Eco News

[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]

[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]

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.

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

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))