Rust Blueprint Fragments: New Loot Spots, Fish and the Blueprint Book

2026-10-28

A gutted fish on a wooden table with a torn blueprint fragment tucked beside it in a fishing shack

Facepunch keeps working on the Rust blueprint rework. On October 26 the developer hooked up the new Blueprint Book and added blueprint items to more loot: basic crates, underwater crates, a hunter mission box, and even fish gutting. If the rework ships, these are new places to look for the items that unlock tech trees.

This is a follow-up to our post on the Rust blueprint rework, which explains the whole system. It is all still in progress on a development branch with no release date, and the numbers below can change.

Quick recap: what the rework does

The first rework commit from October 20 set the plan:

Workbenches go back to scrap costs: 50 for level 1, 500 for level 2 and 1,250 for level 3.
Tech tree unlocks cost a blueprint item instead of scrap, 1 per item for now. Level 1 uses a Blueprint Fragment, level 2 a Blueprint Page, level 3 a Blueprint Book. The engineering workbench uses fragments.
Fragments drop from barrels, boxes and other low-end loot. Pages take the spots where basic blueprint fragments drop today. Books take the spots of advanced blueprint fragments.
10 fragments upgrade into 1 page. Pages can not be upgraded into books.
The research table still uses scrap, with higher costs for rarer items.

A second commit gave the salvage workbench upgrade a 20 percent chance to not use up a blueprint, which the developer says works out about the same as before.

The Blueprint Book is hooked up

Until now the Book was only a plan in the notes. A commit on October 26 says the developer hooked up the new Blueprint Book after merging a separate blueprint book branch. That means all three tiers now exist as working items on the branch.

New places to find fragments and pages

The same night brought a run of loot changes:

Underwater crates now hold both blueprint fragments and blueprint pages, so they match the other loot pools.
Basic crates get a 20 percent chance of a blueprint fragment.
The Large Barn and Ranch hunter treasure mission box gets a 50 percent chance of a blueprint page.
One normal crate type and its underwater version now drop 2 blueprint fragments instead of 1. The commit uses the internal name "crate_normal_2", and we are not sure which in-game crate that maps to. This is our guess: it is one of the common wooden crates you see at roadsides and monuments.

For a looter, the takeaway is simple. Fragments are meant to be common, found almost anywhere. Pages show up in better spots and missions. Books stay rare.

An underwater loot crate on the sea floor with blueprint pages drifting out of it

Fish can drop blueprint fragments

This one is a surprise. When you gut certain fish, there is a random bonus. A new commit swaps one of those bonuses: the 20 percent chance to get 8 cloth is replaced by a 20 percent chance to get a blueprint fragment. The fish listed are:

Catfish
Orange Roughy
Salmon
Small shark

So fishing could become a steady, quiet way to collect fragments for your level 1 and engineering tree unlocks, if this ships as it is.

What it means for players

If the rework lands like this, progress changes shape. Scrap still buys workbenches and research, but the tech trees need loot. Fragments come from barrels, basic crates and fish. Pages come from better crates, underwater loot and missions, or from trading up 10 fragments. Books are the rare tier, found where advanced fragments drop today.

Solo and small group players might like the fish and barrel sources, since those do not need big monument runs. Groups that farm military crates will still be the ones finding Books.

When is the blueprint rework coming?

Facepunch has not given a date. Rust's monthly updates land on the first Thursday of the month (see how Rust updates work), but a change this big to progress may need more than one month of testing. The first commit said there is more balancing to come, so treat every number here as early.

FAQ

Where do you find Blueprint Fragments in the new Rust system? Barrels, boxes and other common loot, basic crates (20 percent chance), underwater crates, and fish gutting (20 percent chance on catfish, orange roughy, salmon and small shark).

Where do Blueprint Pages drop? Where basic blueprint fragments drop today, underwater crates, and a 50 percent chance in the Large Barn and Ranch hunter mission box. You can also trade up 10 fragments for 1 page.

Can you make a Blueprint Book from pages? No. The commit says pages can not be upgraded into books.

Is the blueprint rework live? No. It is on a development branch with no release date.

Sanguine Rust

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

Source: Facepunch commits