Getting item & entity names

A lot of objectives can be configured with item short names or entity names. This guide explains how to find the correct names to use in your contracts.

Item short names

Item short names are arguably the easiest to find. Simply head to RustHelp’s Item Database, search for the item you want and copy the Short name. For example, the Short name for a LR-300 Assault Rifle is rifle.lr300.

The Web editor is pretty good at suggesting item short names as you type. Because Rust exposes all items in the game to plugins with a lot of details about them, I’m able to programmatically generate a full list of all items in the game and suggest them to you in the editor as you type. I just need to re-run the script every now and then so the editor stays up to date with the latest Rust items. If you notice an item is missing, please let me know on Discord!

Entity names

Unlike item short names, entity names are not as easy to find and are much more numerous. There are a couple of ways to find an entity’s name.

Similar to item short names, Rust exposes all entities in the game to plugins. However, unlike items, these entities are just string paths to their file. They’re not detailed at all like items are. For this reason, the Web editor knows all the entities when you type, but it can’t “pretty” suggest them with display names like it can for items. Some common entities have been manually curated and given display names, but for most other ones, you’ll need to know the exact entity name to use it in your contract. The editor will still suggest them to you, but they will be displayed as their raw prefab name.

Caution

Some entities have more than one entity name. For example, there’s no such thing as just a “scientist”. Scientists have 10+ different entity names (scientistnpc_heavy, scientistnpc_rhib, scientistnpc_cargo, scientistnpc_ptboat, scientistnpc_roamtethered, …). These are already included as part of the default @scientists preset, but other entities may not be (such as road barrels).

Using Carbon’s Rust Entities Reference

You can search through Carbon’s exported list of Rust entities on their Rust Entities Reference. This is a comprehensive list of all entities in Rust, including animals, deployables, and more. Only use the last part of the prefab name, without .prefab at the end. E.g:

• assets/bundled/prefabs/radtown/oil_barrel.prefab → oil_barrel.
• assets/prefabs/npc/patrol helicopter/patrolhelicopter.prefab → patrolhelicopter.
• assets/rust.ai/agents/npcplayer/humannpc/scientist/gen2/scientist2.prefab → scientist2.

Using the in-game console

While looking at the entity in-game, open the console and type entity.debug_lookat. Some entities will highlight with a green outline after the command. Use the Ent property that gets printed in the info dump. E.g: for a barrel:

Looking At: assets/bundled/prefabs/radtown/loot_barrel_1.prefab
       Ent: loot_barrel_1
       Pos: (-1076.24, 8.98, 1186.99)
     Layer: Default
 Hierarchy: assets/bundled/prefabs/radtown/loot_barrel_1.prefab

You would use loot_barrel_1 as the entity name in your contract.

Another way to find entity names is to use the spawn command. If you know approximately what you’re looking for, the spawn command will suggest entity names that match your search when no entity matches it exactly. For example, if you type spawn scientist, the console will suggest all entity names that contain the word “scientist”. You can then use one of those names in your contract.

> spawn scientist
Unknown entity - could be:

sentry.scientist.barge
sentry.scientist.barge.static
sentry.scientist.static
heavyscientistplushie_deployed
scientistplushie_deployed
heavyscientist_youtooz.deployed
scientistboatoilrigmanager
ch47scientists.entity
scientist_corpse
scientist2.corpse
scientist2.grenade.f1.deployed
scientist2.grenade.smoke.deployed
scientist2.heavy.corpse
scientist2.heavy
scientist2
scientist2.shotgun
scientistnpc_arena
scientistnpc_bradley
scientistnpc_bradley_heavy
scientistnpc_cargo
scientistnpc_cargo_turret_any
scientistnpc_cargo_turret_lr300
scientistnpc_ch47_gunner
scientistnpc_excavator
scientistnpc_full_any
scientistnpc_full_lr300
scientistnpc_full_mp5
scientistnpc_full_pistol
scientistnpc_full_shotgun
scientistnpc_heavy
scientistnpc_junkpile_pistol
scientistnpc_oilrig
scientistnpc_outbreak
scientistnpc_patrol
scientistnpc_patrol_arctic
scientistnpc_peacekeeper
scientistnpc_ptboat
scientistnpc_rhib
scientistnpc_roam
scientistnpc_roam_nvg_variant
scientistnpc_roamtethered