Groups generally need to recruit new members, as the active number of members evaporates due to simple reasons such as members becoming too busy or feeling bored. One player said of team members that "when people run out of stuff to do they usually quit". Teams can attempt to retain members by putting effort into active coordination. New members can be found through looking-for-group sites, and absorbing friendly players in-game, although a group may easily lose new players due to hitting "the group ceiling."

An example of team membership evaporation was noted in the Government's October 2023 wipe.

Main index

Player agency can be described as "the player's ability to make meaningful decisions".

Rust has a large number of items and building parts which provide room for creativity (often strategic creativity, as the gameplay culture is heavily based on competitive player-vs-player interactions). Not all players are interested in a sense of creative agency, as only 0.3% of bases are creative "roleplay" style buildings, with many structures being clan base designs that are popular on YouTube.

Agency is further provided by groups, such as The Government which has a democratic system and often builds villages. Some groups offer little individual agency, such as clans (or "zergs") that operate out of a single base, autocratically managed by a single leader. Few groups appear to be built around the democratic model. With 80% of players being in teams, it could be assumed that the average player enjoys being part of (and supporting) a team regardless if it was democratic.

The key aspect of agency generally appreciated in Rust is in the PvP element then, rather than expressing individual or creative agency. In most games when you join a team, the game will automatically balance the teams by adding an additional player to the opposite team, which can provide a (relatively) balanced competitive environment, but I imagine that some Rust players prefer feeling that the impact of the support they provide to their team is tangible, rather than consistently cancelled out by an autobalance mechanic. Being able to feel like your support is helping your team can be meaningful as it directly expands the agency of the team.

The general depth of Rust gameplay adds value to a player's decisions - a good gun could take hours to obtain, so risking a good gun (and capturing an opponent's gun) gives weight to whatever strategic decision successfully protected and gained such loot.

Main index

The mysterious ORP clan is often seen as an alliance, and has history from atleast Feb 2023. They played on Rustopia US Large where their membership was estimated to be as many as 60.

Their logo (on their Steam groups) is a mixture of creatures representing different groups, such as a large bird representing ORP, and a spider representing Arcane333. Something like a lion represents MK1. The union between ORP and MK1 has existed since their earliest recorded history (Feb 2023).

Their Steam groups are noted as being Japanese, so they're (more or less) antipodal to the American server they played on. The group description "party in Japan, party in America, we are dancing in your core" appears to suggest that they deliberately play on servers hosted in distant countries to raid bases while the defenders are asleep (also evidenced by their members having conducted offline raids on Rustopia US Large). This has led to speculation on the meaning of "ORP" as being an initialism for Offline Raiding Partnership, but this is unconfirmed.

The peak membership of their most populous Steam group was 19, but their scale has been described (in Oct 2023) to be between 40 and 60 members, although the members mostly had blank profiles and less than 50 hours logged on Rust, suggesting they may have been inexperienced.

ORP's in-game history is only documented from encounters with other groups.

The Red conflict
A group that was known as "red clan" (for having a "big sign" that had the word "Red" on it) was based in E4 and had "walled off the entire Giant Excavator" during a wipe in Jan 2022 or Jan 2023, and at that point had launched a raid against ORP which went on for 5 hours and involved the use of "over 1,000 rockets."

Feb 2023 battle
A YouTube video from Feb 2023 showed an ORP base under attack.

Mar 2023 ORP - Gov conflict
In March 2023 the Government was on Rustopia US Large where they quickly encountered ORP and battled them, stopping the construction of an ORP building. ORP members were encountered again towards the end of the wipe, when they had AKs and were in a firefight with Gov members.

Oct 2023 ORP - Gov war
ORP joined Rustopia US Large for the Oct 2023 wipe, where they built a Channel Fortress on the west coast in a snow biome.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3048501640

They slowly battled for control of the snow biome from the fortress, notably starting a war against the Government, dramatically involving a 10 hour engagement.

