Rust Printed and Polished Update Patch Notes (November 2026)

The Rust November 2026 update, called Printed and Polished, went live on Thursday, November 5. It brings the Blueprint Rework, the new Uzi 9mm, gamepad support, a livestock rework, roaming scientist boats and the biggest optimization push Facepunch has shipped in a while. It lands on the first Thursday of the month, which is the usual monthly update day. Here is what matters, in plain words.

You can read the official notes on the Facepunch site. If you want to know how monthly updates and wipes work, see how Rust updates and forced wipes work.

Blueprint Rework

This is the headline change. Workbenches no longer need blueprint fragments to craft, and scrap is no longer spent on the tech trees. Instead there are three new tiers of blueprints: fragments, pages and books. Each one is the currency for one level of the tech tree.

• Items can still be researched with scrap at the research table.
• The lowest tier can now drop from common loot like barrels and boxes, and it can be upgraded into the next tier.
• Puzzle rooms and harder content are still the fastest way to progress.
• Facepunch says the old system made the early game too hard for players with little time, especially when moving up to a level 2 workbench.

The workbench upgrades changed too. The salvage upgrade now gives a 20% chance to not use up a blueprint. The prototype upgrade is now a flat 25% success rate, and the cost doubling is gone. Facepunch says it does not expect to get this perfect the first time and will adjust it sooner than last time. We broke down the early commits in the Blueprint Rework post.

New items and weapons

• Uzi 9mm: a new submachine gun with two modes. With the stock folded it is automatic and works with shields. With the stock out it is semi-automatic and more accurate. Hold the fire mode button to switch. See our earlier look at the Uzi commits.
• Shears: a new default blueprint made at a level 1 workbench. They give more wool and cannot hurt a sheep if you miss the wool and hit the skin.
• Wool Armour Insert: a small boost to melee and projectile protection and a large boost to cold resistance. It is on the level 1 workbench tree.
• Crocodile Pie: made at the cooking workbench from crocodile meat. It scares nearby animals away, including wolves, bears, boars, sharks and bees. Rams and bulls will not flee but will not charge you either. A rich version lasts twice as long.
• Nailgun refresh: a new model, textures and animations after almost nine years.
• Handmade SMG: now does slightly more damage.

Livestock rework

Facepunch wants livestock to be less punishing. The main changes:

• You are the owner of a cow once you buy it or it eats at your trough. You no longer need to stay near it.
• Cows no longer die of old age, and when starving they lie down at 1 HP instead of dying.
• The trough screen shows how long the food will last, like upkeep.
• Cows can eat any food a horse can, and can store up to 3 milk.
• A new stat called Potential tracks how happy an animal was as a youngster. Rewards are multiplied by it, and only animals born in captivity have it.
• You can pet cows and sheep, and you can rename livestock and horses.

For the wider picture, see our Livestock update post and the farming guide.

World and wildlife

• Lighthouse deep sea unlock: the regular deep sea cycle now starts when the lighthouse is repaired. Repairing one lighthouse repairs them all. Maps with no lighthouse start with the cycle already active.
• Mainland scientist boats: up to two groups patrol in and around the main island for up to an hour. They only fight geared players, using the same rules as the patrol helicopter, and have no map marker or notice. Read more in the roaming scientist boats post.
• Scientist boat improvements: better obstacle avoidance, seat swapping when the driver dies, and rewritten PT boat turrets.
• Crows and seagulls: crow flocks circle corpses, and seagull flocks swarm coastal monuments. Resting seagulls can be shot down. See the bird flocks post.
• Fruit trees: apples and coconuts have a small chance to spawn on some oak and palm trees. Harvest the fruit before you cut the tree.
• NPC phone calls: four new numbers give a weather forecast, the power grid status, the travelling vendor countdown and the number of free apartment rooms. See the phone calls post.

Building and quality of life

• Mirrored L and U stairs. Flip them with SHIFT + R while placing, or with the hammer within 10 minutes.
• Ramps are no longer blocked through roofs by deployables or other ramps, and are easier to place on foundations.
• Building skin fixes: roof overhangs only block deployables, and frames use the same colliders on every skin of the same grade.
• Triangle floors and frames no longer take splash damage through walls.
• Random modular cars spawn with half their engine slots filled with low quality parts. They are locked until the car is first put on a car lift.
• Berries have an Extract option to get seeds without eating them.
• Map markers can be dragged with the middle mouse button.
• DPV buff: less fuel use, no condition loss on pickup and faster acceleration.
• Small trees are easier to hit, and there is a new hemp color setting for accessibility.
• New turn in place animations, and new grenade drop and attach animations.

Gamepad support

Controller support is now in through Steam Input. The inventory and crafting screens use a stick cursor by default, with a D-pad toggle in the new gamepad options screen. Facepunch says not every feature has dedicated gamepad support yet and more will come.

Performance

Facepunch says its staging data shows about 10% higher median framerate, about 1.6 GB less memory in total, and up to 25% less network traffic on a 500 player server. Garbage collection should run about half as often.

Highlights from the performance posts:

• Building privilege: a check in a large base dropped from 5.7 ms to under 0.02 ms, with the same results.
• Base loading: many entities now spawn much faster, and the level of detail system spreads its work over several frames.
• Gun effects: fewer hitches when firing, especially the first time after joining.
• Memory: about 470 MB saved by audio compression, about 260 MB by loading deep sea content only when needed, about 300 MB from workshop skins, about 100 MB from animal animations and about 115 MB from terrain texture cleanup.
• Server startup: the largest servers drop from about 10 minutes to about 2 minutes to restart.
• Map generation: almost twice as fast, with the same results.

Our earlier posts on the commits behind this are the FPS fixes post and the performance push post.

FAQ

When did the November 2026 Rust update release? It went live on Thursday, November 5, 2026, the first Thursday of the month.

What is the Blueprint Rework? Blueprint fragments, pages and books are now the currency for the tech tree, and scrap is no longer used there. Scrap still pays for research at the research table.

Does Rust have controller support now? Yes. Gamepad support arrived through Steam Input, with a dedicated options screen.

Is the Uzi 9mm automatic? It depends on the stock. Folded, it is automatic and works with shields. Unfolded, it is semi-automatic with better accuracy.

Sanguine Rust

Sanguine Rust is a PVE server with zombies, bosses and skill levels. We test every new Rust build before we move our islands to it, so updates like this one reach our players only after they have been checked. Learn more in What is Sanguine Rust?

Source: Printed and Polished, Rust news