Eco News

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Maintenance Update 12.0.7 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p][h3]Civics:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Elections that failed due to not having enough voters still displayed the player with most votes as winner.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to lower-level settlements influencing a deed despite the option to block such influence being set.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The trigger "Drop Or Pickup Garbage" already triggered when opening a garbage bag, instead of only when something was added to or taken from it.[/p]

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

• [p]Added: A mechanic that reduces the housing score of rooms affected by ground pollution.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Ornate Iron Frame Wide was not affected by diminished returns.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The "Lavish Workspace: Oil Drilling" talent didn't apply to Polishing Paste.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The "Lavish Workspace" talents didn't apply to vehicles.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The "Power Shot: Hunting" talent didn't work.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: An issue that led to manually unlinked storage objects and vehicles automatically getting linked to stores again.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Outpost netting could not be placed on ceilings.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Ceiling objects showed a red highlight in free placement mode despite the placement being valid.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue with boat placement that could lead to them being placed too high or too low depending on if free or grid placement is used.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Food animations could break when eating while sitting in a boat.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: A ghost block could persist after reconnecting while shadow placement was active.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: When exiting a seat on a boat and then mounting a different seat, the avatar would be teleported back into the seat they originally sat on.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Explosions could cause blocks to enter the space occupied by world objects.[/p]
• [p]Improved: The Ecko statue can be mounted again.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Vehicles authorized to "Everyone" do no longer automatically link to stores.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Storage objects outside of deeds do no longer automatically link to stores.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: For recipes with a large amount of ingredients, module reduction notices could overflow into the recipe list.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: In some cases the text on the credit and status tabs could overflow the boundaries of the UI.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Players talking in voice chat were displayed with their Steam ID instead of their username.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: In some cases the economy viewer and tooltips showed a wrong distance to a store.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Trying to pick up an animal carcass while the inventory was full didn't display an error, despite failing.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Trying to leave a work party when already having contributed didn't display an error, despite failing.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The lumber stockpiles didn't show their occupancy in their tooltips.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Clarified the exhaustion tooltip in regard to saving playtime for later use.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Reworked all mentions of tool integrity to better describe how it works.[/p]

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

• [p]Added: A new tutorial explaining dinner parties, appearing after the "Furnish House" tutorial.[/p]
• [p]Added: An "Other Volume" audio slider to control the volume of unity sounds, for example from mods.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to a player being disconnected from the server when an animal died.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to some objects no longer being rendered until reconnecting to the server.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to blocks rendering wrongly, being displayed as a pink block.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that in rare cases could lead to UPnP failure.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Lumber ladders didn't visually change when painted.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Low maintenance smoke effects weren't visible on trucks that have items stored inside them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that prevented modders from hiding biome layers in the map.[/p]
• [p]Improved: When players are invited to residency multiple times due to them for example being part of multiple invited titles, they will now only receive a single invite notification.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Implemented stability improvements for the Avatar customization flow.[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Server & Configs:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to ClimateState data becoming corrupted and reset on world generation.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Servers that have invalid formatting (e.g. spaces) in the setting for the config variable "Playtime" would display an empty server description UI with a greyed out join button.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The Craft Resource Multiplier for the High Collaboration preset was incorrectly set to "0.7" instead of "1.0".[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The position of invisible players wasn't hidden in tooltips.[/p]
• [p]Improved: The profanity filter no longer applies to admin and developer commands.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Several stability improvements for the LiteDB implementation.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Balance.eco.template[/p]

• [p]Removed: "SkillGainMultiplier" config variable due to not providing sufficient capability for balancing, please switch to and use "SkillCostMultiplier" in Difficulty.eco instead.[/p]

[p]InitialSpawn.eco.template[/p]

• [p]Changed: Configuration file and template renamed from "Initial Spawn" to "InitialSpawn" - please make sure to rename your local configuration file.[/p]
• [p]Added: "AdditionalSpawnPoints" config variable, allowing to setup custom spawn points as an array with the properties "Enabled", "Position", "Name", "Description", "Color" and "Priority".[/p]
• [p]Added: "DisplayOnlyAdditionalSpawnPoints" config variable, determining if only the configured additional spawn points should be displayed and selectable - defaults to "false".[/p]

