Bigger guns are louder and therefore riskier as of Rust's latest update, with other players able to hear you from 'much further away'
Rust has entered a quieter period as it stocks the hold for its naval update due in a couple of months. But Facepunch Studios still continues to add bits here and there. July brought an improved mission system and more realistic erosion, while August saw the return of hardcore mode in tougher, meaner form.
September's update is by far the smallest for a while. But there is one adjustment that has potentially game-altering ramifications, and it all has to do with the noise that guns make. Basically, Facepunch has altered how sound propagation for firearms works, so gunshots can be heard at significantly longer distances than before.
Implementing this was more complicated than you might expect, as Facepunch explains in a Steam post: "Networking range in Rust is made up of grids," the developer explains. "These grids are a fixed size and can be adjusted by server owners, they are sometimes reduced on high-populated community servers to lower network overhead. When these grids are reduced, it also reduces things like: gun audio. This makes the world feel incredibly small and closed off."
But Facepunch now says Rust can "run gunshots at different distances to the network range" though it doesn't specify how. In any case, this makes servers appear livelier since you can hear gunfights popping off "much further away" than before. More importantly, it means Facepunch can apply different audio ranges to different weapons, which is precisely what the studio has done.
Previously, all weapons had a flat audible radius of approximately 350 metres. But now there are three separate tiers for gunshot audibility. Smaller weapons, which include pistols, SMGs and shotguns, have the shortest radius, though at 400 metres this is still longer than the old default. Assault rifles like LKs and LRs can be heard from half a kilometre away, while LMGs, miniguns, and long-distance rifles have an audible radius of 600 metres.
In short, the change lends greater tactical emphasis to your choice of weapon, with larger guns now acting as a louder dinner bell for rival players. Of course, this might not concern you too much if you're lugging a flippin' minigun around. But it nonetheless adds an extra layer of risk to consider when literally bringing out the big guns.
Beyond this change, the September update adjusts team bag labels to make it clearer which bags belong to which players, adds better damage indicators to minicopters, and enables volumetric clouds by default. This is part of a longer term plan by Facepunch to eliminate 2D clouds entirely. Darn right, I say. Nobody likes a flat cloud.
Given how Facepunch rolls, presumably there will be one last patch in October before the naval update heaves into view in November. In case it wasn't already obvious, the naval update lets players build their own rafts, ships, and cannons, before taking to the seas as DIY pirates.