Rust Wipes Explained: Force Wipe, Map Wipe & Blueprint Wipe

What is a wipe?

A wipe resets the server: all bases, items and map progress disappear, and everyone starts naked on the beach again. Wipes aren’t a bug — they’re the heartbeat of Rust. They keep performance stable (accumulated entities increasingly slow the server down otherwise), reset the balance of power and give newcomers a fair chance. Wipe day is reliably the population peak of a server’s cycle.

Map wipe vs. blueprint wipe

	Map wipe	Blueprint wipe
Gone:	World, bases, items, inventory	Learned blueprints
Kept:	Blueprints	World (unless a map wipe happens too)
File:	proceduralmap.*.sav / .map	player.blueprints.*.db

The force wipe: first Thursday of the month

On the first Thursday of every month, Facepunch releases the monthly update — traditionally at 7 PM London time. The update bumps the save format’s protocol version, making old saves incompatible: every server must wipe its map, including yours. Sneaking an old save past the force wipe isn’t supported and is risky, per the Facepunch docs.

Blueprints are not automatically affected: global blueprint wipes only happen when Facepunch explicitly announces one (most recently with the “Pivot Or Die” update in November 2025) — they are explicitly not a monthly standard.

Which wipe rhythm for your server?

Three cycles are common — flag yours via server.tags (see the configuration guide):

• weekly — every Thursday. Lots of action, popular with PvP players short on weekly playtime.
• biweekly — first + third Thursday. The middle ground.
• monthly — force wipe only. For builders, roleplay and relaxed groups.

Rust shows players a wipe countdown in the server browser: it’s computed from your wipe tag and the wipetimer.* configuration — but the timer is display only; it never wipes anything automatically.

Wiping your server manually

At RespawnHost you can wipe manually at any time — map and/or blueprints, via the file manager in the panel or over SFTP (same folders and files, credentials in the panel under “SFTP access”):

1. Stop the server. Never delete files while it’s running.
2. Navigate to server/my_server_identity/ in the file manager.
3. Map wipe: delete all proceduralmap.*.sav and proceduralmap.*.map files (including .sav.1/.sav.2 backups). The files are named e.g. proceduralmap.3000.90926889.286.sav — size, seed and protocol version are part of the name.
4. Optional blueprint wipe: also delete player.blueprints.*.db.

5. **Optional new map:** set a new `server.seed` before starting — the same seed regenerates the same map otherwise. Seed ideas are in **[Maps & seeds](rust-maps-seeds)**. 6. **Start the server** — the new world is generated (this takes a few minutes).

Frequently asked questions

Is changing the seed enough? Yes — with a new seed the server finds no matching save and generates a fresh world. The old save files stay on disk though (disk space!); deleting them as above is cleaner.

Do my players lose their blueprints on a map wipe? No — blueprints live in a separate file and survive the map wipe as long as you don’t delete it too.

Can I skip the force wipe? No. After the monthly update the server no longer loads old saves — the map wipe on the first Thursday is mandatory for all Rust servers.

Related guides

• Rent a Rust server — Pay-Per-Use, online in under 90 seconds
• Maps, seeds & world size — finding the right new map
• Configuring your server — tags & wipe timer
• Installing plugins — Oxide after the force wipe