About Circular Network Distance
This plugin modifies Rust's network system to use a more performant circular version. Using this on maximum settings with lower network distance offers an extreme performance boost over vanilla settings, and it has allowed huge server networks to push an extra 100 server pop on wipe with minimal lag. It's not a catch-all solution, but it works well for network lag with almost no downside.
This also can marginally improve client FPS in some situations, as less entities are sent to clients.
This method of optimization is being given out for free. If this helped your network reach higher pop, please consider supporting what I do on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vicerust
This Plugin Uses Harmony
This plugin uses Harmony patching which is a library built into Rust for modifying game functions. Since it is packaged as an Oxide plugin though, it needs Oxide's sandbox disabled to be able to do real modding. Oxide's sandbox tries to block certain functions to make it a bit harder to run malicious code, but it also blocks developers from doing any actual modding outside of Oxide.
The sandbox is pointless as it isn't secure at all, which is why sites like CodeFling review plugins for security to make sure what you download isn't a virus. If you download a plugin from somewhere without moderation (CF, Lone, or uMod are all fine), it's not safe unless you verify it yourself---even with the sandbox on.
You can read more on how to disable the sandbox here.
How Does This Work?
This quite literally just cuts the corners off the network distance grid. Vanilla Rust uses a square with radius 8 for "far" view distance, and 4 for "high priority" distance. This evens it out so that you will see the same distance in all directions, and cuts down 20% on networking costs at the same view distance.
However, anecdotes from server owners show that nobody will notice if this is lower, so by default this plugin sets the far view distance to 6, which yields massive improvements over vanilla---around 52% lower networking costs.. Feel free to change the default Rust convars for network distance even lower, as this plugin will respect them:
Net.visibilityRadiusFarOverride 5 Net.visibilityRadiusNearOverride 3
Defaults are 8 and 4 respectively.
Unloading the plugin will disable the circular distance effect, but you will need to set the visibility radius back manually.
