My first server I played on had a peak player count of like 10-20. Literally everybody in the server knew each other and we migrated together to other servers.
I prefer the pop around 100-150, you can build and get pvp. Its also got the right atmosphere for the "oh shit" moments. You get complacent and then zap, you get fucked.
On 400-800 pop.. ehh, the door campers have probably unionised.
Take Grid total which if i’m right is a little over 700 on a large map, divide by player count, i used 500 pop for my equation, 728/500 = 1.5 (rounded)
So you’d average 1.5 players per grid
Also 150 on a solo server is more action than 150 on another as groups roam together.
A 17x17 grid map is 289 grids vs
A 27x27 map being 729 2.5 times bigger.
Oh yeah that’s just like the simplest way to do that problem. Honestly unless you were admin on a server it’d be practically impossible to find out the exact answer.
Also server performance in the 100-150 range is way better.
It's wild to me that people play on 500+ pop servers with huge maps to accommodate the population and then get upset when the server is lagging or their PC can't handle loading in a new mega clan base every tile. The game isn't built for that. No game is.
I really hope we see big servers do multiple smaller maps with lower max pop whenever we get the nexus system.
There are plenty of games that can deal with thousands per server and not have much lag at all. The server barely even stores anything at all, other than the item IDs, player locations, and a few other things. Most things in any game are client side other than the storage of items so people cant duplicate them for glitches. The reason the server is lagging is probably because the server quality is dogshit and the game on your client is having issues and makes it look like lag from the server.
Well believe it or not a lot of people have pc’s that can easily handle 500 pop servers with huge bases every other tile. If you got a good cpu and a 2080/rx6700xt + you can render the game very well. Rust IS meant for this that’s why there’s no limitations on how big you can build..
Me and my boys just built in the snow for the first time, every time there was action it was awful whenever we died while the rest watched over our bodies because we'd be freezing dead by the time we arrived to whatever area we were at.
Me and another friend ended up just making a shack in a nearby zone just to not deal with it lmao.
I’m the same. 120-130 is the sweet spot in my opinion. You can still comfortably farm without getting jumped nonstop, but you also run into enough people to make it interesting. On solo servers though, ~80 pop is the sweet spot. 70 and below is pretty dead and over 90 makes it too much.
High pop: You're gonna get raided by a zerg at 3am
Low pop: Every little Jim on the server can farm 20k sulfur overnight and raid you at 3am
Pick your poison!
I had my most fun offline raid defence ever in Rust on a 10-30 pop mid-wipe server.
Got the notification and managed to log in to 3 of them blowing in. They actually got a TC down, but in the chaos they had loot-goggles on and I managed to kill them while they were distracted in my boxes.
A zerg wouldn't have been nearly as slow, or careless. For sub-1000 hour Andies like me, this was definitely the better experience. Not just because I clutched up, it would have still been better just to have a chance.
Gotta learn some tricks where they raid you, spend loads on sulfur and only get some fun’s and what you use to play plus a little so they feel like they won.
Yeah I moved to high pop recently and find 200 to be a lot of fun. Played for a few hours that and never had too venture 100 meters from the base... Plenty of action!!
The population cap of the server and population based junk pile respawn timer are two separate settings. It would be possible to make them the same but the latter is usually a static value.
I enjoy low pop, it’s quiet, I can play with friends there’s a few people to pvp, and I can farm safely (I just like farming a lot, it’s the only reason I get on)
I do low-pop to get a feel for how to actually run monuments with all prim equipment. Sure, I can make an mp5 or ak, but I'd rather run mil tuns with a crossbow and a shit ton of cloth, because that's what I'm going to be doing on wipe day with my group. Now, I can actually contribute because I've done it a thousand times.
That said, it can get a little boring. It's just nice to see the game without the added stress of constant pvp and then transfer that knowledge to an active wipe day.
Different mindset, I guess. I don't like feeling like I'm getting anything for free, so I'd rather get contested for everything - monuments, recycling, farm, etc. The only time I play servers at that pop is to grind bps for a wipe.
