Choosing the right wipe schedule can completely change how a Rust community plays.
A weekly server creates frequent fresh starts and faster competition, while a monthly server gives players much more time to build, progress and defend larger bases. Biweekly servers sit somewhere between the two.
If you are starting your own Rust server, deciding how often to wipe should be one of the first choices you make.
This guide compares weekly, biweekly and monthly Rust wipes, explains how force wipes and blueprint wipes fit into the schedule, and helps you decide which cycle suits your community.
What Is A Rust Wipe Schedule?
A wipe resets some or all of the progression on a Rust server.
A map wipe removes player bases, deployed items and world progress, allowing everyone to start again on a fresh map. Blueprint wipes go further by removing learned blueprints, while player-data wipes can reset additional progression.
The wipe schedule simply describes how frequently those resets normally happen.
Rust officially supports weekly, biweekly and monthly wipe schedule classifications in the server browser. Facepunch's default wipe timer treats them as follows:
- Weekly: every Thursday
- Biweekly: generally the first and third Thursday of each month
- Monthly: the first Thursday of each month
The default wipe time is 19:00 London time, although server owners can configure their own day, hour and timezone.
Weekly vs Biweekly vs Monthly Rust Wipes
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px; text-align: left;">Wipe Schedule</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px; text-align: left;">Typical Cycle</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px; text-align: left;">Best Suited For</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px; text-align: left;">Main Trade-Off</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Weekly</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Around 7 days</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Fast progression, competitive servers, higher-rate servers</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Less time for large bases and long-term progression</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Biweekly</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Around 2 weeks</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Communities wanting a balance between fresh starts and progression</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Can still feel short for casual players</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Monthly</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Until the next monthly force wipe</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Vanilla, casual and long-term progression servers</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #000; padding: 8px;">Late-wipe progression can become heavily established</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>
There is no single schedule that works for every server. The better choice depends on how quickly your players progress and how long you want each wipe to remain active.
Are Weekly Rust Wipes Better?
Weekly wipes work well when the early stages of a wipe are the main attraction.
Every seven days, players return to gathering resources, securing building locations, unlocking equipment and fighting over monuments from scratch.
This makes weekly cycles particularly suitable for faster-paced communities and boosted servers where players can reach late-game progression quickly.
The downside is that players have very little time to enjoy larger bases or long-term projects before everything resets again.
Casual players who only join a few times each week may also feel that their progress disappears too quickly.
A weekly schedule therefore makes the most sense when your community values frequent competition and fresh starts more than long-lasting progression.
Are Biweekly Rust Wipes Better?
Biweekly wipes provide a middle ground.
Two weeks gives players significantly more time to develop their bases and use late-game equipment without committing the server to an entire month.
This makes biweekly wipes useful for communities containing both active and more casual players.
The first week still provides the usual early-wipe competition, while the second gives established groups more time for raiding, monument progression and larger building projects.
For many community servers, this can be a useful compromise between weekly and monthly wipes.
Facepunch's default biweekly wipe timer uses the first and third Thursdays of each month and adjusts months with five Thursdays to avoid an unusually long three-week gap.
Are Monthly Rust Wipes Better?
Monthly wipes give players the longest standard progression cycle.
Facepunch releases Rust's guaranteed monthly content updates on the first Thursday of each month, which also aligns with the normal monthly force-wipe cycle.
A monthly server gives players time to construct much larger compounds, establish industrial systems, accumulate resources and participate in longer-term rivalries.
This makes monthly wipes especially attractive for vanilla-style communities and players who cannot spend every day grinding.
The trade-off is that the server can become very established later in the month. Large groups may accumulate substantial resources, bases become more developed and newer players joining late in the cycle have more catching up to do.
What Is A Rust Force Wipe?
A force wipe happens alongside Rust's major monthly update.
Facepunch continues to release guaranteed monthly updates on the first Thursday of every month.
These updates commonly require servers to generate a new map because the server protocol or world generation has changed. Facepunch's server documentation notes that protocol changes generally force the server to create a new save rather than reuse the previous one.
This means even a server that normally keeps long wipe cycles has to account for the monthly update.
Weekly and biweekly communities simply perform additional wipes between those monthly force wipes.
If you want a more detailed explanation of manually resetting your world, blueprints or player data, Pine Hosting already has a complete Rust server wipe guide.
Should You Blueprint Wipe Every Time?
A map wipe does not automatically mean you need to remove every player's learned blueprints.
Facepunch stores blueprint progression separately from the world save, meaning server owners can wipe the map while allowing players to retain their learned crafting recipes.
Whether you should wipe blueprints depends on the experience you want.
Weekly servers often benefit from keeping blueprints because forcing players to relearn everything every seven days can make the early game extremely repetitive.
Biweekly servers can use either approach.
Monthly servers sometimes reset blueprints alongside larger wipes to create a more complete fresh start, although this is ultimately a server-owner decision.
Whatever you choose, advertise it clearly. Players should know whether an upcoming wipe is map-only or includes blueprints before investing time into progression.
Do Rust Wipe Tags Automatically Wipe Your Server?
No.
The weekly, biweekly and monthly tags tell players what wipe schedule your server follows and help Rust calculate the appropriate in-game wipe timer, but simply selecting a browser tag does not delete your server's world or blueprint files.
Our Rust server tags guide explains the difference between server-browser tags and actual server settings.
You should only use one wipe-schedule tag at a time. Facepunch groups weekly, biweekly and monthly together as mutually exclusive tags.
How To Automatically Schedule Rust Wipes
If you run a Pine Hosting server, you do not need to manually delete files every time your wipe date arrives.
Pine Hosting's Schedules system allows you to create automatic wipe tasks and control exactly what gets reset.
You can configure scheduled wipes from the Schedules tab and choose whether the task wipes the world, blueprints or other relevant data. Pine also provides templates designed to align with Rust's forced monthly updates.
You can follow the full automatic Rust wipe schedule guide for the setup process.
Which Rust Wipe Schedule Should You Choose?
A weekly wipe is a good fit if your players progress quickly and mainly enjoy the competitive early stages of Rust.
Choose biweekly if you want those fresh starts but still want players to have enough time to establish larger bases and use late-game progression.
Choose monthly if your community prefers slower progression, larger builds and more time between resets.
The most important part is consistency.
Once players understand exactly when your server wipes and whether blueprints reset, they can decide whether the server matches the way they like to play.
Choose Your Rust Wipe Schedule With Pine Hosting
Your wipe schedule has a major effect on how your community experiences Rust, whether you want fast weekly competition or a full month of progression.
With Rust hosting from Pine Hosting, you can configure wipes, maps, server settings, plugins and schedules through an easy-to-use game panel.
Automatic wipe scheduling also means you do not have to be online every Thursday manually resetting files before players can begin their next wipe.
If you are comparing the best Rust hosting options for a weekly, biweekly or monthly community, Pine Hosting gives you control over both how your server runs and exactly when everyone gets their fresh start.
