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Eco News

Maintenance Update 11.1.13 released!

[p]Hey Citizens,[/p][p]we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.13 with the following changes:[/p][p][/p][h3]Civics:[/h3]
  • [p]Added: The new game value "House Value at Deed" intended for usage in rent calculations, allowing to select either the deed the recurring rent transfer is related to or a manually selected deed.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed: The option to round values in laws didn't work correctly.[/p]
[p][/p][h3]Gameplay:[/h3]
  • [p]Fixed: An issue that allowed to bypass the maximum carry weight for the inventory.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed: Expired loan contracts didn't complete when they were paid off if the server was restarted between expiration and paying off.[/p]
[p][/p][h3]UI:[/h3]
  • [p]Fixed: The displayed influence range of draft settlements in shadow placement mode didn't equal the actual influence range in which placement is possible.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed: The displayed time until meteor impact could differ between the display below the meteor and the /met command showing the remaining time.[/p]
[p][/p][h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • [p]Fixed: A room system related crash that could appear when using specific mods.[/p]
[p][/p][h3]Server & Configs[/h3][p]Civics.template.eco[/p]
  • [p]Added: "AllowLawsToPreventReputationTransfer" config variable, determining if laws can block the transfer of reputation - defaults to false.[/p]

Maintenance Update 11.1.12 released!

Hey Citizens,
we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.12 with the following changes:

[h3]Civics:[/h3]
  • Fixed: A server crash that could happen when a secession election ended successfully.
  • Fixed: A citizen of a higher-tier settlement that placed the foundation of a lower-tier settlement would lose the citizenship of the newly placed draft settlement when moving their homestead, also losing the draft Mayor title - this led to the settlement becoming unconfigurable. Instead, the player can now keep the citizenship of the draft settlement as long as the homestead was moved within its theoretical influence.

[h3]Gameplay:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Authorized users on a table could change the repair bounty settings, allowing them to set the price the owner pays for a repair bounty and fulfill it for that price.
  • Fixed: An exploit that allowed to retain an outdoor room despite industrial objects being present by placing the outdoor objects on top of the industrial objects.
  • Fixed: Authorized citizens were unable to consume items stored inside a storage object.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
  • Fixed: The crafting UI didn't display set crafting fees to the player.
  • Fixed: Item tooltips didn't display the names of stores buying or selling the item.
  • Fixed: The reputation tooltip did no longer display its contents when a reputation message exceeding 80 characters was present.

[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Server achievements didn't persist through server restarts anymore.
  • Fixed: Marketplace purchases could fail on servers with specific currency denominators.
  • Improved: Introduced simple culling for lights, improving FPS in crowded towns.

[h3]Server & Configs[/h3]
  • Changed: Rebalanced defaults for "WeightCultureByPercentOfNeighboringPlotsChildSettlement" and "WeightCultureByPercentOfNeighboringPlotsSiblingSettlement" in Settlements.eco to make annexation of properties at borders much harder. Administrators that want to apply these changes need to update their Settlements.eco file.
WorldGenerator.template.eco
  • Added: "MaxGenerationHeight" config variable, determining the maximum height terrain will have after world generation - defaults to 120.
  • Added: "MaxBuildHeight" config variable, determining up to which height players can place blocks. Changes take effect even after world generation, but this variable cannot be reduced below a value once it has been set. The value underlies limits depending on the world size and must be set with care - defaults to 160.
  • Removed: "WorldHeight" config variable, as it has been split into the above.

Eco 12 Preview

Hello Eco Citizens!

The journey towards Eco 1.0 continues, and the team is incredibly excited about the progress we're making. We know you're all eager to hear what's cooking, so we wanted to share a few key features and improvements we've been working on recently.

[h2]Free Placement
[/h2]
For a long time, we (and many of you!) have felt the constraints of the rigid placement grid. Remember trying to make a room feel just right, only to be forced into unnatural alignment against a wall? We're thrilled to announce the upcoming ability to place most objects freely, independent of the world grid. This opens up enormous possibilities for interior design, workshop organization, and general world decoration.


We're finally enabling placement on top of other surfaces, like tables. Imagine setting a table with tools, decorative items, or even food.


You'll also gain significantly more control over object rotation, allowing for truly nuanced and personalized arrangements.


