Is Rust+ allowed? Can it get you banned?
Last checked
Rust+ is Facepunch’s own official companion app, and using it is ordinary play. Companion tools such as Rustconnect talk to the same companion service the app uses. They never touch the game on your PC, which is what anti-cheat watches. Facepunch has not published rules on third-party companion tools either way, and individual servers can set their own.
What Rust+ is
Facepunch, who make Rust, describe Rust+ as “the official Rust companion app”. It lets you see the server map and your teammates, chat with your team, switch Smart Switches and get alerts from Smart Alarms. It works through a companion service that each Rust server runs alongside the game itself.
What a companion tool actually touches
A companion tool connects over the internet to that same companion service on the Rust server, exactly as the phone app does, and only after you approve it: you pair a server or a device from inside the game, with the normal Pair button. It does not:
- read or change the game’s memory,
- inject anything into Rust or modify its files,
- draw an overlay on the game, or read your screen.
Rustconnect goes one step further: nothing of ours runs on your PC at all while you play. The connection runs on our servers.
What anti-cheat watches
Rust’s anti-cheat runs with the game on your computer and watches the game client: what is running alongside it, and what is reading or altering it. A companion tool that never runs on your PC and never touches the client is outside what it looks at.
What Facepunch has and has not said
Facepunch’s Rust+ page describes the official app. It says nothing about third-party companion tools — no approval, and no prohibition. We have not found a Facepunch statement either way, and we would rather tell you that than quote one that does not exist.
What Facepunch does do is limit how the companion service can be used: the server rate-limits requests per IP address and per player, and caps how many connections one address may hold. Well-behaved tools stay inside those limits. Rustconnect queues every request to respect them.
Check the server’s own rules
Community servers set their own rules, and some mention third-party tools. If a server’s rules say something about companion apps or Discord bots, those are the rules that apply on that server. Some servers do not run Rust+ at all, in which case no companion tool can connect.
Your Steam account
You sign in to Rustconnect on Steam’s own page, and linking Rust+ happens in your own browser. Your Steam password is typed into Steam and never reaches us. We never ask for it.
See also: does Rust+ work when your PC is off? and what Rustconnect costs.