Eco News

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Hotfix 12.0.3 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p][h3]Animals:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Animals could spawn in enclosed rooms.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: On larger servers, animals took notably too long to load in.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Animals didn't reliably register hits during specific animations.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Non-Aquatic animals that get stuck in water will now drown if they can't get out.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Audio:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Mining sounds didn't play correctly in first person view.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Adjusted footstep sounds for Bighorn Sheep, Elk and Mountain Goat for easier differentiation from player footstep sounds.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Civics:[/h3]

• [p]Changed: "Tax from All Accounts" will now always first try to tax the Personal Account. [/p]
• [p]Fixed: The setting for "Tax from All Accounts" wasn't respected when set to "No".[/p]
• [p]Fixed: When a tax law used "Tax from All Accounts", it would fail once it unsuccessfully tried to tax an account instead of continuing to the next potential account to tax.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: When a vehicle was sold via the "For Sale" feature it retained the sale settings after being purchased, still being up for sale by the new owner.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Cultural deeds beyond the foundation deed didn't provide influence.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Settlement markers didn't show to other citizens of a settlement.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Destroying a plant by placing an object on it was not caught by the "Harvest or Hunt" trigger.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: A comparison with "Greater than" would show as "Greater than or equal to" in tooltips.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Gameplay:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Chimney requirements for kitchen objects were ignored after a server restart, leading to them providing housing points despite the object not being valid due to not having a chimney.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Dropping a carriable item onto a storage slot of an object that doesn't accept carriable items displayed a wrong error message about the storage being too full instead of it not accepting such items.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Fixed an issue where spoilable fuel burned excessively fast in light sources.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Interaction:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Rocker boxes couldn't be placed directly next to each other in grid placement mode.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: When moving a vehicle with the hammer failed, calories were consumed nontheless.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could cause moving a vehicle with the hammer to fail without a reason.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Eating while pulling a cart resulted in a broken animation.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Hand feeding elk didn't work in third person view.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Wood pulp is no longer highlighted when targeted while holding a carriable block that can be placed. This behaviour could lead players that were also holding an axe and intending to chop the wood pulp to assume that they can chop it despite the chop interaction hint not being visible due to still being too far away to chop it.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Technical:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Some turkish users couldn't see the placement preview for many objects and hence not place them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Another issue that could lead to "SetPath" error messages being spammed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Some graphic options still didn't appear in specific circumstances.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The brightness slider didn't work correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Korean and Russian symbols didn't display in chat.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Non-latin symbols couldn't be used on signs.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could cause achievements to trigger multiple times at the same time.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could cause the laser activation to display once per laser.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Vehicles:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Implemented a potential workaround for Unity bug UUM-117450 that under specific conditions causes the wheels of vehicles to clip into the ground and skid steers to propell into the air.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Vehicles wouldn't stay locked on barges when "Q" was used to lock the ramp while driving instead of interacting with it with "E".[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: The stack size multiplier was applied twice to stockpiles. (This could lead to stacks that no longer fit into the stockpile to be moved to the void storage on migration - in that case, please have the owner of the stockpile check the swirly SLG icon in the bottom right, to the left of the minimap area to get the items back.)[/p]

[p][/p]

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Hotfix 12.0.2 with the following changes:[/p]

• [p]Added: "/teleport toplayer" (with alias /tpto) command was updated and added back.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Mouse sensitivity got set to 0 when specific errors occured.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Brightness could reach unintended values and not update correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Graphic settings could sometimes not load correctly, then not showing all options.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The steam engine showed a bright box instead of effects when turned on.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Custom recipe lists on work tables didn't get saved on the server.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Reduced strength and saturation of rimlights.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Made some adjustments to overall saturation based on player feedback.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Adjusted the night post processing volume curve to properly fade in and out at night time.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Made some tweaks to the directional light curve for more consistent brightness throughout daylight.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Braziers and the Carbide Head Lamp had their lighting strength increased. All other lights will get similar improvements in future updates as well.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Made further adjustments to plant harvest SFX.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Removed a branch crack layer in forest and tundra ambience sounds that was too similar to the broken tool sound.[/p]
• [p]Removed: The "Reflections" graphic setting.[/p]

[p]Hello Eco Citizens,
Update 12 just recently released and we hope you enjoyed your time with the new features so far![/p][p][/p][p]We're celebrating this release with a brand new trailer - check it out:[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]Dinner Party Screenshot Contest[/h2][p]You can join us in the celebrations of Eco 12 by hosting your own cultural dinner party in Eco![/p][p]Dinner parties are more than just a feast - they’re a way to bring citizens together, share stories, and shape the culture of your world![/p][p][/p]

