About Scientist Horse
Mounted NPCs
The road stops being empty
Between monuments a Rust map is nothing — trees, gravel, and a run you have already made a hundred times. This puts armoured scientists on horseback out there. They patrol terrain you never had a reason to watch, they ride you down when provoked, and they are gone from the save file the moment you unload the plugin.
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60
Seconds between population top-ups
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25
Metre no-spawn ring around bases
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4
Things you define per rider type
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0
Dependencies
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| ✓ | Rider types you write yourself — NPC prefab, weapon, every worn item with its skin ID, and the horse's armour |
| ✓ | Peaceful until you shoot first — and then that player is remembered for the rest of the rider's life |
| ✓ | Never spawns on somebody's roof — the map is pre-scanned and anything within 25 m of a building block is thrown out |
| ✓ | The horses don't rot — decay damage is zeroed and Rust's decay replacement is blocked, so a patrol doesn't end in a pile of parts |
| ✓ | Nothing touches your save file — riders and horses are unsaveable by design and every one of them dies on unload |
01 — Riders
Dress them however you like
A rider type is four fields, and you can have as many types as you want. Every spawn picks one at random, so a road can hand you a hazmat scientist with an LR300 and then something you built yourself.
Any NPC prefab as the base
The default is the full-kit LR300 scientist, but the prefab path is a plain config string — heavy scientists, tunnel dwellers, anything on the scientist chassis goes in the same field.
Clothing with skin IDs
The wear list is shortname paired with skin ID, so a rider can turn up in your server's own skinned gear rather than the stock hazmat suit. The prefab's default clothing is cleared first, so you get exactly what you listed and nothing underneath it.
One weapon, by shortname
Name a weapon and the belt is cleared and rebuilt around it. Leave it empty and the prefab keeps whatever it came with. Bows are the one exception — they are skipped deliberately, because a mounted NPC cannot draw one.
Armour on the horse too
Roadsign barding by default, and it is equipped properly rather than dropped in the inventory — the horse renders with it on.
02 — Spawning
Out in the world, not in your compound
The map is surveyed once on startup and the plugin keeps a list of places a horse can actually stand. Nothing is placed blind.
Terrain only, and above the waterline
Candidate points are traced straight down from 100 m and kept only if they land on terrain. Water, construction and prevent-building volumes are rejected, and so is anything at or below sea level — no riders trotting along the seabed.
A 25-metre ring around anything built
A point with a building block inside 25 m is dropped, and the check runs against the live map, not a snapshot. Players who wall off a hillside stop riders appearing on it.
Topped up every minute
A timer refills the roster to your population figure once a minute, so a night of hunting doesn't leave the map empty by morning. /spawnrider puts one in front of you when you want to look at your config instead of waiting for one to ride past.
03 — Behaviour
Scenery until you make it personal
Riders do not open fire on sight. Left alone they are something you watch cross a ridge; shoot one and it becomes a problem that follows you.
They shadow you before they shoot you
With the passive switch on, a rider will still ride over and pace you — the scientist just won't pull the trigger. It is a far better encounter than an NPC that either ignores you or kills you, and a rider who is only shadowing gets bored after 25 seconds and goes looking for somebody else.
Hit one and it never forgets
Damage the scientist or the horse and you are added to that rider's grudge list permanently. The 25-second boredom timer does not apply to you any more — it will keep coming while you are both alive.
It knows when a chase is over
Targets are dropped the moment they enter a safe zone, start swimming, go to sleep, disconnect or die. Nobody gets shot at while loading into an outpost, and no rider stands in the surf waiting for a swimmer.
A damage dial so the fight stays winnable
A mounted scientist is a small target sitting behind a large animal, so incoming damage to him is multiplied — six times by default. Turn it down for a rider who takes real work to bring down, or to 1 for stock scientist health.
04 — Horses
The mount is handled properly
Rust's horses were built to be owned, fed and stabled. Three of those systems have to be switched off before a horse can just live outdoors, and all three are.
No decay, no decay replacement
Decay damage to a rider's horse is zeroed outright, and the engine's swap-it-for-a-wreck routine is refused. A rider left alone on the far side of the map is still a rider tomorrow.
No ragdoll flailing
A Harmony patch suppresses the horse ragdoll for plugin mounts only, keyed on their own skin ID. Your players' horses ragdoll exactly as they always did.
You decide what happens to the horse
Kill the scientist and the horse either drops with him or is cut loose as a riderless animal standing where the fight ended — one switch. The second option turns every encounter into a horse worth walking over for.
Reliability
Leaves nothing behind
| ✓ | Riders and horses are never saved — both are marked unsaveable at spawn, so they cannot accumulate in your map file or come back as orphans after a wipe |
| ✓ | Unload kills every one of them — scientist and horse together, no strays left standing in a field |
| ✓ | A dead rider frees its slot immediately — the roster is corrected on death, not on a sweep, so the population figure means what it says |
| ✓ | The AI stops itself — the moment a horse or its scientist is gone, the controlling component tears itself down instead of ticking against a dead entity |
| ✓ | No dependencies — nothing to install alongside it, and no economy or NPC framework required |
Commands
One command, for you
Players never type anything, and there is nothing to hand out — the command is gated on admin, not on a permission.
| /spawnrider | Spawn a random rider type at your feet — the fast way to check a config change |
Questions
Before you buy
Can I change what they wear and what they carry?
Yes, per rider type. The wear list takes a shortname and a skin ID for each item, so custom-skinned outfits work, and the weapon is a single shortname. Bows are ignored on purpose. There is no kit-plugin integration — the items are named directly in the config.
Can I have several kinds of rider on one map?
Yes. Rider types are a list, and each spawn picks one at random. Each type carries its own scan radius, so a lightly armed scout can notice you from further away than a heavy.
Can I set my own spawn points, or spawn a type in one region?
No. Positions are generated from the terrain at startup and used for every type equally. There is no per-type placement and no way to hand-pick a location beyond spawning one yourself with the command.
Do they drop the gear I dressed them in?
Yes — the corpse carries whatever you put on the rider, and there is no switch to strip it. Price the outfit accordingly: expensive clothing on a common rider is a loot faucet.
What about snowmobiles or other vehicles?
Horses only. The movement code drives the horse's own gait and steering directly, so it does not transfer to another vehicle.
Will they camp new players or shoot into outposts?
No. Safe-zone players are never valid targets and an existing target is dropped the moment they enter one, along with anyone swimming, sleeping, disconnected or dead. Leave the passive switch on and a rider will not fire at all until it is shot.
Do they survive a restart?
No, and that is deliberate — they are never written to the save. The map is re-surveyed and the population rebuilt on load, so a restart costs you nothing but gives you a fresh spread of riders.
