Common
Ground.

Rust July Update - Common Ground

Rust’s July 2026 update, Common Ground, adds one of the most social-focused monuments Rust has seen in a while. The headline feature is the new Apartment Complex, supported by rentable player shops, an official clan system, Softcore improvements, animation updates, a Glowing Wallpaper Pack, demo compatibility changes, performance work, charity events, Twitch Drops, and a long list of fixes.

• New Apartment Complex monument added
• Players can rent rooms inside the apartment building
• Rentable player-run shops added inside the monument
• New official Clan System and Clan Table added
• Softcore now has 2x gathering and raid windows
• New sprinting animations for rifles and two-handed projectile weapons
• One-handed melee animation system expanded to the vanilla Hatchet
• Glowing Wallpaper Pack added with 27 wall, floor, and ceiling wallpapers
• UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 is now default
• Demo compatibility layer added for newer demos going forward
• Bears for a Better World charity event and Twitch Drops started July 2
• Large patch list includes QoL improvements, bug fixes, and removed legacy systems

New Monument: Apartment Complex

The Apartment Complex is a new monument designed to give players a different kind of place to live, trade, visit, and mess with during a wipe. Players can talk to the receptionist in the lobby to rent a room, with options ranging from cheaper rooms to higher-end spaces with better perks.

• Talk to the receptionist in the lobby to rent a room
• Room options range from lower-budget spaces to higher-end apartment rooms
• Different room types come with different perks
• Some rooms can include extra storage, furnaces, and other useful features
• After renting a room, you need to keep scrap in the slot next to your door
• If you run out of rent, you can be evicted and your possessions are seized
• A master key exists somewhere on the island
• The master key can unlock occupied apartment rooms for 5 minutes
• A guard in the basement may give hints about which room is worth burgling
• This gives the monument a mix of housing, looting, trading, and social chaos

Rentable Player Shops

The new Apartment Complex also includes a marketplace of rentable shops. Players can take over a shop, pay rent, stock it like a vending machine, and sell items directly to players moving through the monument.

• Shops are purchased by interacting with the contract outside the shop
• Each shop has a non-refundable upfront scrap fee
• Each shop also has an hourly real-time scrap rent cost
• You need at least 12 hours of rent available to open a store
• Once open, listings and stock levels work similarly to Vending Machines
• These shops cannot be accessed by drone
• You can customize the sign above the shop
• After a shop has been open for 6 hours, another player can take it over
• Takeovers cost 2x the upfront fee and hourly rent, then escalate to 3x, 4x, and beyond
• If your shop closes or gets taken over, you can retrieve your items for 24 hours
• The master key can also unlock shops, so storing valuable goods is risky

Softcore Updates: 2x Gather & Raid Windows

Softcore received a major identity pass this month. The mode now gives players faster progression through a 2x gather rate and limits raiding to specific raid windows by default, making it friendlier for players who cannot defend their base around the clock.

• Softcore now has a 2x resource gather multiplier
• The gather bonus applies to resources like ore, wood, food, and animal loot
• Raid windows were added to limit when raiding can happen
• By default, raids are allowed from 6 PM to 9 PM server local time
• During the raid window, raiding works like regular Rust
• Outside the raid window, Tool Cupboards project raid protection in their radius
• Protected building blocks and doors cannot be raided outside the raid window
• Walls, floors, roofs, doors, and ladder hatches are covered by the raid blocking system
• Deployables can still be attacked outside the raid window
• An exposed Tool Cupboard can still be destroyed
• A Tool Cupboard must be at least 1 hour old before it can block raids
• Server owners have ConVars to tune the system

Official Clan System & Clan Table

Rust now has an official clan system, giving larger groups better tools than the normal team system. Clans support more structure, communication, and identity through roles, permissions, clan chat, announcements, and clan nameplates.