They offlined some Gov buildings afterwards. Their success is speculated to have been achieved due to their large group size and having operated unchallenged at night, and also because they had a goal - their members may have been motivated to see the group accomplish their objective of "industralizing" the snow biome.

Atleast one member visited Reptar's Graveyard, which had also been visited by the Government.

The ORP x ARACNE group, founded 2nd June 2023, with 7 members by Oct 2023, and still 7 by Jan 2024:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/JAPANxAMERICA

The ARACNE group, founded 5th April 2023, with 19 members by Oct 2023, and 18 by Jan 2024:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/ARACNE333

Main index
- Groups index

Common goals can be important in a group because "when people run out of stuff to do they usually quit." A team leader could set a goal to plan a village wall, lead a large raid, build a community base or farm, or set a challenge such as collecting paintings for a group art gallery (or other player-made landmark). Larger groups may set more ambitious goals, which develop storylines even if they aren't fully completed - a team could try to take over an entire biome, or launch a war against another group. In rare cases a group may even attempt to take over an entire map. Common goals may also involve the support of an alliance.

Main index
- Team coordination

There are advantages to playing as a team, so players become friendly and form groups. Some groups may have the ambition to become the largest group on the server they play on, but may struggle to grow as some issues become more common and magnify as their group gets larger. The group ceiling is said to be between 15 to 50 active members. One of the most common reasons that a group gets stuck at this ceiling is that members become demotivated.

The larger a group is, the more resources and space it takes up, which increases the likelihood of the group being at war with its neighbours - constant war may burn team members out due to the constant pressure to commit to the conflict.

The more members a team has, the more chaotic it becomes, such as becoming too large for the team system, resulting in higher rates of friendly fire which can be frustrating, and can also break alliances when allies are mistakenly shot. Chaotic teams may erode a member's sense of agency, and result in lazy teamwork, which in turn creates an unwelcoming culture for new members.

It may become too difficult for a team leader to effectively manage team coordination if a team becomes too large, and could result in further chaos if a team leader becomes demotivated. Voice communication becomes especially chaotic in larger groups, as it's difficult to communicate important information over everyone talking, and it might not be enjoyable to stay in a busy voice channel.

As a group becomes larger, it may become so insular that it disconnects itself from the stimulating buzz of the Rust experience, sometimes building far away from a spawn beach, and ending up just grinding for resources with little interaction with other players. Members of a large group either live in a secure village where little cultural deviation is seen (if anything interesting even happens at all) or they suddenly get raided by another large group which feels more like a Battlefield game (unless the raid happens overnight, in which case the game may have felt pointless). The larger bases required for housing a large group often have an impact on performance, as some members suffer low framerates around large clan bases or villages.

There may be a social aspect, where the number of close relationships seem to go little beyond 15 people when "tackling a cooperative goal based task like rust". The state of a group having more than 15 members has been described as a "social surplus", where members become less interested in de-escalating internal conflict, so arguments are more likely to become dramatic and escalate, seeing entitlement, over-reactions, treachery, and perhaps even civil war.

A ratio of players that would enjoy supporting a team might not enjoy the constant drama that surfaces when the group reaches this ceiling. I suspect that many good teamplayers (that could have otherwise helped increase the average scale of Rust's groups) don't enjoy Rust's culture in general, as it became increasingly bloodthirsty over the years.

Certain factors raise the group ceiling, but don't seem to raise it beyond around 50 members. There has been a theoretical model proposed which removes the limit by using programs to automate the difficult aspects of building and maintaining groups, but it has not been fully tested. Currently the factors that have increased the limit involve the team system, clan table, a rank system, and a democratic model.

In the early days of Rust, group sizes were typically larger due to the reliance of a few Teamspeak 3 servers for voice communication, before Discord empowered the rise of smaller groups. An example of a group appearing to struggle with a ceiling is The Government, where its scale was shown in a graph to be around 15 active members.

Main index

This article focuses on the cultural aspect of codelocks.

