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Eco News

Update 9.7.13 released!

Hey Citizens,
we've just released Update 9.7.13 to address the following issues:

[h3]Civics:[/h3]
  • Added: A limit of 5000 characters for election speeches was added to prevent errors in the server log for too long text.
  • Fixed: Triggering a law that records a custom stat with a name length of less than three characters would disconnect the client from the server.
  • Fixed: As a landlord, changing the bank account a rent goes to had no effect until the renter left residency and rented it again.
  • Fixed: An issue with specific laws that caused the boot time of the server to become extremely long.


[h3]Art & Effects:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Texture and highlight for urchin plants were not displayed correctly.
  • Fixed: Sound effects were not playing when moving through plants.
  • Fixed: Harvest animations were not playing for plants.
  • Fixed: Trees did not have wind animations.


[h3]Gameplay:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Debris and plants were not slowing down players and vehicles as intended.


[h3]Interaction:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Several issues with tree trunk physics that could have a multitude of potential negative effects, from them falling underground to catapulting players to space.
  • Fixed: An issue that in specific circumstances could lead to the creation of untargetable ghost rubbles.
  • Fixed: The interaction area for papaya plants was too small.


[h3]UI:[/h3]
  • Fixed: In specific circumstances food items in storages would not show or show a wrong shelf life bar until they were moved around.


[h3]Server:[/h3]
  • Fixed: A cause for vehicles teleporting across the world was identified and fixed.
  • Updated: ModKit.eco.template was updated.


[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Players that had specific special characters in their name would get a unity crash when joining a world.
  • Fixed: Crafting and repairing items did not work when a player with a single-letter name existed in the world.
  • Fixed: Debris and some plants could get rendered at a position they don't exist, leading to invisible debris and plants at the place they actually exist and untargetable debris and plants at the place they pretended to exist.

Hotfix 9.7.12 released!

Hey Citizens,
Update 9.7.12 is now available to address the interaction and physics problems that started to appear after our last update.

As an immediate response, this night we already had replaced Update 9.7.11 with a newer build to prevent the issue from appearing on yet unaffected worlds. Unfortunately that also had the drawback of causing a bit of confusion, as servers had to be updated to the new build without it having a new main version. This update should fix the issue on already affected worlds and restore version continuity.

The root cause for the issue in Update 9.7.11 was a bug that allowed certain objects (rubble, logs, trunks, vehicles, etc.) to drop into invalid, largely negative positions. Only once that actually occured the physics engine malfunctioned, leading to the issues you were experiencing, which is why not everyone was affected and the reports on the problems appeared unusually late. This update removes any objects with such positions.

Additionally the following issues have been addressed:
  • Fixed: Notifications for changed votes weren't sent globally as intended.
  • Fixed: It was possible for players being unable to exit vehicles that got stuck, but didn't fall over.

We wish to thank you for your patience and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Update 9.7.11 released!

Hey Citizens,
we're releasing Update 9.7.11 to address some issues that appeared in our last update.

[h3]UI:[/h3]
  • Fixed: The shown currency of the store owner didn't update immediately after a change, leading to wrong values being displayed.
  • Fixed: The soil sampler showed wrong yield values for trees that aren't 100% mature.


[h3]Server:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Some players were unable to join servers (on the first try) due to view errors.
  • Fixed: Server logs were reporting errors for physics, despite that should only be enabled in development versions.


[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Fixed: The interaction range of skid steers and excavators was way too high and caused major usability issues.
  • Fixed: Players could crash when harvesting if they didn't skip the tutorials.

Performance Update 9.7.10 released!

Dear Eco Citizens,
we're happy to announce that Update 9.7.10, the last part of our 9.7 Performance Update series, is now available.

In the coming days after the easter holidays we plan to make an early development version of Update 10 available for public testing on the playtest branch. Please note that the official playtest on official server White Tiger will start independently from that a bit later and that this branch may be updated very frequently, up to several times a day. The branch will not guarantee migration yet, neither from prior versions nor between playtest versions. All further information about the playtest will be available on our official discord: https://discord.gg/eco.


We're sorry for the slight delay. Good luck on your egg hunts and please find the changelog below:



[h3]Optimization - Client[/h3]
  • Improved: Optimized plant rendering, making plants faster to appear and more lightweight for the engine.
  • Improved: Heavily optimized the minimap, also addressing several issues with and caused by it.
  • Improved: Several optimizations for chunk, network and view updates - removing duplicate and unnecessary updates, reducing and optimizing sent data.
  • Fixed: An issue that caused micro-freezes on harvesting plants.


[h3]Optimization - Server[/h3]
  • Improved: The amount of notifications sent was vastly decreased by accumulating notifications where possible, removing unnecessary notifications and displaying notifications only to affected players where they are not relevant for anyone else.
  • Improved: Mod file uploads have been limited to one at the same time per user to prevent overwhelming the network. Additionally a configurable limit for how many players can be served with mod downloads at the same time has been added.
  • Improved: Property updates are now sent via broadcasting to all relevant clients in the same network packet instead of having a separate one for every relevant client.
  • Improved: Small optimizations for the login queue.


[h3]Icons[/h3]
The way to display icons without background has changed, it is no longer possible to use lowercase identifiers to achieve this. Instead, the code for icons now has a parameter type="nobg" that can be added to make the icon have no background. Additionally, icons without background do no longer show a border.

