Run your map on a server

What Creator saves is a standard Rust .map file, and a stock Rust server runs one with no mods, no plugins and no extension. This page is how you get it there, and which parts of your map need the server extension to come alive.

Save the map first

1. Use FILE > Save Map (or FILE > Save Map As… for a new name).
2. Take the .map and the sidecar file beside it whenever you copy or move your work.

The sidecar holds the editor-side layers that do not belong in the map itself. A map without its sidecar still loads and still plays; you lose working state, not the world. See The map file and the sidecar.

The two ways to run it

Route	Use it when
Crucible Local Server	You are testing your own map on your own PC. It manages the server, the map library and the delivery for you. See Test in Crucible Local Server.
A Rust dedicated server you run yourself	You are publishing the map for other people to play.

On a dedicated server you run yourself

A Rust server loads a custom map from a URL rather than from its own disk, because every player downloads the map from that URL too.

1. Put the .map file somewhere with a direct download link. Opening the link in a browser must start the download immediately.
2. Add +server.levelurl "<your url>" to the server’s startup line.
3. Remove +server.worldsize and +server.seed. Those two are the procedural-map inputs, and a server told to do both does not do what you want.
4. Start the server. It loads the world once, at startup.

A custom map is loaded from a URL, not from a folder, and every player downloads it from there too.

A broken map URL locks new players out

Players fetch the .map from your URL, not from your server. If the link dies, or if it serves an HTML page instead of starting a download, nobody new can join. Host it somewhere that stays up: a public release on a code-hosting site works, a file-sharing page with a click-through does not.

A file:/// path to your own disk works for a server you connect to locally, and only for you. Other players cannot reach it.

Changing the map on a running server

Stop the server first. It reads the world at startup and nothing else, so a swapped file does nothing until it restarts.

Both the server and every player cache the map they downloaded. If you re-upload an edited map under the same name, give the new file a new name instead (yourmap_v2.map), or clear the cached copy from the server’s identity folder and from each client’s Rust maps folder. A new name is one step and always works.

What a stock server reads

Everything in the standard format. That is most of a map.

What you made	What runs it
Terrain heights, water level and the terrain holes	The server, unmodified
Biomes, ground textures and topology	The server, unmodified
Every placed prefab: monuments, rocks, buildings, deployables	The server, unmodified
Roads, rivers, rails and powerlines	The server, unmodified
Trigger volumes, IO wiring, loot, vending and NPC profiles, ziplines	The server extension
Deep Sea islands, floating cities and ghost ships you placed on the map	The server extension keeps them through every Deep Sea close and shows them to mainland players; without it they are deleted at the first one. Islands and ghost ships can instead be swapped for their art (EDIT menu), which stays on any server
The map’s Deep Sea settings, such as the Tropical look	The extension applies them; without it, paste the .server.cfg file Creator saves beside the map into server.cfg

The bottom row is the part the standard format has no room for. Creator stores it in its own blocks inside the same .map file, where a stock server simply ignores it: the map loads, plays and looks right, and the wiring does nothing. Install the extension and it comes alive. Nothing is lost either way, so you can ship the map first and add the extension later.

Trees, ore and animals

They are not in your map, and they are not supposed to be. Rust spawns vegetation, ore nodes, collectibles and animals at runtime, from the biome and topology layers your map does carry. If a region of your map comes up bare in game, the layers under it are the thing to look at rather than the prefab list. Drizzza’s Rust biomes and topology explained is the page for that, and it applies to any custom map whichever tool built it.

Before you publish it

• Walk the map in game at least once. Floating cliffs, a monument sitting proud of the ground and a zipline that does not connect are all things you see in a minute in game and never see in the editor.
• Check your player spawns. A map with nowhere valid to spawn looks fine until somebody joins.
• If you used the extension’s features, read its boot lines once (the extension prints one census line per block) so you know they applied rather than assuming it.