XS|PS5 Grand Theft Auto VI by icycalm on 30 Aug 2026 03:05

https://x.com/QwertdUp/status/2093520059079811470

The kids will be alright.

Mission: Siege of Orison by icycalm on 29 Aug 2026 15:03

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... on/9103205

Searil @Searil wrote:
I wish that, after completing the instanced Siege, there was a better way of getting loot out. Like, you spend time in the verse crafting guns and armor to go do Siege of Orison, you run all the way through, kill the boss, and then you can't get the super heavy armor out without leaving your crafted gear behind? It'd be nice to have an elevator at the end or something so I'm not losing all this stuff that I've worked hard for.

Something to think about. There is a lot of new loot in this mission. The Nine Tails version of the super heavy armor with its backpack, helmet and gun above all, but also the new Arlington rifle in three colors if I am not mistaken, the new Yakuza masks that are super cool, plus Nine Tails versions of the Palatino and other armors. So maybe we should bring a crate along with us? Is that even allowed in the instance? Will it fit the shuttle?

However, I don't think we should bother with too much looting on the first run, because it would break the roleplaying. Supreme Commander shubn is pissed that the Nine Tails have invaded his turf, and it'd look dumb to lug a crate around with his squad. He just wants to kill all of them and he's brought his biggest gun with him to do it personally. From the second run though, we should start seriously looting.

XS|PS5 Grand Theft Auto VI by icycalm on 29 Aug 2026 09:53

https://x.com/PseudoKatabasis/status/20 ... 4390621672

It's the dreaded DIA!

Mission: Siege of Orison by shubn on 28 Aug 2026 23:31

Here's the plan: I'll be going as SupCom wearing the BUL-H4 SteelTek Super Heavy armor, with two bodyguards wearing the GCD-Army armor [ > ] and a Medic Master Chief. The GCD-Army armor sets will be left in my Orison HQ so that anyone will be able to use them in future runs. The bodyguards' gear is the same as Inquisitors apart from the armor, and they can also get a Quartz 'GCD-Army' SMG from myself or icy as secondary if they desire.

Everyone should bring as much ammo as they can carry, a few extra HMG mags for me, and a second multi-tool in their backpack with tractor beam and salvage attachments plus SRT canister. The tractor beam I believe is needed to reload the HMG. Why a second multi-tool? So you don't get caught with your pants down switching out the medical attachment on your main multi-tool. That doesn't apply to the medic since he has a medgun and should already have a multi-tool with tractor beam.

For optics, get at least a Gamma Duo unless you have a better idea. For barrel attachments, I wouldn't bother with suppressors, and I'd get a comp or flash hider instead.

This is a 4-player mission and we have 5, so the plan is to do a first run without ysignal, since he's in the US, so he doesn't have to get up too early, and then a second run with ysignal replacing whoever drops out.

The plan might change if more people drop in, and we could also try recruiting from global chat if needed to complete a squad.

As for the mission itself, it should be pretty straightforward. As poet and philosopher Manowar once said: "hail, hail, hail and kill".

XS|PS5 Grand Theft Auto VI by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 20:17

https://x.com/madcap412/status/2093373501420003554

Wait till this mod drops. brown status is crashing so badly it will end up in Australia. They're practically teaching us eugenics.

XS|PS5 Grand Theft Auto VI by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 19:30

https://x.com/jondelarroz/status/2093355046721421467

Bell-shaped lol. She's the opposite of everything Whites like, and everyone will be needing my racial aesthetics essay soon to make sense of the world. Look at that negro Kaida salivating over her. Of course for him she's an upgrade.

https://x.com/Fernan1393/status/2093360399676473580

Brian nice @Fernan1393 wrote:
Antiwoke influencer: "Did you guys see that brown 6 in current thing? They hate us and we shouldn't give them our money."

"LonelyFaggit85 -$5: I love brown 6 in current thing"

"SadQueer92 -$10: I simp for brown sixes"

Antiwoke influencer: "I love brown 6 in current thing."

XS|PS5 Grand Theft Auto VI by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 16:56

https://x.com/jondelarroz/status/2093341247520010642

Oooh latina 5, spicy. Not even a German Nazi "latina". Pure native. Can't wait to not hear the spicy dialogue with the spicy accent she'll definitely have. Her 10 White boyfriend will deliver the game to the pure science-fiction theme. First sci-fi GTA!

Cult Spec by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 16:05

https://x.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/20 ... 3593937021

Cool promo and confirmation of the colors. The default is the darkest so perfect for the Master Chief, but it must be looted from somewhere, I think bunkers? The SteelTek of course as aforesaid for the SupComs [ > ] and I think the Stronghold is the purple Nine Tails one so perfect for the Emperor. And as for the Snow Camo that you can get from Wikelo, it can go to the Master Chiefs of a future white Commander.

Scheduling by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 15:40

We're tackling Siege of Orison 2.0 tomorrow Saturday, August 29 @ 2 PM UTC. No briefing's up yet. shubn is working on it, and he'll post the tactics at the last moment if need be. Keep an eye on the thread!

This is a Crusader emergency and Supreme Commander shubn will be personally in charge. Don't let him down, soldiers O7.

Mission: Siege of Orison by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 15:25

Alpha 4.10: Siege of Orison
Official Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... -Of-Orison

Note that they've made all-new music for this, with its own Siege of Orison theme in the tradition that was started by Dark Territory, brand-new and very striking Nine Tails armor variants plus new armor pieces like the Yakuza masks. The enemies now have new weapons like the heavy machine gun plus the super heavy armor and IKTIs. On the downside there are no vehicles anymore. In 1.0 there were ship and ground vehicle segments. So the infantry combat should be more complex with all the new toys and more careful setup, but the combined arms segments are gone. It has to be said though that those weren't extensive, so I am guessing overall the mission will be superior. We'll see. I personally expect a much improved experience overall.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn7yM2d ... XVyolQO3wj

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
Crusader is calling. Breathtaking views, incredible dining, and potential death lurking around every corner. Come reclaim the city in the clouds. What are you waiting for?

@HobnobbersFM wrote:
Dear Chris Roberts, who art in CIG. Thank you for these bugs we are about to receive. Through the bounty of the player base wallets. SE.

@NivisTigris wrote:
Oh, a Swiss mercenary.

@YellowFruit89 wrote:
No joke, they were totally brutal, that's why they still protect the Pope until this day.

@Umemuuli wrote:
Geneva Conventions strictly regulate the use of the Red Cross. #TodayYouLearnedSomethingNew

@Exonic wrote:
If the game would be in this state like you do video, this would be amazing. As always perfect promotion.

@nikkmann149 wrote:
Oh I get it, that glitching in the first few seconds is showing us what it'll actually be like to play.

It's actually pretty stable, as people are reporting. They didn't delay it a month for nothing.

