u/Jerranto

Yes, I know Facepunch is an amazing company that has been incredibly providing us with monthly updates since 2014. I am genuinely grateful for that.

However, this time, the stubbornness is going too far. In October of last year, the "Meta Shift" update introduced BP frags. According to the devs, these changes were supposed to be experimental. Now look: pay close attention to what the goals of that update actually were. Straight from the October 2025 Devblog:

"We’re introducing a new layer of progression to the Workbench system. The aim is simple: get players back out of their bases, contesting monuments, slow down progression and clashing over territory."

They also stated:

"These fragments are found at key monuments, creating a soft progression gate that pushes players into early fights and slows down clan snowballing."

Let's be honest here, ok? It didn't work at all. Monuments are busy on the first day or two, sure, but after that, they become empty again. Also, it never really slowed down progression as intended. We still hear AKs and rockets being fired within the first hours of the wipe.

Another thing they said:

"Larger groups will naturally eventually accumulate more fragments than they need, creating an economy where fragments and workbenches are traded. Smaller groups and solos will be forced to scrap harder for their progression, making monuments hotly contested again."

Well, they were right on this one. A new economy was created where fragments and workbenches are traded, and it completely ruined server longevity. Clans now get even more sulfur than they did before.

"We'll be watching and reading all feedback, and we'll adjust and balance as needed over the coming days and weeks."

Basically, they watched it for a day or two, cuz I remember the loot tables were immediately adjusted to fix how poor the initial implementation of BP frags was. They applied a quick band-aid fix, and that band-aid somehow became PERMANENT.

Since then, we've been playing on a meta that was supposed to be a temporary band-aid, which is why I feel disrespected after all these years invested in this game.

Please, Facepunch, can you FIX progression? Can you try something else? Can you at least TALK to us about it? We used to get great communication in the past from Garry, Helk, and the team.

The game is not in a good state right now. I know there are LOTS of trolls on this subreddit, and because of that, it feels like you stopped caring about our opinions over the years. But honestly, just look around this time. Almost the entire community dislikes this system. Let's face it: it didn't work at all.

Can you please focus on slowing down progression? Can we get some server longevity back? Can you at least TALK to us about the state of progression? Do you think it worked? Was it intended?

Thank you very much!

When your relatives come over for summer vacation and the house gets packed, does your house maintenance cost go up or down? Does the house get dirtier or cleaner? Is the infrastructure worn down more or less?

We all know the answer, right? Rust shouldn't be any different.

Right now, massive clans enjoy a massive advantage without any scaling penalty to their base maintenance. I am proposing a modest adjustment to at least >>MITIGATE<< the massive farming machine of large zergs.

I am fully aware that it won't completely fix the gap between huge clans and small groups, ok? I know that. However, I guess it would at least bring some much needed balance.

Once a TC hits 11 authorized players, the upkeep costs will scale up significantly, capping at a hard limit. Here we go:

To prevent clans from abusing the system by constantly clearing the TC list (giving auth only when building/repairing and clearing it immediately after), the player count must be permanent for that TC.

Basically, the TC will track the total number of unique players that have ever authorized on it. For example: if 11 unique players authorize on a TC, that TC is permanently flagged at 11 players (+10% upkeep). Even if you hit "Clear Auth", the internal counter stays at 11.

The only way to reset this counter would be to completely destroy the TC and place a new one, which obviously would be a pain in the ass, especially with all the external TC mechanics.

Also, to prevent other kind of abuse, turrets must function exactly like Shotgun Traps.

If a player is not actively authorized on the main TC, the turret will shoot them. This completely stops zergs from running "unauthed" inside their own compounds to dodge the scaling tax.

PS: Obviously, these specific numbers are subject to change. I started the scaling at 11 players just to keep the initial proposal reasonable and conservative. However, maybe, the upkeep penalty could easily start kicking in at the 7th, 8th, or 9th player instead.

What do you guys think?

The monument update sounds interesting. To be honest, I'm not sure what the exact consequences will be, but I'm optimistic, cuz forcing recyclers to rely on power from the powerplant could create some very compelling gameplay, imo. That being said, my biggest frustration with Facepunch is that they often come up with 9 great ideas and 1 bad one, but that single bad idea is so terrible that it completely ruins the other 9.

This time, the bad idea is making every single monument recycler dependent on the powerplant’s electricity, EXCEPT for the ones at Outpost. This will obviously have disastrous consequences for the game.

First of all, recyclers inside safe zones shouldn't ever have existed. I am sure that you guys remember that In the past, the recyclers inside safe zones shared the same efficiency as every other recycler in the game. As a result, barely anyone recycled outside of safe zones, which drastically reduced player interactions. There was absolutely no reason to take risks at a monument recycler when you could just hop in a car, drive to Outpost, and recycle everything with zero risk. I remember I played wipes and wipes doing that without ever losing a single scrap.

Months or years later, they finally addressed this distortion by nerfing the Outpost recycler's efficiency. While I still believe safe zone recyclers shouldn't exist at all, at least they became less efficient than the ones in competitive areas, giving us a good reason again to take risks and recycle outside outpost.

Yet, here we are again. It took them years to fix the safe zone meta, and now they are seriously considering a system where the only recyclers that don't require power from the powerplant will be the ones inside safe zones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once again, this will kill player interaction in a game that already gives players fewer and fewer reasons to leave their bases.

Except for the massive clans dominating the powerplant, absolutely NO ONE will recycle outside of Outpost, especially if the efficiency of safe zone recyclers remains anywhere near the standard ones.

Please, remove recyclers from safe zones entirely. Right, I know you won't do it, fine. But at least force them to be connected to the powerplant grid as well, and significantly lower their efficiency. Otherwise, 90% of the player base will just recycle at Outpost with zero risk, leaving the rest of the map more dead than it already is.

PS: Yes, I know it is a work in progress, but I am crying already because I am scared, ok? I am scared.