Glossary

The words the game uses, in its own explanations.

From the game's own data, exported 2026-11-12. Wipe Day is in development, so names, prices and numbers still change.

A

Architecture: What kind of processor a machine has. Nearly every server is x86-64. ARM64 boxes have many cores on few watts, but slower ones, and most game servers only run on x86-64: some run under emulation, slower and crashier, the rest not at all.

BMC: A small computer inside a server with its own network port. It shows temperatures and powers the server on or off from the laptop. A gaming board has none.
BMS: The management system in each battery module. It guards the cells, cuts out when the load asks for too much current, and reports to the battery panel over Cat6.
Bonding: Two network cables working as one link. If one cable or switch dies, the other carries on.
Burn-in: Running a used machine hard for a while, to find what is about to fail.

Capacity sold: The share of your machines' load already promised to communities. Past 100% a wipe night will hurt.
Clock speed (GHz): How fast one core runs. A game server's main thread needs a certain speed, shown as the GHz it takes on that machine's own core: below it the server lags, however many cores the machine has. Newer chips do more per GHz, so a 4 GHz new core can beat a 5 GHz old one. Many chips boost above their base clock, and some can be overclocked.
CRC errors: A count of network frames that arrived damaged and were thrown away. When it keeps rising, suspect the cable. A tester on the cable will say what is wrong.
CRPS: Common redundant power supply: a slim hot-swap unit that slides into a server's back. Two make a redundant pair, and either one runs the box alone.
Current rating: The most current a cable can carry all day without running too hot. Sipho wants it a quarter above the most its inverter or UPS can draw.

DAC: A thick copper cable with SFP+ ends built in. It carries 10 Gbps over a short run and needs no modules.
Datacentre card: A graphics card built to run in a server room, such as an L4 or an A6000. Cloud contracts take these and refuse gaming cards.
DC cable: The thick red and black pair that carries battery current from a battery panel to an inverter or UPS. Too thin for its current, it heats up and can catch fire.
DIMM: A stick of memory. A board takes one kind (DDR4 or DDR5, RDIMM or UDIMM) and has a set number of slots, filled one per channel first; a second CPU's slots need that CPU.

ECC: Memory that fixes a flipped bit and reports it. A gaming board may run ECC sticks without reporting anything: unofficial ECC.
Encoder: A part of a graphics card that turns video into a stream for viewers. It uses little power and leaves the game server alone.
Essential: The circuit that runs through the inverter and battery. It stays on in a power cut while the battery lasts.

Failure domain: Everything that dies together: a chassis, a rack, a circuit. A standby in the same domain protects nothing.
Fencing: Switching the old primary off before its standby takes over, so two copies never run at once.
Fibre and surges: Fibre carries light, not current, so a lightning surge can't travel down it. A copper cable can carry one, and so can the mains.
Fibre box: Turns the provider's fibre into a network cable. With no power it gives you no internet.
Filtered tunnel: Sends your traffic through a provider that absorbs attacks before they reach your line.
Forced wipe: On the first Thursday of the month Facepinch resets every Crust server at once and ships its monthly update.

Heat: How much trouble a community attracts: banned cheaters, rivals, drama. The more heat, the likelier an attack.
HostRank: The directory owners use to pick a host. It shows your rating and your uptime.

In series: Batteries joined plus to minus in a chain, so the voltages add instead of the currents: five would make 256 V at 100 A. That takes special high-voltage batteries, so 48 V rack modules are parallel only.
Inference: Running a trained AI model to answer a request. It is what a game's AI characters and the labs' assistants do all day.
Inlet: Where a machine takes in air. Above 35 °C it slows itself down.
Inverter: Runs the essential circuit from the battery when the grid fails. It trips if you ask for more than its rating.

Link speed: A copper link agrees a speed with the port at the other end. A damaged cable can only agree on a slower one, and the port's light turns amber.
Load shedding: The municipality cuts power to your area on a schedule, in blocks of a few hours.

Main thread: The one core that runs a game server's logic. When it is full the server lags, even if the machine has CPU to spare.
Mains: Plain grid power. It goes off the moment the grid does.
mm²: A cable's copper cross-section, in square millimetres. The thicker the copper, the more current it carries before it overheats.

Neatness: How tidy a rack's cabling is. Messy racks run hotter and get roasted on Readit.
Null-route: Drops all traffic to one address. The community under attack goes dark and everyone else is spared.

Optic: A module that turns an SFP+ port into a fibre port. You need one at each end of the fibre.
Oxidised: Crust's plugin framework. Every Facepinch update breaks it until its volunteers catch up.

Parallel: Batteries joined plus to plus and minus to minus. The bank stays at about 51 V and the currents add: five 100 A modules give 500 A. 48 V rack batteries only go in parallel.
PDU: The power strip fitted in a rack. It has a breaker and shows the amps it carries.
POST: Power-on self-test: the checks a machine runs as it starts. On the bench it catches a missing part, a supply too small for the build or a bad stick, and beeps the fault. Then it looks for a drive to boot from.
Prospect: A community that wants to host with you. You choose whether to take them on.
PSU: Power supply: turns the wall's power into what the board runs on. It must carry the build at full load. With two or more, the box must keep running if one fails.

RCON: The remote console an owner uses to run their game server. Anyone with the password can use it.
Reliability score: How dependable the marketplace thinks your card is. Killing a rental or going down lowers it, and a lower score means fewer renters.
RJ45 module: A module that lets an ordinary network cable into an SFP+ port, at 1 Gbps.
RPO: How much recent progress you can lose in a failover. A five minute sync means up to five minutes.
RTO: How long a failover may take before the plan counts it as a breach.
Runbook: The rules Theo follows on wipe night: what to move, cap or cut, and when.

SFP+: A 10 Gbps port. Whatever you plug in, a module or a direct cable, decides what it connects to.
ShedSePush: The phone app that publishes tomorrow's load shedding times for your area.
SLA: A promise with a deadline. On a ticket, how long you have to reply. On a plan, the uptime and recovery time you owe.
SMART: A drive's own health check. A predicted failure means swap it soon.
Standby: A second machine holding a copy of a server, ready to take over if its machine dies.
Surge arrester: A small earthed box fitted in line on an Ethernet cable. A surge from the cable goes to earth in the box instead of through the router's port. It is for copper cables only.

UPS: A battery between the wall and a machine. It bridges short cuts and lets servers shut down cleanly.

VRAM: A graphics card's own memory. AI models and big renders must fit in it, so a card with more VRAM can take bigger jobs.