27
Nov
2017

Banning Clan LShot from GameKeeper

UPDATE 24th Jan 2018: Screenshots from Discord at the end of this post.

Here’s the thing. As admins, we don’t want to ban ANYONE. We’ve only ever had to ban 26 people, and FOUR of those were last night when we banned Clan LShot.

(Once we ban, it’s permanent. No appeals process. It would be a waste of our time.)

We want players to join one of the servers we’ve spent a LOT of time setting up, and then enjoy themselves.

We’ve set up some reasonable rules, the main one being to protect us admins from time wasters. And when I said we’ve spent a lot of time setting up the servers, I mean HUNDREDS of hours. And it’s ongoing. We never stop. So we don’t have time for any bullshit.

“Oh help me admin. I’m pathetic and I can’t help myself.”

That kind of thing. This game is hardcore. It’s Rust. You’re going to continuously get your arse handed to you on PvP. If the main PvP server is too much, we’ve set up a smaller (and so far quieter) PvP2 server, and also a PvE server with PvP zones at monuments for those that like to mainly build.

The PvE server is the best of both worlds. You get to build (mostly) in peace and you get to learn the game mechanics if you’re new. You don’t get raided. Then when you want a bit of action, you visit one of the monuments and shoot bots and other players. It can be a lot of fun. I prefer PvP myself, but I also finally get it with PvE too – at least the way we’ve done it.

The rest of the server rules are there to protect ALL players on the servers and to add a bit of civility to everything.

And that’s all good and fine until you get toxics join. Arrogant bastards. They don’t read the rules. Or they don’t think they apply to them. Or they think they’re not very good rules and ignore them.

We can spot the toxics almost right away – sometimes even from comments in the console when we’re not even actually IN the game. (Yeah, always watching.) Up until now we’ve given them a chance and told them to read the rules and given them a bit of slack.

Clan LShot are the last players we do that for.

Because here’s something even more interesting.

When we ban the toxics (remember we don’t want to ban ANYONE), we get donations. It’s like the other players want to reward us for keeping the servers clean.

So that’s what we’re going to do now. We see a toxic, we ban them. No hesitation.

Here’s a short video explaining why Clan LShot were banned.

 

UPDATE 24th Jan 2018:

So this just happened.  Why are people like this?  All I can think is they were hoping we’d bite and then they’d have something on us.  The thing is, we take what we do seriously and we’re not scumbags.

And the DM to me.

 

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
24
Nov
2017

Rust Half Height Walls

Coming soon to Rust are the long overdue half height walls.  Why FacePunch do a lot of things is beyond me, but when they removed the half height floor block months ago was a real puzzler as it immediately limited and removed a lot of cool base designs.

But with introduction of half height walls, you can now make your own half height floor blocks.  Expect some clever (read: “sneaky”) base designs again.

From Rust dev blog 187:-

Building 3.0
André Straubmeier

This week I pretty much completed the new building system. I started by allowing foundations to snap to each other at a vertical offset of half a wall. Then I added half height walls that can be used to even out that offset on the higher floors. With half height walls and a floor you can of course also construct your own half height block – if you’re still nostalgic for this long removed building block type.

 

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
22
Nov
2017

Rust Decay Settings

This is a small extract from this forum post on Rust Server Decay. If you have anything you want to add or if you think decay isn’t working how I’ve described it, then please do so on the forum.

-PPlank.

We’d hoped not to have to add decay to the Rust servers after we removed it late last year, but the sheer amount of entities that were being created recently because players have been leaving temporary non-twig structures everywhere means we have no choice. If players could be relied on to clean up after themselves (it’s a raid tower rule) then it wouldn’t be a problem, but we have no reliable way of enforcing this. (We DO know whose structures they are, but knowing if they’re still active is another matter and is fairly time consuming to us.)

So decay is back (at least for the time being) in an attempt to keep the entity count down, and the servers as lag free as possible. As there’s quite a lot to read and understand, I’ve summarised the decay we’ve applied to the servers as tl;dr and then given a full explanation. The decay is NOT as bad as default Rust decay and can be avoided by the use of Metal or Armoured (TopTier) bases.

