# Rust November 2026 Update: What the Next Wipe Brings

> What the November 2026 Rust wipe brings, from Facepunch's commit log: gamepad support, the new renderer, sprint hunger, lighthouses and fruit trees.

URL: https://badgyver.com/blog/rust-november-2026-update-preview/

Rust’s next monthly update and forced wipe is due on **Thursday 5 November 2026**, the first Thursday of the month. Facepunch will not publish the patch notes until that day, but most of the update is already visible: every change the developers make goes into a public commit log, and what has been merged into the main branch since the October patch is what the November build is made from.

**Already merged for November:** full gamepad support, the new Rust Render Pipeline as the default, sprinting that costs more food and water (with a server setting), lighthouses that must be repaired to open the deep sea, apple and coconut trees, a refreshed nailgun and a new cooking interface. **Still in development:** an UZI, tattoos and bird flocks.

This preview is for server owners planning the wipe and for players who want to know what they are logging into. I will update it if anything is pulled before release; the official patch notes on 5 November are the final word.

### Where this comes from

Two official sources, both from Facepunch:

- **The commit log** at [commits.facepunch.com](https://commits.facepunch.com/r/rust_reboot), where every change is posted with its branch. Work happens in feature branches; when one is merged into main, it is on its way to the next monthly build.

- **The staging branch**, the public test version of Rust on Steam, which carries those changes before release. It is where you can try a feature yourself, and where server owners can test plugins before the wipe.

A merged feature can still be switched off or delayed if testing goes badly. Everything below marked as merged was in main on 22 October 2026; everything marked as in development was only in its own branch.

### For players: gamepads and a new renderer

#### Gamepad support, switched on by default

The biggest change for players is controller support built on Steam Input. The commits enable gamepad support by default, add configurations for several controller types, move crafting to the d-pad, let the bumpers cycle containers and pie-menu sets, and let players rebind fire and aim to any button.

For a server it changes nothing in the rules, but expect players asking about it in your Discord on the first day, and expect a few more people on Steam Deck.

#### The Rust Render Pipeline becomes the default

In October Facepunch said the new Rust Render Pipeline would be an experimental option for one month and become the default after the next patch. The commits do exactly that: the new pipeline is set as the default in the graphics settings and the old experimental toggle is gone. Alongside it come fixes for fog, water, glass, blur and the in-game menus, and occlusion culling support.

If players report graphical differences after the wipe, this is why. It is a client change; your server needs nothing.

### Sprinting costs more food and water

A new server setting, server.sprintmetabolismscale, makes sprinting burn calories and hydration faster. The first version doubled the cost; the latest commit reduced the extra cost to **+25%**. The commit notes that setting it to **1** keeps the old behaviour.

On PvE, roleplay and build servers, where people run across the map all evening, the extra hunger is noticeable. Decide before the wipe whether you want it, and if not, set server.sprintmetabolismscale 1 in your server config.

### Lighthouses now guard the deep sea

Following the Air Wolf helipad in October, lighthouses are being reworked the same way: **a lighthouse needs repairing**, and repairing it restores its light and **opens the deep sea**. Several lighthouses share the same repair progress, and if deep sea is disabled on a server, lighthouses repair themselves at startup.

On a low-population server that means somebody has to put resources into a lighthouse before the deep sea opens at all. Tell your players where the lighthouses are on day one.

### Apples, coconuts, cooking and a new nailgun

- **Fruit trees:** apples now grow on some oak trees, rare on purpose, and coconuts on small tropical palms.

- **Cooking:** the mixing table and cooking workbench get a new interface with a search bar, category toggles and a list of what you can make right now, plus mixing-table recipes for October’s milky and creamy teas.

- **Nailgun:** a refreshed model with a magazine and new animations, and it becomes skinnable.

- **PT Boat:** the turrets were rewritten from scratch and their reloads fixed.

- **Livestock:** cows and sheep can be petted, and react to it.

- **Hemp:** an accessibility option to recolour wild hemp for colour-blind players, and hemp stays visible out to about 250 metres.

- **Game modes:** clan features are disabled in Softcore, as they already are in Hardcore.

![An oak tree with green apples hanging in its branches, from Facepunch Studios test footage of the new fruit trees in Rust](https://media.badgyver.com/blog/62ce388ce7-rust-apple-tree-facepunch-test-1284x800.jpg)

*Apples hanging in an oak tree, from Facepunch’s own test footage of the fruit trees. Image: Facepunch Studios.*

### If your server runs a custom map

Custom maps go through the same forced wipe as procedural ones, and two of November’s changes depend on what is placed on the map:

- **Lighthouses.** The deep sea now opens through a lighthouse. If your map has none, or has them somewhere players never go, check on the staging branch how the deep sea behaves on your map before the wipe, not after.

- **Trees.** Apples and coconuts come from specific oak and palm trees. A map with few of them will have little fruit; that is a design choice, not a bug, and worth knowing when players ask.

Everything else in this update works on any map. Load your map on a staging server once before the wipe, walk to a lighthouse, and you will know in ten minutes whether anything needs attention.

![First-person view drawing a bow at green apples hanging in an oak tree, from Facepunch Studios test footage of the new fruit trees in Rust](https://media.badgyver.com/blog/483f0657d7-rust-apple-tree-bow-facepunch-test-1284x800.jpg)

*Apples grow only on certain oaks, so how much fruit a map has depends on its trees. From Facepunch’s test footage. Image: Facepunch Studios.*

### In development: not confirmed for November

These were active in their own branches on 22 October and had not been merged. Some may arrive in November, some later:

- **UZI 9mm:** a new submachine gun with a folding stock that changes aim and recoil.

- **Tattoos and character customisation:** a tattoo gun, painted tattoos with stencils, fading over time and a restore tool.

- **Bird flocks:** crows and seagulls that fly in flocks and scatter from players.

- **Workbench costs:** a branch replaces blueprint fragments in workbench recipes with scrap again: 50 for level 1, 500 for level 2 and 1,250 for level 3.

- An **underground train network** update and a refreshed **flare**.

If you run plugins, test them on the staging branch in the last week of October. Most broken wipes are not the update itself but a plugin that was never tried against it.

### Before that: Halloween, today

The Halloween update is mandatory today, 22 October, at 18:00 BST. The commits show the Halloween event, the scarecrow population and the Halloween dungeons being switched on, with fixes to dungeon radiation and spawns. My [guide to the Livestock Update](/blog/rust-livestock-update-server-owners-guide/) covers what to check for it, and my [Halloween plugin](/plugins/halloween/) adds a Michael Myers hunt to any server for the season.

### The checklist for 5 November

- Decide on server.sprintmetabolismscale for your server.

- Tell players about lighthouses and the deep sea.

- Test your plugins on staging before the wipe.

- Expect questions about controllers and graphics after the new renderer.

- Read the official patch notes on the day: they are the final word.

### Where Badgyver comes in

A forced wipe is the one day everybody starts from zero, which makes it the best day to change what your server plays on. I make [custom Rust maps](/maps/) with dozens of original monuments, and [Rust plugins](/plugins/) for events and NPCs, and I post a preview like this one before every monthly wipe. Questions go straight to me on Discord.