We've already been blown away by the incredible scenes players have crafted even with the old limitations. We genuinely cannot wait to see the astounding creativity you'll unleash with this newfound freedom!

[h2]Selling Directly From Surfaces
[/h2]Now that you can place objects directly on surfaces, you can also mark these placed objects for sale. You’ll be able to visually stock a store and have customers interact and purchase directly from the objects themselves. It’ll even automatically display pricetags on placed items that are marked for sale.


[h2]Dinner Parties
[/h2]Placing food on tables also allows a new gameplay feature, Dinner Parties! Yes, you'll soon be able to lay out a proper feast. This isn't just about aesthetics; it's about fostering community and culture. Host elaborate dinner parties for your neighbours, share a simple meal with a friend, or organize grand diplomatic banquets for citizens across the globe.



While we'll dive into the specifics in a dedicated future post, we can tease that these gatherings are more than just role-playing opportunities. Sharing food and participating in these social events will carry tangible cultural significance within the game, with multipliers when you bring together people from neighboring settlements, adding another layer to Eco's societal simulation. Stay tuned for more details!

[h2]Animal Husbandry[/h2]
We've also embarked on the development of a long-requested feature: Animal Husbandry! Here's a sneak peek at some of the new assets:


This is just the beginning of bringing domesticated animals to Eco, offering new pathways for sustainable food production and resource management. This will be in a later update, after the others mentioned above.

[h2]Looking Ahead
[/h2]These are just a few highlights of what we've been working on as we push towards Eco 1.0. Our goal is to make the world of Eco richer, more interactive, and provide you, the players, with even more tools to build, collaborate, and shape your environment and society.

We're incredibly grateful for your continued support and passion for Eco. Keep an eye out for more updates, and as always, happy building!

Best, The Strange Loop Games Team

Maintenance Update 11.1.11 released!

Hey Citizens,
we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.11 with the following changes:

[h3]Civics:[/h3]
  • Added: The unpreventable trigger "Settlement Founded", allowing to create laws that act on the founding of a settlement.
  • Changed: Tree Debris is now available as a selectable block for the "Drop or Pickup Block" trigger, before it was only selectable by choosing "Any".
  • Fixed: Assigning two titles as the holder of the respective other one created a loop that led to a server crash, it is no longer possible to do that.

[h3]Gameplay:[/h3]
  • Changed: Modules can no longer be removed from a crafting table when there are queued crafting projects.
  • Changed: The tooltip of pump jacks no longer shows the value of the oil layer at the players current position when the oil layer is configured to be hidden until the respective specialty was discovered.
  • Fixed: Consolidating a storage that contained multiple identical steam tractor modules would link the durability between them.
  • Fixed: Power generators did not consume part durability.
  • Fixed: Skill Books and Skill Scrolls stored in a vehicle that was transferred to a different owner could still be used by the prior owner without having authorization to do so.

[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Changed: The icon of the player on the map now stays smaller when zooming.
  • Fixed: Players could get stuck when connecting to a server indefinitely if their username triggered the profanity filter of that server. The game will now correctly present an error message in that case and cancel the connection attempt.
  • Fixed: An issue that could lead to platform invites (Discord, Steam) not working, showing a "Disconnected" error instead of establishing the connection. Note that establishing connection via invites can take a bit longer than direct joining, please allow it some time.
  • Fixed: The client could be disconnected from the server with an exception when mounting a vehicle while construction placement is active.
  • Fixed: The chat allowed the usage of some HTML tags that were not intended to be usable, leading to display and performance issues with the chat for everyone on the server. Only the tags listed on the text markup section of the wiki are now usable in the chat. (Known issue: If you paste invalid HTML code into the chat, you will no longer be able to see what you type in chat until reconnecting, this will be fixed in a separate update)
  • Fixed: Multiple display issues like overlapping UI elements when using aspect ratios other than 16:9.
  • Fixed: Twitch drops that provide blueprints no longer cause an empty box to appear in the void storage that cannot be removed and led to the void storage icon being permanently present. This fix is not retroactive and only applies once a new world is joined.
  • Fixed: Copying the ID from a tooltip tended to copy a number that wasn't equal to the ID shown in the tooltip.
  • Fixed: In places a number of Eco credits is displayed, the unit separators were not functioning correctly.
  • Improved: Some small optimizations improving FPS for players on larger servers.

