1. Decide where tickets come in
Players reach you from three places: your Discord, the game itself, and sometimes your website. The more doors you have, the fewer reports get lost in general chat — but only if every door leads to the same place where staff can see it.
- Discord is where most communities already talk. A button or command that opens a private channel per ticket works well.
- In-game matters for things happening *right now* — a player being raided offline-style, a bug, someone camping a spawn. Asking them to alt-tab and open Discord loses a lot of reports.
- Your dashboard or website is where staff can see everything together, including closed tickets.
2. Keep tickets private
A cheating report or ban appeal must only be visible to the player who opened it and your staff. When you create a channel per ticket in Discord, set the permissions on the channel itself — don't rely on the category, because a category that's open to a “member” role will leak every ticket inside it.
3. Collect the right information up front
- A category — cheating, griefing, bug, lost items, other — so the right staff pick it up.
- Who and when — the player's name or Steam ID, and roughly when it happened.
- Where — the grid square or monument.
- What happened, in their words, plus any screenshots or clips.
4. Answer quickly — from wherever your staff are
Staff are spread across Discord, the game and their phones. The best setups let a moderator reply from Discord and have the player see it in-game, and alert admins in-game the moment a new ticket arrives. A reply within a few minutes does more for your reputation than any rule post.
5. Close the loop and keep records
- Tell the player what you did — even “we looked and couldn't confirm it” keeps them reporting.
- Save a transcript of every closed ticket. Discord's image links expire, so screenshots posted in a ticket should be saved somewhere permanent.
- Delete old ticket channels after closing so your Discord doesn't fill up with hundreds of dead ones — the transcript is your record.
How PlayerAnalytics does this for you
Questions
Should Rust tickets be in Discord or in-game?
Both, ideally, as long as they lead to the same thread. Discord suits most reports; in-game catches things while they're happening.
How do I stop ticket channels from being visible to everyone?
Set permissions on each ticket channel so only the reporter and staff roles can view it — don't rely on the category's permissions.
How long should I keep ticket records?
Keep transcripts of closed tickets for as long as you might face an appeal — for most servers that means indefinitely.
Your server, without the guesswork.
Everything in this guide — tracked, flagged and handled for you by PlayerAnalytics.