Rust force wipe schedule: dates and times

Rust's force wipe happens on the first Thursday of every month, when Facepunch releases the monthly update for client and server together. The update typically arrives in the UK evening, around 19:00 London time - 20:00 in Germany - though the exact minute is not guaranteed and the date occasionally moves. Every server must update and start a new map at that point; whether blueprints go too is your choice unless Facepunch announces otherwise. The scheduling problem most owners actually have is not the force wipe itself but fitting a weekly or biweekly cadence around months that contain four or five Thursdays. This post gives you the dates, the time zones, the cadence arithmetic and what you can automate.

For what a wipe deletes and a step-by-step runbook for the day, read Rust wipes without losing your players. This post is the calendar around it.

What forces the wipe#

On force wipe day three things change at once: the network protocol, so old servers and new clients cannot talk; the save format, so last month's .sav will not load; and usually the procedural generator, so the same seed and size produce different terrain. A server that does not update is unreachable. A server that updates without wiping fails to load its save and generates a fresh map anyway.

Blueprints are stored separately and survive the force wipe unless you delete them. On rare occasions Facepunch announces a forced blueprint wipe too, when a change to the tech tree or blueprint storage requires it; that is stated in the update notes and the devblog, so read them in the week before.

The update also breaks Oxide and can break Carbon plugins, which is why "the update is out" and "my server is ready" are often an hour or more apart. Oxide (uMod) plugins and Carbon vs Oxide cover what that looks like for each framework.

What time the update lands#

Facepunch releases in the UK afternoon or evening, and around 19:00 London time has been the long-standing pattern. Treat it as "evening, European time" and watch the official channels on the day rather than planning to the minute. If the release is at 19:00 London time, it lands at:

The UK and the EU change clocks on the same weekends, so Germany is always one hour ahead of London. The United States changes on different dates, so for a few weeks in March and late October to early November, New York is an hour off the table above. If your server and most of your players are in Europe, the force wipe falls in your evening - convenient for players, and a reason to have your wipe-day routine practised, because you will be doing it at peak time.

When the update is late or broken

Some months the update arrives later than expected, and some months a hotfix follows within hours because something broke. Plan for both.

If the release is late, keep your server up on the old version until it lands. Players can still play the last evening of the old map, and an early shutdown just gives them a reason to try somewhere else. Post in Discord when you see the release, not before.

If a hotfix follows, the protocol may change again. Players on the new client cannot join a server on the pre-hotfix build, which looks exactly like the server being down. After a force wipe, check for a server update again an hour or two later, and again the next morning; running SteamCMD's app_update again is cheap when nothing changed, and SteamCMD explained covers what its output tells you. Servers that update on every start pick hotfixes up with a restart, which is one argument for a restart the morning after force wipe.

If your framework or a critical plugin is broken by the update and not fixed by the evening, you have a real choice: open vanilla, or stay closed. Opening vanilla is usually right for a lightly modded server and wrong for one whose identity is its plugins. Decide in advance which you are, so the decision on the night is not made under pressure in a busy Discord.

Force wipe dates through 2027#

First Thursdays, with the number of weeks until the next one. The weeks column is what matters for cadence planning.

These are calendar dates computed from the first-Thursday rule. Facepunch has kept to it for years but announces each update separately; when a first Thursday falls on a public holiday - 1 January is the obvious one - check the announcement rather than assuming.

Fitting your cadence around four- and five-week months#

Monthly

The simplest: wipe only on force days. Cycles alternate between four and five weeks, which players accept because everyone in Rust knows the first-Thursday rule. Monthly suits builders, roleplay and lower-population servers. It is also the cadence where entity growth hurts most, because the map carries five weeks of building in a long month; server performance and entity count explains why.

Weekly

Wipe every Thursday. Force wipe becomes just another Thursday, and every cycle is exactly one week. Weekly suits high-population and boosted-rate servers where a full tech tree happens within days. The cost is your time: fifty-two wipe days a year.

Biweekly

The common compromise, and the one with the arithmetic problem. Two-week cycles fit a four-week month perfectly - force wipe, then a mid-month wipe two weeks later. A five-week month leaves an odd week. The options:

"Two then three" is what most biweekly servers do: wipe on force day, wipe again two weeks later, and let the second cycle run until the next force day. State it in your rules so the three-week cycle is expected rather than a surprise.

Here is how that plays out for the next few months:

December's long cycle crosses the holidays, which is fine - population drops, and the server that is still up over New Year collects players from the ones that are not. Do not schedule a mid wipe on 31 December.

Scheduling blueprint wipes#

Blueprints are the second calendar. The common patterns:

• Blueprints wipe on force day only. The most common choice on biweekly and weekly servers. Every month starts with an empty tech tree, mid-month wipes keep what players learned. Players who join in week three are not hopelessly behind, because they can learn blueprints fast on a fresh map with experienced teammates.
• Blueprints wipe with every map. Pure fresh starts, favoured by small competitive servers. It means the first day of every cycle is a tech-tree race, which some players love and others leave over.
• Blueprints never wipe unless forced. Rare outside build and roleplay servers. Returning players keep everything, which is welcoming, and new players face a server where everyone else has the full tree.

