Serenity Valley

UPDATE: Almost immediately following the move to monthly wipes, the server population absolutely crashed. Halfway through the second month of monthly wipes, the decision was made to move us back to wiping on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month.  Prior to the shift, we would see average primetime populations in the 12-15 range.  After the shift, we were fortunate to see more than 7. Since moving back to wiping every fortnight, we’re seeing primetime populations in the 20-30 range.  Going forward, we’ll keep to biweekly wipes.

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The results are in, with a landslide victory in favor of a monthly wipe schedule!  70% of respondents voted in favor of moving from wiping on the first and third Thursday of each month to only wiping on the first Thursday of each month. The people have spoken! Prepare to dig in for a long haul, people!

We will, of course, keep an eye on server performance as we see larger and larger bases as well as population and may need to review changes after a couple of wipe cycles. As always, encourage your fellow Serenity Valley residents to participate on the forum, and recruit friends to our server! Keeping that population and participation up are how we know we’ve got a healthy server.

Thank you to everyone who voted!  Don’t forget to spread the word, invite your friends, or simply share word of our server around on the various Steam and Rust forums and discussion groups!

We did it!  We’re now working with a new server host, which means a new address.   You can now find the server at 66.55.158.98:28026.  The server can still use everyone’s help, and news on how we’ll be handling that should be posted either Monday or Tuesday.

All,

After our hosting service continued to pass the buck and refuse to address technical issues with our server, including low performance, missing server functions, crashes, and roll-backs, I indicated that if either information showing that this was not an issue with SurvivalServers.com or a resolution to the problems was not delivered by Thursday, that I would be seeking assistance from the Sacramento Better Business Bureau.

This morning, I was notified by Ryan Pennington, CEO of SurvivalServers.com that our service would be terminated immediately and irrevokably due to “unwarranted assumptions” that this was a problem involving SurvivalServers. He did give us a (very) partial refund of our annual hosting fees. This is especially noteworthy as Giina and I have been dealing with him and his team going back to June or July, almost immediately after we opened the server, and in every case, he refused to extend our hosting for lost days that we had paid for, or refunding lost time in any other ways, up to and including simply adding slots to the server, which is a token gesture, at best. Instead, he’s opted to kick us out entirely.

I’ll have a new server set up and running for us a little later this evening. I’m on my way to dinner at the moment, but as soon as I return, I’ll work on getting funding and will have us back online as fast as possible. I’m very sorry for the delay, everyone!

Once we’re back up and running, we’ll aim to keep the new wipe from tonight until 2 March, and from there, we’ll work out schedules and whatnot, as I’m unsure which host we’ll have or what services they can offer us.

More news to you all the moment I get it. We’ll be posting news as it becomes available on the forum.

–MDR

Today’s update is coming out soon. We’re seeing some pretty kick-ass new features:

– Hackers automatically get their bases (and anything they placed) deleted.
– Vending machines are IN!
– Furnaces are a little more friendly and are only accessible where the furnace is open.
– Water negates fall damage.
– Flame Turrets now debuff player speed!
– Armored door hatches now work!

1. Changelog Summary
2. February Event
3. January Event Recap
   

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   Changelog Summary:

   Rustafied, as ever, has some of the best coverage for the mechanical changes coming out in this month’s wipe, along with the implications of those changes.  Rather than rehash their work here, I’ll give a very quick summary of what’s changing, and you can pop over there to see the longer discussion of what these changes are, what they mean, and why they’re coming.

• Addition of Tuna Can Wall Light:  A wall-mounted light source.  Requires a tuna can, wood, and low grade fuel.
• Increase rifle AND pistol ammo stacks to 128.
• Rad suits prevent ALL radiation damage. Period.
• Quick-crafting will now craft the most recently selected skin. Also, players will respawn with their chosen Rock skin.
• Ownership of items removed.
• Bone Armor receives a cost reduction.
• Hammers now highlight tiles in blue instead of red.
• Farming hydration now takes less water, dead plants have to be cut down, and plant cloning now degrades 10%, each generation.
• Load times for servers and clients has been improved.
• Ladder hatches can no longer be destroyed with bone clubs and hatchets.
• Pumpkin helmets can now be seen beyond 10 feet away.
• Cleaver damage and range buffed.
• Arrows no longer glow when fired at night.

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February Event:

Pay to Win get out of the way.  Play to Win is here. It’s February, which means a new wipe as well as a new special event. Starting today, we’ll be on an all-new map, keeping the current 3.5km size. Rather than filling up that area with non-player raid bases, or trying to do big give-away events when I can find the most people online, we’ll be focusing on filling that space up with new and old faces. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re encouraging players to bring a friend to Serenity Valley, and to make some new friends while you’re here. February marks our first recruitment event, with participation in the first wipe of the month (2 Feb – 15 Feb) making big gains for the second wipe (16 Feb – 1 Mar) of the month! How this will work is on a milestone or achievements system. As players reach more and more of these milestones, they trigger greater awards for themselves and their recruits! Recruiting new players who join the server and are active–not merely logged in an AFK–for at least 14 hours during the wipe will award both the recruiter and the new player their first milestone. At 20 hours played and every 10 hours after that up to 40, another level is achieved. Those new recruits can of course recruit friends of their own, and so on and are encouraged to do so. We also recognize that the players are the main component of Rust’s content, and many of the milestones for this event are awarded to everyone who is online, active, and participating in the month’s activities! When the server undergoes its next wipe, you’ll be able to start with the sum of the awards you accrued during this wipe, with bonuses if the friend you’ve recruited returns with you.

