Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.2 to address the following issues:

Art:

• Fixed: Cotton plants in pots were displayed too small.
• Fixed: Texts on the Steam Truck were displayed wrongly.
• Fixed: Flat Steel Doors were missing their texture.

Balance:

• Changed: Housing points for the Electric Wall Lamp increased to 8 from 2,5.
• Changed: Housing points for the Hanging Electric Wall Lamp to 8 from 2,5.
• Changed: Housing points for the Tallow Wall Lamp to 4 from 2,5.
• Changed: Room volume requirements were removed from all lighting objects, allowing them to be placed anywhere.

Miscellaneous:

• Added: Players can now define per object with storage component if they want newly placed storage objects to be automatically linked with them.
• Changed: Players no longer need to be a citizen of a specific settlement to receive reputation from it via civics.
• Fixed: A server crash that occured when using explosives near bedrock.
• Fixed: A server crash related to room calculations.
• Fixed: Storage filters didn't work reliably after adding persistent filtering to the economy viewer.
• Fixed: Durabilities of multiple, identical items would become linked when using the consolidate button in their storage.
• Fixed: When joining a settlement with a homestead while having unused claimpapers of it stored in the claim stake, these claimpapers could no longer be removed from it.
• Fixed: Abandoning a specialty would show a notification noting a different specialty than the one actually abandoned.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.1.1 to address the following issues:

Civics:

• Fixed: Under specific circumstances disabled civics would revert to draft state after a server restart.
• Fixed: Civics were displayed as invalid and nonfunctional when the settlement system was disabled.

Balance

• Added: Added new recipe for Reinforced Concrete using Sulfur instead of Cement.
• Changed: Removed Crushed Sulfur from Cement recipe, as it stopped progression on migrated worlds.

Interaction:

• Changed: Explosives now fully destroy trees.
• Fixed: A server restart happening during the detonation sequence of an explosive could make the explosive undetonatable.
• Fixed: It was possible to recolor shop carts the player didn't own.
• Fixed: When connecting multiple mining charges to one Remote Detonator the error "Fuse already started." would wrongly pop up multiple times.
• Fixed: When simultaneously selecting a tool and mounting a vehicle the avatar's hands were incorrectly displayed in a position as if it was holding the tool while driving.
• Fixed: The painting ui could show for objects that don't support painting when they were unowned.
• Fixed: It is no longer necessary to stand on the deed to be rated, interacting with the plaque object is sufficient.

Gameplay:

• Added: Tables with broken parts now display a smoke effect.
• Fixed: Shoji Door and Wooden Sliding Door couldn't create closed rooms.
• Fixed: Stump Bed couldn't be used for sleeping.
• Fixed: Plastic Outdoor Bench couldn't be mounted.
• Fixed: Moving in a two block high space with a mounted wood cart was no longer possible.
• Fixed: Selling vehicles via the integrated "For Sale" feature wasn't possible.
• Improved: The default price for listings in stores is now "0" for buying and "999 999" for selling, avoiding potential abuse of accidential misconfiguration. (Thanks to @Spouke)

Miscellaneous:

• Fixed: A graphical issue with the Powered Cart model.
• Fixed: When dynamite started to explode but was prevented by a law, the fuse stayed lit.
• Fixed: The server list didn't show servers with enabled exhaustion by default.
• Fixed: When an object that had crafting orders for items that require blueprints was moved to the void storage, the blueprints were still consumed.
• Fixed: Oil layer data was still accessible through the WebUI when it was supposed to be hidden due to Oil Drilling not having been discovered yet. (Thanks to @JulianMa)
• Improved: The server list now supports filtering servers by "Any Exaustion Setting", "Exhaustion Enabled" and "Exhaustion Disabled".

UI:

• Fixed: The parts tab of world objects showed a placeholder icon.
• Improved: Economy viewer now remembers the selected tab as well as selected filter and sort options.
• Improved: Repairs tab on economy viewer now has a checkbox to only display repairs the player can fulfill.
• Improved: Repairs tab on economy viewer now has a column showing the durability of the part to be repaired.

Hello Eco Citizens, we're happy to announce the immediate availability of Update 11.1, let's take a look at what's new:

Explosives

Painting for land vehicles

Reworked Powered Cart

Extended Maintenance and Repair Bounties

Reworked Tutorial

Log Furniture

Release Notes

Balance

• Added: A new charcoal recipe requiring Peat.
• Changed: Phosphate Fertilizer now requires less Crushed Limestone, but additional Crushed Sulfur.
• Changed: Synthetic Rubber and Rubber Wheels now require Crushed Sulfur.
• Changed: Gasoline, Nylon and Plastic now output Sulfur as a byproduct.
• Changed: Gearbox and Combustion Generator now requires Lubricant.
• Changed: Waterwheel now requires Wooden Hull Planks.
• Changed: Wind Turbine now requires Lubricant and Steel Plates instead of bars.
• Changed: The yield of Garden Gravel and Zen Gardens per craft was reduced to 2.

• Changed: The housing value of Adorned Ashlar Chairs was reduced to 1.7 from 2.
• Changed: The housing value of Adorned Ashlar Tables was reduced to 3 from 3.5.
• Changed: Buntings, Streamers, Paper Lanterns and Limestone Statues are no longer required to be inside of a room.
• Changed: The Paint Mixer now requires a Tier 1.8 room.

• Added: All power generators now have maintenance parts that need to be replaced over time.
• Added: All vehicles but the Small Canoe, Egyptian Canoe, Small Wood Cart and Wheelbarrow now have maintenance parts that need to be replaced over time.
• Added: All parts used for maintenance can now be repaired by different materials.
• Changed: The energy output of all generators has been increased significantly.
• Changed: Wooden Barge and Industrial Barge now have internal storage.
• Changed: By default, the oil layer is no longer displayed until Oil Drilling was discovered.
• Changed: The Electronic Machinist Table now takes a Mining Modern Upgrade.
• Changed: Flax plants now use more fertilizers.

Civics

• Added: An action for laws to trigger on ringing the town bell.
• Added: An action for laws to trigger on the sale of cultural objects.
• Added: Steam Tractor is now selectable for civics in the "Dig or Mine" trigger.
• Added: An option at the immigration desk to set the settlement foundation as spawn point instead of the immigration desk. (Thanks to @silibum)
• Fixed: Compost, Garbage and Tailings were wrongly listed in the "Drop or pickup" trigger instead of the "Dig or Mine" trigger, making it impossible to regulate these activities as they need to be shovelled.
• Fixed: Contracts could sometimes display the "Add clause" button for players that aren't the creator of the contract.
• Fixed: Removed deeds weren't correctly deleted, leading to multiple issues.
• Fixed: The notification about a deed no longer attached to settlement influence didn't note which deed it was about.
• Fixed: The immigration desk setting to become a citizen of the settlement on placement of a homestead was only available if the settlement also allowed players to instantly join directly through the spawn menu. (Thanks to @MonzUn)
• Fixed: Trying to mark a contract as failed despite completed led to an error message kicking the player from the server.
• Fixed: Setting rent cost as value for rent led to a server crash.
• Fixed: Annexation considered all claim papers equal, no matter if it was the required type, leading to issues when trying to conduct an annexation.
• Fixed: Renaming the default mayor title of a settlement created a new treasury, leading to potential further issues.
• Fixed: Deleting a title from the registrar with a setup backup title caused all deeds owned by it to become unowned instead of being transferred to the backup title.
• Fixed: Elected Titles could have themselves set as backup title.
• Fixed: Custom stats couldn't be requested correctly in specific circumstances.
• Fixed: A send notice action after a prevent action was not executed.
• Improved: Orphaned civics will now be attached as draft instead of active, being forced active when the constitution is ratified or the settlement is founded to prevent issues to occur that could lead to a reset to the default constitution.

