Rust November 2026 Update and Force Wipe: Server Checklist

Rust's November update and forced wipe went out on Thursday 5 November 2026. Facepunch's Steam announcement went up at 18:24 UTC, Oxide published its build at 18:33 UTC and Carbon its production build at 18:34 UTC. The update is called Printed and Polished: a Blueprint Rework, the new Uzi 9mm and, in Facepunch's words, "our biggest optimisation focused updates yet". Every server has to install it before players on the new client can join. The map wipe is forced: Oxide's release notes give the new Rust build as 2636.290.1, and the middle number went up from 289. Facepunch did not announce a blueprint wipe, so that stays your decision.

This post covers the server side of the wipe: what the update changes for servers, the time in your zone, which files a map wipe and a blueprint wipe touch, the order for Oxide and Carbon, how to test plugins before you open, and why wipe day is the easiest day of the month to move a server to another host. Where Facepunch's devblog or the Oxide and Carbon release notes say something different from this post, they win.

What the November update changes for servers

• Blueprint Rework. "Workbenches no longer require blueprint fragments to craft, and scrap isn't used on the tech trees." Instead there are three tiers, blueprint fragments, blueprint pages and blueprint books, one for each tech tree level. The research table still takes scrap. The salvage workbench upgrade now has "a 20% chance to not consume a blueprint" and the prototype workbench upgrade a flat 25% success rate. If your server hands out scrap or fragments through kits, a shop, loot tables or a gather plugin, check those values: they now feed a different system.
• Faster restarts and less memory. The server now keeps the connections between foundations and walls, and the cargo ship's path, across a restart, which "brings the highest population servers down from 10 minutes -> 2 minutes to restart." Building blocks also lost the editor-only objects they carried: "On a populated server, these unnecessary game objects accounted for ~43% of total objects on the server, which translated directly to -1.44 GB of memory usage."
• Network. Packets are now grouped before they are sent, which cut traffic by 25% on a 500 player server in Facepunch's capture. It is on by default and "can be toggled by servers via the ConVar batchpackets". Network LODs send fewer updates for far away entities and are controlled with net.position_lod and net.position_lod_players; Facepunch enables them on a few of its own servers "before being rolled out properly mid-month".
• Player update jobs. "Latest UsePlayerUpdateJobs convar level, 4, is now considered stable and is shipped as default." If your startup settings set a lower level, that line keeps you on the old behaviour.
• Deep sea on custom maps. The deep sea cycle "now starts once the lighthouse has been repaired", and "Maps without a lighthouse start with the deep sea cycle already active." Worth knowing if you run a custom map.
• Plugin hooks. Oxide 2.0.7888 changes the arguments of OnNpcConversationRespond and OnNpcConversationResponded, deprecates OnBallistaGunReload in favour of OnMountedWeaponReload, and adds OnLivestockAnimalClaim plus OnEntityTakeDamage and OnEntityDeath hooks for the MonumentBlocker. Plugins built on the changed hooks need an update from their author.

The time in your zone

Facepunch keeps the same clock every month. When it moved its naval update from the December 2025 patch to 5 February, its Chief Operations Officer still announced the wipe-only patch for "the regular time of 19:00 GMT" (Getting It Right). The in-game wipe timer counts down to the "First Thursday every month at 19:00 (London time)" by default (Facepunch wiki). The UK moved from BST to GMT on 25 October, as Facepunch reminded players in its Halloween 2026 devblog, and the US changed its clocks on 1 November. So this was the table for 5 November, and it holds for the next update on Thursday 3 December as well:

The announcement usually shows up a little earlier. This year Facepunch's Steam announcements for the monthly updates went up between 12 and 36 minutes before 19:00 London time; in November it was 18:24 UTC (announcement list). So from about 18:20 UTC it is worth refreshing rust.facepunch.com/news. For communities in India, Singapore or Australia this is a night or early morning update, so decide in advance who stays up for it.

Map wipe, blueprint wipe and the files behind them

Everything a Rust server keeps lives in its identity folder, server/<identity>/. Facepunch's wiki page on that folder lists what the files hold:

The database files carry a -wal file next to them, because Rust writes them with journaling. The number before the extension is what makes a forced wipe work. In the wiki's words, it "increases at a forced wipe forcing your server to create a new one and not use the old. Generally it only happens with the sav file because they only force a map wipe. If you wanted to force a blueprint wipe you would need to delete the blueprints file at the same time."

So after the update your server starts a fresh map on its own. Delete the old .map and .sav files anyway once your backup is safe: it keeps the disk clean and nobody restores the wrong file by accident. Do not try to keep the old world by renaming the save; the same page calls that "dangerous and ill-advised".

