Rust force-wipes on the first Thursday of every month. Facepunch ships the monthly update that day, it changes the network protocol, and every server in the game has to update and wipe its map before anyone can join again. There is no opting out. What is up to you is whether blueprints go too, what the new map looks like, and whether you press the button yourself or let the server do it. This guide covers all of that for a GG Host Rust server.
The schedule
Facepunch's monthly update lands on the first Thursday of the month, usually around 19:00 UK time (that is also the default the in-game wipe countdown uses). The remaining force wipes for 2026 are:
- Thursday 3 September 2026
- Thursday 1 October 2026
- Thursday 5 November 2026
- Thursday 3 December 2026
Then Thursday 7 January 2027, and so on. Between force wipes you set your own rhythm. Many servers wipe weekly or every two weeks, and the most common pattern is: map wipes on your own schedule, blueprints only on force wipe day.
Map wipe versus blueprint wipe
These are two different things and it helps to know what each one actually deletes.
A map wipe deletes the world save, the .sav file in your server's identity
folder. Every base, every deployable, everything on the ground goes, and the map regenerates from the
seed on the next start (with a new seed if you gave it one). Players keep everything that lives in
their player data: the blueprints they have learned, most importantly.
A blueprint wipe deletes the player data as well, the player.blueprints
and related database files next to the save. Everyone starts research from scratch. Facepunch's monthly
update only forces the map wipe; whether you wipe blueprints as well is your decision, and most
communities do it monthly at most.
Wiping from the control panel
In your GG Host control panel, open your Rust server and click Wipe Server in the left menu. Tick what you want, click Execute and confirm. It stops the server, does what you ticked, and starts it again; the whole thing takes about a minute. The options are:
- Wipe map? Deletes the world save and its rolling backups, and the generated map file, so the map regenerates on the next start.
- Use random seed Writes a new random seed into your server config, so the wiped map is a different island rather than the same one rebuilt.
- Wipe players and blueprints? The blueprint wipe described above. Leave it unticked for a map-only wipe.
- Additional files/folders to wipe A list of extra paths, one per line, if a plugin keeps data you want cleared too. Folders end with a slash; wildcards work for files.
- Seed list Your own seeds, one per line. The wipe picks one at random. Write a seed
as
1234567:3500to set the world size at the same time. - Remove used seed Takes the seed it just used off the list, so a schedule works through your seeds in order without repeating.
- Update server Runs the Steam update, with file validation, before the wipe. On force wipe day you want this ticked: it is what puts your server on the new build.
One thing the wipe deliberately leaves alone. Rust identifies your server to the Rust+ companion
app with a small file called companion.id in the same folder as the save. Delete that and
the server becomes a stranger to the app for everyone. Neither the map wipe nor the blueprint wipe
touches it. A map-only wipe leaves Rust+ pairing intact; a blueprint wipe clears the player token
database along with the rest of the player data, so players may need to pair the app again after one.
If you ever clear the folder by hand through the file manager, leave companion.id where
it is.
Letting the server wipe itself on force wipe day
You do not have to be awake on Thursday evening. Under Scheduled Tasks you can schedule the Wipe on Rust Wipe Day script to run daily. It checks the date each time it runs, does nothing on an ordinary day, and on the first Thursday of the month it stops the server, runs the update and the wipe with the options you chose when you created the task, and starts the server again. Set it once and force wipe day takes care of itself.
If you also run your own weekly or fortnightly map wipes, schedule the plain Wipe Server script for those days with Wipe players and blueprints? left unticked. Facepunch's in-game wipe countdown at the Nuclear Missile Silo defaults to the monthly force-wipe timing; if your server wipes more often, its convars can be set to match your schedule.
If your server runs Oxide
Oxide (uMod) needs a matching build after every monthly Rust update, and that build usually appears within hours of the update rather than at the same moment. On a GG Host server the panel re-applies the current Oxide build automatically after each Steam update on a server that has Oxide installed, so you do not come back up vanilla by accident. Plugins themselves sometimes need updates from their authors after a big patch; check your Oxide log after the first start if anything behaves oddly. Our Oxide guide covers the install and the console commands.
Force wipe day checklist
- Decide in advance whether blueprints wipe this month, and tell your players.
- Either schedule the Wipe on Rust Wipe Day task, or plan to press Wipe Server after the update is out.
- Make sure Update server is ticked, so the wipe puts you on the new build.
- If you use a seed list, check there is a seed left on it.
- After the restart, join once yourself: confirm the map is new, players can connect, and (if you run Oxide) that plugins loaded.