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

• [p]Added: "PaintedBlockTierBonus" config variable, determining by how much the tier of a room increases when every block belonging to it is painted - defaults to "0". The increase of tier happens in a curve - the more blocks are painted, the more the tier increases towards the maximum value configured here.[/p]
• [p]Added: "PaintedBlockHousingBonus" config variable, determining by how much percent the housing score of a room increases when every block belonging to it is painted - defaults to "0.2", equalling 20%. The increase of housing score happens in a curve - the more blocks are painted, the more the housing score increases towards the maximum value configured here.[/p]
• [p]Added: A new category "PollutionPenalty" that contains the settings following below, allowing to reduce the housing score of rooms that are affected by ground pollution.[/p]
• [p]Added: "Enable" config variable, determining if the housing score of rooms affected by ground pollution should be reduced by a housing score reduction curve - defaults to "false", but is planned to be enabled by default in a future update.[/p]
• [p]Added: "PollutionValueWherePenaltyStarts" config variable, determining the average ground pollution value of a room at which its housing score starts to get reduced - defaults to "0.2".[/p]
• [p]Added: "PollutionValueWherePenaltyStopsIncreasing" config variable, determining the average ground pollution value of a room at which the reduction of its housing score reaches the maximum - defaults to "2.0".[/p]
• [p]Added: "MinPenaltyPercent" config variable, determining the minimum reduction of housing score in percent - defaults to "0.0", equalling 0%. This is the start value of the housing score reduction curve.[/p]
• [p]Added: "MaxPenaltyPercent" config variable, determining the maximum reduction of housing score in percent - defaults to "0.25", equalling 25%. This is the end value of the housing score reduction curve.[/p]
• [p]Added: "PenaltyScalingMode" config variable, determining by what method the housing score reduction curve is calculated in relation to the ground pollution value - accepts "Linear" (Constant increase), "Exponential" (Slow increase at the start, fast increase towards the end), "Logarithmic" (Fast increase at the start, slow increase towards the end) and "DoubleSigmoid" (Fast increase at the start and towards the end, but smooth in the middle) and defaults to "Linear".[/p]

[p]Users.eco.template[/p]

• [p]Added: "HidePlayerPositionInTooltip" config variable, determining if positions of players should be hidden in tooltips - defaults to "false".[/p]
• [p]Added: "HidePlayerPositionInMinimap" config variable, determining if player markers should be hidden in the minimap - defaults to "false".[/p]

[p]Happy Holidays Citizens![/p][p]The holidays are here, and it’s time to turn your Eco home into a festive masterpiece![/p][p]
[/p][p]With Free Placement unlocked, the only limit is your imagination. Whether you’re all about cozy interiors, stunning exteriors, or a perfect combo of both—this is your moment to show off your design skills.[/p][p][/p][h2]🏆 Prize[/h2][p]1,000 Eco Credits to the winners![/p][p][/p][h2]📅 Contest Duration[/h2][p]Contest runs from today to January 5, 2026.[/p][p]Decorate, snap, and win 1,000 Eco Credits![/p][p][/p][h2]🖼️ How to Enter[/h2][p]The Eco Holiday Decoration Contest is live starting today until January 5, so deck those halls and show us what you’ve got![/p][p]To enter:[/p]

1. [p]Decorate your home interior and exterior with a holiday theme.[/p]
2. [p]Use Free Placement to get creative with layout, details, and atmosphere.[/p]
3. [p]Submit the following screenshots showcasing:[/p]
   • [p]Your Interior[/p]
   • [p]Your Exterior[/p]
4. [p]Send us your screenshots via e-mail to: [email protected][/p]

[p][/p][h2]🧠 Judging Criteria[/h2][p]Entries will be judged based on:[/p]

• [p]Design – Layout, composition, and overall aesthetic[/p]
• [p]Creativity – Unique ideas, clever use of props, and festive flair[/p]
• [p]That Perfect Shot – Lighting, angles, and presentation matter![/p]

[p]Fire up Eco, start decorating, capture that perfect holiday vibe, and send in your submission. Let’s see those homes shine! ✨🎄[/p][p]Good luck, and happy designing![/p][p][/p][p]Note: All screenshot submissions must be taken by the player who created the build. Entries will be screened and verified before judging.[/p]