@JaumeSabater wrote:
What happened to the influencer from the previous iteration? Was she thrown out of a cliff by Nine Tails? :)

That's been EXACTLY my main concern after seeing the trailer! In the very last iteration of Siege of Orison 1.0, they showed off a blonde asian influencer who goes to Orison and gets caught in the fracas and video blogs about it. They made several TikTok-size videos of her, and I think even integrated her into whatever in-game con was running at the time, either IAE or Invictus. I neglected to make a thread about her at the time so I have nothing to link to in-forum, and I can't be bothered to look her up right now, but I'll make a thread eventually. Anyway, she's completely gone in SoO 2.0. If it was just some lore on their wiki, I wouldn't have minded, but they made VIDEOS of her, and people were discussing her annoying way of speaking and taking sides about her, etc. It really smarts that they completely erased her, probably not even deliberately. They just forgot about her. I suppose until/if they ever address her, we can chalk her up to this guy's suggestion:

@ninefive0 wrote:
That was a fan-made AI animation lol.

So the influencer IS in the game world, but she never went to Orison during the Siege event, and some of her fans generated those clips with AI to make fun of her (because she does come out as an oblivious ass in the clips, that was the whole point of them).

EDIT: Her name was Mahli and she appeared extensively in the game over several months: https://starcitizen.tools/Mahli

@EricVidfarne wrote:
1:00 was that a Wilhelm scream?

Google it.

Release Notes: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... -Alpha-410

Spectrum Thread: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... -of-orison

Verse News by shubn on 28 Aug 2026 12:47

4.10.0

Mission: Siege of Orison by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 05:32

Crazy that even CR uses a random American pronunciation utterly divorced from even the in-game voice acting. More ammo for those saying they don't play their own game lol.

We'll stick to the traditional then. Crazy programmers lol.

Mission: Siege of Orison by ysignal on 28 Aug 2026 04:08

The problem with the pronunciation used in the recent video is that CIG's own page on Orison [ > ] states that it's named after the English word, and the in-game voice acting and early promotional videos use the ordinary pronunciation.

MOST WANTED: Star Citizen & Squadron 42 (PC) by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 02:10

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... e-Chairman

New Letter from the Chairman just dropped. These usually appear when they're celebrating something, but in this case they're running damage control because the last couple of patches have been even more unstable than usual, plus there was a PR trainwreck from an official livestream they're trying to dampen. Plus they're announcing yet another Squadron 42 delay, this time because of GTA6. But there is some celebration too, for the billion-funding mark, plus rising player numbers. All this put Chris on the defensive, which is why he resorted to saying:

Chris Roberts wrote:
what is the most ambitious game in all of gaming

Which is the correct justification for the problems being encountered, and one almost everyone misses. Though I do have an objection: It's not the most ambitious game. That would be my Battlegrounds. It's the most technically ambitious game. But anyway. It's close enough. It's the second most ambitious game.

P.S. I once saw a guy linking ALL the Letters to the Chairman, and it ran to dozens of pages, perhaps over a hundred. I should sit and read all of them back-to-back some day. They aren't necessary to playing the game, but they're useful in understanding where it comes from and where it's going. (For my game though, the order of magnitude more pages I have written and am writing on it pretty much must be read to play the game, or at least to get the most out of it. And that too is an indication of which game is more ambitious.)

Mission: Siege of Orison by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 01:27

Since Siege of Orison 2.0 launched today, we'll never be able to access 1.0 again. So I thought I would sum up our experience with it.

We must have tried it 3-4 times over the space of a couple of years if I remember correctly. We have all the videos so maybe one day I'll go back and update this thread with them, and pics, and observations etc. But to sum up, the experience was always chaotic and buggy for us. It was chaotic because we never managed to be there right at the start; it was always other players who had started it, so we'd walk in while it was at the halfway point, or the one-third point, or the last third of it, and sometimes we'd even have to face players who'd gone rogue on top of the respawning Nine Tails. Indeed I think in the last occasion the developers had added a system explicitly recognizing rogue players and turning them red on radar for everyone else to shoot at. So it was chaotic because of the open-world MMO setup, with teams of players coming and going, sometimes collaborating and other times fighting; and of course it was buggy because it's Star Citizen. So I remember an entire session where we spent hours crashing through the shuttle, the floors, etc., or awful framerates, or unreliable Nine Tails spawns, and basically not getting anything done in half a day. A complete waste of an occasion, and we'd been waiting months for it!

Other times the game and the other players were cooperating reasonably, and we would make some progress. But even then, in our best run (I think it was the very last one) we managed to reach an early boss, and he wasn't at his station, and we spent a bunch of time looking for him. And then I had to go because we'd already been at it for five hours.

In all, we never got anywhere near the end, so from our perspective it was fair to assume that the end was unreachable. And yet, there were always people on Twitter posting pics of having finished it. So I think it was a matter of monitoring the start times and making sure you went in at the start instead of randomly like we did, and then ensuring you're on a well-running server, and then having expert friends to go in with, and trying the mission enough times over its running window, which was usually a week or so iirc. But this last prescription wasn't viable for us because we only had a Saturday to play when we'd assemble the troops. We couldn't play on a weekday when the crowds were thinner and the servers were running better.

So Siege of Orison 1.0 had always been the one "Dynamic"/Global Event we never managed to complete. You'd think it'd be the easiest one because it didn't feature the complexity of spaceships, yet the sheer number of players and bugs involved hurt us more than full enemy fleets in other events. Still we spent enough time fighting it that I feel we got a good grasp of how it worked, and are in a strong position now to appreciate the changes and finally reach the end of its new, more choreographed, strict PVE 4-player iteration. I don't mourn the loss of the much grander, open-world version of the event because there's already tons of that experience elsewhere in the verse and I am sure CIG is planning tons more. For the specific event parameters of Siege of Orison, I think this new approach is the most suitable, and I look forward to tackling it, and finally being able to say that we've completed it.

P.S. We've been pronouncing Orison wrong. It's not "Oreeson", it's "Oreyezon", as Chris Roberts and everyone at CIG pronounces it in Inside CIG: Siege of Orison. Actually, there's one guy in the video who pronounces it like we did. But everyone else differs.

Monument Blockers by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 00:54

I saw this update on Rustafied:

Rustafied wrote:
Player-maintained monuments

Player-maintained monuments continue to get more intertwined with the rest of the map. Monument blockers have been adjusted across Launch Site, Military Tunnels, Missile Silo, Large Oil Rig, and Small Oil Rig. Their health and protection have been tuned, with the current target putting a blocker at one C4 or five satchels to destroy. They also have visible health when attacked and effects as they move through their damage states, making the whole process a little less mysterious than beating on a pile of debris and hoping for the best.

Having never heard of "monument blockers" before, I AIed it, and got this:

Gemini wrote:
A monument blocker is an experimental feature being tested on the Rust Staging Branch designed to slow down early-game progression by barricading access to high-tier monuments on server wipe day.

How It Works

Wipe Day Restraints: When a server wipes, debris like blast doors, collapsed corridors, barrels, tables, and wooden barricades spawn at high-tier locations. This stops players from instantly "speedrunning" keycard puzzle rooms.

