In vanilla Rust, unattended boats slowly drift toward the shore, which causes them to beach themselves and pile up along coastlines. This plugin reverses that behavior so abandoned boats drift out to sea instead, gradually moving away from shore until they reach open water.
Boats only drift when nobody is using them, and the plugin automatically stops them once they're far enough from shore, in deep enough water, or close to the edge of the map. Players actively near a boat won't see it move.
Useful for servers that want cleaner coastlines, fewer beached boats around fishing villages and monuments, and a more natural fate for boats that get left behind.
Boats only drift when nobody is using them, and the plugin automatically stops them once they're far enough from shore, in deep enough water, or close to the edge of the map. Players actively near a boat won't see it move.
Useful for servers that want cleaner coastlines, fewer beached boats around fishing villages and monuments, and a more natural fate for boats that get left behind.
Configuration
JSON:
{
"Version": "1.0.0",
"How Long An Unattended Boat Waits Before Starting To Drift Out (Seconds)": 7200.0,
"How Often The Boat Takes A Drift Step Once Drifting Has Started (Seconds)": 120.0,
"How Fast The Boat Drifts Out To Sea Each Step": 1.0,
"Stop Drifting Once The Boat Is This Far From The Nearest Shore": 400.0,
"Stop Drifting Once The Water Beneath The Boat Is At Least This Deep": 15.0,
"Stop Drifting If The Boat Gets This Close To The World Edge (Avoids Anti-Cheat Issues)": 200.0,
"Random Sideways Wobble Added To The Drift Direction (Degrees, Spreads Boats Out Instead Of All Going Straight)": 15.0,
"Only Drift Boats With These Prefab Short Names (Leave Empty To Drift Every Boat Type)": []
}How Long An Unattended Boat Waits Before Starting To Drift Out-- Idle time in seconds before a boat is eligible to drift. Default7200is two hours, which roughly matches when most servers would consider a boat abandonedHow Often The Boat Takes A Drift Step Once Drifting Has Started-- Interval between drift checks once the boat starts drifting. Lower values give smoother motion but more server work. Must be high enough thatDriftSpeed * SecondsBetweenDriftis greater than twice the boat's size, otherwise the step is too small and is skippedHow Fast The Boat Drifts Out To Sea Each Step-- Drift speed in world units per second. The distance moved per step is this value multiplied by the step interval.Stop Drifting Once The Boat Is This Far From The Nearest Shore-- Distance from shore in meters at which drifting stops. Once a boat is this far out it will sit still until it moves closer againStop Drifting Once The Water Beneath The Boat Is At Least This Deep-- Water depth in meters at which drifting stops. Prevents boats from drifting indefinitely in open ocean once they're clearly out to seaStop Drifting If The Boat Gets This Close To The World Edge-- Buffer distance from the map edge in meters. Boats within this range of the world border will not drift further, which prevents teleport anti-cheat flags and boats falling off the worldRandom Sideways Wobble Added To The Drift Direction-- Maximum random angle applied to each drift step. Set to0for perfectly straight drift paths. Higher values scatter boats more naturally instead of sending them all in identical linesOnly Drift Boats With These Prefab Short Names-- Whitelist of boat prefab short names to drift. Leave empty to apply to every boat. Use entries likerowboat,rhib,tugboat,sailboat, orkayakto limit the effect
Notes
- The plugin replaces vanilla shore drift entirely while loaded. Unloading the plugin restores Rust's default behavior
- Boats parked inside the Deep Sea zone are skipped, so offshore cargo and deep sea bases are unaffected
- The drift check respects player network range, so a boat will not move while a player is close enough to see it
- The plugin performs a raycast ahead of each drift step to avoid pushing boats into rocks, piers, or other entities