Interaction

• Fixed: Crafting tables continued to run and burn fuel for a while despite not crafting something.
• Fixed: Dismounting from the crane was not possible.
• Fixed: Barges could be picked up even when they were loaded or had vehicles on it.
• Fixed: Rotate hints for blocks were shown even if the block isn't rotatable.
• Fixed: Using the consolidate button removed skill scrolls and claim papers.
• Fixed: Placing a stockpile in a room could lead to it being classified as "outdoor", disabling tables that are required to be indoors.
• Fixed: In some circumstances tables with an active work party on them didn't enable participating players to add labour.
• Fixed: Tables with active work parties on them did show a wrong authorization outline to participating players.
• Fixed: Objects that couldn't be painted showed the paint interaction.
• Fixed: Paint mixer didn't see the contents of linked storages when mixing paints.

UI

• Fixed: An issue that could lead to items in inventories going invisible until moved around.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to the work order area in crafting tables not being displayed until a client restart.
• Fixed: Dragging and dropping storages in the storage tab of world objects was only possible on the name of the storage instead of the whole line.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to icons on signs not being displayed and text to be incorrectly truncated.
• Fixed: Vote counts for yes were cut off in the popup showing all votes for an election.
• Fixed: Notifications would sometimes not correctly display when containing clickable buttons.
• Fixed: The tutorial boxes weren't limited in width.
• Fixed: Holding a food item could lead to objects the player isn't authorized on to still show a green outline.
• Fixed: In specific circumstances the filter checkboxes for the item filter could appear in a duplicated way.
• Fixed: Sorting by distance for crafting tables in the economy viewer didn't always provide the expected result.
• Fixed: Several typos throughout the game.
• Improved: Error message when steam is offline has been updated.
• Improved: Recipe search in the crafting ui now has a clear button to remove the entered text.
• Improved: Recipes in the crafting ui will now indicate they have variations before clicking on them.
• Improved: A confusing description of server settings in the Server UI when exhaustion is enabled.
• Improved: Moved position of the abandon specialty button to the level line, making the feature more obvious.
• Improved: Searching in the economy viewer now also allows filtering for name of an item and tags.
• Improved: Abandoned players are now excluded from the display in the skills menu. (Canny Suggestion)

Miscellaneous

• Changed: The town bell no longer rings indefinitely, but only when using the respective interaction.
• Fixed: The exhaustion tutorial was displayed and not completable when exhaustion is disabled.
• Fixed: Sometimes vehicles could load before the barges they were placed on, causing them to fall through them into the water.
• Fixed: The picture printer tab on the printing press didn't show a preview of the image.
• Fixed: Filtering for exhaustion in the server browser didn't work correctly.
• Fixed: Internal fuel storage was counted as general storage for crafting projects.
• Fixed: Scrap tool recipe did incorrectly take into account tools in the player inventory.
• Fixed: An issue that sometimes caused Eco to fail to start when Steam is in offline mode.
• Fixed: Setting the meteor impact to high numbers in the world settings ui could cause the server to no longer start due to an invalid value being set in the config.
• Fixed: Twitch linking didn't work correctly.
• Fixed: When logging out to log in to another account and providing wrong credentials, the game automatically logged the player in with the account they logged out of before.
• Fixed: When reflections were enabled in the graphics settings, the change didn't immediately apply.
• Fixed: A meteor successfully shot down would reappear after a server restart, resetting the received achievement on the world as well.
• Fixed: Spawning at a immigration desk could place the player behind instead of in front of the desk.
• Fixed: Metal parts on objects were displayed in a darker color when painted.
• Fixed: An issue with rooms that could cause a server crash.
• Improved: All window planters now take seeds and function like the other planting pots.
• Improved: Some changes for improved moddability of config and food systems. (Thanks to @Spouke and @MonzUn)

Server & Configs

• Added: An option to remove only oneself from a title in the tooltip when the admin ui is enabled.
• Fixed: Skill Cost Multiplier for High Collaboration was wrongly set to 1.5 instead of 2, leading to servers using the default settings to not be marked as High Collaboration in the server list
• Fixed: Using the command /meteor destroy would set "MeteorImpactDays" to -1, which as an invalid value prevented the server from starting.

• Added: "ShowOilLayer" config variable, determining if the oil layer is shown despite the Oil Drilling skill not having been discovered - defaults to false.

• Added: "RequireSkillsToReplaceParts" config variable, determining if the respective skill is required to replace a part - defaults to true on high collaboration, otherwise to false.
• Added: "BrokenPartsWillDisableVehicles" config variable, determining if a vehicle becomes unusable when it has broken parts or just becomes slower - defaults to true on medium or higher collaboration, otherwise to false.

• Added: "ShowPurchaseNotification" config variable, determining if purchases in the marketplace are shown in the notifications area - defaults to true.

Hello Eco Citizens, we're excited to announce that Update 11.1 will launch on October 24th! Take a peek at some of the changes:

Explosives

Painting for land vehicles

Reworked Powered Cart

Log Furniture

Repair Bounties

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.6 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: Smoke and water effects related to disconnected pipes sometimes didn't disappear after the pipes were reconnected.
• Fixed: It was possible to place pictures into frames despite not having authorization to do so.
• Fixed: An issue that prevented players from placing marketplace items despite having sufficient blueprints available.
• Fixed: An issue that caused the warning about more marketplace items being present in the world than owned blueprints are available to be shown erroneously when placing a marketplace item.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.5 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: Multiple potential causes for client crashes.
• Fixed: An issue with the room system that could lead to a server crash.
• Fixed: An issue that could prevent the server from starting due to a problem with settlement foundations.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to the server freezing when multiple players tried to modify a stockpile inventory at the same time.
• Fixed: An issue that could crash the server and prevent it from starting when a law was triggered that used a custom stat with a invalid value.
• Fixed: Multiple issues with the marketplace that appeared when using the "View in Marketplace" button in the crafting UI.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to players being kicked from the server due to wrongly being detected as playing on another server at the same time when the server they are playing on changed its server id.
• Fixed: Currency exchanges using a treasury account were disabled after a server restart.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.4 to address the following issues:

Technical:

• Fixed: An issue that could prevent users of the SLG client to login.
• Fixed: Multiple blueprint related issues that could lead to a server crash.
• Fixed: Blueprints weren't correctly counted in modded custom recipes.

Gameplay:

• Fixed: An exploit that allowed to gain painting experience in a unintended way.
• Fixed: Large Hanging Wood Signs required solid ground to be placed.