[p]Participating in dinner parties generates culture for the settlement they take place in and provide a notable bonus to the nutrition based experience gain of all participants. This feature is a valuable way to increase the cultural growth of your world by connecting citizens through shared meals.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]How to take part[/h3][p]To participate, simply follow these steps:[/p]

1. [p]Gather a minimum of 2 participants.[/p]
2. [p]Prepare and start a dinner party in your world.[/p]
3. [p]Ensure that all participants are visible in your screenshot.[/p]
4. [p]Make sure the dinner party icon is visible in your screenshot.[/p]
5. [p]Send us your screenshots via e-mail to [email protected] or on the contest posts over on our Discord, Facebook and Reddit.[/p]
6. [p]💬 Bonus: Share the story behind your dinner party - what inspired it, who joined, what location took it place at and what made it special?[/p]

[p]The contest will run until November 9.[/p][p][/p][h3]Criteria of the jury[/h3][p]Our development team will judge your submissions based on:[/p]

• [p]✨ Elegance – How beautiful your dinner setting captures the moment.[/p]
• [p]📷 Composition – Creativity and attention to detail in your screenshot.[/p]
• [p]🍲 Epic Dinner Party! – The overall vibe, fun, and community spirit depicted![/p]
• [p]💬 Story - Dinner between friends? Political meeting? Your story provides bonus points![/p]

[p][/p][h3]Rewards[/h3][p]All winning screenshots will receive:[/p]

• [p]🪙 1 000 Eco Credits – Redeemable for exclusive marketplace items.[/p]

[p]The screenshot we like best additionally receives:[/p]

• [p]🧢 An exclusive Eco Cap featuring your (group’s) logo![/p]

[p](Logo must be provided by you and abide our content policy)[/p][p][/p][p]Gather your friends, set the table and let the feast of creativity begin![/p][p]Show us what culture means in your Eco World. 🌿[/p]

[p]Hey Citizens,[/p][p]we have just released Hotfix 12.0.1 with the following changes:[/p]

• [p]Added: The setting for animal aggressiveness is now available in the ingame settings screen.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Industrial elevators couldn't move when a cart was placed on them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Moving objects with the hammer ignored the placement restrictions.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Some additional edge cases where placement restrictions were ignored.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Shadow placement did not always show the correct color outline when a placement is blocked.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The interaction tooltip when in shadow placement mode didn't show the reason why a placement is blocked.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that led to players being spammed with SetPath error messages.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Multiple causes for errors found in player logfiles.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Achievements that weren't yet achieved didn't display their tooltip on hovering.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue with migration of worlds to Update 12 that could lead to delayed corruption of objects with persistent storage. Objects already affected by this issue unfortunately cannot be restored and will need to be manually reset.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Players that already own a marketplace item can now continue to view its details in the marketplace and purchase it even if they do not fulfill the achievement requirements. (Players were at no time restricted from using their owned items)[/p]
• [p]Improved: Missing blocks at and directly below roofs can count as windows again and do no longer break the roof, which invalidates a room.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Calorie damage and knockback strength from animal attacks significantly decreased.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Adjusted plant harvesting sounds and removed "squishy / wet" SFX.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Server & Configs:[/h3][p]Making the animal settings available in the ingame settings menu required us to move them to a different configuration file - make sure to update your configs if you have already made changes to these settings or simply use the ingame settings menu to set them again.[/p][p][/p][p]Difficulty.template.eco[/p]

• [p]Added: "AnimalAttackPattern" config variable, determining how animals attacks work - defaults to "AttackNormally". Also takes "DefensiveOnly" to replace aggressive behaviour of predators with the defensive behaviour of other animals and "None" to disable animals attacking.[/p]
• [p]Added: "AnimalUnprovokedAttackFrequencyMultiplier" config variable, determining how likely it is that predators will attack players unprovoked - defaults to 1.0. Lower values will reduce the individual attack chance per animal, while higher values will quickly make it go to its maximum.[/p]

[p]Features.template.eco[/p]

• [p]Removed: "AnimalAttackPattern" and "AnimalUnprovokedAttackFrequencyMultiplier" config variables, as they were moved to Difficulty.eco.template.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Known Issues:[/h3]

1. [p]If you are facing an issue where after entering a world for the first time in Update 12 you can't move your camera, please either change your mouse sensivity in the settings, reset your control settings or simply restart the game once to fix it permanently while we're looking into why that happens to some players and make sure to prevent it happening for the future.[/p]
2. [p]If you are facing extreme brightness or saturation, please disable and re-enable the "Reflections" setting (or enable it, if currently disabled) in the graphics settings while we're looking into why those settings did not correctly apply to some players and work on fixing the graphics when reflections are turned off. We are also aware about feedback from some players that consider colours to be unpleasant with correctly working reflections and have created a feedback channel on our discord for affected players to post screenshots to help us with making adjustments to this.[/p]

