For the sake of mischief testing a theory, the Gnome Invasion started on 2nd November 2023 on the Rustafied US Long III server. The series included atleast 50 paintings of Gnomes, each housed in their own wooden building, which were found across the map in wooded areas. The colour of each Gnome's hat indicated the area it first appeared.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383452207
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383489546

Gnome distribution:

A map from that wipe:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3378318425

The only exception to the hat colour scheme was the RuneScape Gnome, which had a green hat but was counted as living alongside the red-hatters in the north-west. Some areas were more suitable than others, so there was a bias (particularly to the north-west). The far north was cold and violent, with few trees. The central forests offered enough wood but were a busy area. The south-west was mostly barren.

Each Gnome shed was marked with a flag painting, although the flag for no. 40 was an earlier one re-used. One of the early sheds had it's flag destroyed, which was replaced.

The early flags were Government logos, but following the cultural divergence, this changed to a mixture of the Rust News brand, the Blockhouse Serial Ident, and (primarily) the Rust Roleplay Village Shield.

Each hut having a Gnome and a flag meant that each hut had 2 paintings, so 50 huts amounted to 100 paintings. The 100th painting was finished on 7th November 2023.

Each Gnome shed was a wooden 1x1 with a locked wooden box, locked tool cupboard, and locked wooden door. They were given atleast a few days of upkeep (usually a week, sometimes 10 days or more). Stone hatchets were often used to gather the wood. A shed had an upkeep cost of 134 wood per 24 hours.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3384173892

The shed for no. 40 was re-used, and the original shed planned for no. 42 mysteriously disappeared before the tool cupboard was complete, so I wonder if a player sneakily demolished it with a hammer. Another had been partially blocked by a player before the tool cupboard was built.

One shed ended up with a cacti in one of the walls, which couldn't be hit, but would still hurt you if you moved around near the wall. It was pretty annoying trying to build the sheds when animals could see you in the dark and would always attack you, and could attack you through objects like trees.

Not all huts were checked to see if anything happened to them, but some interactions were noticed and documented.

A Government member accidentally destroyed a red-hatter with fire a few hours after it appeared. As a result, the Gnomes following the incident sat ontop of the tool cupboards opposite the door to be safe from flames. Gnome Hut 40 was raided hard.

Huts 3, 23, 24, and 25 were raided (softly) with the Gnomes being left in them to decay (the tool cupboards were destroyed, but the paintings survived the raid itself). The Gnomes of some raided huts were moved into other buildings, such as Blockhouse 56 ending up with two Gnomes. One shed was taken over, and two were griefed. I speculate that some of the huts may have been raided by an industrious group that made a massive furnace base featuring 36 vending machines.

The paintings were finished on 7th Nov. On 13th and 18th Nov I asked in server chat if anyone had any Gnome paintings, but nobody answered. I asked the Government the same question, and on 14th Nov I was aware that a Gov member had taken a Gov flag several days earlier - we were teammates, so (ironically) it had been a case of theft - they knew I had painted the one they took but they still kept it. On 21st Nov I asked in server chat again if anyone had captured a Gnome painting, but again got no answer, and bizarrely was hit by an MLRS strike. I asked again on 29th November and 1st December but got no reply. The wipe would have ended on 7th December 2023.

About 3% of interactions were friendly:

• I was attacked 34 times (excluding times I was attacked by teammates)
  
• I was doorcamped 4 times
  
• 2 players pretended to be friendly but weren't
  
• 2 huts were griefed
  
• I had 1 friendly interaction

The player interactions speak to the evaporation of the creative/social aspect of the game following the Legacy era. Nobody seemed interested in the paintings. It would have taken a second for a player with a hammer to take a painting after the tool cupboard was destroyed, but nobody seemed to bother - the interest is only in items and resources. Exactly the same thing had happened in serious roleplay servers in Garry's Mod, where roleplay evaporated, so all you had left were players interested in collecting guns. The Gnomes weren't even a roleplay thing - they were just a bit of creative fun.

Government Nov 2023 wipe

Main index
- Artworks
-- Paintings in Rust