RecyclerControl

The problem

On 2026-08-06 your recycler economy changed and nobody asked you.

Normal recyclers went from 60% to 50% return, and only climb back to 60% once your powergrid reaches stage 2. The green recyclers were removed from Outpost. The best recycler on the island — 75% return on a four-second cycle — is the new Red Recycler, sitting inside the green card room at Power Plant, available only at stage 4.

If you had spent a wipe balancing gather rates, loot tables and recycler output against each other, that balance is now something else. And on any server where the grid never reaches stage 2, your players are permanently recycling at a rate Facepunch intended as the *punished* state.

What RecyclerControl does

Gives you every number.

For each of the three recycler types — Green, Yellow (safe zone) and Red (Power Plant) — you set the efficiency, the seconds per recycle tick, the powergrid stage it needs to run at all, and the stage and values for its powered buff.

Want 60% back? One field. Want the Red Recycler to work without a stage 4 grid? One field. Want the grid to stop affecting recyclers entirely on your PVE server? Three fields. Want a 1-second recycler on your 10x? Also one field.

Nothing changes until you say so

Every setting defaults to -1, which means "leave vanilla alone". Install it, load it, and your server behaves exactly as it did — then change only what you want changed.

The plugin snapshots the game's own recycler config on load and restores it on unload. There is no permanent edit and nothing written to a game file.

Built the right way

Rust keeps all recycler behaviour in one config asset. This plugin writes that asset in memory and then tells every recycler on the map to re-read it — no Harmony patch, no reflection into private state, no per-recycler hook running on every item.

Recyclers that are mid-cycle cache their numbers, so the plugin optionally bounces running ones to pick up the change immediately. That is a toggle, in case you would rather not interrupt anyone.

Features

• Efficiency, tick speed and powergrid gating for Green, Yellow and Red recyclers independently
• Set the stage each buff unlocks at, or disable grid buffs entirely
• Override which stage green recyclers hit full efficiency at
• Everything defaults to vanilla — nothing changes until you edit it
• /recycler shows any player the live efficiency, speed and lock state of all three types
• Live reload with one console command, no restart
• Optional restart of running recyclers when settings change
• Clean unload — vanilla values restored
• Full language file
• Oxide and Carbon
• No dependencies

Commands

Permissions

• recyclercontrol.admin — recyclercontrol.apply

Configuration

{
  "Green recyclers (Outpost, Bandit, deployed)": {
    "Efficiency 0-1 (-1 leaves vanilla)": -1.0,
    "Seconds per recycle tick (-1 leaves vanilla)": -1.0,
    "Powergrid stage required to work at all (-1 leaves vanilla, 0 removes the requirement)": -1,
    "Powergrid stage that buffs efficiency (-1 leaves vanilla, 0 disables the buff)": -1,
    "Buffed efficiency 0-1 (-1 leaves vanilla)": -1.0,
    "Powergrid stage that buffs speed (-1 leaves vanilla, 0 disables the buff)": -1,
    "Buffed seconds per recycle tick (-1 leaves vanilla)": -1.0
  },
  "Yellow recyclers (safe zone)": { },
  "Red recycler (Power Plant, stage 4)": { },
  "powergrid.greenRecyclerFullEfficiencyStage (-1 leaves vanilla)": -1,
  "Restart running recyclers when settings are applied": true
}

The Yellow and Red blocks carry the same seven fields as Green.

One thing that looks like a bug

Yellow recyclers report as Green outside a safe zone. That is vanilla GetRecyclerType(), not this plugin.

Requirements

Rust server on the Power Trip build (2026-08-06) or newer.

Pairs with

GridControl — hold the grid at stage 4 and the Red Recycler runs all wipe without anyone feeding fuses.

Support

Every purchase comes with the private updates channel in our Discord and updates for the life of the plugin. Your licence key and download live on your purchases page the moment payment clears.