Affected Locations: The blockades primarily obstruct high-reward monuments like the Launch Site, Large Oil Rig, and Military Tunnels.

Removal Methods: Players can bypass the blockers by destroying them using tools or weapons like rockets or a jackhammer. Breaking certain barricades down with a jackhammer also yields metal fragments.

Decay Timer: According to developer notes shared on the Rust Discord, monument blockers are also programmed to start decaying naturally after 24 hours, opening up the monuments over time even if players don't blast through them.

Part of a Bigger System

These blockers tie into a larger, upcoming "Player-Maintained Monuments" system. Instead of monuments existing solely as static loot spawns, Facepunch is moving toward a loop where players must clear out debris, repair pipes, and restore power grids to bring the monuments back online.

If you want to plan for the next wipe, I can help you figure out which tools are most cost-effective to clear them or detail how the new player-maintained power grids work. What would you like to explore next?

Since this feature is restricted to top-tier monuments, it won't affect us directly. But I am glad it slows down the clans from getting the coolest stuff on wipe day, obviously. Anything that gives people more to do in the game is good in my book. And note that as more and more of the playerbase moves to monthly servers, preventing people from teching up too fast and spreading progression out becomes a priority.

You can see some of these blockers in this video, I think they look appropriate:

Rust Monuments Blocked Off & Many Other Changes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PVI8L3K1Pc

Armor: Super Heavy by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 00:29

Star Citizen 4.9 PTU | Super Heavy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOtgdI9aZSQ

Towards the end of this video you can see the HMG being fired. Don't miss it.

@Yuss_SID wrote:
When you walk it sounds like an Iron Man armour.

@vorpalrobot wrote:
I was thinking RoboCop.

@QuercusCorvus wrote:
Idris captain: "Why do I hear music?"
[The Rebel Path intensifies, interspersed with gunfire]

@Sentrix141 wrote:
Far...out...this...looks...sick

@gj-84 wrote:
DoW quote: Walk softly and carry a big gun!!!!! :)

@ThatKoreanGamer-r5m wrote:
This was a fun armor to play around with. I like that you can't be melee'd from behind with it.

@Cybearnaut wrote:
Hearing the sound of that armor approaching around the corner—I'm looking for decent cover.

@gorganhorn6872 wrote:
And this power armor is to light Titan armor like an undersuit is to this power armor.

Imagine Super Heavy Titan Armor :)

The future looks positively mechnificent!

I almost corrected that last word.

@CarbonPixel78 wrote:
I imagine it will be like this suit and an ATLS had a baby :)

@ThornedLily wrote:
Listen, I don't care about this armor in any way, but wow that gun sounds amazing.

Can only use it with this armor tho.

@CarbonPixel78 wrote:
At just the right angle, the head and backpack resemble a cat head (the whiskers are the lights and the two points on the backpack are the "ears").

Star Citizen 4.9 PTU | Stomping Grounds (feat. Super Heavy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxeZ7_fgH84

@CarbonPixel78 wrote:
Playing around with video LUTs while taking the Super Heavy armor for a stroll around Lorville.

@doraxil wrote:
One more step closer to Titan suits O7

@pterodacton wrote:
Apparently this has replaced Titan suits, development was dropped in favour of the Super Heavy armour, and what was left of the code got re-used for the ATLS. I hope to god I'm wrong, but that's what I heard.

@Desrtfox71 wrote:
Titan suits are still a thing. They have not been replaced.

@pterodacton wrote:
God I hope so.

@rayjay8148 wrote:
Can you equip a different backpack to the suit and can you carry a standard weapon if you lose the heavy gun?

@CarbonPixel78 wrote:
Hmm doesn't look like I can equip a non-HMG backpack. But I can carry a non-HMG weapon with the Super Heavy.

@StillnessInMotion88 wrote:
Wait, it can sit? Does it mean it can be used in a ship to pilot it? Damn. Also, the one thing that bothers me with this armor design is the two scrawny metal connector rods connecting the shoulders to the elbows. The whole bulky armor really falls flat when it comes to broad shoulders, plus, no manufacturer would leave such a critical joint so exposed.

@CarbonPixel78 wrote:
When you're not carrying the Vendetta HMG you can jog, jump, crouch, pilot, drive, etc.

@StillnessInMotion88 wrote:
Damn, now I want it even more. The first armor that might make me wanna take off my Palatino Necropolis.

Man of high taste. The Palatino Necropolis is our default Master Chief armor, and he has to take it off in order to switch to the BUL-H4. Inquisitor's stuff is cool, but the Master Chief's is even cooler, as it should. Which reminds me, we still don't have a single Palatino Necropolis... We really ought to fix this. How tf did this guy get one? I posted the question to him on YT.

@Bland-79 wrote:
Do any of the gun racks hold that weopon?

@StillnessInMotion88 wrote:
Maybe the Perseus can hold it as it has multiple special weapon racks.

I've read that someone wore this armor inside an IKTI btw. We ought to test that. It would be the ultimate tanky setup in the game right now if it works. First you empty the IKTI's guns, then you hop out and empty also the HMG. All they need now is a horde mission, and as more and more players have been asking for it, I suspect the devs are preparing it. They've let hints that a new profession is coming up for the new Nyx planets, and I am hoping it is this.

MOST WANTED: Star Citizen & Squadron 42 (PC) by icycalm on 28 Aug 2026 00:08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wStKk8AAJY

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
In this episode of "Inside CIG" we follow the anticipated release of Alpha 4.10: Siege of Orison, dive into instancing technology, and take a look at all the challenges that come with bringing new experiences to the Star Citizen Live environment. How did Alpha 4.10 get to the finish line? Let's find out.

"Inside CIG" is a series where we further uncover the realities of game development, show the journey of delivering a patch to the Star Citizen universe and its community. We meet the developers, listen in on critical conversations, learn more about the complexities of building the most ambitious space game ever and what it means as we head to 1.0.

@Lx-yd2ev wrote:
Do the elevators work in the CIG HQ? ¿?

@HotWheels1776 wrote:
There's a 50% chance you just fall through the floor on your way to work. That's where all the devs that left went, they didn't move on to other companies they just fell through the planet.

@TecHippy wrote:
Why do you think they have such trouble retaining talent? Got nothing to do with 10 years of crunch, pay that makes Subway competitive or management that couldn't code their way out of a hello world. It's because the elevators just kill people at random.

Note that they have the coolest dev office ever, just as they have the coolest everything ever. It's the same taste governing everything from a desk or carpet choice outside the game to an armor texture inside it: Chris Roberts'.

P.S. The video includes some sneak footage of the Kraken! And remember, we have three on order [ > ].

Armor: Super Heavy by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 20:23

https://starcitizen.tools/Category:Super_Heavy_armor

Only one Super Heavy armor in the game yet, the BUL-H4 that was just released. But it's wild to think they might add more. They're certainly adding more guns to it, I think I heard a flamethrower might be next.

