Install the server extension

Creator’s server extension is a small companion that runs on your Rust dedicated server and applies the parts of your map the standard format has no room for: trigger volumes, IO wiring, loot, vending and NPC profiles, ziplines, and the map’s Deep Sea settings. It also keeps Deep Sea objects you placed on your map alive through the Deep Sea’s close, and restocks them each time the Deep Sea opens. Everything else in your map runs without it, so this is an add-on rather than a requirement. See Run your map on a server for the split.

It works on both of the modding frameworks Rust servers use, Oxide (also called uMod) and Carbon. You need one of them installed on the server; if your server has neither, that is the first step and it is their documentation, not ours. On a Crucible Local Server, framework installation is Mods and plugins.

Where to get it

It ships with Creator. In the folder you installed Creator to, beside RustCreator.exe, there is a folder named ServerExtension. The start screen’s Requires Creator Oxide Extension line has a button that opens it for you.

Inside it:

What	For
Carbon\	the two files a Carbon server needs
Oxide\	the three files an Oxide server needs
README.txt	the short version of this page: which files go where
manifest.json	every file with its SHA-256, and the Rust server build the files were built against

The extension in your Creator folder is the one built for that Creator release, so when you update Creator, copy the new files onto your server too.

Install it

Copy the files for the framework your server runs, not both. Every file in that framework’s folder is needed: one is the host adapter for your framework, one is the shared logic both adapters use, and on Oxide the third is a library the shared logic reads your map’s data with.

On Carbon:

1. Stop the server.
2. Copy the two files in ServerExtension\Carbon\ (RustCreator.Ext.Carbon.dll and RustCreator.Ext.Core.dll) into the server’s carbon\extensions\ folder.
3. Start the server.

On Oxide:

1. Stop the server.
2. Copy the three files in ServerExtension\Oxide\ (Oxide.Ext.Creator.dll, RustCreator.Ext.Core.dll and protobuf-net.dll) into the server’s RustDedicated_Data\Managed\ folder, the one that holds Oxide.Core.dll.
3. Start the server.

Keep the file names exactly as they are. Oxide loads an extension from that folder only when its file name starts with Oxide., so a renamed Oxide.Ext.Creator.dll is silently never loaded.

Copy the Core file too. The host file alone loads and then fails to do anything, because every decision it makes lives in Core. On Oxide, protobuf-net.dll is needed as well: Oxide does not ship it.

Check that it worked

The extension reports itself in the server console and the server log. Search for [RustCreator.Ext]. On a map that carries Creator data you get a manifest line and then one line per block, like this:

[RustCreator.Ext] manifest: 3 blocks, editor <version>
[RustCreator.Ext] io: v1 nodes=12 wires=11 OK
[RustCreator.Ext] loot: found=4 applied=4 skipped=0 items=17 OK
[RustCreator.Ext] vending: found=1 applied=1 skipped=0 items=6 OK

Read them as: found is how many things the map asked for, applied is how many landed on a live entity, and skipped is the rest, with the reason in brackets. What you want is applied matching what you authored and skipped=0.

On a map with no Creator data the extension stays silent on purpose. Silence there is not a failure; it means the map is not carrying anything for it to apply.

What the census lines tell you when they are not clean

What you see	What it means
skipped=… (noMatch=…)	The map asked for an entity that is not there, at that position. Usually a prefab that was moved or deleted after the wiring was authored.
skipped=… (ambiguous=…)	Two entities sit on the same spot, so the extension will not guess which one you meant.
skipped=… (missingProfile=…)	A placement points at a loot, vending or NPC profile that is not in the map.
unknownItems=…	An item shortname this wipe’s Rust does not have. The line names each one. Fix the profile in Creator and re-save.
CRC-FAIL	The block is damaged. Re-save the map from Creator.
MISSING (in manifest, not in map)	Something stripped one of Creator’s blocks out of the file. See the Caution below.
SKIPPED (needs reader >= N)	The map was saved by a newer Creator than your extension. Update the extension.

None of these stop the map loading. The extension is written so a data problem is reported and skipped, not thrown.

