Rust Wipes Explained: Map, Blueprint, and Picking a Schedule

A wipe resets server data. Which data gets reset is the part that actually matters, and it is where new server owners lose their player base.

The two kinds of wipe

• Map wipe — the world regenerates. Every building is gone, every player starts over on the terrain. Blueprints are kept.
• Blueprint wipe — learned blueprints are cleared too. Players are back to researching from scratch.

Map wipes are routine. Blueprint wipes are a much bigger reset, and doing one unannounced is the fastest way to empty a server.

Forced wipes are not your decision

Facepunch ships a monthly update that forces a map wipe. You cannot skip it. What you decide is what happens in between: weekly, biweekly, or monthly-only.

Rust updates often, and it updates hard on wipe day. We check for Rust updates every three hours rather than daily — on wipe day the gap between "update released" and "your server is out of date and nobody can join" is short.

Choosing a schedule is choosing an audience

Schedule	Who it attracts	The trade-off
Weekly	Players who want the early-game rush	Nothing large ever gets built
Biweekly	The most common middle ground	Suits neither extreme perfectly
Monthly (forced only)	Builders, clans, long projects	Late wipe is quiet; newcomers cannot catch up

There is no correct answer, but there is a correct method: pick one, publish it, and do not change it on a whim. Players plan their week around your schedule. Moving it without warning costs you more than any wipe ever will.

Sizing the server

We treat 6 GB of RAM and 30 GB of disk as the minimum for Rust. Memory use scales with map size and how much players have built — a 4000-size map late in a wipe cycle is a very different workload from a fresh 3000.

If you are going to run a large map, size for the end of the cycle, not the start. The server is at its heaviest the day before the wipe, not the day after.

Before you wipe

1. Announce it. Several days out, in the place your players actually read.
2. Back up first. Not because you plan to roll back, but because wipe day is when mistakes happen.
3. Say what kind of wipe it is. "Wipe Friday" tells players nothing. "Map wipe Friday, blueprints kept" tells them everything.