Exclusive Gear by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 20:11

SteelTek Super Heavy Armor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzc4s9LC0gQ

@Spezies wrote:
Reminds me of Dune 2 RTS Game - Intro - Harkonnen :D

This guy gets it! Remember when, in The Way of The Cult, I said I want to play Star Citizen as if it's first-person Dune 2? We're there now, with Baron Harkonnen going to personally deal with the trouble in his city!

@TrashBandicooot wrote:
Baller! Heckin' epic trailer for the battle about to commence. Boss fight vibes like woah!

Exactly: boss fight. The boss wears this armor, whether he's the fireteam leader, or better yet a faction leader in the special silver version.

So this, like all silver and gold gear, is exclusive to Supreme Commanders. shubn can wear it to Siege of Orison 2.0 if he wants. He isn't Stanton's SupCom, but he is Nyx's, so it's part of his gear and he can use it wherever, and certainly in his home city.

It's a great kit for the SupCom because it's the thickest armor in the game. And if the enemies somehow get close, that's the biggest handheld gun in the game.

The boss in Siege of Orison 2.0 has the purple Nine Tails version btw, and I want it for the Emperor, so that would be our number one looting goal.

Story Missions: Recco Battaglia by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 19:31

Here's a pic of Battaglia's location in Levski from the 4.9 feedback thread: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... -battaglia

Shark-CIG @Shark-CIG wrote:
Recco Battaglia is back as one of the new in-person mission givers with three story missions that introduce players to Nyx, followed by repeatable contracts. She is located in Levski inside of her workshop acting as a new instanced location. Recco's story missions take you through industrial mining, missing person boarding, FPS gameplay, and locating special people for her, and we'd love to hear what you think!

Her workshop looks like it's located in the Grand Barter. You take an elevator to get to her (that's how you cross into the instance), maybe it's off to the side of the stalls somewhere.

The discussion in the thread centers mainly around Recco's looks. Apparently she's been uglified since her last appearance in an earlier version of the game (before we started playing).

Evinco @Evinco wrote:
What happened to the old Recco, why does she now look like a man, terrible change, what was wrong with the original Recco, this looks nothing like her?

Monty M. Montgomery @Monty_M_Montgomery wrote:
The new one looks like an NPC from Fallout 3...

I can definitely see the uglification, but it doesn't bother me TOO much when I consider that Levski is a commie spot, so people are bound to be ugly.

Either way, as this guy below explains, she, her workshop, and her missions are a fantastic addition to the verse, and we're bound to see more of those populating the landing zones in the near future.

QuantumHive @quantumhive wrote:

Physicalized Mission Giver: Interacting with Recco in person is fantastic for immersing new players in the universe, lore, and foundational mechanics.

Mining Opportunity: The Titanium contract serves as an excellent introduction to mining, and providing a loaner ship is a great touch.

Blinding Hope: A solid addition to the mission line, though it triggers a bit too soon after the initial Titanium run.

I was planning to ask shubn to hold an official Recco session this week, but after some chatting it turns out her missions are mostly meant to be handled solo. They aren't particularly difficult, plus if you just get a shared contract from someone instead of walking into her workshop and interacting with her yourself, you're missing out on the experience. So I've chosen to just let each player deal with her on their own, in their own time. That said, there are complaints in that thread about SOME of the missions in terms of difficulty, though other players are countering that the tough spots can be cheesed... So I would say: Try Recco on your own, and if you get stuck, ask for help from shubn and the rest of us. There are three story missions plus repeatable contracts, and the total playtime should be at least around ten hours. Perfect for this weekend if you don't make the Siege of Orison 2.0 cut, or whenever else you have a couple of evenings to spare.

Screenshots by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 03:14

What do you think about my interiors?
https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comme ... _interiors

shubn wrote:
Completely next-level. You've inspired me.

That's me posting with shubn's account.

His base looks like an illegal lab from Star Citizen. Part of what makes it look so good is the lighting, which requires electrification. We've dabbled with electricity before, most notably getting the phone to work by hooking it up to a battery fed from a solar panel. But for night lights all over the base, it'd take a lot more effort. But it would allow working at night and really enjoying it instead of worrying about the torch mechanics. And you could light all the outside too if you wanted.

Screenshots by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 00:18

A thread for third-party screenshots.

Builds by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 00:12

https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comme ... /code_lock

Qwen7 wrote:
Upkeep costs will be tied in future updates to the number of players authenticated on code locks and TC (nerf for clans). With this, no need for usual code locks to open doors, so no increased upkeep costs.

Amazing. I am gonna get into this sort of stuff. This is more complexity than Factorio... in first-person. While competing against a thousand people. More than a thousand really, a thousand AT ANY GIVEN TIME. More like 5,000 or 10,000 over the course of the wipe.

Builds by icycalm on 27 Aug 2026 00:09

A thread for cool builds from Reddit etc., whether of whole bases, or of smaller setups. Stuff to be inspired from or just laugh at. Our own designs will be showcased in the Cult Base forum.

Hints & Tips by icycalm on 25 Aug 2026 19:20

https://commits.facepunch.com/617419

I had no idea rugs gave comfort, let alone 100%. I thought they were purely decorative. So from now on, especially in eating areas, there will be rugs.

The base rug has a bunch of skins and I have two of them, an industrial one for areas like say the garage, and a skull one for areas like the HQ or the gearing-up rooms. So there should be a rug skin for every need. The bear rug on the other hand... I've never liked it. It could probably be used in the more rustic modules like say the stables, but otherwise it's an eyesore in most modules in my view.

Hints & Tips by icycalm on 25 Aug 2026 19:16

A Hints & Tips thread in the same vein as the one for Star Citizen [ > ]. Try to title the posts appropriately.

Commits by icycalm on 25 Aug 2026 19:01

There are several ways to get Rust news. The highest production values way is via Shadowfrax videos about once a week. Lower production values but with more detail is the Rustafied blog, again about once a week. But if you want to go straight to the source and get up-to-the-MINUTE updates 24/7, you go to Facepunch's commits page: https://commits.facepunch.com

Of course you must be a programmer to parse this, like me, otherwise you'll be baffled by lines such as "merge from main". Not everyone has what it takes to be a coder, so don't be too harsh on yourself if you can't do it. Stick with the casualfag news sources.

Story Missions: Recco Battaglia by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 19:18

Official Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... r-Tensions

I hadn't posted the 4.9 update so I am posting it now in Battaglia's thread as it's the most relevant. It's a small update because both Siege of Orison 2.0 and Battaglia's instance and story missions were moved to 4.10, because the instancing tech got delayed, so the only content that remained are Battaglia's repeatable missions. They didn't even bother making a trailer for them as there's so little content.

Release Notes: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... n-Alpha-49

Spectrum Thread: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... r-tensions

Kruger S-65 Stingray by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 18:11

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... hip_but_it

Apart_Pumpkin_4551 wrote:
Hey CIG, the Stingray is a really cool ship, but it has serious problems

I'll start by saying I love the ship and its visuals; the tail looks a bit out of place and clunky compared to the rest of the ship, but that's fine, its modes are really cool too. Overall, good job.