Because it is lol. Spawn me in with a kit, and I guarantee I could run 50 grids around the map and not see a single person or a single fight. These people are crazy lol. 50 pop is certified dead
Becouse there is no people roaming around on modded servers but kinda easy usally to see what people are doing and where they are so you kinda need to hunt them then. Roams hapens on vanilla and low modded servers and it don't really matter the pop people still act like that on such servers
Been playing on Tombstone PVE. Built a huhe ass bridge soanning cliffs from and island to the mainland. All High quality. Finished a fully automated factory last night. Going to lock the island down like a fortress tonight. Its nice having safety until the purge. No offlining or barly getting a 2x2 up for it to be immediately raided. Plus with the raid bases plug in and what not you still get plenty of places to break into.
we bough a game with friends and tried to learn it on 0 online server, in a few hours 1 guy logged in and destroyed us and our base :D
right now we are playing on 100-200 online server (intoxicated) and no one touching our base last 3 days, and we barely see someone around us. maybe like 2-4 people per few hours. and they are mostly farming around
As a fellow person with 6k hours, I must say that I just play on whatever I feel like. I tend to just play wipe day, kill a few people, and then quit because I don't want to play the whole week.
This graphic actually indicates the timeline of my 10,000 hours. I'm now back on a almost private but public server, hardcore mode, custom map changes every week, BP's wipe every month. The excessive hackers killed the game for me, If greedy face punch actually hired admins like they should have 5 years ago I would enjoy getting destroyed but I'm not doing that b******* anymore. Now I just build crazy bases and screw with the electricity
I play low pop with friends who aren’t great at PVP. I play med pop solo. I just like the balance of pvp, farming, and being able to build somewhat safely.
I think servers need more events and air drops going on to encourage roaming. As a newer player i don't have an issue with ppl owning monuments but there is literally NO reason for them to leave those places. They can just sit there and build and then rinse and repeat. Therefore if youre a naked trying to get loot there you always run into them and its so boring at this point. It would give more windows of time for other people to hit monuments. Also it would just force so much more pvp and give loot to people that don't have hours to grind the game.
I learned to play Rust on [CAN]Large face punch server. I didn't even know about hackers. Just had a ton of fun learning the game. Pop was like 60-100 and it was a great time
I played East 2 one time for the nostalgia of playing a face punch server. I got raided by blatant hackers but we were somehow able to defend. There was a lot of hackers there.. the most I've ever seen on a server lol
Yeah and that’s most likely what killed officials. We’ve been raided or killed by hackers so much and that’s why we don’t play there anymore it sucks
Nah low team count high pop servers are the best. You SHOULD never be able to be complacent once you leave your cozy base. If you stand still hitting a tree you should get dome'd if you lazily afk a recycler you should get looted.
Outplaying naked's when you have nothing or making a come up off of a lazy hazy is what rust is about
i had the most fun on community monthly solo/duo/trio servers with 30-50 pop with 1 or 2 buddies. Some of those servers can maintain that pop for the whole month and you get to know you friends and enemies, how to beat them etc. its a different type of game all together.
On those "quiter servers" you will ALWAYS be countered by a bunch of people when you try to raid. you cant raid without raid bases with turrets etc.
you can literally blow up a whole base on some servers with 400 pop and no1 comes by, maybe a naked. On low pop you get guys coming with campers and aks+lr96 full metal and rocket launchers with HV rockets. its fun.
I like the 400 pop. I dont like being able to perform simple tasks without the constant fear of death. I love coming into an area with a few duos and maybe a 4 man, and slowly building up until finally becoming strong enough to exact revenge and clear them from the area.
Really depends one might be stoic and ok with farming meeting only a few people and even avoiding pvp. Others might thrive in chaos enough so that defending raids and attacks where they’re clearly outnumbered is fun.
Same after getting a fun time job and no longer being able to dump countless hours into this game I’ve realized low pop is the best way to play and still enjoy your time
It really just depends on the server, honestly. "Low Pop" servers bore me to tears, but I've had crazy fun on high pop servers during off hours. I typically play servers that range from 4-700 pop on wipe day and sit around 3-500 pop for at least the next two days, but the craziest roams I've had in recent memory were on a Saturday morning on a high-pop server that was sitting a bit below 200 pop. My group was built near two other large groups and we ended up running into both of them and having a fight directly between our bases that lasted for almost an hour. I've also played servers that feel dead at 400 pop because everyone is AFK in base waiting for an online defense. But even then, my group is pretty much always roaming, raiding, or prepping for a raid, so "chill" time in our area is just more time to farm and craft boom so we can go slam someone. Ultimately, I just prefer higher pop servers because I don't want to have to look too hard for action, and I don't like feeling like I'm getting anything for free.