All hours described below are real time hours, not game hours.

tl;dr

Twig: 2 hour reset timer. Total Decay in 10 hours with or without Tool Cupboard (TC).
Wood: 12 hour reset timer. TC – Decays in 40 hours. No TC – Decays in 20 hours.
Stone: 18 hour reset timer. TC – Decays in 60 hours. No TC – Decays in 20 hours.
Metal: 18 hour reset timer. TC – No Decay. No TC – Decays in 100 hours.
Top Tier: 24 hour reset timer. TC – No Decay. No TC – Decays in 100 hours.

You can read more and reply on the forum:-

https://gamekeeper.io/community/threads/decay-settings-on-all-gamekeeper-rust-servers.95/

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
11
Sep
2017

Worst Rust PvE Admin Ever

So yesterday I spent maybe 8 hours on and off coming up with a plan for (thanks for the help Ollie!), and configuring PvP zones on certain monuments on the PvE server, just to add a little interest for the players there. I discovered something interesting about the way you could identify zones which should make it relatively easy to add the same monuments as PvP each wipe – I think about 20-30 minutes total.

In other words I was doing what admins should be doing.  Testing, tweaking, making the server better.

Then.  While I was still working on it.  This tit.  Note that he has over 3,000 hours on Rust, so should know better.

(20:43:40) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): admin in discord
(20:43:48) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: I’m here.
(20:43:54) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: oh hi xD
(20:43:57) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): XD
(20:43:59) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: In and out of rcon etc.
(20:44:00) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): finally
(20:44:04) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Making changes.
(20:44:07) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: lol nice
(20:44:14) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: What’s up?
(20:44:24) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): pplank not good
(20:44:26) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: but there was an atenax3 that was stealing loot from the tank i shot
(20:44:43) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): he steal my items and ta mere too
(20:44:55) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: and harvested it aswell, (s)he did that earlier today aswell
(20:45:02) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): its he
(20:45:08) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): POLISH ONION
(20:46:04) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: I’m not really sure what I can do about that other than say be more careful.
(20:46:16) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: If you have airdrops, build an airdrop base to put them in.
(20:46:26) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): XD
(20:46:30) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: how can you be more careful if someone loots your heli or tank crates?
(20:46:44) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): pplank
(20:46:46) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: he came when he heard the explosion
(20:46:51) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: of the tank
(20:46:52) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): u can come in discord?
(20:46:53) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: If another player nips and loots say the Bradley that you’ve shot down, that’s #justrustthings
(20:46:57) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: I’m busy.
(20:47:02) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: This is a non-issue.
(20:47:03) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: so must be living nearby, nothing that can be done against it
(20:47:16) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: lol…
(20:47:18) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Nope. Live somehwere else. Big map.
(20:47:26) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: It’s RUST!
(20:47:48) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Survival etc. I know this is PvE, but you can still get killed easily.
(20:48:17) | [Better Chat] [vip-] [RTV] [BA(R)] ASUS(MIS): i got for him special gift
(20:48:23) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Come up with better strategies to prevent other players from taking advantage of you.
(20:48:40) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: i guess i’ll be checking houses then and demolish his…it’s rust after all
(20:48:49) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Whatever.
(20:49:15) | [Better Chat] [vip-] * * * * * * * * * * * Mikejuh GameKeeper.io: worst admin ever on a pve server, i wish you good luck <DISCONNECTS>
(20:49:19) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: I mean PvE is a LOT easier then PvP…
(20:49:28) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Well he’s banned.
(20:49:36) | [Better Chat] {Admin} PPlank: Lifetime across all servers.

Look.  To anyone reading this.  We say quite clearly in the rules both on this site and the in-game rules…  “We don’t take sides.  We don’t get involved.”  It’s because we’re busy doing REAL admin work to make the servers better.  We’re not running a fucking day care center for special snowflakes.

And we REALLY have no time for idiots like this.  Things didn’t go the way he thought they should, and he immediately started crying for mommy.