Now for the tricky part: it's a medium fighter, slightly faster and more maneuverable than its competitors, with no cargo or interior. Generally, it fits the spec sheet, except for one thing... the weapons.

Okay, CIG, I get why it has bespoke weapons, that's fine, but you can't limit a fighter to four Size 2 weapons and restrict them to bespoke gatlings or repeaters with almost zero alpha damage. Even with its Size 4 weapons, it can't even damage a Constellation, which ought to be a standard target for medium fighters.

With the Basher, the mere option to equip M-series cannons allows you to hit and damage larger targets, whereas Kruger ships are restricted. That limitation didn't bother me as much on the Wolf—since it's a light fighter, but on the Stingray, it's glaring.

There are two possible solutions: either allow the use of other weapons (which I think is unlikely due to the hardpoints and animations) or create Kruger-branded laser or ballistic cannons that we can equip.

I'm just offering my feedback; it doesn't need to be "meta", and it probably never will be, but it needs to be able to perform its role as a medium fighter, rather than being more limited than a light fighter made of scrap metal (with a hole in its wing).

Necondus wrote:
Or crazy idea, do something about the alpha damage gating that is causing the issue.

The subject of fighters versus larger ships is quite deep, so if you want more insight, read the comments in the thread.

I've no idea where to put this ship in the Cult Spec. I'll think about it, and let me know if you have any suggestions.

lol by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 09:34

https://x.com/schizothotep/status/2091331974396825641

Kruger S-65 Stingray by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 09:22

Star Citizen 4.10 PTU | Kruger S-65 Stingray First Flight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYg7S9O1sXc

Mesmerizing video. The ship is cool too. In fact:

@gorganhorn6872 wrote:
These recent ships are so hyper detailed they are now legit works of art. Beautiful ship.

Skip to 4:46 for the stunning part. Though the ship's finish and details are also stunning, so the whole video is worth watching. There's nothing like this in gaming.

Monument: Power Plant by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 04:09

Here is the detailed description of every maintenance procedure that must be followed to power up the relevant monuments after the Power Plant is turned on (all info taken from the official page linked earlier). As aforesaid, I've only experienced the Supermarket, and it was very straightforward: you just go to the freezer and grab the food, no other action needed. All the rest sound way more involved, so I look forward to tackling them one by one and figuring them out.

Adam W wrote:
SATELLITE CRASH

A new in-game event!

Power up the new Satellite Control Computer at the Launch Site with an aiming module and then take control of a satellite of your choosing.

Use the thruster buttons to target the crash location before locking it in. It doesn't come with a manual though, so you'll have to figure out which thruster button does what, first!

Once locked in, the satellite will start its descent, visible to all players on the server. After a short while it will impact and spill its new satellite loot crates.

Once they've cooled down, they're ready to loot—but the whole server knows about them too!

Jarryd Campi wrote:
DOME PUMPING

Once the Power Plant is running, a new switch on the Large Oil Rig will become usable. This controls the flow of crude oil to Dome. Once activated, this will pump Crude for 20 minutes.

However, you can't retrieve it by yourself—you'll need to use the Tanker vehicle module to drain the oil and then transport it to a car lift to extract it.

There is also a switch on Small Oil Rig that pumps at half the rate. You can enable both switches at once to get 1.5x the Crude.

Martyn Chapman wrote:
SUPERMARKET FREEZER

There is a new freezer located inside the Supermarket that provides a steady stream of chilled food so long as it is receiving power from the Power Plant.

Every so often, it will provide a larger food cache than usual. Happy shopping!

ElliotH wrote:
WATER TREATMENT PLANT PRODUCTION

Water pipes will now spawn around the roadsides of the map. To start, the pipes will be empty and won't produce any water. To get them to start pumping, the Water Treatment Plant will have to be maintained.

Two gearboxes have been added inside the monument, and turning them pressurises the new intact water tank at its centre. To get a gearbox moving, the Power Plant's grid needs to be live, then you'll need to place a gear into the gearbox and interact with it to start the valve wheel spinning. Gears are consumed as the wheel turns and can't be pulled back out once inserted.

When the tank reaches full pressure, the blades will start spinning and clearing up the blockages, restoring water flow across the map. After that, coming back every once in a while to keep the pressure up and the blockages clear will be much easier than a cold start.

ElliotH wrote:
GAS STATION CAR GARAGE

In Oxum's, the car garage has received a tune-up. When the power grid is active, or when the backup generator around the side is turned on, the garage will power up with some new features.

The garage door can be opened or closed with a switch on the outer wall, so long as that switch has power.

Inside the garage, the car lift will be operable and ready for business. Lower it down using the controls and drive a car on to start using it just like any other car lift. When you're done, raise the lift back up and head down into the cave for a chance at higher quality car part spawns!

ElliotH wrote:
AIRFIELD TERMINAL TOWER

A newly refreshed control tower has hit the Airfield. On the second floor, you'll find two new terminals that charge up from fuse boxes connected to the power grid.

The smaller terminal will increase the rate at which air drops fall across the map when charged.

When the larger terminal is charged, a Chinook resupply crate can be called in to drop a crate near the airfield tarmac.

The terminals will slowly lose charge after they are activated. Once they've drained the residual charge completely, they will be available for use again.

Story Missions: Recco Battaglia by icycalm on 23 Aug 2026 02:43

https://starcitizen.tools/Recco_Battaglia

Star Citizen Wiki wrote:
Recco Battaglia organizes many of the mining tasks that are coming and going out of Levski. She also appears in Squadron 42. She is portrayed by Ania Sowinski.

Recco Battaglia, the latest in a long line of miners, had continued the family tradition until an accident at a dig site left her unable to continue to work. Frustrated with her post-accident treatment under the bureaucracy of the UEE and United Resource Workers, Recco moved out to Nyx where she now coordinates contractor operations for the People's Alliance.

4.10 looks to be arriving early next week, but we'll have to wait until Saturday to play Siege of Orison 2.0, which is a bummer. HOWEVAR, the update brings a set of story missions given by the first NPC with her own instanced environment, Recco Battaglia, and we can play these missions at any time midweek, so whoever wants to engage with the new patch before Saturday will be able to. Moreover, it looks like the play time will be substantial. It doesn't look like just a couple of hours, it looks like closer to ten, or more. So there should be enough content here to sink a couple of evenings in them at least. AND THEN you get Siege of Orison 2.0 on Saturday on top of that. Really a great week for Star Citizen fans any way you look at it. Also note that Siege of Orison 2.0 looks to be a strict 4-player mission, so maybe some of us won't get to play it this weekend. So it's cool that those people have the Battaglia missions to tie them over until they get to play Siege.

I'll have more news on all this soon, but for now I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up. I'll definitely be playing these missions next week, and I look forward to more people joining me on them.

Steam Charts by icycalm on 22 Aug 2026 06:26

https://steamdb.info/app/252490/charts/#max

Twelve years of steady growth.

86.25% positive reviews.

