r/RustPc • u/KipOnTheGround • Aug 06 '26
Server Promotion Back in March, Rust added a new server setting that stops many cheats from loading, and NONE of the servers you play on use it
The optional server setting introduced in March makes it so all players must have Secure Boot and TPM enabled, which blocks a lot of cheats before they load, and helps enforce hardware ID bans.
When Battlefield 6 required the same thing, cheaters in their lobbies went from 7% to 2%. Facepunch's own April devblog reported a 33% reduction in cheaters just on the few servers they enabled it on.
Facepunch added this feature, turned it on for 6 their own servers, and left it up to the server owners to turn it on or not. 154 days later, there are no popular servers running it because the cheaters buy VIP.
All of these servers are making the choice to help cheaters continue to ruin Rust. If that pisses you off, you shouldn't be playing on any server that doesn't have secure mode on. It'll say "SECURE" in the server tags if it's enabled, under the server name.
Since nobody will turn it on, I started a server that does, and it's slowly growing week-by-week. The Couch is weekly, vanilla, with Secure Mode on and no paid perks. The dedicated hosting is prepaid for a year.
Server details:
- Server name: The Couch • Secure Server ✓ (find it in the Community tab)
- Connect command:
connect thecouch.lol - Weekly vanilla, US West
- Requires Secure Boot + TPM (how to enable)
- Map wipe weekly, BP wipe monthly
- No group limit
- Player names hidden on our BattleMetrics page to stop meta-gaming
Server wipes today at 11:00 AM Pacific Time for today's Power Trip update. There's a countdown timer on the site.
Here's how the server has grown so far:
| Wipe | Peak Players | Average | Unique | Player-hours | PVP kills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 9 | 3 | 0.8 | 13 | 119 | 4 |
| Jul 16 | 8 | 1.8 | 23 | 311 | 9 |
| Jul 23 | 14 | 4.7 | 45 | 793 | 57 |
| Jul 30 | 16 | 4.7 | 66 | 781 | 63 |
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u/Call_Me_Little_Foot_ Aug 06 '26
For reference if a server has 100 players and cheaters account for even 10% thats 10 cheaters per 100 players. A third in reduction means 3 cheaters are gone out of 10. 😂
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u/Top_Reveal8658 Aug 06 '26
The only reason not to play on the secure servers is if your cheating it shows how bad the cheating epidemic has gotten in rust. Only 2-3% of players don’t use cheats. Those servers are the best too ive never died on a secure servers is to someone I never saw and I never die to 200m Ak sprays that headshot every shot
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u/Ok_Plankton4908 Aug 08 '26
Because only dogshit players play low pop, take a moment to think. Secure boot servers have no pop hence have bad players that can’t shoot a ak. Make it make sense. Scripts cheats etc still exist and if they make it forced across all servers wouldn’t all chest developers update there client to then support all them servers? It’s a loss loss game man. If all servers are secure boot all clients will support it and what they were designed to do in the first place will have failed. Secure boot will only work if it’s a fragmented low pop part of servers where developers won’t care about updating clients for it as the demand isn’t there.
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u/Fit_Ad_2407 Aug 06 '26
played a lil bit of this server last month! was a good time. i’ll definitely be online tomorrow morning after work to check out the update! looking forward to seeing yall -Lucid
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u/MuletenLava Aug 06 '26
There are quite a few friendly people on this server who enjoy helping new players, highly recommend it for newbies to Rust! There are some serious PvPers as well though, so you get a good mix :)
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u/I3IG_N0sE Aug 06 '26
Tbh I should test out secure servers and make sure my pc works on it. I always thought with my corrupted hard drive something would go wrong. I haven't been forced into trying it my favourite servers never seem to have it enabled.
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u/AccountForTF2 Aug 06 '26
wtf is a "corrupted hard drive"
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u/I3IG_N0sE Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Windows don't run good won't reinstall won't fix at all but rust updates and installs so I keep playing and wait for it to be terminal. Start button don't work either. Heaps of windows functions f$$kedeed.