• Modders can now register their mods to receive a credit share of up to 25% of all item purchases made on worlds that use their mods, the specific share percentage depends on the mod and is assigned at registration. If there is multiple eligible mods on a world, the share gets prorated between all eligible mods based on their specific share percentages. To register a mod please reach out to support@strangeloopgames.com, they will lead you through the process.
• Players that linked their twitch account, are currently streaming a world on twitch and have more than ten viewers are now receiving a credit share of up to 25% of all item purchases made on the streamed world. If there is multiple streamers on a world, the share gets prorated based on the amount of viewers each streamer has.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.3 to address the following issues:

Civics:

• Fixed: Personal bank accounts erroneously could be renamed, leading to error messages when creating new bank accounts.
• Fixed: Multiple issues with calculated rents that could lead to a server crash.
• Fixed: Unclaiming deeds of abandoned players via command or law could lead to a server crash.

Gameplay:

• Fixed: Using paint tools was not yielding experience towards the painting specialty.
• Fixed: Steam Tractor Scoop could not be listed in stores or linked in the chat.
• Fixed: Power Hammer was erroneously not requiring Tier 2.8 rooms.
• Fixed: Upgrade Modules didn't require the Self Improvement skill and hence didn't provide experience towards it.

UI:

• Fixed: The server description view wasn't scrollable when accessed through New Game -> Server Details.
• Fixed: Interrupting the food animation could lead to parts of the animation being stuck.
• Fixed: The web ui of the server would sometimes not display elections when logged in.

Balance:

• Fixed: Animal pelts were using different ingredients, they now all use medium carcasses.
• Changed: Ashlar Benches had their housing value increased to 4.
• Changed: Composite Lumber Benches had their housing value increased to 4.
• Changed: Cast Iron Benches had their housing value increased to 3.
• Changed: Lumber Benches had their housing value increased to 3.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.2 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: Rubble did not behave correctly when mining, teleporting around and becoming invisible.
• Fixed: The exhaustion bar did not display during the tutorial, making the respective tutorial not completable.
• Fixed: It was possible to login into servers with accounts that don't own Eco, making the server crash later.
• Fixed: Players playing with a SLG account couldn't purchase credits ingame, as they weren't correctly redirected to the website.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 11.0.1 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: An issue that prevented connecting to a world after leaving one if the game was not restarted.
• Fixed: An issue that appeared when logging out ofa server in a specific state that prevented reconnecting to without the server having been restarted.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to a server freeze when the paint mixer was used by a player whose language setting differed from the one on the server.
• Fixed: An issue that prevented connection to private servers due to the server id not being found.
• Fixed: An issue related to eating animations that could lead to stuck and unusable tools.
• Fixed: The error message when not having enough calories to execute an action wasn't displayed.
• Fixed: The news in the main menu were not displaying correctly.
• Fixed: Objects in some cases could be placed within a district they weren't allowed to be placed when that happened at the very border of the district.

Hello Citizens, Today we are launching Eco 11! Features include: [olist]

Offline Play Eco can now be played on local servers without internet connection! [/olist] And now, let's go into the details:

Culture for Property

Creating amazing buildings has always been a big part of Eco, and with this update weve made it tie into gameplay directly by allowing architecture to generate culture and housing points.
By placing down a plaque, other citizens can give reputation to your construction. If its on a cultural property, that will translate directly into additional culture. However, if its on residential property, that will translate into additional housing points with a multiplier, meaning the skill rate you get for housing can be significantly increased when you create a beautiful construction that gets appreciated by your fellow citizens.

Painting

Following directly from that, weve added the ability to paint blocks and later this will also extend to objects (vehicles and tables) to really customize your towns and make them your own.
Towns can now look really unique and different from each other, giving a lot of variety in the visuals of the game. Paint is created by collecting dyes and mixing them together at the new Mixing Station.
Paints can then be used with one of the new paint sprayers, applying varying levels of coating to blocks.
Dyes require different ingredients, some of which are more rare than others, so there will be a variety in values of paint. Since paint is an item that can be sold in stores as well, youll start to see people setting up paint stores offering a variety of colors.
In a near-future update we'll add the ability to paint world objects too (vehicles, crafting stations, etc).

Outdoor Rooms

In the same vein of making your spaces beautiful for game benefits, were introducing Outdoor Rooms.
Now the outdoor section of a property will be treated as its own room for purposes of housing points, and a number of new outdoor housing object have been added to support it. It supports the above architecture bonus as well: beautiful outdoor spaces now have a game incentive through architecture and housing bonuses. Together, these three changes culture points for architecture, painting, and outdoor rooms takes a step towards aligning game success with creative endeavors. Eco's design principle is creating systems that interact with each other, and the game emerges from their complex interactions; this addition follows that by connecting the creation of a beautiful space to the skill system, through housing points.

Maintenance

One issue that we wanted to address was the number of specialties that are really important for creating a specific object, but once that object is created theres not much more use for them. With the addition of maintenance, parts will need to repaired and replaced within tables, using the same specialties that created the original object.
When these parts break down, the object will cease to function, and youll need to get them repaired or replaced. which leads to our next upgrade:

Repairs

Now you can use multiple different repair materials to repair an object, and each one will reduce the max durability in varying rates.
Some repair materials may be more expensive, but make your tools and parts last longer, so it will be a tradeoff to consider. Eventually, after many repairs, the durability of objects will drop so low that they have to be replaced, creating further demand in the economy. The skills of the citizen doing the repair will also impact the change in durability and how much material is needed, so a repair market will be incentivized as specialized craftsmen can repair their fellow citizens tools and parts. We'll also be connecting this to the economy and government in an update shortly after 11, so that a repair person can find and repair other people's tables for money, paid either by the table owner or the government. This will make a new type of 'quest' that requires unique skills and materials and will appear in the economy viewer (and is also disableable if people prefer a world without maintenance).

Eco Marketplace

As youve probably noticed, many survival crafting games these days have microtransactions, which shifts the financial incentive from purely selling new copies to also supporting your long-term players. As we start approaching the end of Ecos Early Access, we wanted to find a way to introduce them that suits Eco and will be a value-add for players. Specifically, the goal is to

• Avoid giving direct gameplay advantage (they are cosmetic only and cant be traded or used by others by default).
• Not allow access to mechanically-different items (all cosmetic items are skins of regular items).
• Support the Eco community (proceeds shared with server hosts and eventually others).
• Support the ethos of Eco (shared with charity).
• Be fully optional (hosted servers can disable them entirely).

In the new Eco Marketplace, you can buy Eco Credits through Steam, which you can then spend on Blueprints which let you craft differently-skinned versions of items:
A Blueprint will allow you to build one copy of an item, and many blueprints are sold in packs. The premium variants appear in the crafting UI as variants under the main product and will be functionally identical to the base item. When you buy a Blueprint, you can use it in all servers indefinitely (unless restricted by host admins), and the count resets each server cycle within an individual server. Because so much of Ecos value comes from the community, we wanted to find a way to share that value with them in an interesting way. To do that, weve implemented percentage-share from every Eco Credit transaction that goes to the value creators in the Eco ecosystem.
To start with, server hosts will get a percentage of all credits that are spent in their world, and we will provide a way to pay for hosting services with Eco Credits, thus allowing an active community to fund its own world through the transactions in the world. In the vein of supporting all the value-contributors in the Eco universe, we wanted to include Earth and the real Ecosystem itself, through a percent of all transactions going to the charity The Ocean Cleanup. This charity is doing a phenomenal job using advanced technology to clean up plastics from the ocean on a massive scale, and thus fits the theme of Eco very well. So with every transaction in Eco Credits youll be supporting both Eco, the server host of your world, and the Earth itself. [previewyoutube=Pv1Otdg4fok;full][/previewyoutube] Later, we plan to include other sources that provide value to the Eco universe, including approved modders that will earn a percent of all transactions in a world, as well as streamers that promote worlds earning a cut of proceeds in those worlds. Long term, we plan to allow approved server hosts creating amazing experiences to withdraw Eco Credits.. Ecos had a long, long incubation period in Early Access and has an amazing, dedicated community of players and creators, and were very aware that introducing microtransactions can cause a lot of disruption, but hopefully players will see this as a good thing for the game long-term, giving us another way to fund it with a source different than only new-players, and introducing new support to the community surrounding Eco as well. On top of that, for those players categorically against microtransactions (which we respect), weve allowed servers to disable it entirely and they can play without it, which will be displayed in the server browser.

