Rust’s Power Trip Update Will Make the Whole Island Pull the Switch
The August update will add Heavy Fuses, satellite crashes, powered recyclers, monument tasks, and a Bar Games Pack.
Rust is turning its monuments into one giant island-wide machine. Facepunch says the upcoming Power Trip update will connect locations through shared power systems, giving players more reasons to repair, maintain, and fight over familiar landmarks. The studio detailed the update in its Steam announcement.
The update is planned for August 2026. Its central idea is the new Player Maintained Monuments system, which ties existing locations together and asks players to keep their machinery running before they can access the best rewards.
Power Plant repairs will affect the entire island
Players will be able to find Heavy Fuses as loot and install them in special fuse boxes at the Power Plant. Each connected feature requires a different number of fuses, so the site will not become fully operational in a single step.
Once the grid is active, roadside powerline poles with transformers can supply electrical circuits. Players can also climb the poles by approaching them and jumping, which should make the new network useful for more than just wiring bases.
The update will also change how recyclers work. Green recyclers outside safe zones will have a lower base efficiency, while power from the plant can restore them to 60% efficiency. At maximum power, their processing duration will improve from 5 seconds to 4.5 seconds. Yellow recyclers inside safe zones will remain unchanged. A new red recycler at the Power Plant will offer 75% efficiency, but only when the monument has reached maximum power.
Satellite crashes will broadcast a fight to the whole server
At the Launch Site, players will be able to power a Satellite Control Computer with tech trash and an aiming module. After choosing a satellite, they will need to work out which thruster buttons steer it toward the desired crash location.
The satellite’s descent will be visible to every player on the server. After impact, it will scatter satellite loot crates that can be looted once they cool down. The reward may be tempting, but everyone will know exactly where it landed.
Oil Rigs, the Supermarket, and Water Treatment Plant get new jobs
Powering the plant will activate a switch at the Large Oil Rig that pumps crude oil toward Dome for 20 minutes. Players cannot collect the oil directly. They will need a Tanker vehicle module to drain it, then a car lift to extract the contents.
The Small Oil Rig will receive a similar switch that pumps at half the rate. Running both switches at the same time will produce 1.5 times the crude.
The Supermarket will gain a powered freezer that regularly provides chilled food. Every so often, it will produce a larger food cache than normal.
Water Treatment Plant will require maintenance before the new roadside water pipes can produce anything. Players will need to activate two gearboxes inside the monument by placing gears into them and turning the valve wheels. The gears are consumed during the process.
Once the central tank reaches full pressure, its blades will clear blockages and restore water flow across the map. Returning later to maintain pressure will be easier than starting the system from zero.
Airfield and Oxum’s receive powered facilities
Oxum’s car garage will work whenever the main power grid is active or its backup generator is running. A powered switch outside controls the garage door, while the interior car lift can be used normally. The cave below the lift may also offer higher-quality car part spawns.
Airfield’s refreshed control tower will contain two terminals on the second floor. Fuse boxes connected to the power grid will charge them over time.
The smaller terminal will increase the rate of airdrops across the map. The larger terminal will allow players to call in a Chinook resupply crate near the airfield tarmac. Both terminals will slowly lose their charge and become available again once the stored power is gone.
Bar Games Pack adds pool, darts, and base decorations
The paid Bar Games Pack will add pool and darts as self-contained multiplayer or solo activities. The Pool Table will support one or two players, with players walking around the table, choosing shot power, and flicking the mouse to strike the cue ball.
The pack also includes an interactive Juke Box, skins for the Mini Fridge and Shotgun Trap, bar stools, wallpapers, sprays, and other themed decorations. It will be available in-game and through the Rust Steam item store.
A separate Stone Sculpture item will let players carve a stone deployable into their preferred shape. It will be available in-game and through the Rust Steam item store.
Rust is also changing movement, storage, and early-wipe progression
Players will be able to mark one bag, bed, or other respawn point on the compass. The option must be enabled by interacting with the respawn point directly. Bags can also be favorited from the death screen, placing them at the top of the respawn list.
The Recycle Bin workbench upgrade will gain its own inventory. Bonus items generated by the upgrade will go there automatically, although the inventory can only be emptied and cannot be filled with outside loot.
Ore nodes and woodpiles will no longer spawn inside safe zones. Facepunch said those resources could build up because they were only harvestable with a rock, reducing the global pool of nodes elsewhere on the map.
