On February 5, 2026, Facepunch Studios dropped what may be the largest content update in Rust's history. The Naval Update transforms the ocean from an afterthought into a fully realized combat and exploration zone. Player-built ships, a dangerous new Deep Sea region, tropical islands, floating cities, ghost ships, overhauled scientist AI, and a brand-new military vessel headline a patch that fundamentally changes how Rust is played. Here is everything you need to know about the Rust Naval Update.
Build Your Own Ships
The centerpiece of the update is the new Rust buildable boats system. Players can now craft and deploy a Boat Building Station in deep water, which serves as the foundation for constructing fully custom vessels. The system is modular — attach steering wheels, anchors, sails, engines, planks, ramps, and even cannons to create anything from a nimble scout craft to a heavily armed warship.
Ship design is not just cosmetic. Where you place engines and sails directly affects handling and top speed, so experimentation is rewarded. Standard Rust deployables like storage boxes, sleeping bags, and turrets can be placed on your boat, turning it into a mobile base. To prevent theft, steering wheels support lock codes, giving you the same access-control you already use on doors.
Place engines toward the rear and balance sails evenly on both sides for the best straight-line speed. Asymmetric builds are fun but will pull hard to one side.
New boat-specific deployables include the Building Station, Building Plan, Sails, Helm, Engine, Anchor, Cannon, Small Ramp, and Plank. Each component is individually craftable and repairable, so losing a cannon in a fight does not mean losing the whole ship.
The Deep Sea
Beyond the familiar coastline lies a brand-new offshore zone: the Rust Deep Sea. This high-risk, high-reward region opens and closes intermittently like a world event, so you cannot camp it permanently. When it is open, players rush to reach it before it seals off again.
Crucially, there is no building and no respawning items in the Deep Sea. Every crate, barrel, and resource node is first come, first served. Once it is looted, it is gone until the zone resets. This creates intense competition and forces players to bring everything they need — and be ready to defend it.
Inside the Deep Sea you will find tropical islands, floating cities, ghost ships, and roaming scientist patrol boats. Each offers different loot tables and challenges, making every expedition unpredictable.
What's Out There
Tropical Islands
A brand-new biome arrives with the Naval Update: tropical islands featuring white sand beaches and dense palm forests. These islands are semi-procedural, meaning their layouts vary between wipe cycles. Some contain ancient ruins packed with loot, others feature rich mineral deposits for harvesting, and a lucky few have both.
Because they sit inside the Deep Sea, tropical islands cannot be built on. They function as temporary loot destinations rather than permanent outposts, and PvP encounters here tend to be fast and brutal.
Floating Cities
Four variants of floating cities serve as rare safe havens in the Deep Sea. Each city features docking areas where you can moor your ship, along with NPC vendors selling weapons, equipment, food, and medical supplies. Functional amenities include farming barges, recyclers, workbenches, research tables, and refineries.
The highlight is the Deep Deck Casino — an on-water entertainment venue with gambling tables and recreational activities, all protected by security turrets. It offers a tense social space where uneasy truces form between rivals who both need to resupply.
Ghost Ships
Scattered throughout the Deep Sea are ghost ships — stationary monument-style wrecks loaded with high-tier loot. Scientists patrol the decks and surrounding waters, boarding any player vessels that get too close. Inside the ghost ships you will find locked crates that require hacking, forcing you to hold position under pressure while the timer counts down.
Ghost ship scientists will board your boat. Anchor at a safe distance, clear the deck on foot, and leave a teammate on your vessel to repel boarders.
New Vehicles and Weapons
The PT Boat is a new military-grade vessel designed for Deep Sea combat. It is slower than a RHIB but significantly more durable, making it a floating tank rather than a speed boat. It comes equipped with dual-mounted turrets: a pair of 50-caliber machine guns for suppressive fire and a precision single 50-cal for picking off targets at range. Both turrets are reloadable with standard 5.56 ammunition, keeping the logistics simple.
The RHIB has also received a full visual refresh with a new model and updated textures. More importantly, RHIBs now feature a built-in compass and map display screen, making open-water navigation far more practical without needing to open your inventory.
