// guide · force wipe

Force wipe night.
The owner’s checklist.

Facepunch’s monthly update forces a map wipe on the first Thursday of every month at 19:00 London time. Take a backup, let the game update land, update Oxide or Carbon to the matching build, decide whether to wipe blueprints, then check your server is listed with the right tags. This page shows the next date at the top and is updated every month.

The next force wipe

Next, 19:00 London
Then, 19:00 London
Then, 19:00 London
The next force wipe in your players’ time. Computed for each visit, daylight saving included.
WhereLocal time
LondonThu 3 Dec, 19:00
UTCThu 3 Dec, 19:00
BerlinThu 3 Dec, 20:00
New YorkThu 3 Dec, 14:00
ChicagoThu 3 Dec, 13:00
Los AngelesThu 3 Dec, 11:00
SydneyFri 4 Dec, 06:00

Rust’s own wipe timer defaults to this schedule: the first Thursday of the month at 19:00 London time. On our test server, the game’s PrintWipe command gave the November date as 2026-11-05T19:00:00+00:00, the same instant this page shows.

What the force wipe does to your server

Facepunch ships the monthly update at force wipe. The map has to go: every map file name carries a save version, like the 289 in proceduralmap.3000.48211.289.sav on today’s build, so the updated server looks for new file names and generates a fresh map. The old files are left on disk until you delete them. Your config, your plugins’ config and your bans stay.

We will re-check this on our test server on wipe night and update this page with what we see.

Before: the day before and the hour before

  1. Back up the whole server folder. If the new build breaks a plugin or a config, you can compare against what worked.
  2. Decide on blueprints. The update takes the map. Whether blueprints go too is a choice you make and announce. Our wipe files guide lists the two files a blueprint wipe deletes.
  3. List your plugins. Note each one’s version, so after the update you can see which ones need a new release.
  4. Announce the time in your players’ zones. Use the table above. “Thursday 7pm” means different things in Berlin and Chicago.

During: when the update lands

  1. Stop the server and update the game. Wait for the update to be on Steam, then run your host’s update or SteamCMD with validate.
  2. Update Oxide or Carbon to the build for the new Rust version. Both frameworks hook into the game’s code, so a build made for last month’s Rust can fail on this month’s. Install the new one before you start the server.
  3. Clear out the old map. Delete every file starting proceduralmap., including .sav.1 and .sav.2. For a blueprint wipe, also delete player.blueprints.<schema>.db with its -wal. The wipe files guide has the full list and why each one matters.

After: the first ten minutes

  1. Check the wipe timer. Run PrintWipe in the console. It prints your next wipe date and the next ten after it. If the date is wrong, your tags or wipetimer convars are wrong. Our wipe timer generator gives you the right lines.
  2. Check your plugins loaded. List them and read the console for errors.
    console
    oxide.plugins     # Oxide
c.plugins         # Carbon
  3. Check you are listed, with your tags. Search your server in the in-game browser. Wipe night is when players filter hardest by wipe schedule and region, and a missing tag hides you from those filters. Our tags guide shows how to read exactly what Steam has.

Set one wipe schedule and we write the tags and the wipe timer for you.

See features