In Rust Legacy, doors could only be used by the player that placed them, unless the builder manually authorized friends on the system. The Rust wiki notes that wooden doors had the ability to be opened with a code. In Rust Experimental there was a craftable codelock by March 2015. Codelocks were mostly used on doors, but were also used on crates and TCs, although it's expensive to place a codelock on everything because a crafting ingredient is metal fragments. They used to cost 500 wood and 50 fragments, but this was later changed to 100 metal fragments and no longer needed wood. The code only needed to be entered once, essentially authorizing the player on the lock, although the code could be changed, which cleared the authorizations.

Solo players used to use codelocks on their doors, because the only other door lock was the wooden key lock, which would only open if you had the key on you. The wooden key system was too awkward to be used by a solo because an opponent that killed a solo would simply loot the key and open the solo player's base. Solos essentially needed a codelock to have a base, but struggled to afford one because they required metal fragments to craft - it was relatively expensive and slow for a primitive player to make a furnace to smelt the metal (especially without the safety of a locked base), so players used to turn to a recycler for metal fragments. When the wooden lock no longer required the key, this made it far easier for solo players to build a starter base (potentially building one entirely out of wood). While a door with a wooden lock no longer needed the original builder of it to hold a key to open the door, the wooden lock still couldn't be operated by friends unless they had a key, so the codelock remained in use by teams. A codelock on a base door become an indicator that the occupants of a base were a team. Some teams still use wooden locks when they can't yet afford a codelock, in which case the keyholder stays inside and opens the door when teammates ask them to.

You get zapped by the codelock for 5 damage if the code you entered was incorrect. As there are 10,000 combinations (it being a number pad with a code length of four-digits), you would suffer up to 50,000 damage to guess them all (equivalent to 1,000 respawns, if you respawned with 50hp). Repeatedly trying to guess the code is known as "brute forcing", although I've never heard of someone actually bothering to try it until it worked, and such a tactic is considered by some players to be unsportsmanlike. Even using a leaked code on someones base can be seen as unsporting. Some players use different codes on each of their locks to prevent an opposing player from taking over the base if one code was guessed (or leaked).

A team often needs to use different codes because it would be risky to trust new members with all of them. A team leader might be needed to manage the codes, and change them if they thought a code had been leaked. Teammates leaking codes may be seen as traitors. Leaks can be frustrating, as changing the codes to a village wall could involve many gates, and then informing many members about the change, which all have to then input the new code so that they can quickly open the gates if a firefight breaks out and they need to get through the gates quickly.

The rust wiki has a good article on technical aspects to codelocks:
https://rust.fandom.com/wiki/Code_Lock

Main index
- Rust items

In many large groups, the members live in one large "clan" base. Some groups form a village of smaller bases, as many of the members build their own individual bases. An issue with large villages (or villages that are spread over a wide area) is that the group might find it difficult to keep track of which bases belong to teammates and which were controlled by opponents - this can result in teammates mistakenly raiding eachother.

A teammate might ask who owns a target base, but if nobody knows who it belongs to (and the owner is offline) then there's few other methods to figure out who it belongs to (other than just raiding it and checking if the sleeper is a teammate). The raider could wait to see if an owner emerges, but waiting could give an advantage to the opponents (if it was owned by opponents), and it's not a good idea to delay a raid, because keeping an idle store of explosive weaponry presents a risk of it being captured by an enemy raid.

One method to identify friendly bases is the usage of wooden signs that label each base as being friendly, but this is information that could be used by opponents, and is easily copied by an opponent that might want to disguise their raid base (though i've seen no documented cases of bases being disguised).

A method used by The Government involves bases being plotted on a Google Doc. Another method uses heatmap hotspots to detect teammate's bases. If a Gov member accidentally raids another member's base then they often seal it back up and inform the sleeper of what happened. Sealing a base may involve replacing the toolcupboard, and setting codelocks, with the code being sent to the original owner (perhaps via Discord).