Blueprints

Blueprints are the part your players care about. Last November Facepunch forced a blueprint wipe on every server: "Today, we're wiping all Blueprints, wiping all servers", it wrote in the Pivot or Die devblog of 6 November 2025. To its own question whether that would happen every month, it answered: "Maybe. We're not committing to anything yet." None of the ten monthly devblogs from January to October 2026 announced another forced blueprint wipe, and the November 2026 devblog does not mention one either. Its Blueprint Rework changes the currencies for the tech trees; it says nothing about removing what players already learned. Some owners wipe blueprints anyway so that everyone starts on the new tech trees together. That is a call for your community, not something the update requires.

If the choice is yours:

• Map only. Players keep what they learned. Delete the old .map, .sav and .sav.* files and keep the blueprints file.
• Map and blueprints. Also delete player.blueprints.*.db and its -wal file before the first start on the new build.
• Full reset. The other player.* files go as well. Removing player.tokens means everyone pairs Rust+ again.

Our wipe day checklist has the delete commands for a map wipe and for a map and blueprint wipe.

For a different map, set a new server.seed before the first start, or server.levelurl for a custom map. Procedural maps carry the size and the seed in their file name, so a new seed gives you a new map file.

Oxide and Carbon: the order on update night

Game files first, framework second. Facepunch's server guide says about Oxide: "Any time there is a server update oxide will come out with an update shortly after. You must do this every time the server is updated." Oxide's install guide puts it shorter: "Don't mismatch version of Oxide and version of servers."

Oxide. On monthly update nights Oxide is rarely what you wait for. In 2026 it published its build for every monthly update before 19:00 London time, between 12 and 38 minutes early: 18:37 UTC on 5 February, 17:33 UTC on 1 October, when London was still on summer time, and 18:33 UTC on 5 November (Oxide.Rust releases). What you wait for is Facepunch's patch on the public branch. Update the server files first, with SteamCMD app 258550 and the -beta public switch Oxide's guide asks for, then extract the new Oxide.Rust.zip (Windows) or Oxide.Rust-linux.zip (Linux) on top. The other way round leaves you with vanilla files, because updating the game puts them back.

Carbon. Carbon's update docs say it releases "the production build for the Rust wipe update 1 hour before the actual Rust server update drops". In November the production build on GitHub is stamped 18:34 UTC, ten minutes after Facepunch's Steam announcement, so check the release page rather than counting on the hour. With SelfUpdating enabled in carbon/config.json, Carbon updates itself when the server starts, but "Carbon only self updates if you update to the latest Rust version". Same order, then: update the game, start the server and let Carbon catch up, or download the production build and unpack it in the server root yourself.

A quick check that the build matches. Oxide writes the Rust build in brackets in its release notes: 2634.289.1 for 1 October. In 2026 the middle number went up at every monthly update and stayed the same for hotfixes and for the Halloween patch (2635.289.1), so a new middle number is a good sign that the save version changed. That is our reading of the release notes, not an official rule. For November, Oxide 2.0.7888 names Rust build 2636.290.1: the middle number went from 289 to 290, in line with the forced map wipe.

If you are still choosing between the two frameworks, our Carbon vs Oxide comparison covers the differences.

Checklist for wipe night

1. The day before. Post the time table in your Discord. In the last 24 hours of a wipe cycle the server starts two endgame events, F-15E jets over the island and Bradley APCs on the roads; setting eventschedulewipeoffset.event_hours_before_wipe to 0 turns them off. Run wipetimer.printwipe to see when your server thinks the wipe is. The defaults are wipetimer.wipedayofweek 4, wipetimer.wipehourofday 19 and wipetimer.wipetimezone Europe/London, as the wipe timer page explains.
2. Pause anything automatic. Scheduled restarts and wipe tools should not fire halfway through. If you run Oxide, make sure your start script does not run SteamCMD on boot; Facepunch's guide warns that "your files will be reverted back to vanilla."
3. Save and stop shortly before 19:00 UTC: server.save, then stop the server from the panel or with quit.
4. Back up the whole identity folder and the oxide or carbon folder with its plugins, configs and data. If a plugin stores data in an external database, back that up too. Keep the copy off the server.
5. Update the game once Facepunch's patch is out, then update the framework as described above.
6. Wipe the files you decided to wipe, and set a new server.seed if you want a new map.
7. Start and read the console. oxide.version or c.version shows the framework build, oxide.plugins or c.plugins what loaded (Oxide commands, Carbon commands).
8. Test your plugins before anyone else joins (next section).
9. Open and announce. Join with your own updated client first, then open the server and post that it is live.
10. Keep the backup until the new wipe has run for a few days without surprises.

The longer routine around monthly updates is in our update playbook.

Test your plugins before you open

Plugins fail on wipe day for two reasons: the game changed under them, or their saved data no longer fits a fresh map. In November there is a third: anything that gives out scrap or blueprint fragments now feeds the reworked tech trees.

