Rust Server Wipe Guide — The Complete Playbook

Everything a Rust server owner needs to know about wipes: Facepunch’s force wipe schedule, what actually gets wiped, the exact commands to wipe your own server, the best wipe days for community servers, and how Facepunch picks servers for the official tab. The countdown below updates live.

01 // What actually is a Rust wipe?

A “wipe” on a Rust server means resetting game data so players start fresh. There are three wipe types and it matters which one you mean:

• Map wipe — regenerates the procedural map, deletes all buildings, items, tools, and player positions. Players keep their learned blueprints.
• Blueprint (BP) wipe — wipes every player’s learned blueprints so everyone has to scrap-and-research from zero. Almost always combined with a map wipe.
• Full wipe — map + blueprints + stats + bans cleared. Rarely used outside of test servers.

When people say “wipe day” on a community server they almost always mean map wipe, keep BPs. When Facepunch does a force wipe the map is wiped on every server in the world, and BPs are wiped only if Facepunch explicitly announces a BP wipe.

02 // Force wipe: what it is and when it happens

Every month Facepunch pushes a monthly content update for Rust. On that same day, every Rust server that is still running the previous version becomes incompatible with the new client. The server must update and, because save files usually break across versions, the map resets. This is the force wipe.

The schedule is consistent:

• Day of the month: the first Thursday
• Time: typically between 18:00 and 22:00 UTC (roughly 2–6 PM EST)
• Frequency: once every month, 12 times per year
• Affects: every Rust server that runs the official Facepunch build, whether official, community, or modded

The force wipe countdown above uses this rule (first Thursday, 19:00 UTC) to compute upcoming dates. In the rare case Facepunch delays an update by a day, treat the widget as accurate to within 24 hours.

03 // How to wipe your own server

To map-wipe a Rust server you delete the save files before the server starts. Rust recreates them with a fresh procedural map on next boot. The files live inside your server data folder, usually server/my_server_identity/.

Files to delete for a map wipe (keep BPs)

From inside server/<identity>/:

# stop the server first
rm -f proceduralmap.*.sav
rm -f proceduralmap.*.sav.*
rm -f player.deaths.*.db
rm -f player.states.*.db
rm -f player.tokens.db
rm -f sv.files.*.db
# keep: player.blueprints.*.db ← do NOT delete this if you want to preserve BPs

Then start the server. It will generate a new map using either your configured seed or a random one if you did not pin a seed.

Files to delete for a map + BP wipe

# stop the server first
rm -f proceduralmap.*.sav proceduralmap.*.sav.*
rm -f player.deaths.*.db player.states.*.db player.tokens.db sv.files.*.db
rm -f player.blueprints.*.db   # this line wipes blueprints
# or for a brute-force full wipe:
rm -rf server/<identity>/*.sav server/<identity>/*.sav.* server/<identity>/*.db

Changing the map seed (gives a different map without a version bump)

In your server startup arguments change the +server.seed value. A different seed with the same size and version always produces a different map:

+server.seed 12345 +server.worldsize 4000

For full randomness every wipe, generate one at wipe time:

SEED=$(shuf -i 1-2147483647 -n 1)
echo "Wiping with seed $SEED"
./RustDedicated -batchmode +server.seed $SEED ...

04 // Best wipe days for community servers

There is no single “right” wipe day, but there are much better and much worse ones. The data is consistent across every major tracker (Battlemetrics, Rustafied stats, Corrosion Hour surveys):

Recommended schedules by server type

• Vanilla weekly — wipe every Thursday at 19:00 UTC. Aligned with force wipe, simple to explain, maximum player pool on launch.
• Vanilla bi-weekly — wipe Thursdays at 19:00 UTC, every other week. The second wipe of the month lands mid-cycle when fatigue is peaking — strong retention.
• Vanilla monthly — wipe only on force wipe (first Thursday) and survive the month. Hardest mode for server owners; rewards you with the most loyal veteran players.
• Modded weekly — Friday at 20:00 UTC. Dodges vanilla Thursday rush, captures modded players who wiped elsewhere on force wipe day.
• Modded bi-weekly — Fridays, every other week.
• PvE / 2x / high-loot — Sunday at 18:00 UTC, bi-weekly. PvE players are more schedule-tolerant and prefer weekends.

05 // Community vs official servers — and how to get on the official tab

Rust’s server browser has four tabs: Official, Community, Modded, and Friends. Almost every Rust server you have ever played on is a community server, run by players or hosting companies. Official servers are run by Facepunch directly. The rules are very different.

