Rust force wipe schedule: when, what time, and what wipes.

Rust force wipes on the first Thursday of every month. That is when Facepunch ships the monthly update, and because the update changes the map generation and game files, every PC server has to wipe its map at the same time. The next force wipe is Thursday 5 November 2026.

The update usually goes live at 19:00 UK time (14:00 Eastern, 11:00 Pacific). Facepunch occasionally shifts it by an hour or two if the build needs a last fix, so treat the time as the normal window rather than a guarantee, and watch the Rust Twitter account or the Facepunch commits feed on the day.

Every date below is the first Thursday of its month, which is the rule Facepunch has followed for years. Times are the usual update window and can move on the day.

Server owners: your panel's wipe scheduler should be set to run after the update is live, not at the moment it drops. If your server wipes at 19:00 sharp and the build arrives at 19:40, you will be back up on the old version and will have to wipe twice. On RSH panel hosting the update and wipe are handled from the panel, so you can queue the wipe and let the server update itself before it comes back.

A force wipe is not one thing. It is a map wipe that everyone has to do, plus a blueprint wipe that Facepunch only forces occasionally. Here is what happens to each part of a server.

• Map and bases: always wiped. The world is regenerated, every building, deployable and dropped item is gone, and tool cupboards reset.
• Player inventories: wiped with the map. You start on the beach with a rock and a torch.
• Blueprints: kept by default. Facepunch forces a blueprint wipe only a few times a year, usually when a major item or tech-tree change lands, and announces it in the update notes beforehand. Many community servers choose to wipe blueprints monthly anyway, which is a server decision, not a Facepunch one.
• Server settings and plugins: kept. Your server.cfg, Oxide or Carbon plugins and their config files survive a wipe. Plugin data (kits, economics balances, clans) is only reset if you delete it or the plugin is written to reset on wipe.
• Skins, cosmetics and Steam items: never wiped. They live on your Steam account, not the server.

Force wipe sets the maximum time a map can live. Between force wipes you can wipe as often as you like, and the cycle you choose shapes the kind of server you run.

• Weekly wipes suit high-population PvP servers and groups who play hard for a few days and move on. Progression is fast, raiding starts early, and the population spike on wipe day is the whole point.
• Biweekly wipes are the most common compromise. Two weeks gives a solo or duo time to build something worth defending without the map going stale.
• Monthly wipes follow the force wipe exactly. They suit PvE, roleplay and building-focused communities where losing a base every week would drive players off.

Whatever cycle you pick, line it up so the last wipe of the month lands on force wipe day. A biweekly server that wipes on the Thursday before force wipe will have a four-day map, and nobody shows up for that. Most owners run the map wipe on force-wipe Thursday, then every second Thursday after it, and publish the schedule in the server description and in Discord so players can plan around it.

No. Rust Console Edition is a separate game built by Double Eleven, and it runs its own monthly wipe calendar. Console wipes usually fall in the first week of the month too, but the date and time are set by Double Eleven and published through the Rust Console Edition news and social channels, not by Facepunch. Blueprint wipes on console are also less frequent than map wipes and are announced separately.

If you are looking for a console server, note that PC hosting providers, RSH included, do not host Console Edition servers. Console community servers are rented through the in-game G-Portal integration only.

A wipe is the busiest hour your server will see all month. Most of the lag and join problems people blame on wipe day come down to a few things that can be sorted beforehand.

1. Pick the seed and size in advance. Browse seeds on RustMaps, test the map you want, and set server.seed and server.worldsize before the wipe so the map that generates is the one you advertised.
2. Update plugins after the game updates, not before. Oxide and Carbon ship new builds for each force wipe. Check your plugins load cleanly on the new build before you reopen the server.
3. Schedule the wipe from the panel. On RSH panel hosting the wipe scheduler handles the map and (optionally) blueprint wipe, so you are not stood over the console at 19:00.
4. Reset plugin data you do not want carried over. Kits cooldowns, economics balances and teleport homes will persist unless you clear them.
5. Post the schedule. Put the next wipe date in server.description, your Discord and your server tags. Players pick servers on wipe timing more than on anything else.

For the commands behind all of this, see the Rust admin commands list. For a server to run it on, Rust server plans start at £7.50 a month with wipe scheduling and one-click Oxide or Carbon built in.