By Bixyl Shuftan
It's been some time since I last wrote about my experiences in Rust. I last wrote about the survival MMO somewhat infamous for its PVP action in
August 2019. The reason was when I had to get a new computer around then, the game took over an hour to load and easily disconnected. So I had to say goodbye to the game for a while.
Recently, I had my computer upgraded. And not only has my performance in Second Life improved, so have other games. And Rust is playable once more. There's been some more changes to the game over the past few years. But the most interesting one from my point of view has been the addition of cars.
There have been alternatives to getting around on foot before that. But it's my opinion this is more of a game-changer than the others. Boats just take you around the shore and maybe up a stream if you can get to one. Balloons are slow to control. While horses are more versatile, they can be killed with gun fire, as well as you. Cars, or modular cars as they're officially called, are not only faster than horses, which can make a difference with that pesky chopper, but one often feels more comfortable inside a vehicle if someone might take a shot at them.
So where do you get a car in Rust? You can find them alongside the roads, abandoned and in poor shape. To get one up and running, you're going to need to repair the vehicle with metal, wood, and maybe some high quality metal. You're also going to have to find engine parts: crankshaft, carburetor, pistons, spark plugs, and valves. And you're also going to need some fuel in it's gas tank. Once those are taken care of, you have your car. Keeping it, however, is another issue. Someone else could swipe it if it's unattended. And in the words of one Dutch player, "they deteriorate faster then a French sedan." So if you're offline too long, the car will fade (or Rust) away.
To take care of both problems, you need a
car lift (hydraulic jack) *and* electric power going into it, constantly if you don't want your car to degrade. So you're going to need a power source: a solar panel (put outside where the sun shines), windmill (huge, the higher up it's placed, the better the power, works night and day), or a generator (small, but can be placed inside), a battery (small, medium, or large), and a wire unit. Place the power source and battery, then plug the latter into the former then plug the battery into the lift. It's now powered, and when you drive your car onto it, it will be maintained as long as the power is going.
Lifts, as well as windmills and solar panels, appear once in a great while in crates. Or you can buy one at an outpost for some scrap. Or you can use the new research table system to learn the blueprint at a level 2 workbench. For the later, you're going to need to farm a lot of scrap if you don't have the bench yet.
Once it's on a powered jack, either your own or the one at the Junkyard, you can make a lock on the car so no one else can just drive off with it. This cost 75 metal, and you'll need to keep the key on you. If someone knocks you out and you can't get back to your items in time, you won't be able to drive it. While it's on the jack, you can also modify the car. You can take sections off and replace them and move them around. The larger the framework, or chassis, the more sections can go on. Sections aren't available in crates, but you can research and build them with metal and wood and maybe some high quality metal. You can make yourself a flatbed truck in which a buddy can shoot from, a storage truck with space for loot you find while going about or on raids, a camper with storage space and a cooker for meat plus a bed you can respawn at, or some combination with a large chassis.
And yes, if you get hit by a car hard enough, you end up having to respawn. Conversely, you can also kill things while driving them, such as those pesky bears and shoot-on-sight scientists. After getting "ninja-beared" so often, it was sweet revenge turning bears into roadkill.
For me, cars have changed the game in Rust. I can get around places and farm items faster. Instead of having to stop somewhere for the night I can just turn on the lights and drive home. There's also a less primitive feel about the game. This has made the game more interesting.
With a two-section chassis, you can put in a large engine and a cockpit for a racer, which will go faster if high quality engine parts are used. In a PvP server, this would be useful from getting away from danger in a hurry. In a PvE server, perhaps less of a need for a faster car. But the lack of actual humans trying to get you means one can hold a race. Earlier this year, Nydia started up her Angels server in Rust again, and in May they had what got called the "
Wacky Races." They had so much fun, there was talk of eventually doing another.
Finally in late July, I had my computer upgraded. And among the first things I did was to download Rust once more and check out Nydia's server. I took a look at my friends' bases, took part in some zombie raid defenses, and set up a little place of my own. But not for long. It was soon time for The Wipe. And before long, we had to start over. This time I would set up a place next to a road near a grocery store and not too far from the junkyard. Snowy and her friends would set up a few buildings in the desert area on both sides of the road.
