NPCs Overview
Your map can have two kinds of NPCs:
- Rust's own NPCs. Rust's monuments spawn their NPCs by themselves, such as the scientists of a military base. They need nothing from you.
- Your own NPCs. You place them with RustEdit's server objects: anywhere on your map, or in a custom monument. You pick which NPC, how it is dressed, where it walks and where it hides.
This section is about your own NPCs.
Before you start
- The server needs the RustEdit 2 server extension. Rust itself does not spawn RustEdit's NPCs.
- Export the map with Entities set to In RustEdit data. A map exported with In the map has none of your NPCs. See Export Map.
The parts
| Part | What it does | Page |
|---|---|---|
| NPC Spawner | Spawns one NPC, a person or an animal, and a new one after it dies. | NPC Spawners |
| AI Zone | Gives scientists places to walk to and hide behind. Its NPCs sleep while no player is near. | AI Zones |
| NPC Path | A path for an NPC to walk, with stops where it waits. | NPC Paths |
| Loadout profile | The clothing, weapons and items an NPC spawns with. | Loadout Profiles |
| NPC Vendor, Vehicle Vendor | A shopkeeper that sells items, or a vendor that sells vehicles. | Vendors |
| CH47 Landing Zone | A CH47 brings heavy scientists when a player hacks a crate. | CH47 Reinforcements |
A broken monument is one of Rust's monuments made of parts. Its NPCs are NPC spawners, with Rust's own AI zones and patrol paths, so you can change them one by one.
Set up a guarded place
For example, scientists that guard a camp you built:
- Place the camp's prefabs first: walls, crates, rocks. The scientists hide behind them.
- Place an NPC Spawner for each scientist. In the Content Browser, open Server Objects and drag NPC Spawner into the scene.
- Select each spawner, and pick a scientist in NPC. See NPC Spawners.
- To dress and arm them your way, give the spawners loadouts. See Loadout Profiles.
- Place an AI Zone over the camp. Set its Size, then click Fill. See AI Zones.
- To make one of them walk a round, draw an NPC path and give it to that spawner as its Walk Path. See NPC Paths.
- Export the map with In RustEdit data, and run it on a server with the extension.
How your NPCs act on the server
- Each spawner spawns its NPC at its own place, facing its own way. With Initial Spawn on, it does so when the server starts.
- When the NPC dies, the next one spawns after a time between Respawn Delay Min and Respawn Delay Max. With One Time Spawn on, it spawns only once.
- An NPC with a Walk Path walks the path and waits at its stop points. Other NPCs roam, at most Max Roam Distance from their spawner.
- Scientists walk to the move points and hide at the cover points of their AI zone. Without a zone they stand still. The extension makes a zone round a spawner of scientists that no zone holds, so they still move. You can turn this off in the extension's config.
- People see players within Sense Range, hear them within Listen Range, and stop a chase when the player gets more than Target Lost Range away.
- With Sleep When Empty on, an AI zone's NPCs sleep while no player is near, to save server time.
Which NPC uses what
| NPC | Loadouts | AI zone |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists, heavy scientists, tunnel dwellers, underwater dwellers, bandit guards | Yes | Where they roam, chase and take cover |
| Gen2 scientists (Scientist2, Scientist2.Heavy, Scientist2.Shotgun) | No | Cover points, when they find no hiding spot of their own |
| Animals | No | Sleep only |