We started playing in 2017, so we've witnessed most of the journey, albeit with a large break the last 4-5 years, as we switched to Star Citizen (which, interestingly, went live at about the same time as Rust, but with a far smaller featureset, which I think is why it took me so long to get into it).

MOST WANTED: Alex Kierkegaard's Kingslayer (PC) by icycalm on 22 Aug 2026 05:18

A massive leap in roleplaying immersion is coming soon in Alex Kierkegaard's Kingslayer.

Next-level gaming only by Cult Games.

Shadowfrax Videos by icycalm on 22 Aug 2026 05:07

Nexus ferry test, Honey bandage, New render pipeline! | Rust Update 21st August 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_96mY-rVKn8

What struck me most about this video is that it seems a Nexus of servers will only allow you to join ONE of the servers, the main one, from the server lobby. And then to access the rest of the servers/islands, you have to... take the ferry! Of course this could change before release, but I hope it doesn't, because the exploration factor will blow through the roof this way, ESPECIALLY if the islands aren't identical in features, which unfortunately they probably will be, at least to start with. But imagine if you had to take a ferry and island-hop to find e.g. the Launch Site or whatever.

Overall I am highly sceptical about the Nexus system and I'll discuss my reservations at length in an upcoming Nexus thread, but at least for now I am happy to hear that it looks like island-hopping will have to happen in-game and not in the server browser.

P.S. I hope the ferry can be stolen and hoarded in your base. I'd love to have one, though it looks so slow it would be useless. It IS loaded with turrets though, so it could be a water tank.

Monument: Power Plant by icycalm on 22 Aug 2026 04:56

Power Trip Official Page: https://rust.facepunch.com/news/power-trip

Power Trip Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynUzYLpvmXs

Facepunch wrote:
PLAYER-MAINTAINED MONUMENTS

This month we're releasing a set of features we call Player-Maintained Monuments—tying together our existing monuments in new and interesting ways while pushing players to interact with each other in the process.

The headline feature of this month's update was that the Power Plant can now be turned on, thereby powering up features in several other monuments. One of these is the freezer in the Supermarket, which I actually experienced a couple of times in the weekly wipe that I just completed. I visited the Supermarket 4-5 times, and the first 2-3 of these, the freezer was on, and I got a bunch of solid food items from it. Then later in the wipe the power went out for whatever reason, and the freezer no longer worked. It wasn't a huge change either way, but it was a welcome surprise while it lasted, especially useful before you get farming going.

So my take on this update, strategically, is as follows. Turning on the Power Plant and keeping it on isn't something that we can do, as a small clan, in the hyperpopular servers we're playing. This is a job for the big clans. However, it's a good idea to maintain awareness of whether power is on or off at any given time, so we can benefit from it. There's probably several ways to know what's going on, but I think the most accessible one is to pass near power lines, which are all over the place, and see if you hear the buzzing sound they make, which I think signifies that power is on. And if it's on, you look at the map to see which affected monument(s) are near you, and you act accordingly. As aforesaid I have experienced the Supermarket so far, and I look forward to familiarizing myself with all of them.

All that as regards the play experience. From a game criticism perspective let me just say that this update is nothing short of genius, and takes immersion in the game's world to another level. It ties together several of the monuments, it makes the island feel like a real functional (or used-to-be-functional) place, it gives large clans a new and very challenging goal to compete over (or cooperate on), with downstream ramifications all the way to solos who can benefit from it if they keep their eyes open and their plans flexible. Above all it reassures me that whoever's steering this boat has a deep sense for how realism and mechanics and aesthetics intersect and interact, and I look forward to more in this vein in the future.

Martyn Chapman wrote:
POWERING UP THE POWER PLANT

Using new Heavy Fuses, the Power Plant can be fired back up to unlock several new gameplay features for everyone around the island.

Heavy Fuses can be found as loot and must be inserted into the new special fuse boxes located at the Power Plant. Not everything will be unlocked all at once—some things connected to the Power Plant require more fuses than others to become functional.

Once the Power Plant has started providing power, the powerline poles with transformers (the white cylinder-looking things) which appear alongside roads can now provide power for electrical circuits. These powerlines can also now be climbed—no need for a ladder, just approach the powerline and jump.

Green recyclers (the ones outside of safe zones) have received a 10% nerf to their baseline efficiency of 50%, being restored to 60% with sufficient power from the Power Plant and additionally receiving a duration buff from 5s to 4.5s once the Power Plant is at maximum power. Yellow recyclers (inside safe zones) remain unchanged from their previous behaviour. We have also added a single special new red recycler with 75% efficiency to the Power Plant, only usable at maximum power.

Roadmap by icycalm on 21 Aug 2026 22:50

I used to follow Rust's roadmap religiously back in the day when it was hosted on Nolt (at https://rust.nolt.io/roadmap). But then a couple years ago they shut it down, and I lost track of their future plans.

Turns out sometime in the past few months(/year?) they relaunched their roadmap on their own site: https://rust.facepunch.com/roadmap

It's a very different format, far more formalized. Before, they would simply accept people's suggestions and rank them as "under consideration", "in development", "rejected", etc. But now they have a definite and detailed plan FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. It's very exciting to be able to look that far ahead, especially because of the sheer amount of stuff that's planned, easily 2x or 3x more than in the old days. Moreover, as exciting as the main additions are, even more exciting are the "Stretch Goals" at the bottom. Just look at this stuff: pet dogs, computer, dot matrix screens, programmable robot, bridges, railway handcar, bounty system, and more, every single one of which, when incorporated, will interact with every other system and item, blowing up the game's possibility space even more.

For Q4 they have "terrain deformation" coming, which sounds like Life is Feudal's terraforming! Even if it doesn't end up that hardcore, it will certainly be an improvement over what we have right now, where a fucking rock on the ground can blow up your entire base design plan.

Player customization meanwhile means we'll finally stop playing as africans or asian women, though tbh that never really bothered me as it's a strict first-person game, and moreover once you're geared you can barely tell who's underneath. Still, it will be nice to be able to design a cool crew and take some pictures with the large variety of regular clothing the game offers. It's not Star Citizen in this regard, but when you add the skins on top of it, you can create some pretty cool looks.

The bridges mean that uberbases in the future will also require a river running through them so we can use them, which will be challenging. I welcome this challenge, as always.

The railway handcar will mean we'll be able to take over a section of train track from the early- or at least midgame. I wonder what collisions will look like.

The pet dogs will probably be tied with farming so forcing everyone to tech up farming, which is great. Solo scavenging with a dog will become far cooler, and imagine a fireteam with four dogs?

And finally I won't even speculate on what the computer + dot matrix screens + switchboard/circuitboard + programmable robot are all about. It sounds like a whole new level of endgame, and I'll be there for it.

So I'll be keeping a close eye on the roadmap from now on! It's just pure cutting-edge 21st-century gaming.