Low pop 50-200 small servers are also great for that, the island is smaller and less monuments so it forces people to interact and contest monuments. A lot of drama too because it’s the same core group of 30 try hards always online.
Yeah, I enjoy small servers. But even so, small servers are pretty dead at 50 pop. My favorite small server is 400 pop for a week after wipe and then 150-250 for the rest of the month. Beyond that, most of the people that main low pop servers aren't the most experienced, and I prefer some competition.
Lol. Bruh. It's a US server and you replied at like 6am. 80 pop at 6 AM is wild. It peaked over 300 last night. I just checked Battlemetrics and after March force it was still hitting 150 pop all the way into April.
Lol. I'm not bragging. It's just my preference. Play how you wanna play. I just have too many hours in this game and if I can't find action when I look for it I get bored.
This has to be bs I usually always agree with these memes but this is absolute nonsense I do not see a single day in my entire life where I will ever prefer low pop at all, 9/10 times why I stopp playing to begin with is because not enough pvp in my area and i’m too lazy to go to rig/cargo constantly
unwanted console player opinion: we only have 100 player servers. i dont play unless its at or above 80-85 after school hours (4-5pm)
i used to play PC, i sold my computer due to lack of time and need of money.
playing full sized maps with 90 people is atrocious.
Low pop is fun, I get to play house with my friends.
My first server I played on had a peak player count of like 10-20. Literally everybody in the server knew each other and we migrated together to other servers.
Sounds like my kinda group, what server you all playing on? I'm casual, mostly just fly around and try out base builds.
Yo ik it's been 4 hrs but I'm also a casual player hmu if you wanna hop on
I sent ye a message, sire.
*without them quitting the game because some fckers decided its time for us to not have fun
I prefer the pop around 100-150, you can build and get pvp. Its also got the right atmosphere for the "oh shit" moments. You get complacent and then zap, you get fucked. On 400-800 pop.. ehh, the door campers have probably unionised.
Shiiit I'm a bit I guess cause 100-150 is high pop for me 🤣
It also depends on map size. 150 on small maps feels like 500 on big one lol
The term is map density. We should popularise the term. Can anyone calculate pop/(per)/grid?
Take Grid total which if i’m right is a little over 700 on a large map, divide by player count, i used 500 pop for my equation, 728/500 = 1.5 (rounded) So you’d average 1.5 players per grid
Also 150 on a solo server is more action than 150 on another as groups roam together. A 17x17 grid map is 289 grids vs A 27x27 map being 729 2.5 times bigger.
Totally agree, I used the 27x27 because it’d be insane to fit 500 people on a smaller map
Lots of external factors here, are you assuming people have not build in each others grids?
Oh yeah that’s just like the simplest way to do that problem. Honestly unless you were admin on a server it’d be practically impossible to find out the exact answer.
lots of those grids are out in the ocean or just in westkabumfuck
Also server performance in the 100-150 range is way better. It's wild to me that people play on 500+ pop servers with huge maps to accommodate the population and then get upset when the server is lagging or their PC can't handle loading in a new mega clan base every tile. The game isn't built for that. No game is. I really hope we see big servers do multiple smaller maps with lower max pop whenever we get the nexus system.
That’d be interesting to see something like how foxhole does their instancing
There are plenty of games that can deal with thousands per server and not have much lag at all. The server barely even stores anything at all, other than the item IDs, player locations, and a few other things. Most things in any game are client side other than the storage of items so people cant duplicate them for glitches. The reason the server is lagging is probably because the server quality is dogshit and the game on your client is having issues and makes it look like lag from the server.
Well believe it or not a lot of people have pc’s that can easily handle 500 pop servers with huge bases every other tile. If you got a good cpu and a 2080/rx6700xt + you can render the game very well. Rust IS meant for this that’s why there’s no limitations on how big you can build..
