Rust's Naval Update in detail: build your own boat and sail into the Deep Sea

Player-made boats

Place the new Boat Building Station in deep water and build with the Boat Building Plan, which has its own set of boat blocks. A boat needs a steering wheel, and can carry an anchor, sails, engines, planks, ramps and cannons. Where you put sails and engines changes speed and handling, and both can be reversed from the radial menu. Engines burn low grade fuel quickly. Set a code on the wheel against theft. Any deployable that works on the Tugboat works here, and Deploy & Edit lets you rebuild later.

The Deep Sea

The Deep Sea is a new offshore region, reached by sailing a strong boat toward the edge of the map. It is high risk and high reward: you cannot build there and nothing respawns, so it is first come, first served. It opens and closes from time to time, like a world event.

Ghost Ships

Ghost Ships are stationary wrecks full of loot, similar to monuments. Scientists guard them on deck and from patrol boats nearby. Some carry locked crates, which have to be hacked while other players and scientist boats close in.

Floating Cities

Floating Cities are safe zones built from old barges and the frame of an unfinished oil rig; there are four variants. Each has docks, NPC vendors for weapons, gear, food and medical supplies, a farming barge you can use for a small fee, and recyclers, workbenches, research tables and refineries. In the middle is the Deep Deck Casino. Cause trouble and the turrets respond.

Tropical islands

The Deep Sea brings a new biome: small tropical islands with white sand and dense palms instead of pines, and a new food to pick. They are partly procedural, so each one differs: some have old ruins, some a lot of ore, some both.

Scientist boats, the PT Boat and a new RHIB

Scientists now crew boats and roam the Deep Sea in coordinated groups. Their new PT Boat is slower than a RHIB and uses more fuel, but is tougher and has two turrets: twin .50 calibre guns and a single, more precise one, both loaded with 5.56 rifle ammo. Clear a boat and it is yours. The RHIB itself has a new model, a new storage box and working compass and map screens.

Smarter scientists

A new scientist AI is active on the oil rigs, Ghost Ships and Deep Sea islands; you recognise it by the naval camouflage and the square visor. These scientists do not see through walls. They go by noise and where they last saw you, react more slowly to a surprise and no longer run one by one into a doorway. Baiting and flanking them now works.

Also in this update

• The building planner has a first-person model, so you see what others see.
• Five new naval missions, some in the Deep Sea and some on the mainland.
• Scientist RHIBs patrol the Large Oil Rig while its crate is up; they can be cleared and stolen.
• Big server performance work, including much cheaper furnaces and industrial systems, and the SKS can now be skinned.

Source: Facepunch devblog rust.facepunch.com