• Clans are a more advanced version of teams
• Clans can support more members than standard teams
• Different clan roles and permissions can be managed
• Clans are created and managed at Clan Tables
• A separate clan chat channel was added
• Clan announcement and MoTD text can be used to communicate with members
• Clan names now appear on player nameplates
• Nearby clan members can appear on the map
• The clan system is disabled in hardcore mode
• This should make large group organization cleaner without relying only on external tools

Player Animation Updates

After last month’s player overhaul, Facepunch continued rolling out the newer animation tools. This month focuses on sprinting animations while holding rifles and extending the one-handed animation setup to melee weapons.

• New sprinting animations added for most two-handed projectile weapons and rifles
• The player now raises their right arm while the sprint animation takes over the rest of the body
• The new sprinting pose should look more responsive and less robotic
• The one-handed animation system from the Torch was extended to melee weapons
• The vanilla Hatchet is the first test case for the new one-handed melee setup
• This allows better movement while holding a weapon
• Two-handed actions like throwing can still play properly when needed
• More melee weapons may receive the same treatment later if testing goes well

Glowing Wallpaper Pack

The Glowing Wallpaper Pack adds a large set of luminous base decoration options. It includes glowing wall, ceiling, and floor wallpapers with neon, graffiti, stars, mushrooms, fireflies, and foxfire themes.

• Glowing Wallpaper Pack added
• Includes 27 wall, floor, and ceiling wallpapers
• Wall designs include Stars and Planets, Mushrooms, Firearms, Explosions, Graffiti Murals, Neon Shapes, and Foxfire Fungi
• Ceiling designs include Glow in the Dark Stars, Fireflies, Graffiti Murals, and Foxfire Fungi
• Floor designs include Directional Graffiti and Glow in the Dark Carpet variants
• Wallpapers are designed to stand out more when the lights go out
• The pack can be purchased in-game
• The pack is also available through the Rust Steam item store

Jobs 3, Shadow Caching & Performance Work

Common Ground includes more technical optimization work. UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 is now the default, Jobs 2 is being deprecated, and Facepunch has started exploring Jobs 4 optimizations. The update also includes experimental shadow caching and rendering improvements.

• UsePlayerUpdateJobs 3 is now default
• Jobs 2 is deprecated and planned for removal in August
• Jobs 2 will still run Jobs 3 underneath during the transition
• Jobs 3 uses UniTask to avoid allocations from multithreading code
• Per-frame player snapshot sending was sped up using a new fuzzy pool and reduced buffer preallocation
• Parts of player network subscription updates now run in parallel
• EAC and Analytics tasks are scheduled earlier to reduce main thread waiting
• Remaining server Anti Hack logic was parallelized
• Jobs 4 exploration has started with server occlusion pair gathering parallelization
• Experimental shadow caching mode was added for improved shadow rendering performance
• Texture projectors that could cause performance loss were removed
• Rendering meshes with occlusion and batching setups can reduce draw calls by around 15-20%

Notable Quality of Life Changes

The update also ships a strong set of smaller player-facing improvements, covering inventory visuals, sorting, skin selection, vending machines, computer stations, demo browsing, UI scaling, and more.

• Picked skins are now greyed out in the reskinning / crafting UI
• Reskinning and crafting UI now highlights the currently applied skin
• Vending machines, fridges, and wall cabinets now support storage adaptor sorting
• Player model quality can now change within the inventory for better performance
• A setting was added to control inventory player preview quality
• Footstep frequency was adjusted to be closer to the old player rig
• Hunting Trophies can now show player skins
• Demo cfg files rerun whenever a demo is restarted
• Opening the demo browser now automatically refreshes the list
• Computer station UI now scales with the UI scale convar
• Main menu notifications were improved
• A better error message appears when placement is blocked by industrial piping
• Turrets using a burst-only weapon like the M16A2 now also use burst fire
• A new screen was added explaining what Softcore is

Demo Compatibility Layer

Rust updates can break older demos, so Facepunch added a compatibility layer to help newer demos keep working after future updates. The system can try to remap changed item names when opening an old demo.

