Rust wipe schedule and forced wipe times

Rust is built around wipes. Every server resets on a schedule, regulars plan their week around it, and a server with no clear wipe day empties out fast. Here is what a wipe is, when the forced wipe lands, how to schedule one from the panel, and how to tell your players.

What a wipe is

• A map wipe replaces the world. Bases, loot, sleeping bags and tool cupboards are gone and everyone starts fresh on a new map. Players keep their learned blueprints.
• A blueprint wipe (a "BP wipe") also clears what everyone has learned to craft, so the whole tech tree starts over. Most servers keep blueprints across map wipes and only clear them now and then, typically once a month.
• A full wipe is both at once.

The forced monthly wipe

Once a month, on the first Thursday, Facepunch releases an update that every Rust server in the world must map-wipe for. Your server picks the update up on its next restart, and the new build cannot load the old map, so treat the first Thursday as a wipe day you cannot move. Anything you schedule on top of it is your own cadence: weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

Forced wipe dates and times

Recent monthly updates have gone live at around 6:45 pm UK time on the first Thursday. The next six land at about:

Arizona keeps Mountain Standard Time all year, so from April the update lands at about 10:45 am there. In Australia and New Zealand it is early on the Friday morning. The times are approximate: they follow when recent updates went live, and a big update can land later. Around the Christmas break, check Facepunch's Rust news before you lock in a December wipe, as the timing can shift.

Wipe after the update is out. Your server only picks up the new build on a restart, and a map wiped before the update gets replaced again once it lands. If you run Oxide plugins, they also need a fresh Oxide build after the update: How to install Oxide/uMod plugins on your Rust server covers the Reinstall server pass from the Settings tab.

Schedule a wipe from the panel

Your Rust server has a Wipes tab that runs the whole stop, delete, reseed and start sequence for you. Its times are your server's local time, and the Time field names the city (Dallas time on a server in Dallas, for example).

1. Open your server in the dashboard and go to the Wipes tab.
2. Under What gets wiped, pick Map only to keep blueprints, or Map + blueprints (full wipe) to clear them too.
3. Leave New random seed each wipe on so each wipe generates a new map. Turn it off if you want the same seed every time (a "fixed map" server).
4. Under How often, pick First Thursday of the month (forced-wipe day), Every week on a day you choose, or Every month on a date, and set the Time. For a first Thursday wipe, pick a time a couple of hours after the update usually lands where your server is (the table above), so the wipe runs on the new build.
5. Turn on the switch at the top of Scheduled wipe (a new schedule starts switched off), then press Save schedule. The tab then shows a countdown to the next run.

To wipe right now instead, use the Wipe now card below the schedule. It has its own What gets wiped picker, separate from the schedule above and starting on Map only, so set it before you press Wipe now. Type WIPE, press Wipe the server, and watch the step log.

The Wipes tab owns its own schedule, so you will not see it in the Schedules tab. A regular daily restart from the Schedules tab (say 5:00 AM) still helps memory use between wipes. Give its restart task the condition Players online = 0 if you would rather it skipped a run than disconnect players.

Do it by hand

If you would rather control every step:

1. In the Startup tab, change World Seed to any new number. Change World Size too if you want a bigger or smaller map (3000 suits 8 GB of RAM, 4000 suits 12 GB, 6000 wants 16 GB). Rust server setup: connect, admin and wipes explains how map size drives RAM.
2. Restart. The server generates the new map on the way up; expect a few minutes before Server startup complete.
3. For a blueprint wipe as well: stop the server, open the File Manager, and in server/rust delete the files whose names start with player.blueprints. Then start the server.

Tell your players

1. In the Startup tab, write the schedule into Server Description, with its time zone, for example Map wipe every Friday 6pm Central. BP wipe on forced-wipe Thursday each month. It shows in the in-game server browser, which is where people decide whether to join.
2. Put the same line in your server name if there is room, and pin it in your Discord.
3. Before a wipe, warn everyone in the console with say Wipe in 30 minutes.

Picking a cadence

• Weekly suits a busy public server: bases get huge in a week and new players cannot catch up.
• Fortnightly is the common middle ground.
• Monthly (just the forced wipe) suits a small friends group that wants to build something and keep it.

Whatever you choose, keep it: a predictable wipe day is worth more than a perfect one.

Common problems

1. The console sits on map generation for ages after a wipe - normal. Bigger worlds take longer; wait for Server startup complete.
2. Same map came back - random seed was off, or the seed in the Startup tab did not change. Set a new number.
3. Players still have their blueprints after a "full" wipe - the player.blueprints files were not deleted, or the server was running when you deleted them and rewrote them on shutdown. Stop first.
4. Wipe now shows "Wipe failed partway" - the red Wipe failed pop-up says why, and the step log shows how far it got. If the pop-up says nothing was deleted, your world is untouched: wait until the server is offline (press Force stop on the Console tab if it hangs), then run Wipe now again. If the log has a Deleted line, the old map is gone but the new seed wasn't set, so run Wipe now again to set one. For any other error, check server/rust in the File Manager before you start the server, and send support the step log and the pop-up's exact wording.