Rust cliffs and rocks on a custom map

Getting RustEdit to place cliffs means running its topology passes, and those reset every custom topology layer on the map. So the choice used to be RustEdit’s cliffs, or the topology you authored, never both.

Crucible places the cliffs itself. It puts Rust’s real models on your terrain and writes them into the .map file directly, so nothing has to be regenerated and nothing you made gets thrown away.

What gets placed

Three kinds of thing, on the ground that suits each:

• Tall cliff walls on genuinely sheer faces, standing in chains along a ridge or a headland the way they do in game.
• Hill cliffs, the smaller rock faces that break up a steep hillside.
• Rock formations and scattered rock, clustered rather than sprinkled evenly, so they read as outcrops.

These are Rust’s own models, not stand-ins, and which model gets picked is weighted to match what RustEdit’s own cliff generation produces, so the mix looks right rather than repetitive.

Cliffs are placed across the whole map, not just the coast. Inland mountains and lake shores get tall walls too, wherever the ground is steep enough with enough height behind it. Coastal-only cliffs are one of the clearest signs of a generated map.

The two switches, and why they are different

There are two separate controls and they do different jobs.

Generate cliffs (Worldgen panel)

This is a preview switch. Tick it and the cliff models stand up in the in-game view, so you can fly around and look at them on your actual terrain.

It is off by default, because standing up thousands of real models is heavy work.

With it on, part of the in-game view locks: the terrain brush, the biome and topology brushes, dragging islands, and the grid. Those all reshape the ground the cliffs are standing on. Conjure, salt, randomize and splat painting all keep working, along with the camera, sun and overlays. Switch to the 3D view for anything that is locked.

MAP File + Cliffs + Lakes (Export panel)

This is the export, and it is the default output. It generates the cliffs at export time regardless of whether the preview switch is on.

So you do not have to turn the preview on to ship a map with cliffs. Leave it off, keep the viewer light while you work, and export MAP File + Cliffs + Lakes at the end. MAP File + Lakes is the cliff-free output if you want it, and there is a MAP File + Cliffs that ships the cliffs without the lakes.

What arrives in RustEdit

The cliff and rock models are written into the .map as real placed objects. Open the file in RustEdit and they are already standing, on a map that still has the biomes, topology, ground textures and lakes you generated.

Do not run RustEdit’s cliff generation on top of it. Ticking Cliff topology alone generates nothing, so to get cliffs out of RustEdit you also have to tick the pass it simply calls Topology and the cliff types at the bottom of that menu, and that resets every custom topology layer on the map. You would lose the cliffs already in your file and your lakes with them, since lakes are Lake and Lakeside topology.

Biomes and ground textures are not affected. They have their own checkboxes in that menu, so generating those is safe. See export a Rust .map file.

Where cliffs come from

Cliffs follow the Cliff and Cliffside topology, which the worldgen derives from the slope of your terrain. That is why the order matters:

1. Finish the terrain.
2. Generate the world.
3. Then cliffs.

Reshape the land afterward and the topology moves, which is exactly why the terrain brush is locked in the in-game view while cliffs are standing.

Cliffs also drive the ore you can mine. The Decor and Clutter layers are derived from where the cliffs actually are, and those are the layers Rust spawns metal, stone and sulfur nodes on. So placing cliffs properly is not only how the map looks, it is part of how it plays.

Tips

• Leave Generate cliffs off while you are shaping. Turn it on when you want to look at the finished thing.
• Fly the coastlines and the interior in the in-game view. Inland cliffs are easy to forget and they are half of what makes the map feel real.
• If a lake came out ringed with rock and another did not, that is intended. See lakes.
• Export MAP File + Cliffs + Lakes unless you have a specific reason not to. It is the default for a reason.