• A demo compatibility layer was added
• When applicable, Rust can ask if you want to use the compatibility layer when opening an older demo
• The layer attempts to remap changed item names so the demo can run
• It is most likely to work on demos from the last few months
• Older demos are less likely to work
• The system only works for demos taken from this update onward
• Demos taken on older Rust builds do not contain the required information
• Full Server Demo support was removed
• This removal does not affect normal player demos recorded on the server

Charity Bears, Twitch Drops & Community Events

July also brings the Bears for a Better World charity drive, new charity bear plushies, Twitch Drops, creator fundraising, a charity auction, and several Rust collaboration updates.

• Bears for a Better World charity drive started July 2
• The drive supports Cancer Research UK and Ronald McDonald House UK
• Limited-time charity bear plushies are available through the in-game item store
• 100% of sale proceeds after Steam fees and tax go to the supported charities
• Partnered creators are hosting fundraising streams
• Five Twitch Drops are available by watching Rust streams on Twitch
• More drops can unlock as donation milestones are reached
• Players need to sync Steam and Twitch accounts to claim drops
• A charity auction is also part of the campaign
• Rust x Can Be backpack shipping begins this month
• Backpack purchases include exclusive in-game weapon charms
• Weapon charms can be attached to many ranged weapons

Workshop, Charms & Collabs

Common Ground also adds a new workshop skinnable, weapon charm information, and several brand/community collaboration notes.

• Metal Shopfront is now a workshop-skinnable deployable
• Creators can customize both the front and back of the Metal Shopfront
• Model files can be downloaded from the in-game workshop
• Rust x Can Be backpack purchases include free in-game weapon charms
• Weapon charms attach through the Change Accessory button in the inventory
• Charms can be set during crafting or at a repair bench
• Charms have no crafting cost
• Charms stay tied to the individual weapon until changed or removed
• Weapon charms are visible in first and third person
• Rust partnered with Man at Arms for a real-life Auto Turret build
• Official Rust items in the Discord Shop can earn Discord Orbs
• Discord Orbs offer ends July 16

Official Feature Summary

The official changelist highlights the major new additions included in Common Ground, with the Apartment Complex, Rentable Stores, Softcore changes, shadow caching, and demo compatibility layer listed as the core feature additions.

• Apartment Complex Monument added
• Rentable Stores added
• Experimental shadow caching mode added for improved shadow rendering performance
• Softcore 2x gathering rate added
• Softcore raid windows added
• Demo compatibility layer added

Major Improvements

Beyond the headline features, the changelist includes several notable improvements across animations, trophies, demos, entity flags, performance, storage sorting, UI, and server systems.

• New sprinting animation system while holding rifles
• Hunting Trophies can now show player skins
• Demo cfg files rerun whenever a demo is restarted
• New animation controller added for the vanilla Hatchet
• Texture projectors that could cause performance loss were removed
• Weapon rack config scripts were optimized to use PrefabAttribute
• Entity flag setting was improved to reduce unnecessary entity snapshot sends
• Deprecated FindObjectsOfType usages were replaced with faster unsorted FindObjectsByType
• Missions WorldPositionGenerator memory usage and execution time were improved
• Turrets with burst-only weapons like the M16A2 now use burst fire
• PlayerVoice processing allocations were removed
• Player server state caching per frame was reduced
• Around 15 allocation sources were cleaned up
• Vending machines, fridges, and wall cabinets support storage adaptor sorting

Major Fixes

Common Ground has a huge fix list. This section keeps the biggest player-facing fixes readable instead of dumping the entire changelog onto the page.

Removed Systems

A few older or obsolete systems were removed this month as part of Rust’s ongoing cleanup work. Most players will not notice these directly, but server/plugin developers may need to account for the RPC cleanup.

• Removed obsolete and generic BaseEntity.ClientRPC methods
• Removed obsolete and generic ClientRPCEx methods
• Removed obsolete and generic ClientRPCPlayer methods
• Removed obsolete and generic ServerRPC methods
• Removed obsolete and generic ServerRPCList methods
• Developers should switch to existing methods or write their own via RPCStart, RPCWrite, and RPCSend
• Removed Full Server Demo support
• Normal player demos recorded on the server are not related to the removed Full Server Demo support