Players and Gameplay

01What it does

This page is split into cards. Players Settings handles the stuff that happens to players when they go down or respawn, plus Player Insights. Gameplay Settings covers stacks, safe zones, MLRS, drone range, cargo planes, weapons, Industrial, trains, the Travelling Vendor and how long things lie around before despawning. Force Spawn Lobby sends people to a lobby the first time they join or respawn. Population sets how many animals and vehicles spawn. Auto Turret Configuration controls how turrets behave.

Each value has its own Save button and asks you to confirm first. Values are whole numbers, except Industrial frequencies, some train settings and Travelling Vendor speed, which can have decimals. Each card shows the Last applied value.

02Players Settings

• Stand up chance (wounded) (percent, 0 to 100): the chance a downed player gets back up on their own.
• Sleeping Bag Respawn Timer (seconds, 0 to 604800): the cooldown before you can respawn at the same sleeping bag again.
• Sleeping Bed Timer (seconds, 0 to 604800): the same cooldown, but for beds.
• Maximum Sleeping Bags (0 to 1000): how many sleeping bags each player can have placed.
• Player Insights (on/off, on by default): when this is on, linked players get a Player Insights card on their dashboard. They search other linked players by in-game name, then press PlayStation or Xbox. PlayStation hours come from that PSN account's Time played on Rust Console Edition. Xbox hours come from that Xbox account's Hours played for the same game. If a profile hides game activity, hours cannot be shown. Turn it off and the card leaves the player dashboard.

03Gameplay Settings

• Stackable size (0 to 3, whole numbers): a global scale on stack sizes. Higher numbers mean bigger stacks.
• Safe zone hostile timer (seconds, 0 to 86400): how long a player stays marked hostile in safe zones like Outpost and Bandit Camp.
• MLRS recovery time (minutes, 0 to 10080): how long the MLRS stays broken after someone uses it.
• Max distance drone connection (0 to 20000, default 600): how far a player can stay connected to a drone.
• Max amount of cargo planes (0 to 1000, default 50): how many cargo planes the world can keep in the air at once.
• Full starting magazine (on/off): new weapons spawn with a full magazine.
• Weapon degradation (on/off): when this is ON, weapon condition wear is turned off.
• Item Despawn (seconds, 0 to 86400): how long dropped items stay before they despawn.
• Corpse Despawn (seconds, 0 to 86400): how long bodies stay before they despawn.

Both weapon switches start OFF until you change them.

04Trains

Inside Gameplay Settings there is a Trains section. Each value has its own Save button, asks you to confirm, and is put back after a restart from My Settings.

• Train Car Population (0 to 20, decimals allowed, default 2.3): how many trains stay on the map. 0 stops trains spawning.
• Train Turret Accuracy (0 to 10, decimals allowed, default 0.1): this controls how accurately turrets can hit players while they're moving on a train, with the value affecting their accuracy based on the train's velocity.
• Train Car wagons per engine (0 to 20, whole numbers, default 2): how many wagons spawn with each engine. Higher means longer trains.
• Unloaded wagon despawn (minutes, 0 to 10080, default 10): how long an unloadable wagon stays after its cargo is emptied at Train Yard.
• Train couple speed (0 to 50, decimals allowed, default 9): how big a speed difference is allowed between two cars when they hook together. Higher is more forgiving.

Overground trains and the updated Train Yard (including the Coaling Tower) are on large maps. Emptied wagons at the yard despawn on the unloaded-wagon timer.

05Travelling Vendor

Inside Gameplay Settings there is a Travelling Vendor section. This is the roaming shop on the ring road of large maps (4K and up). It sells a changing mix of materials, resources and weapons, and it shoots back if you attack it. Numbers and switches are saved to My Settings and put back after a restart.

• Travelling Vendor Alive Time (seconds, 0 to 86400, default 1800): how long it stays on the map. That is 30 minutes by default. It will not leave while a player is next to it.
• Should Travelling Vendors Pull over? (on/off, on by default): when on, it pulls off the road for players who flag it down.
• Travelling Vendor Speed (0 to 50, decimals allowed, default 5): top speed on the ring road. Too high and it can leave the road.
• Should Travelling Vendor destroy Building? (on/off, off by default): when on, it can smash player buildings in its path.
• Should the Travelling Vendor Spawn? (on/off, on by default): when off, it will not spawn even on a large map with a ring road.

06Force Spawn Lobby

Force Spawn Lobby is off until you turn it on. Set the lobby with X, Y and Z, or with Use my location, then save.

• The first time a player joins or respawns, Surge sends them to that lobby once. It counts only after that player enters the game. If that line does not show up, Surge tries again. After a confirmed visit it leaves them alone.
• Retreat sends them back to the lobby any time. While the switch is off, Retreat is ignored.
• Always Force Spawn sends them to the lobby each time they join or respawn. It does not keep moving them while they are already playing. Retreat still works.
• Someone in a live 1v1, waiting in that duel lobby, or in a live PvP event is left where the event put them.
• Custom Teleports and Home Teleports win when they are on. A location emote, Come In, or a teleport already in progress is left alone.

07Population

Open Population, then use the two dropdowns. Animal population is Bear, Polar Bear, Boar, Chicken, Deer/Stag and Wolves. Vehicle population is RHIB, Rowboat, MiniCopter, Pedal Bike, Motor Bike and Hot Air Balloon. Pick one, type a whole number from 0 to 20, and save.

For animals, that number is how many spawn per square kilometre. The game will not go above 20. For vehicles, it is how many of that vehicle the world keeps around. Pedal Bike sets both the bikes along roads and the bikes at monuments to the same number. 0 means that animal or vehicle does not spawn.

Each animal and each vehicle is saved on its own. Changing bears does not change wolves, and saving again replaces the previous number. They show up in My Settings with the rest of Players and Gameplay, and a restart puts them back.

08Auto Turret Configuration

• Max Turrets in a certain radius (whole number, 0 to 100): how many Auto Turrets and Flame Turrets can sit inside the turret radius. 12 is the usual starting point.
• Turret Radius (whole number, 0 to 200 metres): how far that limit reaches. 40 metres is the usual starting point.
• Limit Turret Authorisations (on/off): limits how many players can be authorised on each Auto Turret.
• Ignore all players? (on/off): when this is ON, Flame Turrets and Auto Turrets ignore all players and stop shooting at anyone.

The two numbers and both switches are saved to My Settings and put back after a restart. The switches start OFF and ask you to confirm before they change anything. Saving a number asks you to confirm too.

09Industrial

The Industrial section in Gameplay Settings controls how fast Industrial Conveyors and Industrial Crafters work across the whole server.

• Industrial conveyor move frequency (seconds, 0 to 600, default 5): how often Industrial Conveyors attempt to move items. 0 disables conveyor movement completely.
• Industrial crafter frequency (seconds, 0 to 600, default 5): how often Industrial Crafters attempt to craft. 0 disables Industrial crafting completely.
• Conveyor max stacks per tick (1 to 100, default 12): the maximum number of item stacks a single Industrial Conveyor can move each time it runs.

10Good to know

• Every setting here is saved to My Settings and re-applied automatically after a restart.
• Stackable size only takes whole numbers, so 0, 1, 2 or 3.
• If the server doesn't accept an Industrial value, you'll get an error and nothing is saved.
• The bot needs to be connected to your server to save changes.