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Rust force wipe schedule: when is the next wipe?

Quick answer: Rust force wipes on the first Thursday of every month, around 7pm UK time, when the monthly update goes live. Every server starts a new map; blueprints wipe only when Facepunch forces it that month or the server owner chooses to. The wipe countdown shows the next one, and the five after it, in your own time.

When is the force wipe?

Section titled “When is the force wipe?”

The first Thursday of the month, around 7pm in London: 7pm GMT in winter and 7pm BST in summer. That is 8pm in Central Europe and, in most months, 2pm on the US East Coast. Each server wipes as it restarts onto the update, so some go a little later.

Rust’s own wipe timer uses the same time unless the server owner changes it: a monthly server’s next wipe is the first Thursday of the month at 19:00, London time.

What a force wipe resets

Section titled “What a force wipe resets”
WipeWho does itWhat it resets
Force wipeFacepunch, every monthEvery server starts a new world: the update changes the world save, and the old one no longer loads. Blueprints only when Facepunch forces a blueprint wipe that month.
Map wipeThe server ownerThe world: every base, deployable and item. Blueprints are kept.
Blueprint wipeThe server ownerEveryone’s learned blueprints.
Full wipeThe server ownerEverything in the server’s save folder, the admins and bans included.

A map wipe is the same as the world part of a force wipe, done on the owner’s own schedule. Plenty of servers wipe the map every week or every two weeks and take the force wipe on top.

How server owners set their own wipe day

Section titled “How server owners set their own wipe day”

Rust has no wipe command. A wipe is stopping the server, deleting the save files, and starting it again; the files for each kind are listed in wipe a Rust server by hand. Crucible Local Server does it from the Data tab, with a backup first; see how to wipe a Rust server.

Two settings tell players and the game when your wipe is.

The wipe tag in the server browser

Section titled “The wipe tag in the server browser”

server.tags takes up to four tags from Rust’s own list, and one of them can be monthly, biweekly or weekly. The tags show in the server browser. For example:

server.tags "weekly,vanilla,EU"

Rust’s wipe timer

Section titled “Rust’s wipe timer”

These set when Rust thinks your next wipe is, for its in-game wipe countdown and the events it runs in the last day before a wipe. They do not wipe the server: you still do that yourself.

SettingDefaultWhat it sets
wipetimer.wipedayofweek4The day: 0 Sunday, 1 Monday, 2 Tuesday, 3 Wednesday, 4 Thursday, 5 Friday, 6 Saturday.
wipetimer.wipehourofday19The hour, 24-hour clock. 14.5 is 2:30pm.
wipetimer.wipetimezoneEurope/LondonThe time zone, by its tz name, for example America/New_York.
wipetimer.wipecronoverrideA cron line, for any schedule the three above cannot describe.
wipetimer.wipeunixtimestampoverride0One exact wipe time, as a Unix timestamp.

How often it repeats comes from the wipe tag: weekly, biweekly (every other week) or monthly (the first of that weekday in the month). With no wipe tag the timer is monthly. Type wipetimer.printwipe in the console to see your next wipe and the ten after it.

A weekly server that wipes Thursdays at 6pm Berlin time, in server.cfg:

server.tags "weekly,vanilla,EU"
wipetimer.wipedayofweek 4
wipetimer.wipehourofday 18
wipetimer.wipetimezone "Europe/Berlin"

Where server.cfg goes and what else belongs in it: Rust server.cfg example.

Getting a custom map ready for wipe day

Section titled “Getting a custom map ready for wipe day”
  1. Make the land in Crucible Heightmap and export one .map.
  2. Add the monuments, roads and prefabs in Creator, or let Rust’s procedural generation place them.
  3. Test it on Crucible Local Server on the staging branch, which gets the update first, and walk it.
  4. Upload the .map to a direct download link and put that link in your server’s server.levelurl; see how to host a custom Rust map.
  5. When the update lands, update the server, point it at the new map and restart. Automatic restarts can install the Rust update while the server is down.
Section titled “Related”