‘Rust’ Solo Play Just Got a Lot Easier With New Update
Imagine you’ve been farming materials for an hour and finally have a full inventory. While a few wild nakeds have run at you with rocks there haven’t been any signs of a big threat, so you start to head back towards base. You shove down canned tuna and whatever dirty water bottles you find while hitting gas stations to stay alive. Finally the base is in site, and the tension starts to lessen as you are about to store all these treasures and get to upgrading. You open the front door and your heart drops. An AK spray comes from behind you and you fall down. Unable to do anything about it, you lay in the open door listening to a toxic guy yell through his dollar store mic about how bad you are while taking all the precious materials you’ve been farming. That’s the life of a solo player in Rust.
I’ve always loved Rust. If you ask me what my favorite game is, Rust will most likely be the answer (unless I’m still upset about some zerg that raided me). The game is certainly a bit easier when you have a group to play with: more resources, more protection, more fun. However, many people really enjoy the solo grind of Rust. Playing solo comes with its benefits, such as having more freedom than when playing with a group. However, while the game has a lot to offer a solo player, playing solo also brings many unique challenges.
One of the biggest challenges in the game has always been the fact that if you get knocked by damage, you are helpless. This is especially true as a solo player. When battling it out at your base or protecting against raids, it sucks if you die with the door open. When playing in a group you can have a teammate shut the door if someone goes down. However, if you get door camped as a solo, you’re out of luck and now the enemy player is one door closer to blowing in.
This all changes with the new update, because you can now crawl! While you can’t perform many actions, you can do one very important thing… interact with doors. This brings about a big change to the game. The guy sitting on the hill can’t use a bolt rifle and knock you in the door and then take his time coming over. If you go down you can crawl inside and smash E to shut that door. This also changes the way battles are going to go down, especially at monuments. Now when a player goes down they can crawl over to a teammate, or if solo they can try to escape. Crawling into a bush where an enemy will have a hard time finding your loot makes for a whole new challenge in PVP.
There are three exceptions to this new mechanic though…
- If you get looted while crawling
- If you take fall damage
- If you crawl too deep into water
If any of the above occur, you will go into the old down state and be unable to move or interact with anything. So don’t go jumping off rocks.
As the update also says, the chance to recover is going to be a bit higher. “By default right now the base value is a 20% chance while crawling and a 10% chance while incapacitated. But you now get up to a 25% bonus on top of that (so max 20 + 25 = 45% total) based on your food and water levels. Maximum food and water = full bonus.”
This gives players another reason to always be watching food and water levels while roaming around. A chance to get back up and run could make a huge difference for a solo player who got downed in a fight and then got looked over when another group tried to 3rd party. There will now be one guaranteed way to recover: have a medkit in the hotbar/belt. Not bandages, syringes, or anything else. You need a full green medkit box. I don’t know many people that carry these around since they take up space and are not always that useful, but this might change that. If the recovery check above fails, the medkit will always recover you, except in the case of fall damage.
Having tested out these new mechanics I have to say they are definitely changing up the game, especially when related to battling near bases. The changes really benefit the solo player and help them get out of fights more easily. I can only assume this was Rust’s intention when creating this update. There are a few other changes which I encourage you to check out as well. I’m excited to see how all of these new features are used in the game from here on out.