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Hotfix 12.0.6 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Changed: Items no longer as a preventive measure get automatically reset to 100% durability on server restarts when their durability is higher due to some mods making purposeful use of items with higher durability than 100%.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Objects placed against walls in grid placement mode were frequently not recognized as valid.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An unfinished rebalance of culture calculation was accidentially already enabled, leading to cultural deeds with low-rated pictures and high-rated architecture to not yield relevant culture anymore, while deeds without pictures were not affected.[/p]

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Maintenance Update 12.0.5 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p][h3]Animals:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: Elks frequently attacked the player after being fed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Animals could fall through the world when killed, not providing a carcass.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Animations and movement of fish has been improved.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: It was possible to leave a work party despite already having contributed to it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Holders of an elected title were not reliably removed from the title when they were no longer eligible to hold it due to losing membership in a required demographic.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Settlements that increase their influence to cover a deed bound to a claim stake of a higher-level settlement they are member of will now gain jurisdiction over it and lose it again when the influence no longer covers the deed.[/p]

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

• [p]Changed: Slightly increased yield of the fishing trawler.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The "Lavish Workspace: Tailoring" talent didn't apply to clothes.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Painting blocks didn't reliably update the tier value of the room.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Bathrooms wrongly considered the Outdoor room as a main room when it comes to their 33% limitation for purposes of the calculation of cultural property value.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: An issue that led to disabled objects in a room to nontheless provide housing points.[/p]

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

• [p]Changed: Players that are authorized on an object can now place objects on its surface and also interact with any objects placed on it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Eating while sitting in a vehicle could lead to the avatars' hands getting stuck holding nothing.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Maintenance items could be stacked by consolidating in a storage, potentially resulting in them having more than 100% durability and hence being impossible to sell.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: When using specific resolutions it wasn't possible to scroll to the end of some Ecopedia pages.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Control hints for shadow placement present in the background of an UI affected the cursor within that UI.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The player direction arrow on the map now correctly displays the direction the player moves in, even when the player is sitting in a sideway seat of a boat.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: The elevation of the barges was too high.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Canoes could become lopsided when driving. [/p]
• [p]Fixed: The industrial barge could be turned by running into its railings.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Barges could sink or get stuck in air when its ramps were open while a chunk reload occured.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Truck wheels could visually sink into the ground after dismounting the vehicle.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: An issue that could potentially lead to players being unable to interact with the world after retrieving an item from the void storage.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Elks didn't display their christmas decoration despite the holiday being active.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Server:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: An issue that could lead to the server getting stuck on "Loading ClimateState" when booting.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: It was possible to place objects above the configured maximum placement height.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: It was possible to reduce the configured maximum placement height below a priorly configured value, despite that is not supported and causes a multitude of issues.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Thank you for your support! We wish you happy holidays and great start into 2026![/p]

[h3]Hey Citizens,[/h3][p]we have just released Maintenance Update 12.0.4 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p][h3]Animals:[/h3]

• [p]Changed: Predators hunting prey will now flee if their prey is still alive after a couple of successful attacks.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Animals died instantly when touching water.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Wolves were hard to hit reliably with arrows.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Elks sometimes didn't drop a carcass when killed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Players couldn't pick up carcasses from animals that weren't killed by them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Animals could sometimes get stuck in the ground.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Dead animals sometimes appeared alive for other clients.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Animal carcasses sometimes disappeared too fast.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Jaguars could get stuck in an attack animation when the player walked away the moment the jaguar wanted to attack.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Multiple instances of "glitchy" animal attack animations.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Multiple improvements were made to animal hitboxes, especially during animations.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Extended attack range of animals by 20% to prevent them circling around the player.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Animals will now switch from running to walking when reaching attack range to prevent weird strafes around the player.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: It was possible to delete articles of a constitution that is already in election for ratification, subsequently allowing a settlement to be founded that has no constitution and as such is not managable.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Picking up a government office that had previously orphaned titles attached to it would cause those titles to be deleted instead of reorphaned. In draft settlements this could lead to the default mayor title being deleted and access to the foundation and its deed hence being lost, making it impossible to manage the settlement. [/p]
• [p]Fixed: Wages for elected titles that were configured to only be paid for online hours were also paid for offline hours.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: Blocks and objects could under specific circumstances become invisible until a server restart when placed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Items that aren't intended to be stackable could be stacked when the stacksize multiplier setting was set different from the default, leading to a multitude of issues.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: It was impossible to put claim papers and stakes back into the settlement foundation when the stacksize multiplier setting was set different from the default.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Decorative objects that were placed between rooms in free placement mode could provide benefits to multiple rooms.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Rubble would sometimes show a red outline and be inaccessible for a short moment before becoming accessible.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The talent "Lavish Workspace" incorrectly also reduced the output of byproducts.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Players can now take part in an unlimited number of dinner parties per day, but only gain bonuses from the best one.[/p]

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

• [p]Added: "Grid placement by default" setting in General -> Game, allowing to invert the default placement mode to grid placement.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Elevators are now always placed in grid placement mode to ensure functional placement.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Ramps are now always placed in grid placement mode to ensure they snap correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Some ceiling objects like the electrical industrial steel ceiling lamp couldn't be placed in grid placement mode.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Fishing in third person view didn't work correctly due to the lure being positioned wrongly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Using a pickaxe to mine blocks while being in an elevator that is currently descending would teleport the elevator back to its default location on top of the elevator shaft, leading to the avatar and everything else on the elevator to fall to the ground.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: An issue that led to tools clipping through the camera after logging into a server.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: When an object emitting light was moved, the light was still emitted at its prior location.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Looms and Small Sinks that were placed in free placement mode hovered above the ground.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Particles emitted by fresh and rotten food placed on surfaces would display too high depending on the distance to the food.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed: The displayed remaining crafting time for a crafting order sometimes reached zero before the order was actually completed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The display of the produced amount of secondary products on their icons in crafting recipes didn't take into account reductions by modules.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Cotton Lint and Flax Fiber crafting recipes didn't display the produced amount of the secondary product on its icon.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The description text for law articles beyond the first one was formatted incorrectly.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Paintings in the economy viewer are now part of the new type "Pictures", making it easier to search for them.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: Barges could easily get stuck on shorelines.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Excavators on barges got permanently stuck once locked in place by closing the ramp.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Tractors with an attached plow were too heavy and could feel unresponsive when used.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Tractors could drive faster than intended when holding ALT or after alt-tabbing out of and into the game again.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Vehicles could appear to hover over ground when logging into a server or entering a new chunk.[/p]

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

• [p]Added: A work in progress admin menu accessible to server admins via the F4 key, allowing to filter, search for and spawn items and to execute some commonly used admin commands with UI assistance.[/p]
• [p]Added: Ability for modders to alter the name displayed above a player's avatar.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Importing the modkit into a new unity project will now delete the default tutorial assets included in Unity 6 that prevent mods from compiling.[/p]
• [p]Changed: RPC errors will no longer be displayed in the chat, except if QA mode is enabled.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Achievements already achieved on a server will now retroactively unlock on Steam when logging into the world they were achieved on.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Hand Plows and Tractor Plows will no longer trigger "Unable to plow a block here" messages when driving over already plowed land.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Consuming a meal at a dinner party will now only play the dinner party sound if it wasn't already played in the last minute.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Updated some outdated information in Ecopedia.[/p]

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

• [p]Fixed: Worlds with a world height above 160 but below 320 could crash or become corrupted.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Servers could show up without a name in the server list when their server name contained specific special characters.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: The command "/elections fail" didn't veto the election to fail it, but instead ended it with a result according to the votes at the time of command execution.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Corrupted claim stakes are now removed on server start instead of crashing the server.[/p]
• [p]Improved: Invalid ecopedia files now print an error in the server log instead of crashing the server. [/p]

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

• [p]Added: "MaxDinnerPartiesPerDayCountedForBonus" config variable, determining from how many dinner parties a player can benefit per day - defaults to 1.[/p]
• [p]Added: "NutritionToCulturePointsMultiplier" config variable, determining the amount of culture points a served meal generates at a dinner party by multiplying its total nutrition value - defaults to 0,1.[/p]
• [p]Removed: "CulturePointsPerFoodItem" config variable, it is replaced by "NutritionToCulturePointsMultiplier".[/p]
• [p]Removed: "DinnerPartiesAllowedPerDay" config variable, it is replaced by "MaxDinnerPartiesPerDayCountedForBonus".[/p]

[p][/p]