Rust
Wipe Countdown
Two clocks run on every Rust server and they are not the same clock. Force wipe is set by Facepunch and lands on the first Thursday of each month with the monthly update; the weekly wipe is whatever your server's admin decided.
How this is calculated
The force wipe countdown is computed from the calendar: the first Thursday of the current month at 19:00 UTC, or next month's if that has already passed. The weekly countdown is simply the next occurrence of the day and hour you set. Both run on your browser's clock against UTC, so the numbers move whether or not you reload.
The arithmetic
- force wipe = first Thursday of the month, 19:00 UTC
- weekly wipe = next chosen weekday at the chosen UTC hour
What people get wrong
Force wipe clears blueprints as well as the map, which is the part that catches people out — a weekly wipe usually leaves your blueprints alone, so the two are not interchangeable. And because Facepunch's update lands at the same moment, servers are frequently down or restarting for a while after 19:00 UTC rather than instantly wiped and playable.