• Know which plugins can keep the server closed. Anything that enforces your rules, such as team limits, permissions, the economy or anti-cheat, has to work before you open. Cosmetic and convenience plugins can wait.
• Try the update before it ships. Facepunch's beta branches are there for owners who want "to test new features not released to the public", and its server guide shows the switch for staging: app_update 258550 -beta staging. Carbon publishes a build for that branch (v2.3.1500 from 24 October 2026 was the newest when we checked before the update), with its own warning that it "might and probably will be very unstable". A spare test server on staging, with copies of your plugins and none of your production saves, shows what breaks before the evening itself.
• Read the first start. Compile errors appear while the framework loads plugins. Check the plugin's page for an update before you change anything yourself.
• Park what is broken. Unload an optional plugin with oxide.unload Name or c.unload Name, tell your players, and bring it back with oxide.reload Name or c.reload Name once the author ships a fix.
• Check plugin data. Kit cooldowns, shop balances, stats and clans live in the framework's data folder. Plugins that use Oxide's OnNewSave hook can reset themselves: Rust calls it when the server starts and finds no save file to load, which is exactly what a wipe does. For the others, decide per plugin what resets and what carries over.
• Join and test with your own client: blueprints if you kept them, the new workbench costs, teams, kits and the shop.

Why wipe day is the easiest day to move hosts

Moving a Rust server in the middle of a wipe means moving a live world: a .sav file that changes at every save, a map that keeps filling up with bases, and players who notice every minute of downtime. On wipe day all of that is gone. The map resets anyway, so what you carry over is small:

• cfg/ with server.cfg, your admins and your bans
• the oxide or carbon folder: plugins, their configs and the data you keep
• player.blueprints.*.db if you keep blueprints (skip it if this wipe resets them)
• your startup settings: hostname, description, header image, world size, seed or server.levelurl. If your current host keeps them as startup options rather than in server.cfg, copy them by hand

Your players expect the server to be down that evening, so the new IP and port go into the same announcement as the wipe time. If you missed this wipe, the next forced one is expected on Thursday 3 December. A plan that works:

1. Order the new server a few days before the wipe. Install Oxide, or Carbon if the new host supports it, and upload your plugins and configs, so the only thing left on the evening is the update itself.
2. On wipe night, stop the old server, back it up, and copy the blueprints file (if you keep blueprints) and the latest plugin data across.
3. Update the new server to the current build, install the matching Oxide or Carbon build, start it and run the plugin tests above.
4. Announce the new address in Discord and on the server listing sites you use. Keep the old server stopped, not deleted, until the new one has run a few days.

Our migration guide walks through the move step by step.

If you want to move to us, Rust server hosting starts at €10.20 a month for the STONE plan with 8 GB RAM (€11.00 in the USA), with Oxide (uMod) support, NVMe storage and DDoS protection. You pick the region in the plan selector: Europe, Canada, the USA, Singapore, India or Australia. Our Rust plans are set up for Oxide; if your server runs on Carbon, ask us in live chat before you order. You upload files in the panel's file manager or over SFTP. If you would rather not move the files yourself, the order form has a one-time Server migration option for €15: "We move your existing server and files to Space-Node for you." Order a few days before wipe day so there is time to plan the switch with us. Support is online by live chat, Discord and email from 08:00 to 20:00 UTC every day, so the 19:00 UTC patch falls in the last hour; ask your questions earlier in the day.

FAQ

When was the Rust force wipe in November 2026?

Thursday 5 November 2026. Facepunch's Steam announcement went up at 18:24 UTC, and Oxide and Carbon followed at 18:33 and 18:34 UTC. The monthly slot is 19:00 London time, which in November is 19:00 UTC, 20:00 in Amsterdam, 14:00 in New York and 11:00 in Los Angeles.

Does the November 2026 update wipe blueprints?

No. The Printed and Polished devblog announces a Blueprint Rework, with fragments, pages and books as the new tech tree currencies, but no blueprint wipe, so keeping or wiping blueprints is your choice. Facepunch last forced a blueprint wipe in November 2025.

Which Oxide build is for the November 2026 update?

Oxide 2.0.7888, published at 18:33 UTC on 5 November for Rust build 2636.290.1. In 2026 Oxide's monthly builds came out between 12 and 38 minutes before 19:00 London time, so you usually wait for Facepunch's patch, not for Oxide. Update the game files first, then install Oxide.

Do I have to delete the map files on a forced wipe?

No. The save version in the file names changes, so the server creates a new map and ignores the old files. Delete them after your backup anyway, so they do not take up disk space or get restored by mistake.

Is wipe day a good time to switch Rust hosts?

It is the best day for it. The map resets anyway, so you only move configs, plugins, plugin data and, if you keep them, the blueprints file. Players expect downtime that evening, and the new IP goes into the same announcement as the wipe. The next forced wipe is expected on Thursday 3 December 2026.

Related guides: Rust Halloween update checklist | Rust wipe day checklist | Rust wipe schedules | Moving a Rust server to a new host