Event Milestones:

1. Start with a pickaxe, hatchet, and a furnace
2. +2,000 wood, 2,000 stone, and 500 metal fragments
3. +pump shotgun & 100 buckshot rounds, an armored door, and a code lock
4. +10 of each common component
5. +A large furnace
6. +3 of each uncommon component
7. +200 pistol ammo
8. +1 of each rare component
9. +100 5.56 ammo
10. +A custom set of roadside armor & pookie bear

Special Milestones:

•  25 players online after the first week: All players get a supply signal.
• 50 players online anytime during the first week: All players get a supply signal and a pookie bear.
• 50 players online after the first week: All players get 3 supply signals and an auto turret.

If someone manages to score more than the 10 milestones above, we’ll discuss customized/individual rewards at that time.

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January Event recap:

Fort Williams, the infamous non-player raid target managed to secure 87 deaths over its life, between its pit traps, mines, and auto turrets. Total loot retrieved from the fort included a total of 300 satchel charges, 100 timed explosives, 2 M249’s, hundreds of rifles, dozens of armor loadouts, hundreds of mines, thousands of grenades, and nearly a quarter million rounds of ammunition.  With the exception of the unfortunate few who managed to wander, unawares onto the island, all those folks that I had the pleasure of speaking with after exploring the area were resoundingly positive.

It was a lot of fun to build it for you all, and even more enjoyable to hear your feedback.  Given the positive response from this event, we can anticipate seeing more events like this in the future.

Rejoice, Rustians!  It’s update day, and we’re seeing a whole host of great new additions.

Update Notes:

First of all, and of monumental excitement to me:  Skins are (supposed to be) coming back!  In addition, we’re seeing the very early phases of the game made far easier, with tweaks to recipes, crafting times, and the ability to find low grade fuel in oil barrels! Several weapons have had their crafting times cut in HALF to include: Assault Rifles, Bolt-Action Rifles, Semi-Automatic Rifles & Pistols, Thompsons, and Custom SMG’s. Arrows now take 25% of the time they did before, and we’ll also be seeing the craft time for bear traps and turrets reduced significantly!

It’s not just time we’ll be saving, though–Double Barrel Shotg
uns, Mines, Metal Barricades, and Bone Knives all got cheaper this update. How much cheaper is still a little bit up in the air for some of these items, but we know that they’re cutting down the component cost on a lot of items, including the complete removal of components from Landmines, less blades for Barricades, no springs for grenades, and so on!

The biggest change comes with the continued work to the farming system: Watering your plants now not only expedites their growth, but dramatically increases the yield of those items. If you’re watering your crops, you can see up to 40 cloth per hemp plant, 3 pumpkins per vine, and 6 corn per stalk! Couple that with last week’s clippings system and genetic families, and you can find yourselves producing MASSIVE amounts of food, even in a cave, with very little effort.  What a marvelous modern time we live in!

There are a number of smaller changes, all discussed in greater detail over at rustafied.com, but this looks like it’s going to be another very positive update.

Fort Williams Update:

Each day, I’ve been restoring about 50% of destroyed mines and turret ammunition and around 10% of taken loot. With today marking the half-way point through the wipe cycle, restorations cease–but there will be slow, steady upgrade starting at the fabled Armory treasure room, and spreading outward through the fortress.

As of last night’s survey, about 60% of the defenses have been destroyed, 40% of the prize loot has been taken, and around 80% of the buildings have been entered/raided. Several little tricks and secrets are still in place, and the main loot room is untouched.

To date, the Fort appears to have claimed 62 lives, with 34 turret kills, and 28 landmine kills. Animal and cold related deaths that happened on the island are not tracked.

I’ve included a poll on the forum where you can share your feedback and vote for future non-player raids at this link.

Today’s our second wipe of the month, and we’re seeing some pretty excellent updates to go with it!  Today, we’ll see the much-anticipated release of the Python Revolver.  If you’ve been keeping abreast of the developer blogs, you’ll have seen some of the models for this monster coming along.  Simply put:  It’s a hand cannon.  It’s going to take 3 pipes, 3 springs, and 10HQM to make, leaving it as a pretty expensive weapon, but it will take 3 attachment slots, it’s got impressive range and accuracy, and did I mention that it’s A HAND CANNON?!  Head shot damage isn’t listed as numbers on this monster.  Instead of a number, it’s listed as “kill.”  Keep away from pistol duels when your opponent is packing this monster. With this patch, we’ll see some further optimizations, added farming abilities (such as taking clippings of high-performing plants and copying their traits to a new plant) and some improvements to animations.

For the new wipe, we’ll be doing a new server event that will last all wipe-cycle long. There will be a massive stronghold built toward the north-center of the map. This area will feature a very dense, very hard to defeat base, and at its center will be a loot room jam-packed with weapons, armor, and ammunition–enough to make a third-world despot blush. I tell you this now:  Think. Strategically. Decide among yourselves if it’s more important to capture the base, or to keep your enemy from getting it?  Is it better to set up nearby to counter-raid attackers, or  to stay far away and hope that you’re never found? Ultimately, how you and your group decide to handle the presence of such a ferocious presence is up to you–and will heavily impact the endgame in this wipe.