Adobe Blockset and Balance Changes

One of our goals for v1 Eco is to make a much smoother entry experience for new users, and were taking a step in that direction with the creation of a new building tier, Adobe Blocks.
Adobe blocks will be easier and faster to construct than hewn logs, making them an easy and fast way for new players to get setup in the world with a home, as they learn the other mechanics of the game. Weve rearranged the starting table requirements so that some will function in this new Tier-0 style building.

Offline Play

There have been some cases where our account servers went down and prevented play, which understandably upset a lot of players who wanted to be able to play without DRM. Good news for them, Eco can now be played offline, meaning even if our auth servers go down, or if you dont have internet access at all, you will still be able to play.

And More

Along with these major updates weve added a large number of minor improvements, performance optimizations (weve fixed the slowdown that happens after a few hours of play!), an account system full-upgrade, and much more. Were hot on the path of Eco v1, check out our Roadmap to Eco 1.0 blog post detailing what we have in store. And as always thanks for the great support from our Eco citizens, much more to come.

Streamer Event

In celebration of the launch, we're hosting a Streamer event that makes use of the unique features of Eco: Socialism vs Capitalism! We'll have a few worlds for different languages running on a two week cycle where citizens will be separated into separate camps, socialist and capitalist, and will build societies that embody those values. Eventually, they'll have to cooperate to destroy the meteor and save the planet. Will make for a really interesting social experiment as well, so check that out on streaming this week. We'll also have some themed twitch drops for viewers, follow the event on our website.
Important Info for the Update: - Update 11 introduces new backend services that are deployed in multiple stages. While we do our best so you don't notice anything about that, please bear with us in case of problems and reach out to support@strangeloopgames.com if you notice any account issues. - Some features are temporarily not available during the deployment phase: Buying tiers & invites on our website, sending invites via the website as well as tier benefits (cosmetics and icons) and twitch drops. - Servers in Update 11 need to login to an SLG account, that can be either done directly in the window the server executable will prompt you with or with the commandline parameters --username=" and --password="". Big thanks to our community for all the support of the years as we march towards v1 and exiting Early Access!

Hello Eco Citizens, our next release date has been set: Eco 11 will launch August 15th! Weve been hard at work on the road to Eco 1.0 and exiting Early Access, and this is a big step there. Feature list will be:

Adobe Blockset

Painting

Culture for Architecture

Outdoor "Rooms"

Maintenance and Repair

Eco Marketplace

Offline Play

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.4 to address the following issues:

Balance:

• Changed: Upgrades now also benefit from crafting time reduction by modules and provide some experience towards the Self Improvement skill. (Experience will be revisited later)
• Fixed: Recipes with static ingredients were not affected by config multipliers.
• Fixed: Some recipes with static ingredients did not benefit from crafting time reduction by modules.

Civics:

• Fixed: Civic powers that weren't created during the current play session could not be used by title holders.
• Fixed: "Ignore Auth" action for laws was not working.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.3 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: An issue that could lead to the map not displaying icons after connecting to a server.
• Fixed: Placing a waterpump could lead to a crash or the waterpump becoming invisible, the savegame becoming corrupted afterwards.
• Fixed: An exploit with exhaustion that allowed to get into a permanent state of the exhaustion time being paused despite no longer resting on furniture.

Balance:

• Changed: Framed Glass recipe now requires Epoxy as ingredient.
• Fixed: Research recipes were incorrectly benefitting from module bonuses.

Civics:

• Fixed: An issue with child settlements in property crisis that could prevent migration to version 10.2.X.
• Fixed: A crash that could occur when a law that is currently being revised is no longer present once the revision passes.
• Fixed: Warnings about invalid civics were not sent when a civic goes invalid after it being invalid was resolved.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Maintenance Update 10.2.2 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: An exploit that allowed to convert any block material to any other block material when building.
• Fixed: Multiple causes for memory leaks on servers in relation to room calculations - thanks to all server admins that provided us with valuable data.
• Fixed: An issue that could cause players to have a duplicated avatar.
• Fixed: Added missing "MaxDimensionOfUserTexture" config variable to UserTextures.eco.template.

Balance:

• Improved: Increased experience gain from crafting Nails, Iron, Steel, Modern Tools and Handheld Camera.
• Improved: Increased the amount of Ceramic Molds returned when crafting Steel Bars from 2 to 3.
• Improved: Increased the storage radius of the Wooden Transport Ship.
• Improved: Increased the storage radius of the Store.
• Improved: Level requirements for shipwright vehicles and dependencies are now in a more logical order.
• Fixed: Large Cotton Bunting Festive now requires boards to craft, as intended.

Civics:

• Fixed: Unrestricted claim papers from the respective server setting or spawned by an admin were considered as homestead papers when trying to join a settlement with such papers in use, preventing to join.
• Fixed: Usage of unrestricted claim papers with settlements could cause a variety of crashes when the game tried to move them elsewhere due to for example a law action unclaiming or transferring a property.
• Fixed: Usage of unrestricted claim papers could lead to settlement foundations vanishing and the settlement "merging" with a player's homestead.
• Fixed: An issue that could crash the server and subsequently prevent the world from loading related to property transfers occuring through laws.
• Fixed: The executive actions for seizing bank accounts and giving reputation weren't respecting jurisdiction.
• Fixed: Injunctions didn't correctly block selected laws.
• Fixed: Bank accounts couldn't be deleted.

Exhaustion:

• Changed: "BonusRetroactiveHoursAfterStart" and "MaxSavedHours" config options now only take effect when "AllowPlaytimeSaving" is enabled. "BonusHoursOnExhaustionEnabled" will always work, but no longer roll over to the next day when the first login happened shortly before the exhaustion reset. This was changed due to feedback from server admins that the settings were confusing and will be revisited later.
• Improved: Not applicable settings no longer show in the server info in the server browser.
• Fixed: Setting "BonusHoursOnExhaustionEnabled" or "MaxSavedHours" config variables to 0 would prevent players that had not connected to the server before that to join it.
• Fixed: Multiple issues with incorrect resets for exhaustion when the reset time wasn't equal to the change of day in local server time.

Pictures:

• Added: Reimplemented the ability to disallow uploads in the Printing Press based on feedback from server admins. The formerly deprecated config variable "AllowTextureUpload" in UserTextures.eco.template can be used to control that, but will be renamed in a later update to reflect the changed scope of the setting.
• Fixed: Images that weren't approved could be put into frames.
• Fixed: Images in frames were visible to players despite not being approved.
• Fixed: Automatic approval of pictures didn't work with the setting noted in UserTextures.eco.template.