[h3]Voice Chat:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Some issues that prevented establishing a connection to the voice chat servers.
  • Fixed: After a voice chat got cut off due to leaving the audible distance, it was possible that the connection to the voice chat servers was lost and voice chat hence not being possible until a game restart.
  • Fixed: After clicking the icon to mute a player it was not possible to click it again without reopening the UI.
  • Fixed: Spatial audio wasn't working correctly.
  • Fixed: The Voice Input Device dropdown could show incorrect devices.
  • Fixed: Input and Output volumes were wrongly set after the last Vivox update, they will reset to the default values with this Eco update.

[h3]Server & Configs[/h3]
  • Improved: The server settings for the voice chat that priorly had no effect are now functional and listed as "Added" below.
Balance.template.eco
  • Changed: "FuelMultiplier" config variable, determining the fuel yield per unit, now correctly increases effective fuel consumption for values below 1 and decreases it for values above 1 as its description notes.
Civics.template.eco
  • Changed: "RecurringTransferFrequencyInMinutes" config variable, determining the frequency of reccuring transfers, now defaults to 60 to be in line with the information shown in in-game UI's.
Voice.template.eco
  • Added: "AudibleDistance" config variable, determining the maximum distance away from a speaker that a listener can hear the speaker. - defaults to 32.
  • Added: "ConversationalDistance" config variable, determining the range within which a speaker’s audio remains at its original volume, and beyond which the loudness of the voice chat starts to fade out when heard - defaults to 3.
  • Added: "AudioFadeModel" config variable, determining the formula or curve that controls the shape of how the audio fades between the Conversational Distance and the Audible Distance - accepts InverseByDistance (Fades voice quickly at first, buts slows down as you get further from conversational distance), LinearByDistance (Fades voice slowly at first, but speeds up as you get further from conversational distance) and ExponentialByDistance (Voice within conversational distance is louder, but fades quickly beyond it) and defaults to ExponentialByDistance.
  • Added: "AudioFadeIntensityByDistance" config variable, determining the amplitude of the curve to make the attenuation of the voice chat loudness more or less extreme - defaults 1.
  • Developers Note:
    When customizing distance values, consider the following guidelines:

    ConversationalDistance is the distance from the listener at which a speaker’s voice is heard at its original volume. This must be an integer in the range 0
    When using the default AudioFadeModel value, if you want voice chat to naturally fade to near zero loudness at the edge of the AudibleDistance so it doesn't sound like it's being abruptly cut off, then set the AudibleDistance to a minimum of: 32 × ConversationalDistance ÷ AudioFadeIntensityByDistance.

    When using the ExponentialByDistance AudioFadeModel, it's recommended that you keep the ConversationalDistance value at 1 or greater and adjust the value of the AudioFadeIntensityByDistance property based on the following formula: AudioFadeIntensityByDistance = 3 ÷ (1 + 1.75 × log10(ConversationalDistance))

Maintenance Update 11.1.10 released!

Hey Citizens,
we have just released Maintenance Update 11.1.10 with the following changes:

[h3]Balance:[/h3]
  • Changed: Elevators now lose ten times less durability than before when used.
  • Changed: Industrial Mill is now crafted at the Electric Machinist table.
  • Changed: Cyan Powder recipe now requires Milling and is made on an Industrial Mill.
  • Changed: Processed Flour recipe now creates Cereal Germ as a byproduct.
  • Fixed: Industrial Mill did not consume fuel as intended.

[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Fixed: It was possible to place objects underwater that weren't intended to be placed there.
  • Fixed: A templating issue when a item had both a parent and multiple crafting stations in the techtree, relevant for modders.
  • Fixed: A spelling error in VehicleScoopHandlerComponent, relevant for modders - make sure to update any override files for vehicles.
  • Fixed: An issue with items that require a blueprint and are crafted on multiple crafting tables, relevant for modders - make sure to update any override files for recipes.

In celebration of this year's season of the "Un monde incroyaux" roleplay server, this update also adds the Banana Rug and the Banana Shirt to the marketplace, one free blueprint of both again being available as a Twitch drop from February 28 to March 28. For more details, check out our twitch drop page.