Rust Takes Flight: New Vehicles & Weapons Shake Up September Update

The Rust Airborne Update released for the September 7th wipe has come out with a magnitude of new items and vehicles that significantly change the Rust meta. Along with this month's update, they have also started a new round of Twitch drops, so you can get all kinds of new skins without spending a dime!

What's New?

The Rust team have been hard at work and have come out with 2 new vehicles and 3 new items. Each entity that has been added has caused major changes in the way Rust is played. While the opinions on this update have been mixed, nobody can deny the effort that went into creating this months update.

Attack Helicopter

This new helicopter opens the doors for some insane air-to-air combat and a totally new way to destroy those pesky roof campers.

The Attack Helicopter costs 2250 scrap at the Air Wolf store in Bandit Camp.

The Attack Helicopter is now the most expensive thing that can be purchased among any of the shops. The Minicopter at 750 Scrap, the Scrap Helicopter at 1250 Scrap, and the Hot Air Balloon at 150 Scrap seem cheap compared to the Attack Helicopter.

If you want to have more fun with this new toy, then invite a friend to take the gunner seat! Unleash chaos on bases and players across the server, but watch out! The all new Homing Missile Launcher is the Attack Helicopters kryptonite.

Flying the Attack Helicopter is mixture between the minicopters nimble controls and the scrap helicopters heavier movements.

Gunner

The Gunner seat is a vital position to be played and can make or break the pilots chances of success. The helicopter is equipped with a turret, similar to the ones used to defend your base, except this one is in the SKY! You can fill the turret with any gun, just like its ground counterpart. The Gunner can also blast rockets from the side pods! (HV and Incendiary types only)

While in the gunner seat you can fire both the turret and rocket launcher while the pilot is flying. All you need to do is simply interact with the gunner monitor, aim, and shoot; it's that easy! To shoot the turret, just hit the Fire1 button (left mouse), and to shoot rockets, hit the Fire2 button (right mouse).

The diamond crosshair is the exact point where the rocket will hit if fired at that moment. This crosshair moves around often so be sure to take aim quickly.

If someone shoots one of the new Homing Rockets from the ground, and the passenger of any helicopter has a flare in their inventory belt, they can manually throw one to deflect any Homing Rockets locked onto you.

Pilot

The pilot controls the helicopter, but unlike the minicopter, they can fire rockets too. While piloting the helicopter your aim will be drastically reduced so it is always best to have a friend in the gunner seat if possible.

If rockets aren't your type of thing, then maybe some flares will do. You can fill up the rocket storage area with flares, which are only used to divert incoming missiles.

Parachutes

After months of this being teased, we've finally got a craftable way to glide around the map and even a safe way to bail out of your helicopters before you crash. Once you get your hands on a parachute be sure to research it! To equip it, you will need to put it into the new dedicated parachute slot in your inventory.

To activate the parachute while falling hit the Spacebar

Be sure to not accidentally hit Spacebar twice; As it it will detach your chute and you plummet to your death! We don't want that happening, do we?

To steer the parachute, just use your movement keys with nothing equipped in your hands. To rain bullets down on your enemies below simply equip any weapon from your inventory and fire away. Remember that you won't be able to steer while you are holding your gun so make sure you aren't about to crash into a tree!

The parachute can be used multiple times; just hold your pickup key for 8 seconds to repack it.
The parachute will lose 20% of its health once picked up. The more damaged it is, the harder it is to control and the faster you fall. This means that a heavily damaged parachute can deal damage when landing.

At top speed the parachute can deal 80HP worth of damage when hitting an object. Ouch!

CRAFTING

Workbench Level 2 required

Parachute: 2 Tarps, 2 Sewing Kits, and 50 Cloth

Armored Hot Air Balloon

The armor can be attached to all hot air balloons

The Armor upgrade can be purchased for 150 Scrap at the Vehicle Parts Vendor in Bandit Camp.

The Armor adds windows to the balloon to give you some extra security and increases the balloon's overall health, making it harder to shoot down.

Homing Missile Launcher

The Homing Missile Launcher is one of the new craftable items that lets you take revenge against the helicopters. To start taking down those pesky helicopters, load a Homing Missile into the Launcher and then aim at the flying target. Once you are aiming at the target, the small locking bar will fill up. Once it is full, you can pull the trigger. Remember to remain locked on even after firing to guide the missile to its target.

The pilots have a few tools to evade the Homing Missile. When locked onto a target the pilot will have a warning sound to alert them of the danger.

The pilots can then perform some basic maneuvers since the missile requires a direct line of sight, so getting low behind trees is the best way to evade a locked missile. If you cannot get away from the missile, then your passanger can throw flares to send the incoming missile off course. If you are travelling solo in the Attack Helicopter you can use the dedicated flare button, which can be activated with the Fire2 (right mouse).

CRAFTING

Workbench Level 2 required

Homing Launcher: 20 HQM, 3 Metal Pipes, 1 Tech Trash, and 1 CCTV Camera

x2 Homing Missiles: 3 Metal Pipes, 200 Gun Powder, and 1 Tech Trash

Weapon Racks

The Weapons Rack is a pack that you can purchase from the Rust item store for $9.99 USD.

Weapon racks add another way to store your weapons while also showing them off at the same time.

There are 3 different sized wall mounted Weapon Racks available.

In the Weapons Rack Pack there is also a weapon stand that doesn't require a workbench and can be used for bigger weapons.

What The Community Thinks?

With this large of an update there is bound to be some backlash to the changes. While the majority of the rust players have supported the change there has been a few negative comments.

Despite some of the backlash towards this months update there has also been a lot of positive feedback from the community. Some players have even mentioned that this update is one of the best updates that Rust has released in a while.

Conclusion

So, with this content packed update how will you spend this month playing Rust? Will you try out the new Homing Missile launcher on your favorite survival server or will you take to the skies and create your own Rust server to dog fight your friends with the new Attack Helicopters?

The sky is the limit with this update (pun intended) and we can't wait to see what everyone gets up too. Be sure to tweet us your thoughts on all the new content.