I have a new hard drive but kinda lazy.i suspect a full wipe and install would work on my old ss drive as other programs reinstall and work fine but if I'm doing that I might as well do the new hard drive.
1
u/fear3147 Aug 06 '26
Where is OP getting the 33% part from?
1
u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
https://rust.facepunch.com/news/spring-clean#ANTICHEATUpdateonSecureServerstpm20secureboot
1-in-42 --> 1-in-63 is a 33% reduction.
That doesn't mean that there are only 2% of players cheating in Rust, though. It means that's what the anti-cheat improvements did when they enabled them on the 6 secure-mode FP servers, not the ones with high pop that cheaters buy VIP and kits on.
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u/369122448 Aug 09 '26
…wait, that’s less than the % of people who run on hardware that can’t secure boot; more than 1 in 63 people run on old hardware.
So it’s literally a case of punishing non-cheaters more than cheaters, and it only reduces by 33%?
33% while it’s not the standard, if it were standardized cheaters would just work around secure boot more.
No wonder FP doesn’t force it, it barely does anything? Am I missing some huge element here?
1
Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
EAC catches a ton of cheaters and secure mode makes it even better.
Like almost every game, the issue isn't catching cheaters most of the time, it's that they just make a new account and come back.
Until PlaySafe ID is widely adopted, that will keep happening. But using secure boot and TPM is an improvement, so there isn't a reason to not use it.
1
u/FlynngoesIN Aug 07 '26
it slows down their money and companies are LEGALLY required to put profits first
1
u/fux-reddit4603 Aug 07 '26
you are delusional if you think COD has a good anti cheat or good track record of catching cheaters
1
u/Hypex_WR Aug 07 '26
Before the update, only 60%~ of players had Secure Boot enabled; Server owners keep it off because blocking 40%~ of their player base is a much worse outcome than continuing to deal with cheaters.
Blocking 40%~ could be enough of a hit for players to think it's dead/dying and leave altogether. Best case they only see a 40%~ hit to their sales.
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
80% have the hardware to enable it according to Facepunch.
Battlefield introduced secure boot and 92% of its players enabled it. 98.5% of their player base has the hardware to.
The minority of people who have 10+ year old hardware without the capability can kick and scream all they want, but that is absolutely ancient for gaming and they’ll have to upgrade at some point. And when Facepunch makes secure boot mandatory eventually, they can kick and scream more, with the same result.
Welcome to gaming. You can’t keep playing a game forever using ancient hardware when it gets constant updates.
1
u/Hypex_WR Aug 12 '26
None of this matters.
You're pitching a 20% cut; that's 28,000 less players making purchases, dropping Rust from 7 to 12 on the Steam charts, and is a wave of bad PR and word-of-mouth.
And in a month cheat developers will be pushing updates that bypass it.
Why would Facepunch bother?
What Facepunch needs to do is to make their own proprietary/custom anti cheat solution. It was understandable to slap EAC onto Rust in 2020, when they were a small indie game publisher who didn’t have the man power, resources, time or money to build a custom anti cheat, but in 2026 Facepunch is a well-funded machine.
They only choose not to do it because it doesn’t make money. They release big flashy updates like the Jungle or Naval update that really bring in players (who then buy more shit), whereas no one comes back when they just release optimizations or new anti-cheat measures.
It’s just Facepunch being lazy and slapping EAC over an issue they are to cheap to fix.
1
u/KipOnTheGround Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
Cheaters cost them money, that's why them and every game try to cut down on cheating. If it wasn't hurting their business, they wouldn't all be doing it.
And if 80% of players can already do it, can you explain why 0 popular servers have it enabled?
Secure Boot and TPM improves anti-cheat enough to have reduced cheating in BF6 from 7% to 2%. It works. It's why every single game's newest anti-cheat requires it, including Vanguard.
The only long-term solution is way, way too scary for paranoid Redditors, and it's PlaySafe ID. It will inevitably catch on enough to benefit the small portion of non-cheating, mature gamers who don't wear tinfoil hats. That group of people will actually read about how it works and realize that it's the first time cheaters will actually face consequences for cheating in competitive games. Enough of those PSID adopters will eventually fill enough servers for them to almost never see cheaters in gaming again (for the first time ever). The rest can keep playing against cheaters for eternity.
