AlienTripod

Bring a towering alien war machine to your Rust server. AlienTripod combines animated walking legs, a rotating searchlight head, a player capture laser, homing missiles, and close-range mortar defenses.

Create monument patrols, build custom routes anywhere on your map, or enable automatic road patrols - all managed through an in-game editor.

Features

Patrols and path editor

• Record waypoints by walking your chosen route.
• Create local paths or link paths to standard and custom monuments.
• Preview routes before spawning tripods.
• Choose looping routes or patrols that reverse at the final waypoint.
• Configure automatic spawning, population limits, and respawn delays per path.
• Enable automatic road patrols with configurable spawn separation.
• Adjust individual spawned tripods without changing their saved patrol settings.

Weapons and defenses

• Capture laser: grabs eligible players and pulls them into the machine, with blood effects and dropped inventory loot.
• Homing missiles: attack player targets and supported vehicles.
• Minicopter salvos: configurable lock-on time, missile count, and firing interval.
• Vehicle targeting: separate options for occupied minicopters and modular cars. Minicopters must have their engine running.
• Mortar barrages: defend against nearby players, including mounted players, with shells launched around and underneath the tripod.
• Flare defense: deploys decoys against incoming homing missiles, with a separate cooldown.
• Lock-on retaliation: can fire back after a player maintains a homing lock for two seconds.

Mounted players cannot be captured by the laser. Players using noclip or god mode are ignored by combat targeting.

Damage and recovery

Each leg has its own health pool. Body pieces share body health, and head pieces share head health.

• Damaged legs develop fire effects.
• A failed leg remains at 1 HP, produces electrical effects, and stops the tripod walking.
• Body health at one-third or lower disables the capture laser while other defenses remain available.
• A damaged head produces electrical effects around the neck.
• Destroying the head kills the tripod and drops harvestable debris.
• After 10 minutes without damage, parts recover 1% of their maximum health every 10 seconds.
• Healing restores disabled functions once their recovery thresholds are reached.

Default health is 1,000 for each leg, 1,000 for the body, and 1,000 for the head.

Commands

All commands require server administrator access or the alientripod.admin permission.

| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| /AlienTripod | Opens the configuration and patrol editor. |
| /AlienTripod ui | Also opens the editor. |
| /AlienTripod spawn | Builds a tripod ahead of you using the default settings. Requires suitable open ground. |
| /AlienTripod stop | Stops the nearest tripod within 60 metres and releases its captured player. |
| /AlienTripod remove | Removes the nearest tripod within 60 metres. |
| /AlienTripod debug | Writes movement diagnostics for the nearest tripod to the server log. |
| /AlienTripod debug all | Writes movement diagnostics for all fully built tripods. |

Permission

alientripod.admin - grants access to the commands and editor.

Example server-console commands:

Creating a patrol

• Open /AlienTripod and select Add New Path.
• Give the path a name.
• Choose a local path, or stand near a monument and link the path to it.
• Select Record Waypoints by Walking the Route.
• Stand at each waypoint and press USE to add it.
• Press RELOAD to remove the last waypoint.
• Click Back to Settings, or hold SPRINT and press RELOAD.
• Configure the path’s spawning and tripod settings, then save.

Add at least two waypoints. Routes are checked for ground suitability and clearance. Saved paths are specific to the current map.

Configuration

Configure targeting ranges, health, walking speed, stride settings, contact damage, weapon availability, missile damage and cooldowns, minicopter salvos, mortar barrages, homing targetability, and flare defense.

Use default settings for new tripods, separate settings for road patrols, and individual settings for saved paths or currently spawned tripods.