UI:

• Fixed: A wrong mention of the players' own homestead instead of the settlement they wanted to join in the error message informing the player about their homestead not being covered by enough influence.

World Objects:

• Fixed: Carved Pumpkin didn't count as lighting object.
• Fixed: Carved Pumpkins couldn't be used outside.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.2.1 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: A rare issue that could prevent migration of worlds, making them fail to load in Update 10.2.
• Fixed: Repeatedly and quickly applying fertilizer could lead to the client being disconnected from the server.
• Fixed: Adding unrestricted claim papers received through Difficulty.eco settings to a claim stake wouldn't allow to claim more land.
• Fixed: Interacting with a claim stake containing unrestricted claim papers or adding such to one could lead to the client being disconnected from the server.
• Removed: Deprecated config variables for Exhaustion in Balance.eco.template.

Balance:

• Fixed: Recurve bow was using the wrong specialty for repairing.
• Fixed: Small court had too many law slots - it now has three (one more than in Update 10.1).
• Fixed: Bunting recipes in the automatic loom were missing their board ingredient.

Civics:

• Fixed: Dirt ramps were an option for the law trigger "open".
• Fixed: Dirt ramps could not be used with the "pick up and place" and "construct or deconstruct" law triggers.

UI:

• Fixed: Dropping an item on the menu buttons next to the minimap would break the UI.
• Fixed: Some hints were still mentioning the border control settings to be found on the embassy desk instead of the settlement foundation.

World Objects:

• Added: On / Off switch for the lighthouse lamp.
• Fixed: Sitting on the new cast iron furniture was not possible.

Hello Eco Citizens, Update 10.2 is now available! The main changes in this update are a new Blacksmith profession, tons of improvements for the Exhaustion system, legal 'Injunctions', settlement polish, civics polish, lots of audio polish, and a multitude of bug fixes and balance changes.

Blacksmith Profession

• Clay Mold - Used as a new ingredient by Smelting. (Crafted by Gathering)
• Ceramic Mold - Used as a new ingredient by Advanced Smelting. (Crafted by Pottery)
• Ink - Used as a new intermediary resource by Paper Milling.
• Printing Supplies - Used as a new consumable for creating copies and printing textures in the Printing Press.

Improvements to Exhaustion

• Administrators will now be able to fine control the exhaustion time per each weekday, hence being able to for example set different playtime limits for weekdays and weekends that will be shown in the server information card when selecting a server.
• They can now also set a one-time starter bonus granted on the first login of a player or configure retroactive exhaustion gain which will give players joining later in the cycle the amount of hours they would have had if they had joined on the first day - only limited by the configured maximum bank capacity for saving hours. "Rollover" can now be turned on or off, allowing servers to use this feature for sole maximum playtime limiting per day or giving players the ability to carry over unused hours up to the maximum bank capacity, for example for saving time during the week for the weekend.
• The time when exhaustion is refreshed can now be decoupled from the in-game time and instead be set to a constant real time that is not affected by server downtimes. The Update also comes with a long awaited filter to only display servers that have exhaustion turned on and a new server card only for servers that have exhaustion turned on.
• Administrators can decide for each separate vehicle if it should be affected by exhaustion limits or not and players no longer need to log out when being away for a bit to save their time - they can now just sit on any of the furniture in Eco to stop the timer.
• Last but not least we also fixed some issues with the system, made tooltips more clear and easy to understand and added an Ecopedia page that shows a detailed explanation of the system and a rundown on the configuration on the server the player currently plays on.

Injunctions

Release Notes

Audio

• Added: Engine sounds for fishing trawler and transport boat.
• Added: Support for sound combinations during block placement, allowing to adjust sounds based on the surface an action is executed on.
• Added: Harvest sounds for all pickup actions with animation.
• Improved: Replaced fishing trawler horn sound.
• Improved: Sounds at game entrance are now smoother.
• Improved: Performance of the sound system.
• Fixed: Sounds related to character movement were sometimes delayed.
• Fixed: Sounds for placing and destroying blocks weren't playing.
• Fixed: Sounds for picking up rubble weren't playing.
• Fixed: Some sounds didn't play in the correct variant for the selected sex of the character.
• Fixed: Sounds for elevators could get stuck, replaying endlessly.
• Fixed: Sound of the torch could get stuck after switching to another item in the hotbar.
• Fixed: Tools could suddenly stop playing their sounds.
• Fixed: Multiple issues with sounds playing double or in a weird way for block interactions.

Avatar & Camera

• Improved: Leaving the avatar display camera mode will bring the camera back to the exact position and rotation it had before entering that mode.
• Improved: Portrait camera for user pictures was readjusted, it will no longer cut off the display of the head.
• Improved: Rotation of the avatar during avatar creation is now faster.
• Improved: When mounting a vehicle, some camera angles could lead to clipping of the avatar - the camera angle was limited to prevent that.
• Improved: Entering the avatar display camera mode didn't always work correctly, sometimes keeping the current camera view with partly invisible tools.

Balance

• Added: Fur Pelt can now be turned into Leather Hide and Tallow.
• Added: Raw Fish can now be turned into Fish Oil and Fish Stock, serving as variants of the already existing recipes for Oil and Meat Stock.
• Added: Hewn Logs can now be turned into Charcoal.
• Changed: Pots and Wet Bricks are now crafted on the new Pottery Table.
• Changed: Barrels are now crafted on the Rolling Mill using Advanced Smelting.
• Changed: Bows are now crafted on the new Fletching Table using Hunting. (Wooden bow remains on the Tool Bench)
• Changed: Arrows now have two recipes, one on the Tool Bench and another one on the Fletching Table.
• Changed: Pottery Upgrade Module recipe was moved to the Pottery Table.
• Changed: Paper Milling Upgrade Module recipe was moved to Small Paper Machine.
• Changed: Dendrology Research Paper ingredient was moved to Basic Upgrade 1.
• Changed: Gathering Research Paper ingredient was moved to Basic Upgrade 2.
• Changed: Replaced Cellulose Fiber ingredient for Recurve Bow with Linen Yarn.
• Changed: Increased craft time of Basic Engineering Upgrade.
• Changed: Electric Machinist Table recipe now requires Mechanics labor.
• Changed: Steel bars now use iron concentrate instead of iron bars and require more ingredients, but also yield more product.
• Changed: Rebar, Rivet and Steel Pipes now require the new Power Hammer present in the room to be crafted.

• Changed: Bloomery and Blast Furnace now require to be placed inside a room to function.
• Changed: Bloomery now uses Basic instead of Advanced Upgrades.
• Changed: Food Variety bonus maximum cap was lowered to 1.55.
• Changed: Total calories required to be eaten of a single type of food to be included in variety bonus increased to 2000.
• Changed: Bows now require hunting specialty for repairing.
• Fixed: Variants of the Cotton Bunting on the Automatic Loom were only costing labour, but no ingredients.
• Fixed: The ingredient cost of boards for the handplow was unintendedly high.