The Wolf Headdress will require a Tier 1 workbench to craft. Lunar New Year animal masks will become skins instead of separate crafting entries, allowing players to swap between their variants more easily.
Shield users will be able to bind a toggle that moves a shield between a back-mounted aiming stance and a side-mounted blocking stance. A cooldown will prevent rapid switching during gunfights.
High walls will receive a static upkeep cost of 20%. The change is meant to make large compounds and external tool cupboards more expensive to maintain while helping abandoned compounds disappear after raids.
Water well vendors will keep the same prices but carry fewer items. Their stock will fall from 10 to 2, and restock time will increase from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. This will keep the wells useful as a short-term boost without replacing farming progression.
Facepunch also fixed a hover-looting issue involving clothing swaps from body bags. The system will now move removed clothing into the player’s main inventory, or into the body bag if the player has no room.
The Master Key from the Apartment Complex will receive a proper view model and animations. Wooden arrows will also get updated visuals, including new fletching and refreshed weapon rigs.
Demo tools, loading times, and server work
Rust’s new demo interface was rebuilt with an options panel, dolly cameras, keyframe timelines, sandbox mode, scene tools, player appearance controls, and PNG sequence export. It will not be enabled by default at first. Players who want to test it must enter demo.newui in the console.
Startup loading should be about twice as fast on most machines because the game will load only the assets needed to reach the main menu before streaming the rest in the background.
Server performance work includes parallel entity saving for the experimental UsePlayerUpdateJobs 4 mode. Facepunch’s synthetic tests reduced processing time from 6.6ms to 3.6ms for 1,000 entities and from 64.4ms to 10.6ms for 10,000 entities.
The update will also add vehicle emojis to in-game chat and let players search the emoji picker by name in their selected language. Modders should also note that Facepunch plans to remove SetFlag with the September 3, 2026 wipe.
Patch Notes: Rust Power Trip
The update covers monument systems, loot access, quality-of-life changes, creator tools, and server technology. The following official change items are included in the announcement.
Notable Changes
- Maximum Rent — Maximum stored rent at the Apartment complex is now capped at 72 hours
- Attachment Sounds — Audible range of equipping a weapon attachment has been reduced from 60m to 20m
- Swing ragdolling — Players will ragdoll when dismounting the Apartment Complex swing set
- Kayaks and Paddles — Fishing village now sells Kayaks and Paddles, rather than the blueprint of those items
SetFlag Depreciation
For modders – we intend to remove SetFlag from the codebase with the September wipe (3rd Sep 26). We recently replaced this with a disposable pattern to encourage more efficient usage of updating entity flags.
SetFlag(Flags.Reserved1, true);
SetFlag(Flags.Reserved2, true);
SetFlag(Flags.Reserved3, true);That would now look like this:
using (var setFlags = StartSetFlags(FlagsUpdateMode.SendNetworkUpdate_Flags))
{
setFlags.Set(Flags.Reserved1, true);
setFlags.Set(Flags.Reserved2, true);
setFlags.Set(Flags.Reserved3, true);
}Community UI Updates
- New RPC: CommunityEntity.DestroyUIs – takes a list of panel names to destroy at once
- Fixed: Button and Scrollbar color tweening / transition fade when it first gets created
- Exposed: Button and InputField “interactable” individual property
- Exposed: Individual graphics can now use “blocksRaycast” property
Source code for the Community UI changes is available in the Rust.Community GitHub commit.
The Rust Original Soundtrack will also come to vinyl as a deluxe triple-LP featuring 90 minutes of music by Alex Rehberg. Pre-order details are available through the Rust vinyl listing.
Power Trip has a lot of moving parts, and every repaired monument creates another reason to visit a contested location. Tell us which feature you plan to try first, and share your thoughts in the comments. You can also follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.
Rust
Developed by Facepunch Studios
Rust is a multiplayer survival game set on a procedurally generated island where players must manage hunger, thirst, and health while contending with hostile wildlife and other players. Starting with only a rock and torch, players gather resources, craft tools, weapons, and structures, and form or fight against clans in a persistent open world that resets on a regular wipe cycle. Originally developed as a clone of DayZ with Minecraft-style crafting elements, the game spent over four years in early access before its full release in 2018.
- Genre Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Indie
- Platforms PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac
- Perspective First person
- Modes Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
- Release February 8, 2018
- Publisher Facepunch Studios
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Age Rating