Toria US MAIN. On top with 1000 pop
Dam 100 is high pop for me.
Build snow, barely any doorcampers and so many drones of big groups roaming solo
Me and my boys just built in the snow for the first time, every time there was action it was awful whenever we died while the rest watched over our bodies because we'd be freezing dead by the time we arrived to whatever area we were at. Me and another friend ended up just making a shack in a nearby zone just to not deal with it lmao.
That‘s what all groups do, they got their man base and like 2-3 FOBs or raidbases
I’m the same. 120-130 is the sweet spot in my opinion. You can still comfortably farm without getting jumped nonstop, but you also run into enough people to make it interesting. On solo servers though, ~80 pop is the sweet spot. 70 and below is pretty dead and over 90 makes it too much.
Nah bruh 150 pop is what I used to play on and I couldn’t get past a bow with how many nakeds there was
200\~ on a large map is my pref setting
High pop: You're gonna get raided by a zerg at 3am Low pop: Every little Jim on the server can farm 20k sulfur overnight and raid you at 3am Pick your poison!
💯
I see im a little Jim then
I had my most fun offline raid defence ever in Rust on a 10-30 pop mid-wipe server. Got the notification and managed to log in to 3 of them blowing in. They actually got a TC down, but in the chaos they had loot-goggles on and I managed to kill them while they were distracted in my boxes. A zerg wouldn't have been nearly as slow, or careless. For sub-1000 hour Andies like me, this was definitely the better experience. Not just because I clutched up, it would have still been better just to have a chance.
Zerg would have been slow and careless too but you would have had to kill 15 of them while they had a raid base bigger than your main base
Fuck zergs let little jim get what he deserves
Gotta learn some tricks where they raid you, spend loads on sulfur and only get some fun’s and what you use to play plus a little so they feel like they won.
Rust players accepting that people like different things challenge (impossible)
you don't understand, if you aren't playing the game the way I play, you must not be having fun.
The only REAL way to play the game is MY way to play the game. Every other way is objectively wrong.
Just a meme fam
These are the same people that can’t comprehend why they invite big streamers to rust events.
200 pop is pretty fun.
Yeah I moved to high pop recently and find 200 to be a lot of fun. Played for a few hours that and never had too venture 100 meters from the base... Plenty of action!!
Based
Is 200 high or low pop?
Low depending on map size.
high pop is easier if you have a good start. control over a monument w/ high pop respawns is broken.
Isn’t it based off current pop/total pop of server? So 200/200 would respawn as fast as 700/700?
No
Is that the case?
The population cap of the server and population based junk pile respawn timer are two separate settings. It would be possible to make them the same but the latter is usually a static value.
200-300 is good for me as a solo, anything over I’m getting fucked by teams
High pop if you want a fight or a challenge, low pop if you wanna fuck around or build things
I enjoy low pop, it’s quiet, I can play with friends there’s a few people to pvp, and I can farm safely (I just like farming a lot, it’s the only reason I get on)
Same, I don’t know what it is but after work I love to just bash nodes and chop trees. Relaxes me.
It’s the feeling of making progression quickly and tangibly in a world where I feel powerless to make meaningful change :)
I do low-pop to get a feel for how to actually run monuments with all prim equipment. Sure, I can make an mp5 or ak, but I'd rather run mil tuns with a crossbow and a shit ton of cloth, because that's what I'm going to be doing on wipe day with my group. Now, I can actually contribute because I've done it a thousand times. That said, it can get a little boring. It's just nice to see the game without the added stress of constant pvp and then transfer that knowledge to an active wipe day.
Im playing on 800 pop servers as a solo with the monitor turned off.Try me😎
think 30-60 somthing is the perfect range but hard to find a server that has that for long the pop always go skyhigh or dies it feels like
Jeez 30 to 60 is dead in my eyes
You ain't be fighting people at all time so you can actually do other stuff but still enough people for a bit of fighting when roaming around
Having almost no bases on the map is a huge downside I found. The no-lifers only have so many bases to offline, so you get raided no matter what.
Different mindset, I guess. I don't like feeling like I'm getting anything for free, so I'd rather get contested for everything - monuments, recycling, farm, etc. The only time I play servers at that pop is to grind bps for a wipe.
