Just one month after the massive Naval Update transformed ocean gameplay in Rust, Facepunch is already iterating with the Shipshape patch, released on March 5, 2026. Rather than introducing an entirely new system, Shipshape refines and expands on what the Naval Update started — tightening combat balance, fixing boat building frustrations, rebalancing the Deep Sea, and layering in hardware-level anticheat. If the Naval Update was the foundation, Shipshape is the polish. Here is everything that changed in the Rust Shipshape update and the March 2026 patch.
Naval Combat Gets Teeth
The Naval Update gave players cannons and large vessels, but ship-to-ship fights often devolved into drive-by shootings with standard firearms. Shipshape addresses this head-on with two interconnected mechanics. First, cannon hit movement penalties now progressively reduce a ship's maximum speed when it takes repeated cannon fire, bottoming out at 30% of normal speed. The design intent is clear: cripple enemy ships with cannons, then close the distance and board them for close-quarters combat. Hit-and-run tactics with rifles are no longer the dominant strategy.
Second, a new aim sway system on moving boats scales ADS sway with vessel speed. The faster your ship is moving, the harder it is to aim with handheld weapons. This reinforces the push toward mounted cannons for ship engagements and makes boarding a stationary or crippled vessel far more tactically valuable than circling at range.
Naval Scientist Improvements
Naval scientists have been reworked to feel more dangerous but more fair. They can no longer see through smoke grenades, giving players a real tactical tool for approaching defended positions. Their protection values have been significantly buffed — hazmat protection rises from 5% to 30%, and full metal armor jumps from 25% to 50%. To offset the added durability, their accuracy has been increased while per-shot damage has been decreased, creating longer and more strategic firefights. Scientists now carry flashlights and laser sights, and they respond far more effectively to sniper fire at range.
Boat Building Quality of Life
Boat building was the centerpiece of the Naval Update, but several rough edges made the experience frustrating. Shipshape sands those down. The most impactful change: you can now rotate and demolish building blocks at any time in edit mode, with no 5-minute timer restriction. Sail behavior has been fixed to be more predictable, and dive buoys no longer block boat movement — a small fix that eliminates a surprisingly common headache.
Electricity and Industrial IO on Boats
The most exciting addition for builders is the ability to deploy electrical, industrial, and water IO components directly on your vessels. This unlocks automated lighting, water pumps, sensor-triggered systems, and industrial processing on the open water. For balance, certain items are blocked from boat placement: auto turrets, SAM sites, CCTV cameras, and windmills cannot be deployed on vessels.
Wallpaper can now be applied to boat surfaces for aesthetic customization. A new deployable snapping system lets you hold shift while placing items to snap them into precise positions on your vessel. Combined with the edit mode improvements, boat building finally feels as flexible as land-based construction.
Player Boat Decay Changes
Boat decay timing has been adjusted. The decay delay has been extended from 12 to 24 hours, giving players more breathing room before their ship starts deteriorating. The actual decay duration has been shortened from 18 to 12 hours, so once decay begins it progresses faster. Critically, a boat is now only considered "used" when it receives steering input — simply standing on your ship no longer resets the timer.
Deep Sea Rebalanced
The Deep Sea was the Naval Update's marquee feature, but early feedback pointed to loot being too abundant and too predictable. Shipshape rebalances the entire system. Loot now respawns gradually rather than all at once, and the initial fill after wipe has been reduced to approximately 70% of the previous amount. Loot locations randomize after being opened, so memorizing spawn points is no longer a viable farming strategy. Deep Sea areas are also closed after wipes until they are manually enabled or triggered.
RHIBs can no longer access Deep Sea zones, restricting entry to larger player-built vessels and raising the barrier to entry. Network visibility has been increased dramatically from 300 meters to 620 meters, making it much harder to move through the Deep Sea undetected. All of these values — loot rates, fill percentages, visibility range, RHIB access — are fully configurable via server convars, giving administrators granular control over how the Deep Sea operates.
Deep Sea areas are now closed immediately after a server wipe. Server owners need to be aware of this default behavior and can adjust it through the new convar system if they want the Deep Sea available from wipe start.
TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot Anticheat
Facepunch has introduced an opt-in hardware-level anticheat layer. Servers can now require players to have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled via convars, adding a "Secure" tag to the server listing. This targets cheaters who rely on kernel-level exploits that bypass traditional anticheat software.
According to Facepunch's telemetry, over 80% of players already have TPM 2.0 hardware, but fewer than 60% have Secure Boot enabled in their BIOS. Adoption will be gradual, and Facepunch is leaving the decision entirely to server operators. For competitive and high-stakes servers, this is a meaningful new tool in the fight against cheating.
Players who want to join TPM-required servers may need to enable Secure Boot in their BIOS/UEFI settings. Consult your motherboard documentation — the setting location varies by manufacturer.
Graphics and Performance
Shadow settings have been reworked into a simplified quality preset system, making it easier for players to balance visual fidelity and framerate without manually tweaking individual parameters. On the engine side, the old 64,000 collider limit has been removed, raising the theoretical cap to approximately 4 billion. This eliminates a longstanding constraint that could cause entity errors on heavily built servers.
Mission server optimization has seen dramatic gains — frametime has dropped from 20 milliseconds to just 1.5 milliseconds per tick, a reduction of over 90%. Collider count reductions on trees and plants contribute additional performance headroom, particularly on densely vegetated maps and modded servers with increased entity counts.
Quality of Life
Daytime has been extended by roughly 20 minutes per day cycle, while night remains at approximately 10 minutes. This gives players significantly more sunlight for building, farming, and PvP before darkness forces a change of pace. It is a subtle shift but one that noticeably reduces downtime.
Sunken player-built boats are now destructible wrecks. Rather than losing everything when your ship sinks, you can damage the wreck block by block to recover loot from inside. Boat building stations have been placed on every Deep Sea island, making it far more practical to repair and modify your vessel while exploring distant waters.
The painting system gets a new line tool — hold shift while painting to draw perfectly straight lines. It is a small addition that sign painters and base decorators will appreciate immediately. Dive buoys have also been fixed so they no longer obstruct boat pathing.
New Skins and DLC
The BBQ is now a Workshop skinnable item, opening it up to community creators for the first time. Facepunch has also released the Storage Box Pack DLC, which includes 16 new skins for the Large Wood Box — ideal for color-coding loot rooms and keeping bases organized.
Alongside the patch, Facepunch published the official 2026 Roadmap outlining their plans for the rest of the year. There is also a known issue with Windows MIDI functionality caused by recent Windows updates — players using in-game instruments may experience problems until a fix is released.
What Server Owners Should Know
Shipshape introduces more server-configurable convars than any recent patch. The entire Deep Sea system — loot respawn rates, initial fill percentages, location randomization, RHIB access restrictions, and network visibility range — can be tuned to match your community's preferences. The TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot opt-in gives competitive servers a hardware-level anticheat upgrade without forcing it on casual communities, but operators should weigh the trade-off: enhanced security versus a potential player count reduction given the sub-60% Secure Boot adoption rate.
The removal of the 64k collider limit and the mission server optimization (20ms down to 1.5ms) deliver real performance gains for heavily modded and high-population servers. If you are running a Rust server with GoodLeaf, these improvements translate directly to smoother performance for your players with no configuration changes required. Review the new convars and test your Deep Sea settings before wipe day — the default behavior has changed, and your regulars will notice.
What is the Rust Shipshape update?+
The Rust Shipshape update is the March 2026 follow-up patch that refines and expands the Naval Update released in February. It includes cannon hit movement penalties, boat electricity and industrial IO, Deep Sea loot rebalancing, a TPM 2.0 anticheat option, performance optimizations, and dozens of boat building quality-of-life fixes.
Do I need TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot to play Rust after the Shipshape update?+
No. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot requirements are opt-in settings that individual servers choose to enable via convars. Over 80% of players already have TPM 2.0 hardware, though fewer than 60% have Secure Boot active. You only need them enabled to join servers displaying the "Secure" tag.
Can I place auto turrets and SAM sites on boats after the Shipshape update?+
No. While the update adds electricity and industrial IO to boats, auto turrets, SAM sites, CCTV cameras, and windmills are blocked from boat placement for balance reasons. You can still deploy other electrical components like lights, switches, sensors, and industrial items on your vessels.