A third-party tool can silently strip Creator’s data out of your map

Creator’s extras ride inside the .map file under their own names. A tool that re-saves a map and drops entries it does not recognize will take them with it, and the map will still load and play as if nothing happened.

That is what the manifest line is for: the extension knows what the map claimed to carry, so a stripped block is reported as MISSING rather than silently doing nothing. If you see that, the map you uploaded is not the one Creator saved.

Deep Sea objects and settings

Three things happen on every map the extension loads, including maps with no Creator data, because all three are about the Deep Sea that Rust runs beside your map.

Deep Sea objects you placed on your map stay, and players on the mainland see them. Rust counts every Deep Sea island, floating city and ghost ship as part of its Deep Sea, wherever it stands: it keeps them on its own lists and sends them only to players inside the Deep Sea. So on a server without the extension, a copy you placed on your own map is deleted at the first Deep Sea close and does not come back until the next map wipe, and players on the mainland most likely never see it before that. The extension keeps the copies you placed out of every close and sends them to mainland players instead: islands and ghost ships to every player on the mainland, a floating city to the players near it, because a city is too heavy to send to the whole map at once. It only protects what the map itself placed, and only outside the Deep Sea zone: the Deep Sea’s own random islands, cities and ships open and close exactly as they do on any server, and a copy an admin spawns in by command is not protected. Creator’s server-ready check notes every one of them you place, and it also warns when a map is wider than 7,800 m, because the west edge of such a map reaches into the Deep Sea zone. On a server that will not run the extension, swap the islands and ghost ships for their art instead (EDIT, Swap Deep Sea Objects for Their Art): it looks the same and no close removes it.

The Deep Sea objects it keeps, and the tropical islands you stamped, are restocked. Rust fills its own Deep Sea islands, cities and ghost ships with loot and people each time the Deep Sea opens, and nowhere else, so a copy you placed on your map would otherwise stay empty once looted. Each time the Deep Sea opens, the extension fills what it keeps the same way: a ghost ship’s crates, barrels and scientists, an island’s loot and its residents, and the same for every tropical island you made with the Island Stamp. On a fresh wipe it also fills them once when the server starts, because your islands are there from the start where the Deep Sea’s appear when it opens. It uses each object’s own spawners, so the amounts are the game’s own: anything that still holds loot or people is left as it is (nothing is ever doubled up), the server’s own deepsea.loot_scale and deepsea.loot_respawn_scale apply, and turning off ai.npc_spawn_on_deep_sea_islands or ai.npc_spawn_on_junkpile keeps the island residents or the ghost ship scientists away as it does in the Deep Sea. Each island also gets the walking paths the Deep Sea builds for its own islands, so its residents can move around. One line is printed each time. It looks like this (an example; the counts on your server will differ):

[RustCreator.Ext] deepsea refill (opening 1): targets 3 (1 island, 0 floatingcity, 1 ghostship, 1 tropicalart), groups 41; acted 12 of 12 planned, +37 entities; scaled 0; left: populated 3, respawn 9, npcGated 0, pending 0, inactive 17, chance 0; navmesh baked 0 OK

A floating city has no spawners of its own: its shopkeepers and turrets are part of it and stay with it.

The map’s recommended Deep Sea settings are applied. A map can carry Deep Sea settings: the Tropical look (the Deep Sea’s sand, palms and ground cover over the whole map), how long the Deep Sea stays open, and which side of the world its portal opens on. The extension sets them when the server starts, before the Deep Sea is created, and logs each one with the value it replaced:

[RustCreator.Ext] deepsea setting: deepsea.terrain_everywhere true SET, was 'False' (from tropicalLook=On)
[RustCreator.Ext] deepsea settings (createdeepsea): planned=3 set=3 unchanged=0 unknown=0 refused=0 failed=0 OK
[RustCreator.Ext] deepsea keep (serverinit): listed islands=0 floatingcities=1 ghostships=2, inGroup=3; kept 2 map-placed out of the close this pass (0 island, 1 floatingcity, 1 ghostship), protected total 2; rehomed 2, detached 155; left to vanilla: 1 inside the zone, 0 outside and not map-placed OK

A keep line is also printed at every Deep Sea close. A setting this server’s Rust version does not have is reported as SKIPPED and the rest still apply. deepsea.terrain_everywhere is saved by the server, so it stays set after you switch to another map until you set it back.