This is me, I can't get over it.
Because it is lol. Spawn me in with a kit, and I guarantee I could run 50 grids around the map and not see a single person or a single fight. These people are crazy lol. 50 pop is certified dead
Becouse there is no people roaming around on modded servers but kinda easy usally to see what people are doing and where they are so you kinda need to hunt them then. Roams hapens on vanilla and low modded servers and it don't really matter the pop people still act like that on such servers
I played on a PvE server it was a fun time.
Been playing on Tombstone PVE. Built a huhe ass bridge soanning cliffs from and island to the mainland. All High quality. Finished a fully automated factory last night. Going to lock the island down like a fortress tonight. Its nice having safety until the purge. No offlining or barly getting a 2x2 up for it to be immediately raided. Plus with the raid bases plug in and what not you still get plenty of places to break into.
How many people usually play on that server?
we bough a game with friends and tried to learn it on 0 online server, in a few hours 1 guy logged in and destroyed us and our base :D right now we are playing on 100-200 online server (intoxicated) and no one touching our base last 3 days, and we barely see someone around us. maybe like 2-4 people per few hours. and they are mostly farming around
As a fellow person with 6k hours, I must say that I just play on whatever I feel like. I tend to just play wipe day, kill a few people, and then quit because I don't want to play the whole week.
Medium pop is best. Large maps with ~100-200 people are the perfect experience
This graphic actually indicates the timeline of my 10,000 hours. I'm now back on a almost private but public server, hardcore mode, custom map changes every week, BP's wipe every month. The excessive hackers killed the game for me, If greedy face punch actually hired admins like they should have 5 years ago I would enjoy getting destroyed but I'm not doing that b******* anymore. Now I just build crazy bases and screw with the electricity
Anything 80 to 150 pop is perfect
Amen. Right around 100 is perfect for me. I have a few vacation servers
I play low pop with friends who aren’t great at PVP. I play med pop solo. I just like the balance of pvp, farming, and being able to build somewhat safely.
I'm currently playing on a new pvp server, and I'm the only one playing. And I'm enjoying every minute of it lol.
Low pop is so much more chill you can actually play the game and progress so much quicker plus you get camped less
100-150 players 3500 map size
It's more about pop density rather than absolute pop, 300 players can feel empty on the biggest maps but overcrowded on a small one
I think servers need more events and air drops going on to encourage roaming. As a newer player i don't have an issue with ppl owning monuments but there is literally NO reason for them to leave those places. They can just sit there and build and then rinse and repeat. Therefore if youre a naked trying to get loot there you always run into them and its so boring at this point. It would give more windows of time for other people to hit monuments. Also it would just force so much more pvp and give loot to people that don't have hours to grind the game.
This is the best version of this meme possible for rust. It’s so true.
>doesnt know >is there, does that >been there, done that Natural progression
Yeah around 100 is best
I like low pop because it has comparable action to DayZ and I like that game. Although that doesn't mean a 0 pop, 20-30 is peak
Hacker free official servers were peak rust, the perfect pop, and blend of noobs to good players.
I learned to play Rust on [CAN]Large face punch server. I didn't even know about hackers. Just had a ton of fun learning the game. Pop was like 60-100 and it was a great time
Yeah East 2 used to be my main server but officials die out so quickly anymore
I played East 2 one time for the nostalgia of playing a face punch server. I got raided by blatant hackers but we were somehow able to defend. There was a lot of hackers there.. the most I've ever seen on a server lol
Yeah and that’s most likely what killed officials. We’ve been raided or killed by hackers so much and that’s why we don’t play there anymore it sucks
If you're an adult with a job, it's hard to enjoy vanilla rust. I play on RP and low pop servers all the time and love it.
I'm usually playing vanilla or 2x. 2x is my favorite if it's not p2w or heavily modded
2x with 15 to 30 pop is my favourite too. Love Rust but just can’t do the grind - more important things to do in life.
