Rust Map Generation Fixes: Ice Lakes, Canyons and Monument Terrain

Facepunch is cleaning up how Rust builds its maps. Commits from November 1 to 3 make ice lake spawns fairer, stop big monuments from painting green patches under water, try to keep ocean water out of canyons, and trim the terrain around several monuments.

Most of these commits sit on their own branches. We wrote this from commits dated up to November 3, a couple of days before the November update was due, and the commits do not say which update these land in. Treat it as work in progress with no date. Check the official Rust news page or our blog for what actually shipped.

Ice lakes spawn more fairly

On November 1, Jakb changed how ice lakes get placed. The commit says Ice Lake 4 was spawning too often compared to the other 3 variants, and that larger ice lakes will now spawn more often.

The fix is a new way of making the terrain anchors that hold a lake in place. Anchors now follow each lake's blend map and are used more sparsely, only where they are needed. The commit says "the big disc anchors were too mean". Jakb also looked over all ice lakes across 25 map seeds and saw much more varied placement.

For players, that should mean more variety in the ice lakes you find and more big ones. It only affects maps made by the game's generator.

No more green patches under water

Another commit stops the game from painting grass or forest on ocean or oceanside terrain when it places monuments. This fixes large monuments sometimes leaving green patches under the water. It is a small visual fix, but it is one you could see from a boat or while diving near the coast.

Ocean water inside canyons

Some canyons placed near the shore could end up with ocean water inside them. Jakb made a fix for that by extending the Mountain topology on the three canyon pieces, which blocks Water topology where a canyon digs below sea level. One canyon piece got a small radius increase to make this work.

The commit calls this a speculative fix, and it says the original report could not be reproduced. So it may not catch every case.

Monuments take up less terrain

The biggest set of commits comes from hannah.watts on a branch called terrain_blend_fixes. Several monuments had a radius, a fade or a blend map that reached further than the monument itself. The commits pull them back in:

• Apartments: testing a smaller terrain tile to cut its footprint, then repainting its blend map so it stays inside the radius.
• Satellite: slightly lower radius, fade and blend map to stop a large radius overhang.
• Jungle ruins D: smaller tile and terrain map to cut overhang and unused paint.
• Radtown: slightly less radius and fade, with a smoother blend.
• Bunker entrances: radius and fade pulled closer to the monument, with stray paint data removed, on the A to D versions.

To help with this, Jakb also fixed the editor tool that shows a monument's radius, and made it show while editing terrain.

Why does this matter? This is our guess, since the commits only talk about overreach and do not list the results. A smaller footprint should leave more usable land around these monuments and fewer odd terrain edges where they meet the map.

Harbor crates and erosion

Two more map changes from October 30 are worth knowing:

• Harbor crates. A commit on main fixes harbors not spawning any crates in tier 2, mainly on custom maps. It was reapplied the same day.
• Erosion. Grigler made a first pass of erosion improvements, which fixes issues in the old code and adds a new erosion paint map tuned per biome. The commit says results should be better but similar to before.

What it means for players

None of this changes how the game plays, but it could change the maps you spawn on. Expect more variety in ice lakes and fewer strange spots at the coast, if these land. It also fits the wider cleanup we covered in our posts on FPS fixes and boats. For how new maps arrive, see how Rust updates and forced wipes work.

FAQ

Why do some Rust maps have so many of the same ice lake? A commit says Ice Lake 4 spawned too often. The fix makes placement fairer and has larger lakes spawn more often.

Why is there green grass under the water near monuments? Large monuments could paint grass or forest on ocean terrain. A commit stops that.

Will the canyon water bug be fixed? Facepunch tried. The commit calls it a speculative fix, because the original report could not be reproduced.

Do these changes affect custom maps? Most are for maps made by the game's generator. The harbor crate fix mainly helps custom maps.

Sanguine Rust

Sanguine Rust is a PVE server with zombies, bosses and skill levels. We test every Rust build on a test island before moving our islands over. See what Sanguine Rust is about.

Source: Facepunch commits