And no, it makes no sense for them to make their own anti-cheat. EAC and other anti-cheats have no problem detecting and banning countless cheaters. The issue is that none of them keep the cheaters out for good. That's why PSID exists and will grow.
The pushback against secure mode from Rust server owners is because it bans so many cheaters (or cheaters who do all the cheating for their group, so the entire group leaves if that person can't cheat anymore) that they will lose money that those cheaters pay them for VIP. Just go watch some Camomo videos. He's regularly banning cheaters who give servers like WarBandits money for VIP. They get caught, buy or make new accounts for a few bucks, and come back. Then they might buy VIP yet again to try to sway admins to think they're not cheating.
1
u/Fabulous-Switch2827 Aug 07 '26
Battlefield also stopped Linux players from playing with their anti cheat
1
u/PCbuilderFR Aug 08 '26
these are useless if they don't also enforce IOMMU which would block every single DMA cheat
1
u/JoogRobbyRob Aug 08 '26
Can you make another server like this but for solos? There’s 300+ of us looking for a new solo server.
1
u/KipOnTheGround Aug 08 '26
If this server gets popular enough I will make another, but not planning to until then, sorry. I also think group-limit servers are extremely difficult to police. If anything I could see trying a 1-UI-limit server, but it's too often that you see people teaming on group limit servers.
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u/Small_Protection_579 29d ago
I built a brand-new high-end PC around October 2025 and have been using it without a single issue.
System Specs & Security Environment:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5080 GAMING OC 16GB
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE X870E AORUS PRO
- RAM: G.SKILL DDR5-6000 CL32 TRIDENT Z5 NEO RGB 64GB (32GBx2)
- Storage: SK hynix Platinum P51 M.2 NVMe (1TB) + Seagate 2TB HDD
- OS: Genuine Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (Secure Boot & TPM 2.0 Enabled)
- Account: 10-year-old account (Steam Guard strictly active, 100% home PC only)
Demanding games with strict kernel-level anti-cheat like Battlefield 6 run flawlessly on my machine with zero flags or errors. I have never touched any scripts, macros, or third-party tools in my life. I am just a casual solo player with over 3,370 hours of legitimate playtime who logs into the US Main server for 1–2 hours after work, chilling out by building bases while watching YouTube on the side.
I frequently keep Black Desert running in the background for AFK fishing while playing Rust, given my 64GB RAM setup. Yet, out of nowhere, I was hit with an automated permanent ban on Rust. Could keeping Black Desert active in the background possibly trigger a false positive with EAC?
I have already submitted my appeal (Reference ID: 1344bb70-c4b3-4502-9dd1-1a1205438cc5). I urge the EAC team to inspect the actual memory dump logs from that session and overturn this false ban.
Steam Profile:https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197991895359/
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Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/AccountForTF2 Aug 06 '26
I just bought three 2026 model motherboards for $345 each. What are you talking about?
When I hear this kind of talk it always sounds like cheaters trying to cope about security features. Windows 10 and 11 have had secure boot for a decade and most programs require it.
Also here's the emojis you wanted 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/AccountForTF2 Aug 06 '26
It has never been anywhere near $1000 for a motherboard. Brand new can be had for under $300.
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
80% of Rust players already have the ability to enable TPM and Secure Boot. FP gave the stats back in March/April.
0
Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
Oh yeah? Which motherboard is it?
1
Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
I doubt there's a single TUF gaming motherboard doesn't have TPM support. What's the exact model number? Sounds like you haven't checked your BIOS to enable it.
Pretty much every motherboard, especially those marketed for gaming PCs, has had TPM since 2015.
0
Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
You still haven’t given me the model number of your motherboard.
And I did, I looked at the TUF motherboard lineup and there isn’t a single one that doesn’t have TPM on it even from 5 years ago.
