Rust introduces XP system

Marauding across post-apocalyptic lands and clubbing things with a rock just got a touch more structured. Early Access survival epic Rust has just been patched to include a wide-ranging XP system.

From now on, you'll be awarded new-fangled 'experience points' for battering things with rocks, harvesting, fishing, feeding people, and so on. In a bid to reward cooperative play, you'll also receive XP for things others accomplish using your tools or materials—the 'Ownership' system.

"An example is a Fish Trap," reads the dev blog. "If you make the trap but someone else uses it, you’ll get XP. If you cook food and hand it to another player and they eat it, you’ll it earn as well. If you harvest resources and someone else uses them to craft something like a hatchet, you’ll earn XP."

Interacting with others is the primary means of fostering multiple streams of XP. As you level up, you get a greater choice of items to spend your XP on, allowing you to carve a unique path through the game's upgrades rather than become a one-man building machine. I suppose it stands to reason that one person would have a hard time becoming both master fisherman and AK-47 designer.

Dev Facepunch warns that the feature is incomplete, so expect ongoing balancing work.