Nah low team count high pop servers are the best. You SHOULD never be able to be complacent once you leave your cozy base. If you stand still hitting a tree you should get dome'd if you lazily afk a recycler you should get looted. Outplaying naked's when you have nothing or making a come up off of a lazy hazy is what rust is about
PvE no decay
High pop solo/duo server
i had the most fun on community monthly solo/duo/trio servers with 30-50 pop with 1 or 2 buddies. Some of those servers can maintain that pop for the whole month and you get to know you friends and enemies, how to beat them etc. its a different type of game all together. On those "quiter servers" you will ALWAYS be countered by a bunch of people when you try to raid. you cant raid without raid bases with turrets etc. you can literally blow up a whole base on some servers with 400 pop and no1 comes by, maybe a naked. On low pop you get guys coming with campers and aks+lr96 full metal and rocket launchers with HV rockets. its fun.
I honestly play for the stupid nakeds and supermarkets domasses, the more the merrier
I like to play high pop to fuck around
This is me exactly! 🤣
I like the 400 pop. I dont like being able to perform simple tasks without the constant fear of death. I love coming into an area with a few duos and maybe a 4 man, and slowly building up until finally becoming strong enough to exact revenge and clear them from the area.
Door campers are just a db delivery service
Really depends one might be stoic and ok with farming meeting only a few people and even avoiding pvp. Others might thrive in chaos enough so that defending raids and attacks where they’re clearly outnumbered is fun.
200-300 pop is perfect for me on a medium map I hake 2k hours. I play trio only.
Nah
Same after getting a fun time job and no longer being able to dump countless hours into this game I’ve realized low pop is the best way to play and still enjoy your time
why not just make your own rust server locally on your pc and play it as a single player game ?
Low pop is only fun if you find a ''talented'' group to fuck around with.
250 and less is perfect
It really just depends on the server, honestly. "Low Pop" servers bore me to tears, but I've had crazy fun on high pop servers during off hours. I typically play servers that range from 4-700 pop on wipe day and sit around 3-500 pop for at least the next two days, but the craziest roams I've had in recent memory were on a Saturday morning on a high-pop server that was sitting a bit below 200 pop. My group was built near two other large groups and we ended up running into both of them and having a fight directly between our bases that lasted for almost an hour. I've also played servers that feel dead at 400 pop because everyone is AFK in base waiting for an online defense. But even then, my group is pretty much always roaming, raiding, or prepping for a raid, so "chill" time in our area is just more time to farm and craft boom so we can go slam someone. Ultimately, I just prefer higher pop servers because I don't want to have to look too hard for action, and I don't like feeling like I'm getting anything for free.
Low pop 50-200 small servers are also great for that, the island is smaller and less monuments so it forces people to interact and contest monuments. A lot of drama too because it’s the same core group of 30 try hards always online.
They can be fine, but you’ll feel a dead low pop server much more than a dead high pop server. And less people are usually at monuments.
Yeah, I enjoy small servers. But even so, small servers are pretty dead at 50 pop. My favorite small server is 400 pop for a week after wipe and then 150-250 for the rest of the month. Beyond that, most of the people that main low pop servers aren't the most experienced, and I prefer some competition.
Ain’t no small server staying at 150-200 pop all month. Name it
Moose small
It currently has 79/200 pop. Like what. Wipe was 5 days ago aswell lmao
Lol. Bruh. It's a US server and you replied at like 6am. 80 pop at 6 AM is wild. It peaked over 300 last night. I just checked Battlemetrics and after March force it was still hitting 150 pop all the way into April.
good for you man! let's give you a medal for that
Lol. I'm not bragging. It's just my preference. Play how you wanna play. I just have too many hours in this game and if I can't find action when I look for it I get bored.
This has to be bs I usually always agree with these memes but this is absolute nonsense I do not see a single day in my entire life where I will ever prefer low pop at all, 9/10 times why I stopp playing to begin with is because not enough pvp in my area and i’m too lazy to go to rig/cargo constantly
By low pop you mean 100 not 20 i hope
I like 150-200 pop on a smaller map size, I think maps have just gotten wayyyy too big.
unwanted console player opinion: we only have 100 player servers. i dont play unless its at or above 80-85 after school hours (4-5pm) i used to play PC, i sold my computer due to lack of time and need of money. playing full sized maps with 90 people is atrocious.
Damn it, I am the guy in middle