[p]Hello Eco Citizens,[/p][p]after multiple playtests with the Eco community, we're happy to announce the release of Update 12!
Let's dive right in and take a look at what's new:[/p][p][/p][h2]Free Object Placement[/h2][p]Nearly all objects in Eco can now be placed independent of the world grid and freely rotated, allowing for completely new designs in player homes. Of course you can also still place them aligned to the grid by holding shift, if you so wish.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]This also includes the ability to place a variety of decorations and food on different surfaces - and you can even place furniture on rugs now![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]New Decorations[/h2][p]For you to be able to make the best use of the new free placement ability, we have added a variety of new decorations that you can use to beautify your world, check them out:[/p][p][/p][h2]Selling from Surfaces[/h2][p]The ability to place things on surfaces also allows you to sell items directly from them, instead of having to put them into a store. Simply place what you want to sell on a table and set a price on the table UI - a price sign will appear next to the placed object and other players will be able to directly buy it from the table.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Dinner Parties[/h2][p]With this update comes a new cultural feature - Dinner Parties! They can be started after preparing a variety of fresh out of the oven food and placing it on tables. After starting a dinner party, players have 30 minutes to participate and eat up to three courses on the deed it is hosted on.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The success of a dinner party is determined by the amount of players taking part and the individual taste of all meals consumed - you will want to prepare either a wide variety of food for your guests to choose from or be prepared and know exactly what the favourite foods of your guests are.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Successful dinner parties provide culture to the settlement they took place in as well as a multiplicative nutrition bonus for all participants, increasing the skill gain through nutrition notably. These bonuses decay after some time, so make sure to make your dinner parties a regularly occurring event![/p][p][/p][h2]Reworked Animal Behaviour[/h2][p]For this update we have completely reworked the behaviour of animals in Eco. Most notably, the majority of calculations has been moved to the client, making them more reliable and hunting a better experience. They also got a variety of new animations for smoother movement, try to avoid high player activity areas and can become sick from pollution and hence unsuitable for processing.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Many animals will now appear in herds and exhibit individual behaviours instead of roaming around alone. Predators have a tendency for aggressive behaviour, seeking out prey and occasionally attacking the player. Other animals exhibit solely defensive behaviour where getting too near to or hunting them will make them defend themselves.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Players can scare aggressive animals away by holding a torch and in case of necessity defend themselves with tools as well. The aggressiveness of animals towards players can be limited to defensive behaviour or disabled completely per server if you prefer your game to be completely peaceful. And if you like peaceful things, you might also enjoy a first taste of Animal Husbandry - try to feed an elk:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]Improved Atmosphere[/h2][p]We also have completely replaced the systems for Lighting, Time of Day and Weather and unified them into a single system, allowing for a much improved atmosphere. Check out the different weathers:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]While doing so, we have also adjusted Eco's lighting - take a look at the vibrant daylight and how it lets your builds come to life:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Of course we also adjusted the nights and made them a bit darker, incentivizing the use of artificial lighting by players:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]On top of that, we have added and reworked a large amount of ambient sounds to make the world feel even more lively.[/p][p][/p][h2]New Achievements[/h2][p]With Update 12 we have added a total of 45 new achievements with varying difficulties, coming in different levels for you to chase. Try to get them all![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Release Notes[/h2][h3]General Changes:[/h3]

• [p]Added: Daisy, Tulip and Rose flowers.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Shelf life for all seeds increased significantly.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Shelf life for Flour, Rice Flour, Sugar, Tallow and Wheat increased.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Hanging signs now require to be mounted on a wall.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Windmills now require to be mounted on ground (e.g. on a block below them).[/p]
• [p]Changed: Minimum nutrition amount requirement for a food item to be potentially selected as "worst" taste decreased to 45.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Seats on all government tables can now be mounted.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Painted blocks now provide a bonus to housing experience, up to 20% when all blocks of a room are painted.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Notable Bug Fixes:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: A number of issues that caused barges to sink.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: A number of issues that caused fishing with the fishing rod to be unreliable.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue where loading of world objects took a very long time or stopped completely. [/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that prevented the maximum possible amount of items to be moved to an inventory when trying to move more items than possible, leading to no items being moved at all.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Easel filters didn't apply correctly when creating a painting with it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Equipping a painting tool and sprinting could lead to inability to scroll through the hotbar.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Store icons on the map didn't show their tooltip at the correct position.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that lead to an incorrect display of the time until meteor impact.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Server & Configs:[/h3]

