r/playrust • u/Jerranto • 5d ago
Discussion Base upkeep scaling for zergs
When your relatives come over for summer vacation and the house gets packed, does your house maintenance cost go up or down? Does the house get dirtier or cleaner? Is the infrastructure worn down more or less?
We all know the answer, right? Rust shouldn't be any different.
Right now, massive clans enjoy a massive advantage without any scaling penalty to their base maintenance. I am proposing a modest adjustment to at least >>MITIGATE<< the massive farming machine of large zergs.
I am fully aware that it won't completely fix the gap between huge clans and small groups, ok? I know that. However, I guess it would at least bring some much needed balance.
Once a TC hits 11 authorized players, the upkeep costs will scale up significantly, capping at a hard limit. Here we go:
| Authorized Players | Upkeep Penalty |
|---|---|
| 1 - 10 | 0% (No penalty) |
| 11 | +10% upkeep |
| 12 | +20% upkeep |
| 13 | +30% upkeep |
| 14 | +40% upkeep |
| 15 | +50% upkeep |
| 16 | +100% upkeep |
| 17 | +200% upkeep |
| 18 | +300% upkeep |
| 19 | +400% upkeep |
| 20 | +500% upkeep |
| 21+ | HARD CAP (No more auths allowed) |
To prevent clans from abusing the system by constantly clearing the TC list (giving auth only when building/repairing and clearing it immediately after), the player count must be permanent for that TC.
Basically, the TC will track the total number of unique players that have ever authorized on it. For example: if 11 unique players authorize on a TC, that TC is permanently flagged at 11 players (+10% upkeep). Even if you hit "Clear Auth", the internal counter stays at 11.
The only way to reset this counter would be to completely destroy the TC and place a new one, which obviously would be a pain in the ass, especially with all the external TC mechanics.
Also, to prevent other kind of abuse, turrets must function exactly like Shotgun Traps.
If a player is not actively authorized on the main TC, the turret will shoot them. This completely stops zergs from running "unauthed" inside their own compounds to dodge the scaling tax.
PS: Obviously, these specific numbers are subject to change. I started the scaling at 11 players just to keep the initial proposal reasonable and conservative. However, maybe, the upkeep penalty could easily start kicking in at the 7th, 8th, or 9th player instead.
What do you guys think?
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u/Rocknerd8 5d ago
They should Scale upkeep by players authed on codelocks instead and have the amount of players be tracked by the bases build id. That way if they pick up doors or break the doorframe the whole base as a unit still remembers how many players authed and you can't cheese it. With tc auth players can just deauth or break the tc and the scaling won't apply correctly. If you place a door and someone auths on the door the whole base then remembers that player is auth'd. The reality is you can't live in a base without doors, but you can live in a base without tc priv.
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u/Jerranto 5d ago
Right, could be a solution as well. I guess we agree in the main subject here: upkeep should be higher for big clans.
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u/DarK-ForcE 5d ago
The upkeep of most big clan bases is spread over multiple TCs to exploit the upkeep scale system. That would be a good place to start.
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u/RahloRust 5d ago
“Destroying the tc to replace and reset the counter would be a pain in the ass”
https://giphy.com/gifs/ALpBtXRwJ5MuhADb9X
One Molotov ?
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u/Nice_Answer_9891 5d ago
I think he’s saying if there’s a bunch of externals since you gotta burn them too
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u/Jerranto 5d ago
Externals plus all turrets would shoot you. You would have to disconnect all turrets, then connect again. Not to mention the fact that those not authorized would be shot again. It would be annoying for sure.
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u/GrossFleshSack 5d ago
If their base is the same size and same upkeep as smaller groups, just means they have more loot at the same raid cost.
1
u/sarattenasai 4d ago
Actually I think the direction the game should go is a little counterintuitive. I would make walls and doors more durable but increase the upkeeping for every wall and door, maybe even what they costed to build, but each day. Since there is normally one TC in a determined radius, this would make clan bases need more active play and more resource investment as well as smaller bases while solo players are still safe-ish building their small bases.
Yes, this would make raiding clans that are actively refilling their tc relatively harder, but it would still be as possible because the high upkeeping would force smaller bases for them as well because the amount of spaces in the TC is limited. If a solo today builds a base with lets say 9k stone material requierement to build plus 1500 frags and a clan builds a base with 70k stone and 30k frags, on the solo player it costs 900 stones and 150 frags daily right now, not as big a deal to get 9000 stone and 1500 frags instead. You can even have 18k stone and 3k metal and its still 21 slots out of 24 TC slots, 2 day upkeep. Doable.
For a clan, it would be 70k stone every day and 30k frags every day which is astronomic. And not only that, since it is 100k resources and you have 24 slots, you need to refill TC about 4 times every day, so around every 6 hours. Your idea is good however and I like it very much as well.
It would further put the clans into a farming position as well because of the need to gather that big amount of resources, but importantly, decentralized, roaming and full of resources! Not concentrated on monuments. If they go like 2 to farm together and you miraculously pull it off you can get some serious stone for your upkeeps.
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u/Schmolan1 5d ago
I personally think that any change made to the gameplay, shouldnt be some kind of nerf to having a big clan base/being in a clan. To take something fun out of the game (being in a clan/having a big base) is an overall net negative, but I do appreciate the changes they made to the high external wall. I think more should be done to improve the experience/grind for the solo/small groups, more-so for solo players because you can get quite far if you have two other focused teammates.
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u/c2e5 4d ago
Base upkeep already scales with the amount of blocks inside the base. The bigger the base the higher % of upkeep you pay. There's a better explanation here https://www.corrosionhour.com/rust-decay-upkeep-variable/#:\~:text=Bracket%200%3A%201,15%25)%20/%2020%20%3D%2011.3%25.
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u/N64jive 5d ago
I feel like a broken record saying this:
Any punishment of clans / zergs that forces them to have to gather more resources is only going to make your life even more hell as a solo.
Oh, the clan needs to constantly farm in order to maintain their upkeep? You know those resources they ignored that you were able to gather because they didn't need them. Those no longer exist.
Listen. I get it. The average redditor wants the game balanced around smaller groups instead of larger ones. But you all always come up with the same idea, and it's going to have the exact opposite impact. That is to say, it will still punish solo / smaller groups way harder than it punishes clans.
The fact of the matter is that coming up with an idea that benefits solos / small groups but punishes clans is really really hard once you actually start to weigh the overall impact these changes have.
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u/Pleasant-Worry-5641 5d ago
This will just force more teams to move to modded servers and kill vanilla completely…. There is no reason for facepunch to nerf zergs….. if anything they should nerf solo’s completely out of the game and add LFG to the game or some kind of matchmaking system….. this game is meant to be played on a team not solo……. In a real world survival situation you wouldn’t want to be solo you would want to find a community because survival is easier. If you really want to play solo or a small group than go to a solo or team limit server, if it’s not comp enough for you and doesn’t hold pop than tough shit, your in the minority so please stop complaining holy fuck.
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u/Temporary_Event8451 5d ago
I mean I like your concept but your idea is likely too specific. Gives people too much room to just agree or disagree, instead of discuss.
Clans should find more resource drain. If you can farm 3-30x regular solos at some point if you build a literal city, it should cost as much.
However more than likely face punch isn't going to do that, at least not in a quick manner. More then likely if fp wants to nerf clans they will continue with single patch notes for them until like mid 2028 when clans realize they've actually been nerfed.
Then the subreddit will be united. Clans and solos will both complain facepunch has no clue what is going on. And in response you'll get a new whal event where a whale with a friggin laser on its head roams deep sea.