Wipe cycles

Rust expects regular wipes. The community standard is monthly, with optional weekly or bi-weekly mid-cycle wipes.

Two kinds of wipe

• Map wipe — new map, all bases gone. Inventories cleared. Blueprints kept.
• BP wipe (blueprint wipe) — all the above + everyone's learned blueprints reset to vanilla starting set.

Most communities do a map wipe weekly or bi-weekly, and a full BP wipe monthly aligned with Facepunch's official monthly update.

How to wipe

1. Announce ahead of time — say "Wipe in 24h", Discord posts, etc. Sudden wipes annoy players.
2. Stop the server.
3. Map wipe only: change the world seed in panel settings.
4. Map + BP wipe: also delete the player blueprints — file manager → /steamcmd/rust/server/<your-server>/ → delete player.blueprints.5.db (filename varies by Rust version).
5. Start the server.

Forced wipes (Facepunch updates)

The first Thursday of each month, Facepunch pushes a major Rust update that breaks save compatibility — every server is forced to map-wipe regardless. Plan around this; don't schedule a fresh map for the day before.

Workshop maps

If you're using a custom map (from the Steam Workshop), set the Workshop Map ID in panel settings. Restart. The server downloads + uses the workshop map instead of generating one from the seed.

Auto-wipe schedules

Some Rust admin tools (Carbon modules, Oxide plugins) can run wipes on a schedule. Useful for predictable community servers ("Bi-weekly map wipes, every other Thursday at 4pm UTC").

Backups before wipe

The panel's snapshot system takes a full server backup before any wipe — useful if you change your mind, or if the wipe goes wrong. Snapshots are kept per the panel's retention.