobiles take low-grade fuel and have a small storage container on the back. They’re fast on snow and sand and slow everywhere else. They drive smoothly even over rough terrain but take some skill to control well. When you find one in an Arctic Base, it’ll have 20 fuel ready to go. A passenger can sit on the back and face any direction, allowing them to shoot to the sides or even directly behind.

Polar Bears:

• You’ll now be encountering the polar bear in the arctic biome. The polar bear is the strongest and most hostile animal in the world but yields extra resources when harvested compared to its bear cousin. The regular bear will no longer be spawning in the arctic and receive slight health and hostile reduction.

AI Update: 

• I’ve added the ability for scientists to use medical items to heal themselves. Scientists have a chance of spawning with the ability. I’ve initially enabled this at the new arctic research station and I will add it to other areas of the game soon. I’ve also made some timing, balance and movement tweaks to the scientist AI.
  

Spray Can:

• The Spraycan is a new default tool that can be crafted for 100 metal fragments that allows you to reskin items that have been deployed in the world. Instead of having to pick up items and use a Repair Bench, you can simply use RMB while holding a Spraycan to open up the skin options and select a new skin. You may have seen some further spray functionality on the Staging branch this month, however these features had some issues so we’ve had to delay them for a future update. The spraycan can not be used while building blocked. 

General Quality-of-Life:

I’ve spent some time working on some more General QOL features this month, see the changelog for further info or check out some highlights below:

• Tool Cupboard Storage – Added slots for tools in the Tool Cupboard
  
• Tech Tree Improvements – Show total cost to reach an unlock and show how much scrap is being held
  
• Auto Walk and Toggle Crouch – Native auto walk keybind and toggle crouch option
  
• SAM Defender Mode – Added Defender mode to SAM site to defend against MLRS rockets only
  
• Patrol Helicopter on Map – Show the Patrol Helicopter’s current position on the Map
  
• Mute Menu – Manage your muted players with a new UI
  
• Wounded Player Looting – No longer kicked out of the inventory when looting wounded players
  
• Recent Contacts – Contacts can now be sorted by recently seen
  
• Tech Tree Unlocking – Added the ability to click and hold to unlock items in tech trees
  
• Wounded Team Members – Wounded team members now appear as orange when wounded in the team UI
  

Performance Fix:

• Recently it came to my attention that performance had degraded more significantly than it probably should have based on the recent updates to the game. Whilst attempting to confirm this, we noticed that the framerate would predictably dip significantly for no apparent reason, then recover. The higher your base framerate was, the more severe these dips would appear to be.
• After doing a bunch of profiling, I noticed that there were some significant stalls on the render thread and our tree impostor system was most likely the cause of the issue, even though the population had only been tweaked very slightly recently.
• With the fix, framerates should be a lot more consistent again (as long as what’s being rendered is consistent) and should overall be slightly higher in general, particularly in areas with a lot of bushes and trees like Bandit Camp.

Permanent Store – Arctic Pack

This month we’re introducing a new addition to Rust’s permanent store, the Arctic Pack. The Arctic Pack contains 3 items which can be seen below.

• Arctic Suit – The Arctic Suit is a hazmat skin that can be applied while crafting the hazmat or skinned using the repair table. The Arctic Suit offers slightly higher cold protection but at the cost of lower radiation, melee and explosive protection. 
• Tomaha Snowmobile – The Tomaha snowmobile cosmetic skin can be applied by using the spray can on the snowmobile which can be found at the arctic research station monument. 
• ICE ASSAULT RIFLE – The Ice Assault Rifle is a cosmetic skin for the assault rifle. The skin can be applied when crafting the assault rifle or added by placing the weapon inside the repair table. 
  

Rust is available via the PC, the Xbox One, and the PS4. It’s also playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility.