Picking a Rust server: wipes, rates and group limits

The single most useful fact about a Rust server is not its rank. It is when it last wiped.

The wipe decides everything

A server wiped yesterday and the same server three weeks later are different products. On day one everybody is naked on the beach; on day twenty the map is divided between established groups with stocked bases. Neither is wrong, but joining the second while expecting the first is a wasted evening.

Because of that, we track wipes separately from the ranking. A vote-based toplist structurally cannot show you this - a wipe changes everything about a server and nothing about its votes.

Forced wipe is the exception nobody chooses: when Facepunch ships the monthly update on the first Thursday, every server wipes whether its owner planned to or not. Any server's schedule is really a schedule between forced wipes.

Reading the rates

Rates on this site are entered as a number, not picked from a list, so what you see is what the owner runs. Roughly:

• x1 is vanilla. Everything takes as long as Facepunch intended.
• x2-x3 takes the edge off farming without changing how raids work.
• x5 and up shifts the game towards fighting rather than gathering. Expect to be raided sooner and to rebuild faster.

Rates and wipe cycle interact: a x1 server on a weekly wipe rarely gets anyone to endgame, and a x10 server on a monthly wipe is finished in a week.

Group limits

A solo-duo-trio server is a genuinely different game from a no-limit one, and it is the setting most often ignored by people who then complain about being zerged. If a listing does not say, assume no limit.

What to check before joining

1. When did it wipe, and how often does it?
2. What are the gather and smelt rates?
3. Is there a group limit, and is it enforced?
4. What does the shop sell? Anything affecting combat is worth knowing about.
5. Is the player count we measured actually recent?

No servers listed for this game yet.