Livestock cattle genetics, a biofuel generator and monument power grid loot rooms
2026-W37 · 7 Sept to 13 SeptWork on the livestock branch dominated the week, with cattle genes now driving coat patterns and sale prices, a vendor at the Ranch selling young animals, and cow and lamb meat added as items. A new biofuel generator that turns food into Low Grade Fuel got its first working pass, and several monuments received power grid loot rooms. Elsewhere there was heavy navmesh and path following optimisation, more render pipeline work on anti-aliasing and hair, and a long list of small fixes.
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Branch work is not a promise: some of it ships in the next update, some of it never ships.
- Commits
- 523
- Developers
- 45
- Branches
- 136
- Merged to main
- 41
Cattle genetics, needs and the Ranch vendor
Cattle now carry genes that drive their coat pattern and their sale price, and their needs were simplified so that health tracks how well fed and watered an animal is. A vendor at the Ranch sells young animals, and cows and lambs drop their own meat items.
5 changes
main/Livestock_animals
- Cow genes are hooked up to procedurally generated coat textures, and genes also affect what an animal sells for.#632623
- Cow mood is no longer tracked separately: it is the lowest of fullness, hydration and personal space, and health converges on it, so a healthy animal reads off the health bar.#630958
- An NPC vendor at the Ranch sells baby animals, deducting scrap on purchase.#631341
- Raw, cooked and spoiled cow meat and lamb meat added, with cattle and sheep corpses giving the new meat instead of the old items.#632417
- The Hitch and Trough has a water container on the right side, supports fluid input and output, and livestock can drink from it.#631333
Biofuel generator takes food and makes Low Grade Fuel
A new deployable biofuel generator is being built that accepts food and converts it into Low Grade Fuel. It takes an electrical input and requires the player to periodically stir the mixture for the conversion to complete.
4 changes
main/biofuel_generator
- Generator interface set up: it takes in food and converts it to Low Grade Fuel.#650395
- The bio mixture must be stirred manually at intervals or it will not turn into Low Grade Fuel.#650396
- Initial electrical power input wired up on the entity.#644940
- Placement blockout added with a deploy guide, collision and a placeholder item, icon and blueprint.#631252
Power grid loot rooms added to seven monuments
Loot rooms tied to monument power grids are being added across Launch Site, Train Yard, Radtown, Military Tunnel, both harbours, Airfield and Ferry Terminal. The Ferry Terminal room was made functional with its power grid first.
4 changes
main/powerlevel_loot_rooms
Character creator and per server characters
The character customisation screen gained a server selector so you pick a character before joining, and that character is bound to that server until the next wipe. Colour selection for hair and skin was added and the screen was made much cheaper to open.
4 changes
main/character_customisation
- You can pick your character before joining a server, and later changes do not affect the character already bound to that server.#638231
- Colour selection for hair and skin colour added, with a spotlight above the character.#631201
- Thumbnail rendering cut from 523 objects to 21 and spread across frames, taking the stage from roughly 300ms to 80ms.#632453
- Rendered icons are cached on the client before joining, and the current slot icon stays visible until its replacement is ready.#638251
Cattle behaviour and pen handling
A pass on penned cattle fixed animals giving up when the nearest herd member or trough was unreachable and stopped bulls charging targets they cannot reach. Several death and knockdown animation problems were also addressed.
5 changes
main/Livestock_animals
- Cows now check multiple herd members and multiple troughs rather than only the nearest one, and curious cows no longer forget to eat.#665855
- Bulls defend the herd from other animals as well as players, and defend their owner's base against players.#635009
- Cows no longer slide away when hurt or killed and get back up properly.#635511
- Cows healed while roaming rather than when their needs were met, which let walled in animals do well; that is fixed.#632426
- Mothers no longer give birth to calves on the far side of a wall, which had let calves escape pens.#630840
Anti-aliasing, hair rendering and water fixes in the new pipeline
The render pipeline branch added SMAA 1x and a set of upscaling options, and reworked hair and beard rendering so it is far less noisy. Several water and decal problems specific to DLSS were fixed.
5 changes
main/render_pipeline_testing
- Hair and beard rendering improved substantially with TAA or DLSS enabled; other anti-aliasing modes now use simple cutout to look less noisy.#664715
- SMAA 1x implemented and merged into main.#639614
- Upscaling method options added (nearest, linear, bicubic, biquadratic, catmull-rom) with sharpening moved after the upscale.#650402
- Water reflections no longer flicker with DLSS, and decal screen UVs were fixed.#657534
- Underwater bubbles now work in the new pipeline and the water layer toggle is respected.#645584
Sandbag barricade variants including a pillbox
New sandbag barricade shapes are being added, including half and three quarter height pieces and a sandbag pillbox deployable. The new variants unlock alongside the original barricade blueprint.
4 changes
main/sandbag_barricade_variants
- Sandbag pillbox barricade added with model, LODs, gibs and separate wood and sandbag physics materials.#631320
- New sandbag variations unlock with the original barricade blueprint.#631217
- Construction sockets added and prevent building volumes relaxed so the pieces deploy more easily.#632495
- All sandbag deployable icons re-rendered so they match each other.#631233
Bradley flatbed boarding and materials
Work continued on the Bradley flatbed rail wagon, focused on climbing its ladders and boarding it while the train is moving. Its textures and materials also had a pass.