• [p]Added: Validation for world dimension settings, the minimum selectable length and width are now 40, the maximum selectable length and width are now 400. The server will automatically use the maximum possible value and notify about that when values higher than the maximum were configured.[/p]
• [p]Added: Validation for maximum build height depending on world dimension settings. The server will automatically use the maximum possible value and notify about that when an impossible one was configured.[/p]
• [p]Improved: It is now possible to use a maximum build height of up to 320, depending on the world dimension settings. Worlds with dimensions of up to about 250x250 support a maximum build height of 320, beyond that the possible maximum build height decreases.[/p]

[p]Features.template.eco [/p]

• [p]Added: "AnimalAttackPattern" config variable, determining how animals attacks work - defaults to "AttackNormally". Also takes "DefensiveOnly" to replace aggressive behaviour of predators with the defensive behaviour of other animals and "None" to disable animals attacking.[/p]
• [p]Added: "AnimalUnprovokedAttackFrequencyMultiplier" config variable, determining how likely it is that predators will attack players unprovoked - defaults to 1.0. Lower values will reduce the individual attack chance per animal, while higher values will quickly make it go to its maximum.[/p]

[p]Rooms.template.eco [/p]

• [p]Changed: "RoomCategoryDiminishingReturnRate" config variable now defaults to 0.1, decreasing housing experience from additional rooms notably. [/p]

[p]Settlements.template.eco [/p]

• [p]Added: "DinnerPartyConfig" section, which all config variables below are part of.[/p]
• [p]Added: "FreshnessTimeMinutesPreparedFood" config variable, determining how long a food item is considered fresh for dinner parties after crafting - defaults to 60 minutes.[/p]
• [p]Added: "FreshnessTimeMinutesRawFood" config variable, determining how long a raw food item is considered fresh for dinner parties after harvesting - defaults to 720 minutes.[/p]
• [p]Added: "CulturePointsPerFoodItem" config variable, determining how many culture points each eaten meal in dinner parties provide - defaults to 1.[/p]
• [p]Added: "MultiplierForTastiness" config variable, determining the bonus multiplier for each taste level.[/p]
• [p]Added: "SettlementCountMultiplier" config variable, determining the bonus multiplier per amount of different settlements being represented by citizens participating in the dinner party.[/p]
• [p]Added: "DinnerPartyMaxDays" config variable, determining over which time the bonuses from a dinner party decay - defaults to 7 days.[/p]
• [p]Added: "DinnerPartyMinutesDuration" config variable, determining how long a dinner party can run - defaults to 30 minutes.[/p]
• [p]Added: "MaxCoursesPerPlayer" config variable, determining how many meals a player can eat per dinner party - defaults to 3.[/p]
• [p]Added: "DinnerPartiesAllowedPerDay" config variable, determining how many dinner parties a player can participate in per day - defaults to 1.[/p]
• [p]Added: "DinnerPartyCultureToFoodValue" config variable, determining how achieved culture points in dinner parties translate to the nutrition bonus granted.[/p]

[p]Weather.template.eco [/p]

• [p]Removed: "ChancePerMinute", "MaximumWeatherSystemsWeightedByWorldSize", "MinWeatherSystemSize" and "MaxWeatherSystemSize" config variables.[/p]
• [p]Added: "MinClearWeatherDuration" config variable, determining how long the weather must be clear between weather events at minimum - defaults to 10 minutes.[/p]
• [p]Added: "MaxClearWeatherDuration" config variable, determining how long the weather can be clear between weather events at maximum - defaults to 30 minutes.[/p]
• [p]Added: "WeatherWeights" config section, determining the weight of each weather to be selected.[/p]

[p][/p][h2]Outlook[/h2][p]Our focus will now shift back towards some important changes to Eco's core systems, most notably a simplification of modules and an extensive rework for talents in conjunction with a system that will provide a continuous need for new stars that players can invest into different improvements. While we're not ready yet to go into detail for that, the next Update will provide some improvements to the loggers among you that we can already share:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]This is the model of our upcoming log harvester that will allow you to chop, cut and store trees away all in one go. Together with this vehicle we will implement some changes to the acquisition of resources, most notably an increase to resource density by changing trees to provide a larger amount of wood - but also being harder to fell. This will make the harvester especially efficient in its job, without increasing the difficulty for logging in the early game.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for reading and your support, we hope you will enjoy this new update! - Strange Loop Games[/p]