Shortly after the middle of the month, there was talk to doing another "Wacky Race." Players such as Kamida and I wanted to give it a go. And Snowy wanted to try again after overturning last time. So we agreed, and Umbra began building a course.
Finally, he announced it was ready for a test run, so I decided to check it out. The starting line was a little north of Snow's compound.
Next to it was a garage called the "Pist N Broke Speedway." Jasmine joked she was thinking "Pissed And Broke."
Inside were the cars for the race. Since the server was No Decay, the lifts didn't need to be powered unless the cars were being worked on.
Umbra let us practice a few times. The race was originally going to be on a Sunday, but it got postponed a day to Monday.
Several of us, Jasmine, Nydia, Snowy, Nikki, and myself were taking part. Umbra was also taking part, but was also watching over things.
The start of the track was a twig build that went straight for several seconds, then led to a turn,
followed by a jump.
And then back onto the road.
Then a heads up things were about to get interesting.
The course went off the road onto some rough ground.
Which could easily result in you going topsy-turvy.
Eventually, there was a road besides the course, but a very narrow one through some woods.
Then back onto the main road.
It was then back onto another stretch of wooden track.
Which led to another jump.
And back onto the road.
And soon things got cold.
Which led to some offroad into the snow.
And at one point going over a frozen lake and it's ice. I never tried braking on that.
Just after that was an airport,
and it's narrow security gate.
Past the airport, it was down a stretch of road in the cold area.
That soon changed to temperate.
Then the course went offroad again,
this time onto a section of rails.
Bear, you better run.
The forest soon thinned to the dry and somewhat flatter land.
A brief patch of green.
Then back onto the dry land.
Driving up onto higher ground.
After some time, the course led back on the road for the final stretch.
And back at the start and stop line. The race involved two laps.
The race went wacky from the start. A couple cars overturned at the first turn, and after the first jump my car did as well. I spent some time trying to push it up, and with that I figured winning was unlikely, just avoid finishing last. I ended up overturning as well in the cold area, along with Umbra's car. As we were both trying to push our cars upright, somehow mine ended up on top of my persona and I ended up having to respawn. Umbra had to teleport me back to my location, where I got my items back, uprighted the car, and resumed the race. Second lap, after the first jump I lost track of where the course was supposed to go and had to turn around to find it once more. And all of us ran over various critters, and shot at by NPC scientists.
First place was Jasmine, then came Nydia, myself, Nikki, Snowy, then Umbra himself.
Umbra's reward to Jazzy for finishing first was to lend her the Chinook helicopter, normally NPC controlled, to Jazzy for an hour. Yes, it's flying upside down.
Nydia would say, "I want to publicly thank Umbra profusely for all his hard work on our servers, and without him, we wouldn't have them."
There would be a couple more races. Nydia, Umbra, and I would have another one a few days later. She ended up first, followed by me, then Umbra. The day before I finished this article, Snowy, Nikki, and I had another. I finished the first lap first. But without Umbra there the chopper showed up, and when my car overturned, it caught up to me and fired a missile salvo. I had to respawn and run over back to the car. Nikki had her own problems, her car ending up into the water. Snowy was first, then me, then Nikki. There should be at least one more before the end of the month.
So what happens next month after The Wipe? Umbra says he may just hold a competition to see who can come up with the most raid-resistant base. But this isn't the end of the racing. He may build another track in October or November.
In the meantime, some of the group have been checking out another Rust server run by "The Orange Floof" (FriendlyDaWusky Resident). This one has treasure hunts, in which people try to get to the spot in time, defeat the guards, then grab what's in the trunk. But the server also has some lag. Floof plans to change this soon.
There are other things to talk about soon. There are the backpack mods that allow people to store additional items, which are carried over if the person gets clobbered and depending on what the moderator wants may carry over through the wipe. There are the zombies that appear at night due to another mod.
But those are for another story.
Thanks again Umbra,
And Jazzy, there's next time.
Bixyl Shuftan