Main index
- Raiding

As Rust has no auto-balance mechanic in its team system, an advantage that teams use is by trying to outnumber their opponent. A potential flaw in this method is that not every teammate would be motivated to join the battle. Demotivating factors (in large groups) can be because they don't enjoy fighting alongside certain teammates, while another factor is that a player might not want to risk losing weaponry in an open battle against stronger opponents (perhaps against opponents armed with better weapons and armor).

Any hesitation to support a teammate in battle may increase the risk of the battle being lost, so some teams are conscious of the idea of committing to a battle if any member is engaged. In such cases, time would be taken after the battle to discuss whether the engagement was a bad idea (so they don't make the same mistake again later). The pressure to commit to battles could lead to burn-out if the bloodthirsty members taking fights were constantly losing the group's weaponry and showed no intention of being more conservative.

There's also sometimes pressure in groups for the members to commit to a wipe even if some of the members didn't enjoy it. Members might not enjoy the biome that the team were based in, or the constant fighting of a server that had increased gather rates, or a wipe that went on for too long. On a strategic level it makes sense for the members to stay active and keep the team strong so that it can be carried from a bad wipe to a good one, but if members had to play multiple wipes that they didn't enjoy then they might burn out - and potentially end up looking for a group that wasn't so demanding.

Another form of commitment is in gathering resources for a team, which may become demotivating when the player gets nothing in return or feels that the resources are being wasted. The impact of burning out can be compounded if the member is mistreated, or not allowed to discuss the faults of what they were pressured into committing to.

Main index

This article explores what happens to a player's loot after they leave a server (if they were in a team).

A self-centred teammate that leave a server might just let their base decay with the loot inside it. This results in the loot either despawning, or potentially being discovered by active players. There's a chance that it may fall into teammates hands, but there's a risk of it falling into enemy hands (and possibly used against the team).

A teammate that leaves a server might intend to give the loot to their teammates, potentially by using codelocks, enabling a teammate (that was given the code in a message) to take over the base and use the loot.

The difference between the loot falling into enemy hands, or the loot being handed to teammates can have a significant impact on server gameplay, because essentially any loot can be sold in a vending machine for scrap, with the scrap being used to progress in the arms race or to buy any item a player needs. If a player can't buy an item (like explosives) then they can atleast buy any other item they need so that they can focus on trying to gather that desired item themselves.

If a teammate's loot is found in their base which was decaying (or had been raided) then the finder might inform the teammate of the state of the base, and temporarily bank the loot for safekeeping, eventually using it if it went unclaimed (it's better to use or sell idle loot, otherwise it might be lost in a raid).

It's probably harsh to blame a teammate for their base decaying, as they could have simply miscalculated the upkeep, or forgot to upkeep the base (or been busy with more important things). It's not ideal, but also not an important issue. What makes the issue stand out is that in some groups it's a common occurrence, for example in large groups that play on monthly servers (seeing some bases decay around 2 weeks into the wipe).

Main index
- Lazy teamwork

Leading up to (and during) October 2023, the active membership of The Government had dropped. Several reasons have been given for this happening. Groups generally need to recruit new members, as the active number of members evaporates due to simple reasons such as members becoming too busy or feeling bored. In this case there were several particular factors that demotivated players.

It didn't help that the biome where the village was founded (snow) lacked resources such as cloth and food, so there wasn't enough for all the members, which was critical because without cloth for clothing and medical items, the cold quickly killed players at night, and was still an issue during the day as rain made players wet (magnifying the impact of cold, and compounded by the increase of variable weather in the October update), and the lack of food left some members with little health to start with.

There had been high activity at the start of the wipes, but this seemed to lead to a crash when the availability of resources didn't meet demand. The balance between resource availability and demand settled when some players went inactive, but frustratingly the lack of resources had stalled some member's progress in the workbench arms race - an issue compounded to some extent by a lack of teamwork as the culture was transactional, leaving poorer members to be stuck with primitive technology for a long period of time. Even if members wanted to be generous, the lack of cloth meant that some couldn't afford to craft spare sleeping bags for eachother (a new member might not find any cloth in the snow, and therefore had to run across the map). The issue could have been helped by teammates transferring their loot before they left (which could be sold for scrap even if it wasn't directly useful), but this didn't seem to happen, and much of the resources were probably already spent (on bases that were now abandoned).