Cult Engine 3 (internal codename: TaleSpire) by icycalm on 21 Aug 2026 21:33

There have been efforts to adapt Sandpoint to CE3 before, but they've been crap. This one is good, and I am excited for it. The project has just started, so we'll see how far it gets, but it's so strong out of the gate that I have some confidence it'll be completed.

We probably won't use this board during Rise of the Runelords, just because it'll be so huge and full of NPCs and items and stuff that a comprehensive adaptation of the adventure elements on top of the town itself would be a massive undertaking that would fall mostly on my shoulders, and with dubious results. So most likely the optimal approach would be finish the campaign in Cult Engine 1 and that will unlock the town in CE3 for use in Master of Heroes and subsequent adventures/campaigns. You'll be able to build up, tear down and modify your holdings, and the town will be able to become unrecognizable with the passing of the years and decades: perhaps grow into a powerful regional bastion, or be reduced to ruins, square by square and stone by stone.

Simultaneously, another very competent creator is working on the RotR dungeons. Here is one:

And again this work is solid and, unlike the town itself, I might be okay with using these during RotR because they are restricted in scope: as long as you get the party done in Hero Forge and add the handful of enemies, you should be good to go.

Exclusive Gear by icycalm on 19 Aug 2026 23:36

As usual with silvers, it's a Supreme Commander bundle. And a pretty awesome one too. If you zoom into it, it has gold engravings that make it look even cooler than these zoomed-out pics.

Exclusive Gear by shubn on 19 Aug 2026 17:21

SteelTek - Bundle $30
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/p ... le-Warbond

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
Forego subtlety and stealth, stroll headstrong into the fight and outgun your way to victory with the SteelTek bundle, featuring matching silver with Damascus-steel accents. Includes the CDS BUL-H4 super heavy armor, Apocalypse Arms Vendetta HMG, and SteelTek paint for the Anvil Asgard.

The CDS BUL-H4 armor utilizes advanced synthetic polymers to significantly mitigate impact, transforming the wearer into a bulwark of defense. The armor's power-assisted frame maintains mobility and allows its wearer to wield the Apocalypse Arms Vendetta heavy machine gun, which boasts a huge rate of fire for absolute target saturation.

I bought three.

Hints & Tips by shubn on 19 Aug 2026 12:08

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... IdljgnUgeE

MrCosplayGuy wrote:
SC Dressing Room is a browser tool for trying on 4,000+ Star Citizen armor & clothing items. Features 3D WebGL models, wear sliders, live shop prices, and .chf file imports to dress your own character. Free, no ads, no installs.

https://scdressingroom.gamers-fix.com

Monument: Apartment Complex by icycalm on 17 Aug 2026 22:54

Official Page: https://rust.facepunch.com/news/common-ground

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9BpyXSjrac

After several days' experience with the Apartment Complex, I have extensive thoughts on it.

It completely changes the early game, especially for players struggling either because they're new or because they're in a server that's well over their skill level (or that of their clan's, as happens with CULT since we're always on the busiest server). It allows farming of scrap and components with zero risk in the safe zone, or tiny risk just outside it, and you can do this throughout the game. If you build your base RIGHT OUTSIDE the safe zone, it almost turns the game into PVE, though you will still need some tougher-to-source items from further afield, and you will still need to farm resources, but again, the latter can be found just outside the safe zone where danger is minimal. Your rate of progress will be slower than those of players who can deal with more risk, but you will progress, and in a monthly server there's nothing stopping you from reaching the endgame at your own pace. All that said, a base right outside the safe zone will be an extremely visible base, so you WILL get raided at some point. But design the base well, and you can survive the setbacks and keep trucking. So it won't be 100% PVE, but it will be at least 50%, which is a huge change for the cutthroat world of Rust. And yes you'll be missing out on a lot of mini-events and content, as well as a lot of the cooler items, vehicles and weapons, if you stick close to the Complex. But you'll have a low-stress way to establish yourself in even the most vicious server, and from there make forays into the rest of the world to try, say, one or two mini-events or complex features per wipe. So in the long run you COULD experience nearly everything the game has to offer through this method.

What you won't ever experience this way is a huge, sprawling base in a premium location like a cliffside or coastline. For that, you have to distance yourself from the Apartment Complex, but this distance doesn't need to be great. In our current wipe, for example, there is extensive coastline a mere couple of minutes' walk from the Complex. So the risk in ferrying loot across increases, but two minutes is still almost risk-free if you do it at night. Compare with our actual base this wipe which is more like TEN minutes away, and which results in more than 50% of the runs ending in deaths and losing all the loot. It is a major headache bringing components back to base for us this wipe from the Complex, so I've resorted to only doing it when no other realistic alternative is available. However, I can still farm scrap and spend it at the Complex, since the apartment has workbench, at least for level 1. So research is still viable in the early game, even if your base is across the map. This way you're getting 50% of the benefits of an apartment. But if you want 100%, you need to locate your base within a couple minutes' walk at most.

This means that the map layout makes a tremendous impact on your strategy for every wipe. First thing you need to check when entering a new wipe is where the fuck is the Apartment Complex, and everything else follows from there. In essence, this turns the giant map into a far smaller one for the purposes of base location. Eighty percent of the map is off-limits, if you plan to use 100% of the Apartment Complex's features. What if you want a snow base, and the Complex is far from the snow region, as in this week's wipe for us? And we're even lucky that the walk is ten minutes, because it could have been TWENTY if the snow was on the complete opposite side of the map, at which point the Complex might as well not exist at all beyond level 1 teching. You're not gonna survive twenty minutes of walking naked across the most popular Rust server, not even at night, so the Complex becomes almost useless at such distances.

Finally, the Complex becomes near-ENTIRELY useless if you plan to compete for the absolute COOLEST base locations in the game. In that case you want to stake your claim ASAP after wipe, and you'll be fighting giant clans tooth and nail for the spot from the get-go, so you won't have any time to mosey over to the Complex even if it happens to be right next to you. Which gives us a smooth difficulty curve, depending on how hardcore you and your plans are: casual means you go 100% apartment-first, and build right next to it; and hardcore means you ignore it completely and play the game exactly as before the Complex was added; while most players will fall somewhere in between these extremes, which is also where CULT is. And the bigger and better your clan gets, the less you'll need to rely on it.

It's really a fantastic addition to the game that gives every level of player exactly what they need, but without adding full-blown PVE safe zones WHERE YOU CAN EVEN BUILD as in pretty much every other builder including Life is Feudal, Ark, Atlas, and of course Star Citizen which will have entire SOLAR SYSTEMS that are effectively safe zones. In Rust there is now a safe zone to "base" yourself off, but only for the early game, and not even all of that. Beyond it, you must face the other players as usual, and the further from the Complex you go, the less help it will be in that challenge. Absolutely superb balancing from Facepunch, as usual, and there is no developer in the genre that balances as well as them. And they need to have the best balance, since they're making the most competitive game ever.

The Cult Returns to Rust! by icycalm on 17 Aug 2026 21:06

The wipe still has half a week to go but I've seen enough of how the game plays today to note an astonishing change in the 4-5 years since I last played.

