Rust's April update in detail: water wheels, an armoured ladder hatch and one-click tech trees

Armoured Ladder Hatch

The Armoured Ladder Hatch is a new top-tier building part and a direct upgrade of the metal ladder hatch. It unlocks at tier 3, comes in square and triangle versions and fits straight into existing frames.

Water wheel

Water wheels are placed in rivers and generate electricity from the flowing water. In the ocean they still charge, but unevenly as the tide changes, and the water flowing in must not be blocked. A player can also climb inside and run to make power, handcuffed players included.

Tech tree: unlock a whole path

Pick any item in the tech tree and the game shows the path that leads to it. One press of the unlock button unlocks the whole path at once. The tree also has new sounds and stays centred when you zoom.

Plants stay ripe for a day

Plants now stay in their ripe stage for 24 hours instead of 14, so harvesting once a day is enough. Growable flowers were already at 28 hours.

Shields

Shields had become too popular. The hitbox now depends on whether the shield is actively raised: a smaller square one while idle, the large one while held up. A bug that added recoil when shooting at a shield was fixed; that was only meant for melee attacks.

Overfishing

If too many fish are caught in one area within a certain time, the area becomes overfished and lines only bring up junk until it recovers. This is aimed at fishing from inside a base and at bots. Fishing traps are not affected.

Also in this update

• Hold the light key to open a radial menu and toggle each light source separately; a tap still toggles them all.
• Buttons can be coloured, like wires.
• Chainsaws always hit the X when cutting trees.
• Watchtowers can no longer be spammed next to each other.
• The hot air balloon has an altimeter.
• The Salvaged Axe and the medical syringe have new models and animations.

Source: Facepunch devblog rust.facepunch.com