4 changes
main/Bradley_Flatbed
- Ladder and parenting triggers split onto separate colliders, with larger parenting volumes so players are captured earlier when boarding a moving train.#635524
- All four ladder volumes widened and raised for easier access and deck transitions, keeping the original ladder bottom height.#635524
- Ladder volumes reduced in size again and a wind material added to the barrel tarp.#638058
- Model, material and texture updates across the flatbed.#632368
Randomised rooms for the underground train network
The underground train tunnels are getting a set of randomised rooms, with the first art pass now running on Small Room C. Pipe and wire detailing and light blocking were also worked on.
3 changes
main/underground_train_network_update
- Randomised rooms for the train tunnels, with UV fixes on the boiler room and the start of the art pass on Small Room C.#630980
- Further work on random room C plus a wire and pipe pass, and brackets added for the pipes.#632401
- Temporary shell box removed from a vendor room and replaced with a proper underground volume to block skylight.#631218
Animal fencing and gate
A dedicated animal fence and gate are being set up as deployables for penning livestock. The gate opening direction was reversed and its volumes tuned so it snaps into place more reliably.
5 changes
main/animal_fencing_v2
- Gate open direction reversed and gate volumes tweaked so it snap places more easily.#631121
- Fence set to wood protection rather than stone, with debris removal handled.#631088
- LODs and gibs added for the animal fence.#630961
- Placement guide rotations fixed and icons generated and assigned.#630984
- Inventory sounds added for the animal fence.#664068
Sea turtles, frogs and squirrels
Small ambient creatures continued to be built out, with sea turtles gaining their own ocean movement and frogs able to swim. Critters now drop into a deactivated state when no player is nearby.
5 changes
main/Livestock_animals/critter_animals
- First pass on sea turtles with ocean locomotion, using movement similar to sharks and their own processing queue.#632606
- Turtle swimming fixed in several ways, including shallow water and swimming into terrain.#669206
- Swimming enabled for frogs, and frogs now more consistently find water spots to croak at.#631253
- Critters and sea turtles enter a deactivated state when no player is in connection range.#637194
- New squirrel rig and animation set added.#632549
Viewmodel and weapon animation cleanup
Arm meshes were stripped out of the viewmodel files so hands are spawned rather than baked in, covering 148 files and 169 prefabs. Separately, attachment and Nailgun animations were refreshed.
5 changes
main/vm_hand_spawn
- Arm meshes removed from 148 viewmodel files and 169 viewmodel prefabs updated.#669203
- Missing arms fixed on the Boat Building Plan viewmodel.#658959
- Refreshed 8x Zoom Scope, Simple Handmade Sight and Holosight models cherry picked in, with the Holosight rail hiding depending on the weapon.#631015
- Nailgun refresh animations exported and the entity set up with the latest world model.#638672
- Fixed third person weapon sounds playing twice, including Crystal Assault Rifle specific sounds and Space LR-300 deploy sounds.#632566
Debris for wood and cactus resources
Gatherable ground resources now leave debris behind when they are depleted. Driftwood, wet logs and cacti all received dedicated gibs.
Smoother rail junctions
Procedurally generated rail branches and monument connections were reworked so junctions are smoother. This fixes rare cases where a branch junction was impassable by train.
2 changes
main/rail_junction_improvements
Store images load on demand
Store artwork is being moved off local bundles and loaded dynamically from the backend to cut memory use. A blurred placeholder is shown while each image loads.
Also this week
- Landmines were double their intended size after a world model change and have been scaled back to the original size across all four LODs. #633608
- The locomotive bell was client side only; other players can now hear it. #632498
- Heavy Plate Helmet and Diving Mask screen overlays no longer disappear when you are downed or dead. #632633
- Heavy Plate Helmet audio muffling is no longer cancelled by the wounded audio state and now has its own filtering stage. #632633
- Bullets and arrows no longer pass through Oil Rig scientists' upper bodies or register headshots when hitting the legs. #632587
- Player boats can have the code lock on the steering wheel changed. #632479
- Cooking workbenches in snow stopping shortly after refrigerated items were inserted should now be fixed. #631263
- The Smart Alarm can be placed on top of more deployables, with oversized bounds fixed. #631272
- Medical Honey Bandage added to the primitive and hardcore tech trees. #631071
- Holstered weapon positions adjusted to sit closer to chest armour. #630998
- Direction based armour changes applied to helicopters and the hot air balloon, along with a save and load fix. #632402
- Item descriptions in the inventory are left aligned instead of justified, fixing stretched and inconsistent text. #632638
- New CountBy admin command returns the same count as DeleteBy without deleting anything. #669189
- Fixed the crate outside Cave Small Easy spawning inside the cave wall. #632650
- Lighthouse reverb was audible outdoors near the ladder and has been fixed. #632497
- Wooden and bone arrow world model gibs fixed, along with an arrow collision fix and third person bows not hiding the arrow mesh. #642413
- High Quality Metal Ore collectable scale reduced, and the Metal Detector world model bulb no longer appears lit. #631365
- Coloured Sky Lantern descriptions restored and the outdated Research Table warning removed. #650404
- Bee Grenade honey flicker fixed with a tuning pass on the glass, honey and trim materials. #641723
- The Mini Fridge shortname lost its space so it can be used as a chat emoji. #650655
- Barbeque radial menu no longer refers to the Camp Fire. #632575
- Telephones can now start NPC conversations. #632442
- Rust+ now sends custom monument marker names correctly. #638696
How this digest was read
Read from Facepunch's public commit log: 7 Sept to 13 Sept, 523 commits.
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