The monthly servers are catching up in popularity with the weekly ones.

In retrospect it was inevitable. As the devs keep adding more and more systems, content and challenge to the game, fewer and fewer clans have the manpower to run through all of it in a week. Therefore more and more of them move to monthly servers, to the point where midway through a weekly wipe the monthly server now has almost as many players (say 325 vs. 375) as the weekly one: an unheard-of occurrence a few years ago! And I suspect on Mondays to Wednesdays the monthlies might even pass ahead as the weekly ones near their wipes and players therefore lose interest [EDIT: 100% spot on: It's Monday evening and while Rustoria US Main has dropped to 49/250 (i.e. 49 in-game with the max reduced from 850 at wipe to 250), Rustoria US Long is at 212/225, more than FOUR times the active players, and on a freakin' weekday! A complete holocaust for weekly severs at pretty much every time of the month bar the first day or two after Thursday wipes!]

The main change when going from weekly to monthly Rust is... physiological, as the game's focus switches from a sprint to endurance. Athletes will know exactly what I am talking about. Any given day is now far less important than it used to be, which means you can take a fuckin break for a day or two so you don't kill yourself. As long as you maintain the upkeep of course, which is pretty brutal but with good reason, otherwise every solo would have a monster base as in the old (pre-upkeep) days and ruin the map. And in a monthly server the map would be ruined 4x worse than in a weekly one... You wouldn't be able to take five steps before bumping on an abandoned halfassed base, without upkeep. So you have to play an hour a day for upkeep, or two hours every other day etc. Or you can just tack that work onto the end of your last session, for however many days you plan to take off.

Of course the danger of raids increases vastly with the monthly schedule. If you pick a remote spot in a weekly server, you may not get raided at all, but in a monthly any decent spot is guaranteed a raid at some point, especially for cool bases. Which is fine by me; it would suck to spend a month building without any raids. Might as well play Satisfactory or Space Engineers at that point.

So I am slowly reaching a conclusion that... I could be playing EVERY forced wipe from now on. Meaning the first Thursday of every month, when new content is added. Even if I only play on wipe day, that's still pretty much the most exciting part of the game. That 10-hour session once per month will probably be the most gripping gaming I will do all month. So why not do it every month? Or at least every other month? Moreover, because these will be monthly servers, it's no great sacrifice to move the session to Saturday so more people can participate if they want. (Another little bonus is that you don't need to worry about VIP passes, since queues for Saturdays are manageable.)

And btw, my plan for this week to break the base down into modules and only work on one module per weekly wipe has failed, as everyone who's been following us on Discord will have seen. I basically failed to take into account that you still need all the base essentials to tech up every module: furnaces, workbenches, and so on; which means at minimum you need a central base plus the module. But then you also need a farm to feed your team for HP and also for fuel etc., so that's three modules now, and what if you find a cool vehicle near you, so that's four modules. So my plan was dumb, you need a full base every wipe, and the monthly servers facilitate that brilliantly.

That's the plan then: The Cult will from now on be playing Rust on the first Saturday of... either every month or every other month. I still haven't made up my mind about frequency. But let's just say at least 6 months per year. Anywhere between 6 to 12 wipes per year.

Won't Star Citizen clash with that?

No. Not for the foreseeable future at any rate. Having taken such a huge break from Rust to focus on SC, and now coming back to it, has allowed me to compare the feelings that these games engender to a clinical degree, and let me tell you, these games are as different as night and day. In short, Rust utterly obliterates SC at daily- to weekly-timescales, while SC utterly obliterates Rust at monthly- to yearly-timescales. In fact this experience of intense comparison between the two has inspired me to write a VGCULTURE essay (probably titled "Restart Syndrome", though the title may change) comparing the timescales at which different genres dominate. That's all I'll say for now, but young Padawans should be able to guess which genres dominate at the hourly- and even minute-timescales. You've read enough art theory to figure this out, it's not rocket science (it's art science).

What about my Battlegrounds? Won't playing Rust monthly clash with that?

The intense Rust session will be just one Saturday per month, or even per two months. If that proves disruptive, I'll simply move it back to the first Thursday of the month, i.e. the normal forced wipe day, which has nothing to do with Battlegrounds, as we almost never play midweek. And most of the gaming in Rust will happen midweek, whenever people have some free time. So instead of seeing the two games as clashing, you should rather see Rust as merely filling up the dead time in between Battlegrounds sessions. Which is the same role Star Citizen plays for CULT. So why do we need two of them? Well, because Rust provides a far more intense medium-term experience, whereas SC does better at the long-term. So I suspect most people will focus on SC throughout the year, and only add say one or two Rust wipes per year whenever they end up having more free time and miss the intensity of the shorter-term experience. That said there will of course be people who only play SC, or who only play Rust, or who only play Battlegrounds, because different people specialize at different timescales due to their different temperaments. But, as the ultimate generalist since I am the ultimate theorist, I need to engage at all timescales in order to adequately feed my temperament, so of course I will be playing everything.

And of course, since playing games is my job, I HAVE the time to play everything, and to a far greater extent than anyone else. That's why I made it my job lol, precisely so I can do that. But everyone else would have to be retired or taking extended time off work to match my pace. It's not a competition, and the whole reason you're paying me so much money every year, as far as the clan is concerned, is precisely so you can have a reliable hardcore gaming partner whenever you need him, and to set you up precisely for the most hardcore games in every genre, for you to choose from according to your time and temperament. And that's precisely what I am doing here.

So expect my news coverage of Rust to vastly increase from now on, looking in detail into every new expansion and modification of the game's featureset and ruleset and piece of content, including DLC and skin acquisition, in which you're welcome to join and contribute exactly as with Star Citizen. Start times for the wipes in which we'll be participating will be advertised in the forum and via the Discord Events feature, so you'll always be informed well ahead of time when we'll be playing. Strategy planning and reports, as well as base design in the Cult Base forum, will be extensive.

I am super-excited for this. I've put 35 hours in since Thursday (almost a full-time job in half a week lol), and just crossed the 500-hour lifetime threshold (still noob for Rust, many clans won't even look at your application if you have less than 1.5k), and every hour has been a pleasure. And I still haven't even tried half the systems and content in the game, and the roadmap is stacked with insane new features (for example the Nexus system coming up will connect Ferry Terminals across servers, while digging basements under bases will complexify the game's already staggeringly-complex base-building even further, and animal husbandry will take farming to the next level and swallow huge chunks of Ark and Stardew Valley).

P.S. The server we'll be playing in is Rustoria US Long. Unlike US Main, this is classed as a Premium server, which is a new feature introduced by Facepunch to combat cheaters. It means you must have at least $15 worth of DLC or skins in your Steam account to be allowed entry, because this increases the expenses for throwaway accounts to cheaters. Personally I would have raised this to at least $50 or even $100 since the game's €50 pricetag doesn't seem to deter them, but $15 is better than nothing, and reportedly it has made a difference to the prevalence of cheaters. So buy a DLC or two or some skins if you intend to join.