Player-built cannons round out the new arsenal. Mounted on custom ships, they deal massive structural damage and are ideal for ship-to-ship combat or softening up ghost ship defenses before boarding.
Smarter Scientists
The Naval Update includes a complete overhaul of scientist AI. New naval-camo scientists appear on oil rigs, ghost ships, and deep sea islands. Their behavior is dramatically improved across the board:
- Scientists can no longer see through walls, relying instead on audio cues to locate players.
- Lower reaction times mean flanking and stealth approaches are now viable tactics.
- Scientists use smoke grenades to cover their movements and coordinate group rushes.
- They execute flanking maneuvers, pushing from multiple angles rather than funneling through one doorway.
- Sniper-type scientists will dive into cover after taking shots, making counter-sniping much harder.
These changes make PvE encounters feel significantly more tactical. Memorized patterns and cheese strategies from previous wipes are largely obsolete — you will need to adapt on the fly.
Naval Missions and Oil Rig Changes
Five new naval missions have been added to the mission system. Some take place entirely in the Deep Sea, while others start on the mainland and require sailing offshore to complete objectives. These missions offer a structured way to engage with the new content and provide solid loot rewards.
Oil rigs have also been updated. Large Oil Rig now features scientist patrol boats that circle the platform, adding another layer of danger when approaching by sea. RHIBs at oil rigs now respawn whenever the monument resets, ensuring there is always a way off the platform.
Artist Pack DLC
Launching alongside the Naval Update is the Artist Pack DLC, aimed squarely at Rust's creative community. The pack includes:
- Paintball Gun — a new weapon for marking surfaces and players.
- Ornate Frames — decorative display frames with detailed borders.
- Light-Up Frames — illuminated frames that double as ambient lighting.
- Shutter Frames — frames with openable shutters for revealing artwork on demand.
- Frameless Canvases — clean, borderless painting surfaces.
- Portable Easel — a deployable easel for painting anywhere in the world.
- Paintable Window — windows that accept custom artwork.
- Award Sprays — spray-paint patterns earned through gameplay achievements.
A Twitch Drops campaign also ran from February 5 through February 15, offering exclusive skins to viewers watching partnered Rust streamers.
Performance Improvements
Facepunch has not just added content — they have shipped meaningful performance work alongside the Naval Update. The cooking system and industrial processing pipelines have been optimized, reducing CPU overhead on busy servers. The buoyancy system received a 4x performance improvement, which is critical given that a populated server could see 200+ boats on the water simultaneously.
Under the hood, a custom PhysX parallelization layer has been implemented, spreading physics calculations across multiple CPU cores more efficiently. This benefits both client and server framerates, especially in naval combat scenarios with many moving vessels.
What Server Owners Should Know
The Naval Update adds a significant amount of simulation work to Rust servers. The Deep Sea region, floating cities, ghost ship AI, and potentially hundreds of player-built boats all increase CPU and RAM demands. Server owners should expect to allocate additional resources — particularly more RAM and stronger multi-threaded CPU performance — to maintain smooth tick rates after the update.
While the buoyancy and PhysX optimizations help offset the load, heavily populated servers will still feel the difference. Monitoring tools like RCON and server performance plugins are essential for tuning entity limits and garbage collection intervals. If you are shopping for Rust hosting that can handle the Naval Update's demands, GoodLeaf offers high-frequency AMD Ryzen servers with the headroom needed for large-scale naval gameplay.
Keep an eye on your server's entity count after the update. Player boats persist like bases and can accumulate quickly — consider adjusting decay timers for ocean entities if performance drops.
When did the Rust Naval Update release?+
The Rust Naval Update launched on February 5, 2026, as the monthly forced wipe patch. All official and community servers received the update simultaneously.
How do you build boats in Rust after the Naval Update?+
Craft a Boat Building Station and deploy it in deep water. From there, use the Boat Building Plan to place a hull, then attach modular components like sails, engines, steering wheels, cannons, planks, and ramps. Standard deployables such as storage boxes and turrets also work on boats.
Is the Deep Sea region always accessible?+
No. The Deep Sea opens and closes on a timer, functioning like a world event. When it is open, players can sail in and explore tropical islands, floating cities, and ghost ships. When it closes, you need to wait for the next opening. There is no building or item respawning inside the zone.