Civics

• Added: New game value "Direct Citizen", allowing to check if a player is a direct citizen of a settlement.
• Added: New option "Allow any unaffiliated homestead deed to expand within our influence" for the border control feature that now also is the default setting to prevent hostile takeover of settlements by surprise.
• Improved: The game value "Property Owned" can now also count only plots that are in or out a given settlement.
• Improved: Players can now join a settlement without removing their homestead support papers as long as they add a sufficient amount of settlement papers before joining.
• Improved: Players are no longer prompted to remove their homestead support papers or add settlement papers when trying to join a settlement if the inserted homestead support papers aren't actually needed to keep up the currently claimed area.
• Improved: When leaving a settlement that has a parent settlement, players can now choose to remain citizen of the parent settlement instead of losing all citizenship.
• Improved: Made the descriptions of immigration settings and law actions easier to understand and more clear.
• Changed: The influence radius of a settlement is now fixed once it is founded and cannot be moved, foundations themselves can only be moved within a limited, configurable circle around the original position.
• Changed: Cultural deeds must now be located within an existing influence circle plus tolerance of a configurable percentage belonging to a different cultural deed. If a chain of cultural deeds loses continuous connection towards the settlement's foundation at any point, all cultural deeds no longer connected in this way will be disabled after a timer runs out.
• Changed: Notifications about property crisis no longer display the required amount of claim stakes and papers that need to be inserted into the foundation to avoid confusion due to the notifications not being able to update themselves - the correct and current information is now always available in the tooltip that appears when hovering the foundation deed.
• Fixed: A client disconnect when viewing government bank accounts in a treasury on a server that has settlements disabled.
• Fixed: Treasury bank accounts weren't being destroyed when the settlement was, becoming visible for mayors of any settlement.
• Fixed: It was possible to edit the constitution without needing amendments.
• Fixed: Child settlements didn't always correctly influence deeds created with claim stakes of parent settlements.
• Fixed: Ignoring authorization for vehicles wasn't possible.
• Fixed: Creating contracts with multiple nested clauses would disconnect the client from the server.
• Fixed: Distribution stations weren't functional when the settlement system is disabled.
• Fixed: Resources gained on annexation weren't correctly distributed to all eligible citizens of the annexed settlement.
• Fixed: Repeatable contracts could be accepted and finished multiple times despite only fulfilling them a single time. (For example, a contract requiring to place X blocks would consider the same placed blocks fulfilling all accepted copies instead of requiring placement of new blocks for every contract copy)

Exhaustion

• Fixed: The tooltip for the exhaustion bar didn't display correctly.
• Fixed: The icon for the exhaustion tutorial was missing.
• Fixed: Picking up rubble was possible even when exhausted.

Interaction

• Fixed: Cancel action triggering another action when using multi-block placement mode.
• Fixed: Targeting edges of blocks wouldn't work when using multi-block placement mode.
• Fixed: A potential cause for showing the harvest animation while only hovering a plant.
• Fixed: Holding e when opening the Trash Pile UI would cause it to open and directly play the animation to close it.
• Fixed: Trying to use the handplow while seeds are selected in the hotbar would sometimes lead to the seeds being eaten.
• Fixed: Fertilizing would remove the fertilizer from the first stack found in the hotbar, not the currently selected one.
• Fixed: Objects placable in water would display wrong occupancy highlight when doing so.
• Fixed: Clicking outside of the soil sampler tool ui would close the ui and immediately retrigger the soil sampler and hence open the ui again.
• Fixed: Diagonal building for the forms "HalfSlopeA", "HalfSlopeB", "SlopeSide", "RoofSide" and "BasicSlopeSide".
• Fixed: It was possible to pick up garbage in deeds without authorization.
• Fixed: When trying to fell a tree its stump was highlighted as valid target for the tool despite it wasn't.
• Fixed: Trying to remove claim papers from a homestead via shift-click would disconnect the client from the server.

UI

• Added: Ecopedia page for seeds.
• Improved: Moved Beans, Camas Bulb and Rice to the "Produce" section of Ecopedia.
• Improved: The submit button in the distribution station does no longer disappear when the configured number of an item is the same as the currently saved setting, but instead becomes uninteractable.
• Improved: Updated the icons displayed in the work order tutorial.
• Improved: The picture viewer was updated to make the preview frame serve as a slot to drop a picture onto at the same time and is now universally used both on the settlement foundation and printer ui.
• Improved: The notification about needing to finish a draft contract before being able to create a new one is now displayed as a pop up to be easier noticeable.
• Improved: The spawn selection screen will now prioritize suggesting settlements that still need citizens as they are smaller as other ones.
• Improved: The skill ui now highlights the selected skill with a yellow border and the confirmation popup when learning a new skill will now say explicitly which skill was selected and is about to be learned.
• Improved: Profession icons shown in the level up animation now have a higher resolution.
• Improved: The tooltip of rentable deeds will now show a notice if the option "Allow property changes while renting" is enabled for that deed.
• Fixed: Deleted vehicle deeds would still show up as reference in user tooltips.
• Fixed: When using shift+left-click on an item with amount 1, 5 or 10 the respective transfer option in the slider would be shown twice.
• Fixed: Five-digit amounts of an item weren't displayed correctly in the store ui.
• Fixed: The settlements view showed the line "Government of name" when no settlement was selected.
• Fixed: In the annexation list, not every mention of a settlement provided a tooltip when hovering over it.
• Fixed: The bug report ui didn't reset its contents after a bug report was sent.
• Fixed: When reading a skill scrollall skill experience bars would change their color, wrongly indiciating that all experience would have been gained in the current play session.
• Fixed: The store ui didn't show the currency icon, but instead displayed a line of code.
• Fixed: The notifications for a dissolved settlement wouldn't link the dissolved settlement and hence not allow hovering it for a tooltip.
• Fixed: The waterwheel showed internal item codes instead of linked item names where it informed about things obstructing its rotation.
• Fixed: Scrolling in the texture review panel didn't work reliably.
• Fixed: Some generators displayed a wrong power type in the "Consumes:" line on their tooltips.
• Fixed: The icon for claim papers in the annexation ui was not displayed correctly.
• Fixed: Deleted settlements could appear as potential spawn point, leading to a black screen on selection.
• Fixed: Notifications for experience gained could appear on photos.
• Fixed: Icons on the map moved when the map was moved.
• Fixed: When zooming in on the fullscreen map, players far away could appear as big icons at the borders.
• Fixed: An issue where depending on the player's locale the correct decimal separator was not recognized and couldn't be entered into respective fields.
• Fixed: Recurring transfers displayed in player tooltips didn't update on changes until a server restart.

Notifications

• Fixed: Wrong error message when building in multi-block placement mode when not having enough building materials stating "Not attached to the ground" instead of "Need x more blocks".
• Fixed: Authorized players accessing a distribution station would cause a wrong notification in the newsfeed for every access attempt.
• Fixed: Notifications when not being able to interact with something were triggered twice in many cases.
• Fixed: When attempting to add items to a full inventory the notification erroneously displayed "Inventory too heavy" instead of "Inventory is full".

World Objects

• Improved: Lighting furniture now functions again outside of rooms.
• Improved: Green electricity generators no longer automatically turn off when they are not needed, retaining their animations.
• Fixed: Force-enabled computer lab and lasers no longer require electricity to be used.
• Fixed: Electrical pumps didn't have a flow rate of 4 as it is intended.
• Fixed: Stores that were owned by a title did not recheck if the bank account can still be accessed by the title when a title holder lost the title - if the title can no longer access the bank account at any point it will now be reset and if the title has no holders at all anymore the store will be disabled.
• Fixed: The water wheel could rotate in the wrong direction in relation to the water flow.
• Fixed: After transferring ownership of an object, the original owner could still grant authorization for it.
• Fixed: The warning about imminent drowning when getting hungry while swimming was sent to everyone instead of only the affected player.

