How To Use A Custom Map

Have you ever wanted to load an amazing looking pre-made custom map on your Rust server? In this article you'll learn how to put one on your server and configure it properly.

Custom Maps

By default Rust server generates a so called Procedural Map, which is randomly generated upon a given seed, which is controlled by a startup variable +server.seed [] and a specified size controlled by a startup variable +server.worldsize [].

In case you are looking to do something different than a regular randomly generated map, you might want to explore Custom Maps. They allow you to load in pre-made maps in order to improve your gameplay. If you have a bit more technical knowledge about Rust map creation you can even make your own Custom Map!

Modifying startup variables

For the custom map you are going to need change your startup variables in the batch file. You can find them in your startup batch file.

Let's start with removing +server.level, +server.seed and +server.worldsize. They are not needed as Custom Maps are already pre-made, thus will not require these parameters.

How to find a Custom Map

The best way to do so is a website called RustMaps. There you can filter them by sizes, biome percentages, amount and type of monuments or even amount of islands, caves and mountains!

Custom Map installation

After you found the perfect map for your server you can go ahead and add it to your custom map url. In order to do that you need to include a new startup variable in our startup batch file. The variable responsible for that is -levelurl "Your Custom Map URL". Don't forget about the "-" at the beginning, or else it's not going to work properly.

On a Pterodactyl based game server control panel you can often find a variable in the startup tab that will allow you to simply place the downloadable file link.

Final steps

After you made changes to your startup batch file save it. If you're done with it, you can restart your server. Do not panic if it takes a bit longer than a normal startup - the server needs to download the map and load it to the files - it takes time.

If you make changes to your map and want to retain player data

There are two viable options to ensure that all players builds and items stay the same. Although these aren't fool proof and may break and cause bugs for some of the progress.

Option 1:

You can delete the .map file and ensure the modified map link has the same map file name.

Option 2:

You can duplicate the .sav files and change the old map file name to the new.