Yes, we are here to listen, give advice, and help.  But…  Do your bit too…

Read the rules.

Do not accuse or whine about other players without good reason or proof.

Or we WILL ban YOU.

-PPlank

Posted by PPlank in General, Rust Servers
05
Aug
2017

Server #2 Now PvE

After seeing quite a few new players leave GameKeeper due to being raided, and realising that some people just like to build, AND new players just want to learn the game in peace, I decided we’d try #2 as PvE for a couple of wipe cycles. If people like it then I’ll leave it like that permanently.

Link to GameKeeper Rust #2 PlayRust.io map.

So far after just two days since wipe, I’ve seen some new regulars who seem to be enjoying this. Hopefully it will be popular and I’ll be able to leave it like that.

Well. Not quite. At the moment all I’ve done is switched a Rust toggle to PvE, but I’d like to make it better than that. There are a couple of plugins that I’d like to install which make PvE servers closer to PvE than just changing a FacePunch supplied toggle, so I’m going to do that.

The only problem is, it looks like a lot of configuration tweaking, so I’ll have to spend some time doing that on a test server before deploying it to the live one. It might be a couple of weeks before I can even look at it, so please bear with me. 🙂

-PPlank

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
27
Jul
2017

Sleeping In Water Now Damages You

As the Rust devs don’t seem to be in a hurry to fix this exploit, we’ve now made it so that if you go to sleep in water, you start taking damage.

The rate we’ve set is you lose 1 HP every 144 seconds. Doing a bit of maths means you will lose 100 HP in 4 hours and wake up dead. This means if you get accidentally disconnected due to EAC or a bad internet connection and you happen to be in water at the time, you won’t be immediately killed. No, it will happen much more slowly and painfully than that.

Of course if your bad connection continues we can’t help that, it’s just too bad, sorry.

So unless you intend to be on the servers a LOT, don’t sleep in the water any more.

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
14
Jun
2017

Rust Server 1 Port Change

EDIT: We’ve now changed the port and map location back to the original.

As a test…

We’ve changed the port of Rust Server #1 FROM 28015 TO 28035 in an attempt to stop random freezes.

PlayRust.io map Server #1

Recent updates by FacePunch have been randomly causing freezes on Rust servers. They thought they’d identified (and fixed) it as a fault with the navmesh used by the Animal AI but we’re still seeing server #1 freezing regularly. Server #2 seems to be okay.

It’s quite bizarre. RCON doesn’t disconnect and the PlayRust.io map seems to be fine too, but the game server itself is doing nothing. As soon as we close the console the RCON tool throws an error and the PlayRust.io map disconnects too. The last message we get when terminating the process is an EAC error.

As we think that *maybe* (who knows?) some naughty person out there is doing an EAC check on servers, and which as a byproduct freezes them. As #1 runs on the standard Rust port, then changing ports may stop the freezes.

We don’t know for sure, but we think it’s at least worth a try.

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers
13
May
2017

Dungeons 2 Free Until 6.00pm

Here we go folks, a totally FREE game worth £24.99.  But only until 6.00pm GMT today. And you need to add it to your Steam inventory by the 27th May or the key will become invalid.

As this game looks VERY similar to Dungeon Keeper 2 – a game I’ve spent many hours playing – I’m really looking forward to getting this.

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/dungeons-2

 

Posted by PPlank in General
09
May
2017

GameKeeper.io Names Reward for rust

We have a new feature on the Rust servers. If you put GameKeeper.io in your Steam name, we’ll reward you with 4 free supply signals every day.

We tested, we cautiously revealed it on the servers themselves and it appears to be working perfectly. You can claim your supply signals by simply doing /kit in-game and selecting them from the menu.

If you also join the Steam Group, you’ll get another supply signal every day, making 5 in total. And while you’re at it, why not become a Free VIP and get a cool VIP tag on the Rust servers and also some VIP kits in game?

Doing these few simple things will take you just a few moments of your time, and will make your life a little easier on the Rust servers.

Posted by PPlank in Rust Servers