Whew! This last week has been rough! The patch and my host have been giving us all agita! Unfortunately, much of the graphical parts of the server have been having issues and in many cases I’m hamstrung by my host who has been dragging their arses on the issue that is clearly theirs. At the same time, hey, it’s Rust. We keep moving Bumfuzzlers! We fight through the stupid issues and keep it going. Aside from the various issues, I did make some changes to the server that should improve gameplay so let’s talk!
AI Changes
I get lots of complaints that NPCs shoot through rocks across 100’s of meters and so on. This isn’t anything I can fix as it’s a Facepunch issue left over from the days where animals ran through rocks. Who knows when they’ll fix it.
- I’ve disabled the monument NPCs for now.
- I’ve increased the zambie horde quite a bit. Now, there is a max of 50 zambie hordes, each starting with 3 zambies each. They have the ability to grow up to 10 zambies per horde.
- I’ve disabled the blue scientists. I personally found them annoying and mostly useless. They don’t offer much challenge, they’re all over the place and they’re predictable. You know they’re at certain monuments and at junk piles, etc. I’d rather have a much more dynamic situation.
There’s one thing I’m concerned about that you’ll have to give me feedback about. The zambies are set to kill animals right now. I have it that way because it seems more realistic, but I fear this will create fisherman out of all of you lol If they kill too many animals, there won’t be much animal meat, fat or leather around. This could cause issues.
Also, in the future, if the zambies work well, I may still enable a few NPCs here and there who don’t ‘belong’ anywhere, but simply wander around. Chances are however, because I’ve configured NPCs to shoot at zambies and vice versa, they’ll be killed by zambies due to sheer numbers, but it may create a more interesting environment.
Recyler
As you know a few weeks back I changed the /rec command to allow you to craft a recycler instead of being able to use a virtual recycler. This is only available for players who have reached level 18 – 3,500 loyalty points – (/loyalty). So that some players, at lower levels might get lucky, I’ve put the recycler into the loot tables so everyone has a 14% chance of finding a recycler in boxes. It’s certainly nice to have!
Loyalty Surprise
By default when you reach a new level, an explosion sound would play. It was a great idea that didn’t turn out the way I planned since it surprises the crap out of players and may alert other players you’re near. It was originally only intended to play for the player themselves, but that seems impossible based on how sound works in Rust.
Anyways, I’ve disabled that sound. Thanks JoeKillera for the heads up!
Plane Crash
I don’t know why, but that dang plane keeps crashing into mountains and I keep raising the height of it! I’ve gone ahead and raised the height again, but it seems to defeat the purpose since the plane is meant to be a low flying plane! Well, I have to ensure it doesn’t crash since MrNiceGuy will be scooping up all the loot like he was doing last night! Thanks MrNiceGuy for the heads up 🙂
Kit Menu
Due to image related issues on the server, the kit menu (/kit) doesn’t work. I have however gotten the command line to work fine. This means you’ll have to go old school in order to get the kits instead by typing /kit <name>. You should also be able to type /kit list to see a list of kits available, but it might be long preventing you from seeing them all.
For your convenience, here’s a list of all the kits.
- build
- aid
- tools
- weapons
- signal
- trumpborderagent
- trumpbuildwall
- hillaryjailbreak
- hillarymailserver
- subscriber
- vip_m249
- pc_murderer
- pc_sniper
- pc_swordsman
- pc_fighter
- pc_gunslinger
- pc_deadshot
- pc_archer
- pc_assassin
- pc_rocketeer
- pc_handyman
- pc_architect
- pc_lumberjack
- pc_farmer
- pc_miner
- pc_gunsmith
- pc_hunter
- pc_tailor
- pc_bombtech
- pc_adventurer
- pc_medic
- pc_apckiller
- pc_npckiller
- pc_helikiller
The kits starting with pc_ are related to the Player Challenges (/pc) so if you’re not leading you won’t have permissions to them. Hopefully this will hold us over until the issue is resolved.
Skip Night
Sorry guys, but unfortunately for now the Skip Night plugin doesn’t work. I’m not sure if it’s entirely due to the same image related issue as kits (the voting menu has images in it), but I can say during testing it flat out crashed the server so I’m not bothering with it for now.
I’m going to try to create a workaround using the store (/s) where players can buy the option to skip night, but that will take me a few days.
In-Game Store
The In-Game Store does in fact work (/s), but unfortunately there won’t be any images. This is again due to the image related issue. So it should work as you expect. It just won’t look at pretty.
Skin Shop
Unfortunately, the skin store (/skin shop) is also a casualty on both Modtopia and Vanillatopia. Yes, the image related issue. You can expect other items like the startup graphical menu (/ui) also not to work.
Server Issues
Overall, considering the amount of plugins we have on the servers, it could be worse. I was able to get much of the plugins going again including the map. However, the image related issues are out of my control at this point.
The issue was triggered by the patch, but it seems to be some combination with the patch and my host – who says they’re working on it, but I fear they have no clue. I have been shopping around for another host, but that’s not a comfortable process to undertake so I’m trying to be patient.
I’m considering a full wipe tonight (entirely reinstalling everything) to see if that helps, but I’m not very optimistic as I believe it’s a connectivity issue at the server level. Others who are having these same issues say they tried a full wipe so I might not bother.
Wipe
Tonight Modtopia is a wipe so the world starts a new! It might not happen until later in the evening since I have to be somewhere around 9pm EST and I’m not sure how long it’ll take. Regardless, this time around it’ll be interesting how things go with the zambies! Be careful out there Bumfuzzlers!
