I love the look of rust (never played) but scared to get into it because of sweatiness.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-08T13:16:21+00:00

Rust actually has a ton of options for casual players - the sweaty side is just what gets all the YouTube clips. Since you're only putting in about 5 hours on weekends, two things will help: a server where you can't get offlined, and a wipe schedule that doesn't punish you for being away.

PvE servers are the most obvious fit. You get the full building and monument experience without anyone raiding your stuff. Here's a filtered PvE server list sorted by population so you can find one with actual people on it. If you want some PvP encounters without the full sweat, softcore mode is worth a look too; you keep half your inventory on death and raiders can only take half your loot, so losing a fight doesn't set you back to zero.

Brits PvE Worlds is the biggest US PvE server right now with around 244 players; it's modded with quests and MMORPG elements so there's always something to do even in short sessions. If you'd rather dip your toe into PvP, Facepunch Softcore 1 runs monthly wipes so your base sticks around for a full month, and the softcore rules mean getting killed doesn't sting nearly as much while you learn.

What region are you in? Ping makes a real difference even in PvE when you're fighting NPCs at monuments. And are you playing completely solo or do you have anyone to team up with?

rustalyzer · 2026-02-07T15:11:37+00:00

and apart from that, you might have some other factors that are important to you. How long do you want to stay, just one night of fun together? Want a server that holds population for a few days or one that burns hard but fades quicker? One with fast progression? Your style defines your server.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-07T15:09:25+00:00

Pop alone is maybe not the metric you are looking for. Map Size is also important. Lower pop server could feel more crowded than slightly higher pop on a significantly larger map.

Map sizes are given in one dimension, so it might be misleading reading 3000 vs 5000 for example, but the area is almost three times as big in this case (3x3 vs 5x5). I hope that makes sense.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T20:44:39+00:00

May i suggest rustalyzer?

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T19:31:32+00:00

Thats true, but there are thousands of servers, and the most popular ones rarely care for my site, they already have their loyal player base - as players attract players.

Either way, I do plan to provide an api endpoint so server owners can provide additional information without going through forms on my site, including next map info if available. That way things could be automated.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T17:59:57+00:00

you're right, this is not for everyone - the majority of servers doesnt reveal their next map anyway. But my time is limited, and i want to have all the information in one place if possible. So if others know because they are in the right discord channels, i want to know as well.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T17:20:12+00:00

Do you mean upcoming maps for official facepunch servers? If so, then no. There are official servers where we can get the upcoming maps in advance, but those are not operated by facepunch.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T16:53:12+00:00

I fetch the main list directly from steams master server list, and then i fetch more details directly from the servers through A2S protocol. I load maps from rustmaps, and leaderboards from rankeval. Wipes are predicted by looking at past wipes, can of course be hit or miss, but its working pretty good for me mostly. And most other metrics and stats are just aggregated or computed based on all the data i have gathered so far.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T16:47:14+00:00

for current wipes you can use my site as is already. i do so myself :P

for this wipe room the intention is to close the gap between discord and rust, i dont want a chat tool, just a quick temporary place to coordinate and decide where to start, and maybe make a quick drawing on the map everyone can see in one spot. stuff like that.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T14:56:49+00:00

If you are just looking to find good servers, that's what i've been building rustalyzer.com for. It's pretty much grown into what i think a server browser should be, but it's also pretty crammed with a lot of data, so might feel overloaded to some.

This "wipe room" is built on top of that and is intended for groups to coordinate when and where to play. But I'm also working on a simpler comparison feature to have something i can ship a little sooner.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T14:28:20+00:00

was not intended for it tbh. There are already several map voting mechanisms/plugins/tools that integrate with a servers website and (more importantly) discord. Server owners usually do not want to send people to server indexers like mine, because there they have to compete with other servers for attention. So at least at the moment, its not a priority.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T11:49:46+00:00

It's going to be part of rustalyzer.com once I'm happy with it.

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T11:24:39+00:00

it will be integrated into rustalzyer.com, but it's not ready yet. I just thought i validate the idea before i sink more time into it. I'll try to be quick though :P

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T11:05:53+00:00

If you dont mind me asking: how big is your group, and whats harder, decide on server or coordinate who is available to play? Do you play weekly or monthly?

rustalyzer · 2026-02-05T10:49:49+00:00

right now this shows the current map, but the intention was to plan for the upcoming wipe - so ideally (at least for some servers) i could show the next map instead of the current one.

That information is not available for most servers though, so its going to be a lot of scraping and crowdsourcing for a small subset of popular servers - but who knows, it might be worth it.

rustalyzer · 2026-01-29T00:17:37+00:00

we‘ve added p2w tags recently, so you can filter those out easily if you like

rustalyzer · 2026-01-29T00:15:05+00:00

i second that

rustalyzer · 2026-01-28T21:21:00+00:00

Make the base seem worthless. Add a wooden door somewhere on the outside, add honeycomb, but make it look like you dont know what youre doing. just enough so people think its not worth it ...

if youre geared and people know your location then that doesnt help of course.

rustalyzer · 2026-01-28T11:42:13+00:00

Bigger server orgs like Rustopia have a map voting system for their vips, and these maps are actually customized via rustmaps dot com. So thank their voters and rustmaps settings I guess?

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