Miscellaneous

• Added: Method for mods to track text changes of signs. (Thanks to JulianMa)
• Added: A confirmation popup when resetting the tutorial.
• Improved: Increased ecopedia font to 22px size.
• Improved: Animal behaviour when fleeing or wandering and when stuck.
• Improved: The dev tool can now remove blocks through water, to target water blocks CTRL needs to be held.
• Fixed: An issue related to claim papers that could corrupt and prevent a world from loading.
• Fixed: A crash that could occur when exiting to the main menu while a world was loading.
• Fixed: Elevators could get desynced, displaying at a position above their base.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to a disconnect with error "Failed to handle RPCResponse" when eating food.
• Fixed: Vehicles in elevators could appear as levitating to other players, this fix freezes vehicles like on boats.
• Fixed: Multiple display issues with water, especially at "corners" of water.
• Fixed: Kelp, Clam and Urchin didn't spread correctly.
• Fixed: Boats could "fly" when driving where there were placed blocks above it.
• Fixed: Barges would play their ramp animation before showing the correct ramp state when the chunk the barge is in is reloaded.
• Fixed: Crafting recipes that have variants for their form instead of their material would yield unexpected results when not choosing a specific variant.

Server & Configs

• Added: A setting that allows to give players a retroactive experience gain when joining the server later.
• Added: Commands "/adddems" and "/removedems" to assign a demographic to or remove a demographic from a player permanently, ignoring the demographics' requirements.
• Improved: The "/help" command now displays the number type and "(optional)" instead of "*" for optional parameters.
• Improved: Ground levelling for the "/bt" and "/bm" commands is now an optional parameter.
• Fixed: The "/road" command now also works again with asphalt roads.
• Fixed: The "/teleport atob" command would teleported players onto the head of the target, which wasn't very healthy.
• Fixed: The spawn selection screen appeared despite the config variable "InitialSpawnSelection" being set to false.

• Added: "RetroactiveExperienceRate" config variable, determining an experience rate that players joining a server after start will be assumed to have had for all the time they were not on the server yet and be granted retroactively - defaults to 0 for disabled.

• Added: "ExhaustionTimeEnabled" config variable, determining if the exhaustion feature is active - defaults to false.

• Added: "RefreshLocalHours" config variable, determining the hour of the exhaustion refresh in local time - defaults to 0.
• Added: "RefreshLocalMinutes" config variable, determining the minute of the exhaustion refresh in local time - defaults to 0.
• Added: "MondayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on mondays - defaults to 3.
• Added: "TuesdayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on tuesdays - defaults to 3.
• Added: "WednesdayExhaustionRefreshHours": config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on wednesdays - defaults to 3.
• Added: "ThursdayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on thursdays - defaults to 3.
• Added: "FridayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on fridays - defaults to 6.
• Added: "SaturdayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on saturdays - defaults to 6.
• Added: "SundayExhaustionRefreshHours" config variable, determining the amount of exhaustion hours granted on sundays - defaults to 6.
• Added: "AllowPlaytimeSaving" config variable, determining if unused exhaustion hours can be saved for a later day - defaults to true.
• Added: "MaxSavedHours" config variable, determining how many exhaustion hours can be saved at maximum - defaults to 15.
• Added: "AllowExhaustionPauseOnRest" config variable, determining if resting on any furniture stops the exhaustion timer, defaults to true.
• Added: "BonusHoursOnExhaustionEnabled" config variable, determining an amount of bonus exhaustion hours granted for the first login - defaults to 2.
• Added: "BonusRetroactiveHoursAfterStart" config variable, determining if players joining the server later get the exhaustion hours of days they missed granted retroactively up the maximum amount that can be saved - defaults to true.
• Added: "Vehicles" config variable, determines for every vehicle in the game on if it is affected by exhaustion limits or not.

• Added: "BaseInfluenceRadiusFoundationMovementAllowedAfterFounding" config variable, determining the range around the original position of a foundation in which the foundation can be moved after founding as a percentage of its base influence (without culture) - defaults to 50.
• Added: "CultureDeedLinkPercentRequirement" config variable, determining the percentage of a cultural deeds' influence that is added as tolerance for valid placement of additional cultural deeds in a chain - defaults to 30.
• Added: "HoursBeforeInvalidatingCultureDeed" config variable, determining the amount of hours ticking down as timer before cultural deeds with invalid placement get disabled - defaults to 2.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.5 to restore functionality of the server list and additionally address the following issues:

• Fixed: Wheelbarrows didn't move correctly.
• Fixed: Loan contracts could not be accepted.
• Fixed: Oil Head Lamp added additional lights whenever the view was switched, leading to performance issues and a way too bright lighting.
• Fixed: Placing blocks in third person view would place two blocks at once for some players.
• Fixed: When admin assigning a settlement as member to another one, the parent settlement could lose all the already existing child settlements.
• Improved: Claim papers vanishing from a deed due to the settlement they were issued from being dissolved led to unsupported property being unclaimed immediately - it will now instead provide a grace time to replace papers or decide which parts of one's deed to unclaim to be within the limits again.

Good day Eco Citizens! With our biggest update ever - Eco 10 - out the door, its time to set our eyes on the next big milestone: Eco V1, exiting Early Access! Early Access has been an amazing way to develop this experimental new genre of a living government/economy/ecosystem mashed together and run by real people, weve got so much great feedback from the community, as well as funding to let us build out the extent of our vision. Now, with the bulk of features added (minus a couple big ones coming this year), we plan to spend the year building and then Early Access at the end of the year/beginning of next year. To achieve this, we have a ton of work to do over the course of the year, and we have set a roadmap based heavily on player feedback. Our goal with V1 is to produce a highly polished, performant, accessible, and long-lasting gameplay experience. This means that we are putting the focus on improving and polishing existing systems rather than introducing new ones. Weve based this decision on player surveys and stats from reviews, and the results were a clear mandate: make what we have more polished, and smooth it all out. From that weve compiled a roadmap of what we hope to achieve, which can be divided into several main categories:

Bugs and Performance

Professions

• More Professions. We intend to flesh out professions with lots more options to choose from and paths to take within those skills, to create a greater spread of possible careers, thus creating more niches for players to specialize in and become valuable members of their community. We will scale this with collaboration settings so that small servers can still cover everything needed.
  
• Infinite star spend. Right now, there comes a point when youve spent all the stars you can, and thus the need for high-tier food and homes dries up. By V1, we will have added many more ways to spend stars, such that there will always be a need for stars no matter how developed your society is, and thus there will always be demand for these core professions. Part of this will be the ability to spend stars on talents (the upgrade choices you get as you level up), with branching paths that you have to choose creating further niches driving more collaboration, as well as spending stars on objects to upgrade them.
• Maintenance. Everything will wear down and, if not maintained, break over time. This creates a constant need on professions to supply parts and perform repairs on these objects, preventing professions from going obsolete when all the needed objects are produced.
• More upgrades. One of the best ways to prevent that feeling of grind is to have continuous upgrades in your ability to do things. That means you will only be digging with a shovel/swinging a pickaxe for a short time before you get upgraded tools and vehicles that make this action obsolete and allow collecting much more resources with much less effort. We will be analyzing every profession to ensure that upgrades in abilities become available frequently, which we believe will greatly reduce any feeling of grind. One example we intend to produce is explosives for mining, allowing much greater bulk collection of ore.
  