There was a civil war, which resulted in (or was caused by) some members being banned. The banned players had been roofcamping fellow Gov members before they were banned, which was awkward. These traitors may have been some of the players that were accused of insiding (the "insiding" was also named as a reason that this period had been a bad one). There were also doorcampers, and possibly not enough online members to easily deal with them effectively.

There was lack of someone managing coordination much of the time, which could make the gameplay feel aimless for some members. In particular there was a lack of group goals, with one member saying that "when people run out of stuff to do they usually quit." Perhaps some of the issues could have been resolved by someone stepping into a leadership role, which did happen later into the October wipe, but may have been too late to have much impact. Some issues at the time were out of the Government's hands, like the frequent server crashes resulting in frustrating server rollbacks (particularly in Sept).

Leading up to (and possibly during) October, there had been many "power trips" and "annoying" or "toxic" members. Particularly in Sept there had been an over-reliance on the clan table (which many members assumed would be big enough to include every member), leading to the abandonment of jump-checks which resulted in an awkward increase of friendly fire because the clan was full, so members outside of it were routinely shot, in some cases leading to battles.

Some players may have burnt out after committing to helping the group on wipes they didn't enjoy playing, as the biomes that the group settled in were unforgiving, and the unbalanced mechanics of a 2x server resulted in constant fighting, with that fighting often being against convicted cheaters for 2 wipes in a row on different servers (dubbed The Cheaterama). The burnt out players may have still felt pressure to commit to playing despite not enjoying the gameplay, and ended up taking long breaks as the situation got worse. Part of the burn-out may have been because the members were being teamkilled after having put effort into helping the team (the agreement to abandon jump-checks had not only backfired, but didn't appear to have been announced, so there had been a terrible misunderstanding).

The increased rates of friendly fire may have caused a partial breakdown in teamwork, resulting in an increasingly transactional culture where members would lose motivation if they had nothing left to trade - they would get no teamwork if they had nothing to offer in return, and would want to quit if they had nothing because they were too far behind in the arms race.

The gameplay experience is noted as not having matched all the member's "deathmatching expectations", perhaps because some players didn't want to be part of a village, and on the other extreme - a few might not have wanted to play unless there was a big successful village (the wipes may not have felt successful, as small numbers of Gov members were often outnumbered and outgunned, although they consistently won battles despite the disadvantages, such as the The War of the Four Towers and the Battle of the southern minefield).

The 50+1 change (or the handling of its implementation) was controversial, which "caused a significant number of players to leave". There had been "a high turnover of players in the past few months" which could have caused an uncomfortable change in culture.

An attempt to improve the situation was to recruit new members on a looking-for-group forum, which was hampered by corruption by the autocratic forum staff that seemed to dislike the Government's democratic nature (one of the staff members had joined the Gov, but treated the Gov members rudely, and was quickly banned, which resulted in Gov members being banned from the forum without any reason being given).

With the active membership decreasing, some members took the opportunity to catch up with other things in life, intending to return when activity picked up again, which further impacted the low activity. There were so few members that the Gov villagers were outnumbered in battle and no longer had 24/7 defense of the village. Minefields were laid which helped in defending the village, but eventually the village got offlined by a large group that largely dedicated themselves to offlining.

Despite the lack of activity in-game, the Government's Discord server text chat channels remained active during this period, and there was also background activity as many articles about the Government continued to be written (with many published in the Rust Archive).

Members suggested that the next server vote (for which freshly wiped server to play on for the next month) should be "on a less intense server" so that new members can gain experience without risking burn-out, which would help improve teamwork. Members voted to move to Rustafied US Long III, where the number of active members did increase. The dent in member activity was visible in a graph showing voice channel usage.

Main index
- Groups index
-- The Government
--- Government index
---- Government wipe history
----- Government Oct 2023 wipe