Whatever you choose, the blueprint rule belongs in the same sentence as the map rule: "Map every other Thursday, blueprints on force wipe." Players care about blueprint wipes at least as much as map wipes, and the question "BP wipe this week?" will be asked in your Discord before every single wipe unless the answer is written somewhere obvious.

Choosing your own wipe hour#

Force wipes happen when Facepunch releases. Your other wipes happen when you choose, and the choice matters more than people think.

• Same weekday and hour every time. If force wipes are Thursday evening, make your mid wipes Thursday evening too. Players plan their week around it.
• Your players' evening, not yours. A server in Germany with a mostly European population wipes well around 19:00-20:00 Central European time. A server courting players elsewhere should pick their evening and accept doing wipes at an odd hour.
• Not at the same moment as everyone else on force day, if you can help it. Every server wipes on force Thursday, so the competition for players is fiercest then. Some servers deliberately wipe on Friday afternoon instead, catching players the busy Thursday servers did not satisfy. That only works for mid-cycle and blueprint wipes; on force day you must wipe the map when you update.
• Not when you are unavailable. The hour you choose is the hour you are on call for the first few minutes of a new map.

The week before force wipe#

1. Monday or Tuesday: read the staging notes. The staging branch carries next month's update. Install it beside your live server with app_update 258550 -beta staging into a separate directory, and start it with your plugins to see which ones fail.
2. Wednesday: check your plugins and maps. Note which authors have published updates for the new version and which have not. Decide what you will run without if a plugin is not ready.
3. Wednesday: choose the seed. Preview candidates after staging generation is final where you can, and confirm on the day. Custom maps and procedural size has the details.
4. Thursday morning: backup and announce. Lock a backup of the identity folder against rotation. Put the wipe time in the hostname and post in Discord.
5. Thursday evening: run the runbook. Update with validate, update the framework, wipe the files, start, test, announce.

SteamCMD explained covers branches and validate in detail.

What you can automate, and what you cannot#

Cron can express "every Thursday" or "the 1st to the 7th", but not "the first Thursday". When a cron line restricts both day-of-month and day-of-week, most implementations run when either matches, not both.

0 18 * * 4       every Thursday at 18:00 (server time)0 18 1-7 * *     the 1st to 7th of the month at 18:000 18 1-7 * 4     usually: days 1-7 OR any Thursday - not "first Thursday"

The practical answer for most servers:

• Weekly Thursday tasks are safe to automate: a backup, an in-game warning an hour before, a second warning ten minutes before. They are useful on every Thursday whatever your cadence.
• The wipe itself stays manual on force day, because it depends on Facepunch releasing and on your plugins being ready - neither of which a timer knows.
• Mid-cycle wipes can be partly automated with a framework plugin or script that deletes the save files on a schedule, but a person should still check the server came up.

On RE:NODE, the Schedules tab takes a cron expression and runs ordered tasks with delays between them - a console command, a backup, a power action. A Thursday schedule that runs a say warning, waits, runs another, then takes a backup is exactly what it is for. Deleting save files is not a schedule task; that remains a file manager or SFTP job. Rust itself is not in RE:NODE's game catalogue, so if you run it on a VDS from the dedicated servers line you would use cron and your own scripts for the same jobs. Cron expressions explained covers the syntax.

Telling players the schedule#

The cadence only works if players know it.

• `server.tags` includes the cadence values weekly, biweekly and monthly, which feed the browser's filters. Set the one you use.
• The hostname should carry the cadence and the next date: Longship | EU | Biweekly | Next wipe Thu 19 Nov. Update it right after each wipe.
• The description is the place for the full rule, including what happens in five-week months and whether blueprints wipe on force day.
• Discord gets the calendar for the next three months, so nobody needs to ask.

server.cfg and convars has the listing convars, and growing a game server community covers the rest of keeping people coming back.

FAQ#

When is the next Rust force wipe?

On the first Thursday of the month, which for the coming months is 5 November 2026, 3 December 2026 and 7 January 2027. Facepunch confirms each update separately, so check the announcement if a date falls on a holiday.

What time does the Rust force wipe happen?

Typically in the UK evening, around 19:00 London time, which is 20:00 in Germany and early afternoon on the US east coast. It can be late, so plan for a window rather than a minute.

Do blueprints wipe on force wipe day?

Not unless you delete them or Facepunch announces a forced blueprint wipe for that update. The force wipe replaces the map; blueprints are in a separate file you control.

How do biweekly servers handle five-week months?

Most wipe on force day, wipe again two weeks later, and let the second cycle run three weeks until the next force wipe. Say so in your rules so players expect it.

Can I skip the force wipe?

Not if you want players. Without the update, current clients cannot connect; with it, the old save will not load. The only choice is how quickly you are ready after the release.