Rust guide
How wipes work in Rust: forced wipes, map wipes and blueprint wipes explained
If you are new to Rust, the word "wipe" can sound alarming. You spend hours building a base, filling boxes and learning blueprints, and then one evening it is all gone. Wipes are not a punishment or a bug, though. They are the heartbeat of the game, and once you understand how they work you can plan your play around them and get far more out of every map.
This guide explains what a wipe actually is, the different kinds, why Facepunch forces one every month, and how wipes run on each of Haven Collective's Rust servers.
What is a wipe?
A wipe is a reset of a Rust server. At a set time the server shuts down, deletes some or all of its saved progress, and comes back with a fresh start. Everyone loads in on the beach with a rock and a torch, and the race begins again.
Rust needs wipes because of how the game is built. Players never stop gathering, building and hoarding, so a server that never reset would end up full of enormous bases owned by whoever has played the longest. New players would have no chance, the map would fill up, and performance would suffer as the number of saved objects grew. Regular wipes keep the playing field level and the server running smoothly.
The two main kinds of wipe
Map wipe
A map wipe deletes everything that exists in the world: buildings, deployables, boxes and their contents, and whatever is in your inventory. Usually the server also gets a new map, either a fresh procedural seed or a different custom map. What a map wipe does not touch is your blueprint knowledge. Anything you learned last wipe, you can still craft straight away.
Blueprint wipe (BP wipe)
A blueprint wipe resets what each player has learned, so everyone is back to the basic recipes and has to research or unlock everything again through the workbench tech trees. A BP wipe is almost always done alongside a map wipe, which is why people talk about a "full wipe" when both happen together.
Blueprint wipes make a big difference to how a wipe plays. After a map-only wipe, experienced players can craft guns and explosives as soon as they have the materials. After a BP wipe, everyone climbs the same progression ladder again.
Whether blueprints are wiped, and how often, is the server owner's choice. On Haven Rust PvP, blueprints are shared across your team, so what one of you learns all of you learn, which takes much of the sting out of a BP wipe. For the current blueprint policy on any Haven server, check the wipe announcement in our Discord.
Forced wipes: the first Thursday of the month
Separately from any server's own schedule, Facepunch releases a major Rust update on the first Thursday of every month. Because these updates usually make old saves incompatible, every official, community and modded server has to wipe the map on that day. This is the forced wipe, and it is the same for everyone.
A few things are worth knowing about forced wipe day:
- The update lands in the early evening UK time. Servers cannot come back until the update is out, so the exact time can drift a little.
- You need the update too. If Steam has not finished updating your game, you will not be able to join. Restart Steam if the update does not appear.
- It is the busiest day of the month. Lots of players start fresh on the same day, so expect crowded roads and monuments.
Server owners can wipe more often than once a month, but never less. A forced wipe will always happen regardless of the server's own schedule.
How wipes work on Haven Collective
Each of our Rust servers runs its own schedule, chosen to suit the way it plays. The countdown on each game page always shows the next wipe.
| Server | Wipe schedule |
|---|---|
| Rust 2x PvP | Every Thursday at 7pm UK time |
| Rust PvE | First Thursday of the month at 7pm UK time |
| Rust Console | Every other Thursday |
Rust 2x PvP: weekly
The PvP server wipes every Thursday at 7pm UK time. With 2x gather, fast crafting and shared blueprints, groups progress quickly, so a week is enough to go from a rock to raiding and back. Weekly wipes also mean nobody gets so far ahead that the server is decided by day four. On the first Thursday of the month the server comes back once Facepunch's update is out, which can be a little after 7pm.
Rust PvE: monthly
With no raiding, a PvE base is a long-term project, so the PvE server wipes only on the first Thursday of the month, at the forced wipe. Your base lasts a full month.
Rust Console: every other Thursday
Console Rust is a separate version of the game with its own update cycle. Our console server, Haven 2x, wipes every other Thursday, and the wipe pings go out in the RUST CONSOLE section of our Discord.
What carries over between wipes
On Haven, a wipe resets the game world, not your relationship with the community. These carry over:
- Your Points balance.
- Your rank, if you have bought one. Ranks are permanent.
- Your account on this website and your all-time stats.
These start again: the map, your base, your loot and the current wipe's leaderboards. At the moment the PvP server wipes, the top three on the wipe leaderboards are paid their Points automatically.
Making the most of the wipe cycle
Before the wipe
- Use it or lose it. In the last day or two, spend your explosives, run the monuments you have been avoiding and take the fights you have been saving for. Nothing in your boxes survives.
- Plan with your team. Agree who is playing on wipe night, where you might build, and how you will split research.
- Check the time. Look at the countdown on the game page and the Discord announcement, especially on forced wipe weeks.
On wipe night
- Be ready early. Have the game updated and the server favourited, so you are not stuck at a loading screen while everyone else is grabbing the good spots.
- Gather first, build fast. The first hour of a wipe matters more than any other. Our new player guide covers what to do in it.
- Expect a crowd. Wipe night is when the server is busiest, which is great for fights and risky for loot runs.
Mid-wipe
If you join a few days after a wipe, do not be put off. Build smaller, out of the way, and focus on getting a stone base and a few components before you take on established groups. On a weekly server, the next fresh start is never far away.
Quick glossary
- Wipe day: the day a server resets.
- Forced wipe: the monthly wipe every server must do when Facepunch's update releases.
- Map wipe: the world resets but blueprints are kept.
- BP wipe: learned blueprints reset.
- Full wipe: a map wipe and BP wipe together.
- Wipe schedule: how often a server chooses to wipe between forced wipes.
Got a question about the next wipe? Ask in our Discord, where each game has its own info channel.
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