Official servers

• Operated by Facepunch staff, hosted by Facepunch
• Always appear at the top of the Official tab
• Vanilla ruleset — no plugins, no modified gather/loot
• Strict anti-cheat and manual moderation
• Drops (skin drops while watching Twitch) always work on official servers

Community servers

• Run by anyone with a VPS and a Steam account
• Appear in the Community tab by default
• Must follow Facepunch’s Community Server and Hosting Guidelines (updated July 2025)
• May run plugins — but certain plugins force you to the Modded tab (see below)

What kicks you from Community into Modded

Per uMod’s server-sections reference and Facepunch’s own guidelines, any plugin that changes gameplay moves your server to the Modded tab. Examples that force Modded:

• Changing gather rates, spawn rates, smelting speed, stack sizes
• Custom item/loot tables, kit plugins that give free gear
• Teleport, home, tpr, /sethome commands
• Economy plugins, shops, RP currencies
• Modified crafting, blueprint changes

Plugins that are generally Community-safe (admin-only, quality-of-life, logging): anti-cheat helpers, admin tools, Discord webhooks, player reports, backup/save tools, server announcements. Always read the current Facepunch guidelines — the rules were tightened in July 2025.

The official-tab promotion — fact vs myth

There is a long-running piece of Rust community knowledge, confirmed by uMod’s own documentation: “If Facepunch would like a community server to become official, they will ask the server owner. If you want your server to become official, the procedure is to never ask and wait.”

In other words — yes, Facepunch does occasionally reach out to extremely well-run vanilla community servers and either recruit them or grant them official-tier placement. There is no public checklist and no formal application. What the community has observed over the years for servers that got noticed:

• Pure vanilla ruleset — zero gameplay-modifying plugins
• Online continuously for a long time (historically many months, sometimes a year or more)
• Clean moderation record — active admins, enforced rules, no reports of admin abuse
• Consistent wipe schedule and uptime
• No pay-to-win, no VIP queue-skipping tied to gameplay advantages
• Healthy, non-toxic Discord community

The pattern is simple: run the server Facepunch would be proud to host themselves, run it for long enough that they notice, and do not chase the promotion. The ones that lobby for it never get it.

06 // The truth about BP wipes

Blueprint wipes are a hot topic because they reset the grind hardest. Current reality as of 2026:

• Facepunch no longer BP wipes every month. The old quarterly BP wipe era ended in 2022.
• BP wipes now typically happen once or twice a year, aligned with major updates or seasonal resets.
• Facepunch announces them at least 1–2 weeks in advance on their dev blog and Twitter/X. If you did not hear about it, it is not happening.
• Your community server should match Facepunch’s cadence: only BP wipe when they BP wipe officially. Doing your own BP wipes out of cycle is the #1 way to lose veteran players.
• The only common exception: brand-new servers that BP-wipe on every map wipe for the first 2–3 cycles to find their audience, then transition to force-wipe-only BP wipes.

07 // Pre-wipe checklist (server owners)

Run this checklist the day before each wipe. It takes 10 minutes and prevents 90% of wipe-day incidents:

• Backup current save — cp -a server/<identity> server/<identity>.backup.$(date +%F)
• Update RustDedicated — run SteamCMD update, verify new build number matches Facepunch’s announcement
• Update all plugins — Oxide/Carbon framework + every plugin to the version marked “tested for [month]”. Out-of-date plugins are the #1 cause of wipe-day crashes
• Announce in Discord — exact wipe time UTC, whether BPs wipe, new map seed or random, expected downtime
• Check server config — server.cfg, users.cfg (admin list), startup args. Anything you want carried over across wipe lives here, not in the save files
• Prepare new seed/size — decide ahead of time, do not improvise at 19:00 UTC under pressure
• Test login as a fresh player — catches plugin errors that would only appear to non-admins
• Clear old logs — truncate -s 0 server/<identity>/Log.Log so wipe-day issues are easy to isolate

08 // Post-wipe checklist (first 30 minutes after boot)

• Watch the first auth wave — tail Log.Log for plugin errors. First 50 players = best canary
• Verify the map loaded — load the map in RustMaps.com with your seed/size. Confirms no monument generation failure
• Check plugin activity — Discord webhooks pinging, admin commands working, anti-cheat plugin reporting heartbeats
• Drop announcement in-game — say "Wipe complete — seed XXX, size YYY, GL out there!"
• Monitor CPU/RAM — first 2 hours is peak load. If you see >85% CPU or >90% RAM, you will need a bigger VPS before your next wipe, not during
• Post screenshots of key monuments — helps your community scout the map, drives Discord engagement

09 // Common wipe-day problems and fixes

10 // Hosting a server that can handle wipe day

Wipe day is the hardest test your server will face all month. Player counts 2–3x the usual, tick rate strain from everyone farming the first 2 hours, and a plugin stack that just got updated. If your VPS is undersized, wipe day will be the day you find out.

Facepunch’s own documentation recommends 12 GB RAM minimum for any serious Rust server. We recommend stepping up to 16 GB for any community server running plugins.

11 // Next steps

• Set up your server from scratch — Rust Dedicated Server on Ubuntu 22.04
• Self-host on your own PC — Host a Game Server on Windows
• Pick a control panel — Pterodactyl or LinuxGSM make wipes a one-click job
• Tools for server owners — Port tables, command references, and more