Rust Server Wipe Guide

Wiping is a fundamental part of running a Rust server. Regular wipes keep the game fresh, prevent performance degradation, and give all players a fair start. This guide covers everything you need to know about wiping your Witchly.host Rust server.

What Is a Wipe?

A wipe resets part or all of your server’s persistent data, giving players a fresh start. There are two types of wipe:

Map Wipe — Deletes the world map, all player-built structures, deployed items, and stored loot. Players keep their learned blueprints and start on a freshly generated map.
Full Wipe (BP Wipe) — Deletes everything a map wipe does, plus all learned blueprints. Players start completely from scratch with no progression carried over.

Forced Wipes

Facepunch, the developer of Rust, releases a mandatory update on the first Thursday of every month. This update requires all servers to perform a map wipe — there is no way to avoid it.

Key details about forced wipes:

They happen on the first Thursday of every month, typically around 2:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM GMT
Only a map wipe is forced — blueprint wipes are at the server owner’s discretion
The update usually includes new content, bug fixes, and sometimes gameplay changes
Your server must be updated to the new version to come back online

Forced wipes are automatic on Witchly.host — when Facepunch releases the update, your server will need to restart on the new version. The old map data is incompatible with the new update.

Planning Your Wipe Schedule

Most Rust servers follow a regular wipe schedule in addition to forced wipes. Common schedules include:

Weekly wipe:

Map wipe every Thursday (aligning with forced wipe week)
Keeps the game fast-paced and competitive
Popular with PvP-focused and high-population servers
Full BP wipe on forced wipe day, map-only wipe on other Thursdays

Biweekly wipe:

Map wipe every two weeks
Good balance between progression and freshness
Popular with medium-population servers
Full BP wipe on forced wipe day

Monthly wipe (forced wipe only):

Only wipe when Facepunch forces it
Maximum time for progression and base building
Suited for PvE servers, smaller communities, and casual players
Can lead to performance issues late in the cycle if decay is not managed

Choose your schedule based on:

Community preference — ask your players what they want
Server population — higher populations benefit from more frequent wipes
Server type — PvP servers wipe more often than PvE or roleplay servers
Performance — longer wipe cycles mean more accumulated entities and potential lag

How to Perform a Map Wipe

To wipe your server’s map while keeping blueprints:

Announce the wipe — Let your community know in advance (Discord, server messages, etc.)
Stop your server from Dashboard
Go to the Files tab
Navigate to server/my_server_identity/
Delete the following files and folders:
- proceduralmap_*.sav — The world save file
- proceduralmap_*.sav.1 through .4 — Backup save files
- proceduralmap_*.map — The map image file
- player.deaths.*.db — Player death data
- player.identities.*.db — Player identity data
- player.states.*.db — Player state data (inventory, position)
- player.tokens.*.db — Player token data
- sv.files.*.db — Server file storage
Optionally change the World Seed in the Startup tab for a new map layout
Start your server — it will generate a fresh map

How to Perform a Full Wipe (Map + Blueprints)

For a complete reset including blueprints:

Follow all steps from the map wipe above
Additionally, delete:
- player.blueprints.*.db — All learned blueprints

This gives every player a completely fresh start with no carried-over progression.

Changing Your World Seed

The world seed determines the layout of your map — monument placement, terrain, biomes, and resource distribution. Changing the seed gives your server a completely different map.

To change your seed:

Go to the Startup tab in your dashboard
Find the World Seed or Seed variable
Enter a new seed number (any integer) or leave blank for random
The new seed takes effect on the next server start after a map wipe

Tips for choosing seeds:

Use sites like playrust.io or rustmaps.com to preview maps before using a seed
Enter your world size and seed to see the full map layout, monument placement, and terrain
Look for maps with good monument distribution and balanced resource access
Popular seeds are often shared on community forums and Discord servers

Automating Wipe Announcements

Keep your community informed about upcoming wipes:

Set up an announcement channel in your Discord server
Post wipe schedules at the beginning of each month
Use in-game announcements via the console: say Server wipe in 1 hour! Save your loot!
Include wipe schedule information in your server description

What Happens During a Wipe

When you wipe and restart your server:

The server detects that save files are missing
It generates a new procedural map using the configured world size and seed
World generation takes 2-5 minutes depending on map size
All monuments, roads, and terrain are placed according to the seed
The server opens for connections once generation is complete
Players connect to a fresh map (with or without blueprints depending on wipe type)

Performance and Wipes

Wipes are essential for server performance. Over time, Rust servers accumulate:

Entities — Every placed item, structure, storage container, and deployed object is an entity. High entity counts cause lag.
Save file size — Larger save files take longer to write, causing periodic lag spikes during auto-saves.
Player data — Accumulated player state data adds to save and load times.

Regular wipes reset these counters and restore server performance. If you notice your server slowing down late in a wipe cycle:

Check entity count in the console: ent count
Large servers can accumulate 200,000+ entities before performance degrades noticeably
Proper decay settings help manage entity count between wipes (see our Server Configuration guide)

Wipe Day Best Practices

Announce early and often — Give players at least 24 hours notice before a wipe
Wipe during peak hours — Most communities prefer wiping when players are available to start fresh together
Back up before wiping — Create a backup in case you need to recover data (see our Backups guide)
Update server settings — Wipe day is a good time to adjust configurations based on feedback from the previous cycle
Update plugins — Check for plugin updates before starting the new wipe cycle
Be available — Stay online for the first few hours after a wipe to address any issues
Verify the new map — Connect and check that monuments generated correctly and the map is playable

Partial Wipes

Some servers perform partial wipes that reset specific data:

Economy wipe — Reset plugin-managed currencies (requires plugin-specific commands)
Clan/team wipe — Reset team data (delete relevant database files)
Specific plugin data — Reset data for individual plugins by removing their data files from the oxide/data/ directory

Partial wipes can refresh specific gameplay elements without requiring a full server reset.

Need help with your wipe schedule or process? Our team is available on Discord.