Without the extension, Creator writes the same settings beside your map when you save, as a file named after it that ends in .server.cfg. Paste its lines into the server’s server.cfg. That covers the settings, not the Deep Sea objects you placed. Setting deepsea.enabled false is not a way to keep them: it stops the close but turns the whole Deep Sea off, and players on the mainland still do not see them. Swap them for their art instead, as above.

Setting	What it does
RC_EXT_DEEPSEA_KEEP	On by default. 0 gives the Deep Sea close back its normal behavior, deleting the copies you placed. A map can also turn it off for itself.
RC_EXT_DEEPSEA_REFILL	On by default. 0 stops the restocking: the objects the extension keeps and your stamped islands keep only the loot the game refills by itself over time, and their residents have no walking paths.
RC_EXT_DEEPSEA_SETTINGS	On by default. 0 leaves your own server.cfg in charge: every setting the map asks for is printed as NOT APPLIED and none is changed.

All three are environment variables on the server, read once when the extension loads.

List your server as modded

A server that uses the extension’s Deep Sea features is changing how part of the game behaves, so it should list as modded. The Tropical look on its own is a standard Rust setting and needs no extension.

Semi-Tropical ground

On a map saved in Semi-Tropical mode (see Tropical biome), the extension gives the tropical look to each player while they stand on the map’s painted Tropical ground, and tells the game’s own spawns that the ground there is Tropical. On any other map it does nothing at all. At startup it prints what it found:

[RustCreator.Ext] tropical: mode=Semi switch=on biome=on (Semi-Tropical, 5120 Tropical cell(s) painted)
[RustCreator.Ext] tropical switch: ON, one check every 1 s, edge band 3 cell(s) (12 m), ...

and one line each time a player switches, with the time the server sent it:

[RustCreator.Ext] tropical: Rook (7656...) ENTERED Tropical ground at (1204.5, -388.1): deepsea.terrain_everywhere True, sent to that player only (t=5123.418 s)

Setting	What it does
RC_EXT_TROPICAL_SWITCH	On by default. 0 keeps every player on the ordinary look.
RC_EXT_TROPICAL_BIOME	On by default. 0 leaves the game’s own biome answers untouched, so spawns treat Tropical ground as the Arid under it.
RC_EXT_TROPICAL_EDGE	The margin, in meters, a player must be clear of Tropical ground before their look switches back. Default 12.
RC_EXT_TROPICAL_INTERVAL	Seconds between two checks of every player. Default 1, allowed from 0.25 to 10.

If an admin sets deepsea.terrain_everywhere true by hand while a Semi-Tropical map is running, every player already has the tropical look, so the extension sends nothing until it is set back to false; then the players on Tropical ground get their look back at the next check.

Reloading it

Reloading the extension (c.reload on Carbon, oxide.reload on Oxide) cleans up what it created and applies the map again from scratch. NPC spawners it made are destroyed and re-created exactly once, not doubled. You can reload it as often as you like without accumulating entities.

What is proven, and what is not

The extension’s decision logic has its own test suite, and its live apply has been run end to end on a real dedicated server under Carbon: the loot, vending and NPC blocks applied, the census came back clean, and a reload re-created the spawners without doubling them.

The Oxide build is the same shared logic behind a different host adapter, and it has not had the same live run. If you are the first person to run it on Oxide, the census lines above are how you will know, and that is worth a message in the Discord either way.

If it does not load at all

• Nothing in the log mentions RustCreator.Ext. The files are in the wrong folder, a file was renamed, or not every file was copied. Check each one, in the folder named above for your framework.
• The server logs an assembly or type error on startup. The extension was built against a different Rust server version than the one you are running (manifest.json in the ServerExtension folder names the build it was made for). It reads the server’s own types directly, so a Rust update can break that binding. On Oxide, a missing protobuf-net.dll shows up the same way.
• It loads and every block is skipped. The positions in the map no longer match the entities the server spawned. That is usually a map edited after the wiring was authored: see noMatch above.