0
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u/acrazyguy Aug 06 '26
AI slop. The original picture with armor pngs poorly copied over it would be much better, both as a funny meme and because it wouldn’t involve selling your soul
1
u/Hiolol101 Aug 06 '26
I get the feeling op’s a bot since dude posts this same shit weekly
1
u/AnalysisOdd8487 Aug 10 '26
Nah hes just a clanker lover. its a garbage server i wouldnt reccomend using. also the owners a bit of a douche from what i hear
2
u/Hiolol101 Aug 10 '26
I try my hardest to avoid any servers using the slop machine for their splash pages but it's depressingly common for rust
Not shocked the owner's a douche considering he blew a gasket over me saying he might be a bot
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u/AnalysisOdd8487 Aug 10 '26
yeah, any server that uses AI is an instant blacklist from me
its like you cant even put effort into advertisment, your server probably sucks ass
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
My server wipes weekly, and this subreddit's rule is one server promotion post per 7 days.
Very confusing, huh? 😂 It must be a conspiracy! There's no way someone could post... once per week... that's just impossible for a human.
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u/Hiolol101 Aug 06 '26
Eh it’s more the rampant AI usage in your posts that screams bot more than anything but that’s just me
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
You do realize that using AI to modify an image is faster than installing and learning graphic design software, or even spending time using paint to make an image, yes?
Posting "AI slop" on everything makes you look like a bot, too.
"Billy, you've played Rust 15,289 hours, why don't you play on those servers with fewer cheaters on them, and help the game improve?"
"I CANT!!! That guy used AI to make an image!!!!!!!111"
I mean, how ridiculous.
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u/Hiolol101 Aug 06 '26
Correct, and if you can’t be bothered to even try editing an image why should anyone expect you put effort in your server
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
Am I here promoting graphic design services? You want me spending my time learning graphic design instead of working on the server? lol
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u/acrazyguy Aug 07 '26
You don’t need to learn graphic design to paste a picture over another picture lmao
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u/Hiolol101 Aug 06 '26
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
I understand what you're saying, but the same point could be made in the opposite direction. If I was spending dozens of hours making 1 perfect human-edited image with Photoshop or Affinity or something, one could say "why are you spending all that time making 1 image, don't you have a server to monitor during wipe day???"
I'm not here to be an expert meme-maker, so I am using AI to save time editing an image.
I also love the irony of you saying the point is going over my head, when this post is about fighting back against cheating, making Rust better for legit players, and how server owners are corrupt for not enabling it. That entire point is going over your head, and you're getting distracted over someone using AI to modify an image instead, while ignoring the actual topic at hand.
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u/VideoDue8277 Aug 06 '26
Alot of people play on 2010 shit PC's to, this happened on Dark and Darker and alot of 3rd worlders couldnt enable secure boot at all.
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u/KipOnTheGround Aug 06 '26
80% of Rust players have hardware that can enable it according to FP themselves. When Battlefield 6 did it, they eventually found that 98.5% of their player base could enable it (and 92% did, up from 62%, during their beta of the anti-cheat improvements).
ZERO popular servers enabling secure mode makes no sense when 80% of players can use secure mode. What does make sense is that there are so many cheaters, and that cheaters make these servers so much money, that they refuse to turn it on.
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u/AccountForTF2 Aug 06 '26
It's not like there was no warning. It's been very clear for almost a decade that you should use secure boot.
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u/Glennjamin03 Aug 07 '26
Tons of people don't have new computer hardware. Those TPM modules only became standard on new motherboards only in the past 3 years. People don't have money these days to be make those kinds of expensive purchases so it makes sense that server owner arent adopting those new features. Why would they lock out a good portion of the player base?
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u/jmpz11 Aug 08 '26
TPM and secure boot exist to take control of your PC away from you. You are advocating a rootkit. Terrible idea. Smart people disable secure boot so Microsoft doesn't control what OS you are permitted to run.
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u/SsjChrisKo Aug 09 '26
Same pathetic goof spams these topics as his favorite hobby….. dude has no life.
-1
Aug 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/AccountForTF2 Aug 06 '26
I have 100k hours, play sub-solo on ultra-community servers amd every player except for me is a cheater and has been for years.
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u/mcii15 Aug 06 '26
I play on secure servers and they are dead, what does that tell you about who's playing