Rust wipe schedules explained: map wipes, BP wipes and picking a cadence

Wipes are the heartbeat of Rust. Get the schedule right and your server has a predictable rhythm players plan around; get it wrong and your population collapses mid-cycle. Here’s how wipes actually work.

The two kinds of wipe

• Map wipe — the world resets: all bases, loot and monuments regenerate. Players keep learned blueprints.
• Blueprint (BP) wipe — learned blueprints reset too, putting everyone back at square one on the tech tree.

The forced wipe (first Thursday)

Facepunch force-wipes every server’s map on the first Thursday of each month (~19:00 UTC), alongside the monthly game update. You cannot opt out. BP wipes are NOT forced monthly — that part of the schedule is yours to choose.

Common schedules and who they fit

• Monthly (forced wipe only): fits slower, casual or low-pop servers — bases stand longest.
• Bi-weekly: the most common choice — long enough to build, short enough to keep mid-cycle population healthy.
• Weekly: for high-pop, competitive or trio/quad servers where the early-wipe rush is the whole point.
• BP wipes: commonly monthly (with the forced wipe) even on weekly-map servers, so progression carries across map cycles.

Automating your wipes

Manual wipes at 7pm on a Thursday get missed. A good host lets you schedule map and BP wipes ahead of time — new map seed, forced-wipe alignment and restart handled automatically. Ours does this from the panel; however you host, automate it.

Sizing note for wipe day

Wipe day traffic is your peak: expect 2–3× your mid-cycle population in the first 48 hours. Size RAM for wipe day, not for a quiet Tuesday — 16 GB is a sensible baseline for a 100-player server with plugins.