It’s possible to transfer (“warp“) your character (complete with your inventory items) from the Outpost monument of one RustGalaxy server to another RustGalaxy server. This mechanic has been used by players to build a base on one server and then warp to another to conduct a raid.

The population of RustGalaxy servers is typically in the single-digits, with perhaps only one group being active on each server. Offline raids are routinely conducted between the servers, often involving the use of hundreds of rockets. It’s easy for the groups to craft hundreds of rockets because they have each server to themselves – they can gather all of the sulfur, loot all of the crates, take all of the airdrops and Patrol Helicopters, and run the quarries, rarely being challenged. They even appear to warp to other empty RustGalaxy servers to grab timed crates from there too.

If there was any challenge, then they (or a group on another RustGalaxy server) would use their hundreds of rockets to smash the bases of the challengers. This is suggested to be the reason that nobody bothers trying to broadcast Vending Machines on RustGalaxy servers. It’s fairly easy to find any such bases, because the group on each server would have enough spare Scrap to buy Minicopters and fuel to fly around, often buying Minicopters on any RustGalaxy server they visit to scout around.

It doesn’t appear to be possible to build enough bases to survive the offline raids, because there are few players interested in repeatedly rebuilding multiple bases. Part of the issue is the lack of PvP action, which seems to be a critical factor in keeping most players interested.

Arguably, Rust was balanced in such a way that the loot should be divided between players across the map, which should be spending that loot raiding eachother, but what has happened consistently on RustGalaxy is that all the loot is concentrated on one group, and spent against the few opponents they can find. The resulting culture is “brutal”, and is speculated to be the reason that the server population remains relatively low.

The concern then is that Facepunch officially introducing Nexus to all servers would almost entirely depopulate them through this apparent process of desertification. Some of the most popular servers might maintain a regular playerbase for a time, but if they collapse, they might not be able to repopulate.

It remains to be seen if RustGalaxy server culture can climb out of this trap – there has certainly been a gradual increase in their server population, so it will be interesting to see if it continues to rise, or if there really is an invisible population ceiling for Nexus servers.

Categories: In-Depth