For example, on a sign will create this:


[h3]Avatar[/h3]
  • Fixed: The land claim stake was displaying as a untextured white object on the avatar.
  • Fixed: The avatar would hold an arrow in its hand when the player went to sleep while having a bow selected.
  • Fixed: Removing a tool from the hotbar that exists a second time in the hotbar as currently selected tool led to the avatar showing its hands as empty, despite the selected tool still existing.


[h3]Civics[/h3]
  • Improved: Civic name length limit was increased.
  • Fixed: Revised civics would not correctly remove the addition of "Revision" after passing when the law name was too long.
  • Fixed: Old civics that were revised would get multiple "Old" added to their names instead of just a single one and a number.
  • Fixed: Some contract clauses would become invalid in repeatable contracts after it was accepted the first time, preventing players from accepting it several times as intended.
  • Fixed: Contracts could show up with missing description and all entries invalid on contract boards.
  • Fixed: Performing specific actions when creating a contract with nested clauses could lead to a client crash.
  • Fixed: Repeatable contracts could disappear until a server restart after it was completed for the first time.
  • Fixed: Not repeatable contracts would sometimes still be displayed on the contract board despite they were already accepted.


[h3]Economy[/h3]
  • Fixed: Trading with a store which had set a bank account that was deleted in the meanwhile led to a client crash.
  • Fixed: When claiming new land for a deed, the bank account of any stores on the deed was reverted to the one of the owner of the deed.
  • Fixed: Stores owned by an elected title reverted to barter mode and turned off after changes were made to the owning elected title.
  • Fixed: Deeds for sale on a real estate desk were not removed when the deed was deleted.
  • Fixed: Deeds listed on a real estate desk were removed when the deed was owned by a title and there were changes to the holders of the title.


[h3]UI[/h3]
  • Improved: Trees on the edge of the minimap now disappear smoothly.
  • Fixed: After opening the chat while the map is in full screen mode, the map could no longer be closed with the "ESC" button.
  • Fixed: Text in store tooltips could overlap for long item names.
  • Fixed: Hovering over the amount of people with a specific level of a profession in the skill UI would not show a tooltip.
  • Fixed: Several tools were not showing their descriptions.
  • Fixed: Players were receiving a hint to switch their residency to a deed with allegedly more housing value than their current residence, despite that not being true.
  • Fixed: The soil sampler could show wrong info on growth times when growth rates were changed in the configs.
  • Fixed: Food items would sometimes not accurately show the spoilage level until moved.
  • Fixed: Property layer on minimap was not activated by default as intended.
  • Fixed: Shadow placement preview could show objects with wrong colorization.
  • Fixed: The popup that appeared when being kicked from the server due to inactivity showed buttons to report a bug.
  • Fixed: Under rare circumstances it was possible that the map on the Web UI was no longer displayed permanently after a server restart.


[h3]ModKit[/h3]
  • Added: A way to define food items as not spoiling. (Thanks to nid)
  • Added: An option to toggle a vehicle's world object state while driving.
  • Improved: Expanded availability of marked up usernames. (Thanks to nid)


[h3]Balance[/h3]
  • Changed: Harvest yield of kelp was increased by 1.
  • Fixed: Harvesting kelp was not affected by the gathering skill.


[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]
  • Improved: The camera for cart driving was adjusted to remedy a possible motion sickness cause.
  • Improved: Carts do no longer collide with animals.
  • Fixed: The "Clear Vegetation" tutorial could sometimes not be completed.
  • Fixed: Some animal species, like alligators, tended to die out quickly after server setup.
  • Fixed: Food items would sometimes not turn into rotten food despite the remaining shelf life being 0%.
  • Fixed: Under specific circumstances it was possible to interact with world objects through walls and windows.
  • Fixed: Players were unable to leave their vehicle when it fell over and turned upside down.
  • Fixed: When using specific mods it was possible that food items picked up did not start with a shelf life of 100%.
  • Fixed: Plants would sometimes not show fruits, despite being fully mature.
  • Fixed: Some dolphin can be mounted again, also fixing an issue that could lead to players being unable to join an very old migrated worlds.


[h3]Server & Configs[/h3]
  • Added: Command /network setpassword to set or remove a server password during runtime.
  • Fixed: Normally unobtainable settlement objects in a savegame would crash the server.
  • Fixed: Players trading with shop carts caused unnecessary warnings in the server log.
  • Fixed: The command /land remove removed all blocks but the specified blocks instead of the other way round as intended.
  • Fixed: Players sometimes could get stuck at downloading mods.


ModKit.eco
  • Added: "MaxNumberOfDownloadRequests" config variable, defining the number of players that can be served mods at the same time - defaults to 10.

Update 9.7.9 released!

Hey Citizens,
we're releasing Update 9.7.9 to mainly address a memory issue with servers:

[h3]Civics:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Contracts would show an accept button for the creator if they were an admin and cause errors when the payment clause was used.
  • Fixed: Custom Stats containing absurdly high numbers could lead to the server no longer booting.


[h3]Server:[/h3]
  • Fixed: Wrong initialization order that in specific circumstances could lead to the server no longer booting.
  • Fixed: Issues with memory allocation and garbage collection, especially on AMD CPUs with many cores and a tighter memory budget, that could lead to major lags and server crashes.


[h3]Miscellaneous:[/h3]
  • Improved: Clarified description for "GrowthRateModifier" server setting. (Note: There is a known issue with the soil sampler showing incorrect growth times, this will be fixed in Performance Update 3.)
  • Fixed: Removed rooms were never truly removed from their deeds, using unnecessary memory.