Troubleshooting the Missing "Killed By" Message Issue in Rust Servers

Rust, the popular survival game, is not without its fair share of issues. One particular problem that has plagued Rust servers for some time is the absence of the "killed by" message when players are offline and are killed while in a sleep state. Fortunately, there is a straightforward solution to this frustrating issue that has caused inconvenience to server administrators and players alike.

The root cause of this problem lies in the incorrect configuration of the server.gamemode variable. When the server.gamemode is forcibly set to vanilla instead of allowing it to be set as default, either through startup arguments, the server.cfg file, or the serverauto.cfg file, it inadvertently disables the "killed by" feature. This anomaly is likely a result of an overlooked bug by the developers at Facepunch Studios.

To rectify this issue and ensure the proper functioning of the "killed by" message, it is necessary to remove any instances of the server.gamemode variable from your configuration variables. By doing so, the server will default to its intended behavior when started up, and you will no longer encounter the problem of missing "killed by" notifications.

Here is a simplified step-by-step guide to resolving this issue:

Access the configuration files of your Rust server. These files are typically located in the server's directory.
Look for the server.cfg or serverauto.cfg file. These files contain the server's configuration variables.
Open the appropriate file using a text editor of your choice.
Search for instances of the server.gamemode variable within the file.
Remove or comment out any lines containing the server.gamemode variable by adding a "#" symbol at the beginning of the line.
Save the file and exit the text editor.
Start your Rust server as you normally would.

By following these steps, you will effectively reset the server.gamemode variable to its default value, eliminating the issue of missing "killed by" messages. This solution should alleviate the frustration caused by this bug until Facepunch Studios addresses and resolves it in a future update.

We hope you find this troubleshooting guide helpful in resolving the missing "killed by" message issue in your Rust server. Rest assured, the dedicated team at Facepunch Studios is continuously working to improve the game and address such problems promptly.