Ecosystem Impact

• Garbage. All crafting will create garbage, which must be dealt with by putting into trash containers, which can then be picked up by a trash service run by your settlement, funded perhaps from tax dollars. If garbage is left out, or left in a trash can too long, it will begin to pollute the environment. This creates a mechanic that will both impact ecosystem and economy (trash collection and funding for it).
  
• Oil Spills. Connected to the maintenance task above, we will add the possibility of pipes to burst when not maintained, and for vehicle transport of oil or other pollutants to spill when driving on unmaintained roads or with an unmaintained vehicle. This creates a scalable difficulty for major disasters, as oil spills which will have a disastrous impact on the environment and require a lot of work to clean up. Well also make tainted water affect any housing systems that rely on it.
• Challenges Beyond the Meteor. We plan to add more end-game disasters and challenges beyond the meteor, challenges that will arise and face society over time. Well be deciding on what to target and designing it out with citizen input over the year.

Accessibility and Learning Curve

• Animal Husbandry. This will be our marquee launch feature, which will include raising animals for meat, milk, eggs, and wool, as well as pets, which will give a home bonus. All animals in general will get an upgrade as well, making their pathfinding and behaviors highly polished.
  
• New User Experience polish. Making the initial flow for new users through the tutorial and connecting to a community seamless and fun. Were doing user studies on new players to see the sticking points and address them.
• Outdoor Housing Decoration. Adding a new scoring category for outdoor land, so that you can decorate your space beautifully and get rewarded for it, making for quaint and pretty villages.
  
• Off-grid placement. Some items will be able to be placed on surfaces off-grid, i.e. setting objects on tables and shelves, to decorate your space in greater detail. It will also allow hosting dinner parties with placed food, which can have a cultural reward.
  
• Canny-voted items. Weve integrated a system called Canny that allows citizens to propose and vote on what they believe are the important issues for them here. Well be tracking this and fixing top-voted items continuously, especially ones that are low effort + high impact. Feel free to hop in and make suggestions and vote on existing ones.
• Expanded culture system. With Eco 10 we introduced the culture system, which allows you to earn points for creative works. We plan to expand into other systems and deepen its impact on the game, as it serves for a great evergreen goal.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.4 to address the following issues:

Civics:

• Fixed: In specific circumstances annexation didn't work due not consuming the necessary resources.
• Fixed: When a bank account on a bank was destroyed due to the linked settlement dissolving, its owner received double the amount of currency they had on the bank account to their personal account.
• Fixed: Joining a settlement by placing a homestead with the respective option enabled was not possible when foreign property ownership was disallowed in the immigration policy.
• Improved: When a deed has more claimed plots than claim papers supporting them, there is now a timer counting down before unsupported plots will be removed.
• Improved: The error notification when an annexation fails due to not consuming the necessary resources was made more helpful.

General:

• Fixed: The main menu wasn't displayed when the last joined server / local world was invalid.
• Fixed: For users of the french and spanish language (and potentially others) spawn points on the map weren't displayed by default.
• Fixed: A potential issue that could lead to a black circle overlaying the UI.
• Fixed: The dev flood tool didn't work correctly when trying to add or remove a layer on the top of a body of water.
• Fixed: When breaking aqueducts or pipes the game could create water source blocks that were unremovable.
• Improved: The dev flood tool can now remove all connected water, this action is potentially dangerous and requires confirmation in a popup.
• Improved: Multiple small improvements to aqueducts, making it easier to build and use them. (More changes coming in the future)

Interaction:

• Fixed: Vehicles on a barge wouldn't get locked when the driver is still in the vehicle.
• Fixed: Vehicles on a barge could get locked in a flying position.
• Fixed: Vehicles could stay locked on a barge even after the ramp was opened.
• Fixed: Multiple issues with collisions at the ramp of barges.
• Fixed: Claiming via the map didn't work correctly for unfounded settlements.
• Fixed: Claim papers and stakes could be taken from a town foundation without authorization when swapping them while already having any type of claim papers or stakes in the inventory.
• Fixed: An issue with the hammer that allowed to rapidly click without limitations at a storage.

Server:

• Fixed: An issue that could cause a server crash and subsequent inability to start the server related to crafting fees.
• Fixed: An issue that could cause server crash and subsequent removal of all currently running work orders.
• Fixed: Several issues that could potentially lead to server crashes.
• Fixed: The /unclaim command didn't work when the linked deed had residents.
• Fixed: Civics.eco.template was not reflecting the prolongued civic invalidity timer of 60 minutes from Update 10.1. (Make sure to adjust the config of your server if you have a Civics.eco and want to make use of this change)

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.3 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: The crane was causing a client crash when used to pick items up from a storage and could afterwards no longer be removed from the world due to that causing another crash
• Fixed: Elevators didn't function reliably with vehicles, them sometimes getting stuck or falling through them
• Fixed: The Twitch plugin sometimes claimed it is disabled on the server, despite it was enabled
• Fixed: After using /ownit on a vehicle, players authorized on it could no longer be reliably removed
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to a server crash when the water of a pipe was flowing into a different chunk
• Fixed: A rare issue that could lead to a server crash and corrupt the savegame, preventing the start of the server
• Fixed: Memory required only during server connection wasn't freed after the connection finished

Civics:

• Fixed: Setting wages on demographics and titles did not correctly setup the recurring transfers for the wage, preventing them from being paid out
• Fixed: When many property changes occured, the annexation table was unable to reliably show a selection of annexable settlements and too many notifications were triggered
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to the reputation given by a law to be extremely higher than the set value
• Fixed: Adding a constitutional amendment under specific circumstances could lead to a client disconnect
• Improved: Buy orders for Homestead support papers and settlement papers can now specify their origin to be "Any settlement", making acquiring of homestead support papers easier

UI:

• Improved: Hovering over items in the work order bar at a work table will show the tooltip for that specific item again, instead of the general tooltip of the work order bar
• Improved: The game will now show separate informational error dialogues when connection to steam backend servers or our own was not possible when it was started

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.2 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: An issue related to claim papers that could lead to a crashloop on servers
• Fixed: An issue related to constitutions that could lead to a crashloop on servers
• Fixed: An issue that made it possible to unlink claim stakes and papers from their settlements, allowing to use them anywhere

Civics:

• Fixed: Appointed titles wouldn't always correctly consider the holders of member titles as occupants
• Improved: Annexation notifications due to culture were still triggering too often, they will now only trigger when a culture value higher than the so far highest achieved value was reached

Interaction:

• Fixed: Vehicles driven onto barges couldn't be driven off them anymore
• Fixed: Right clicking to deposit resources into a storage one is only authorized on didn't work

UI:

• Fixed: Eating animations for some foods showed pink particles
• Fixed: Hovering over contracts in the economy viewer did not display the expected tooltip
• Fixed: Hovering over items in a "Put items into container" clause of a contract did not display the expected tooltip

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.1.1 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: An issue that prevented some players to join some servers
• Fixed: Even miniscule changes in culture triggered notifications for annexations, leading to spam
• Fixed: The /unstuck command didn't work correctly when used while being on a boat on the ocean
• Fixed: Vehicles that were parked on a deed were put into void storage when its owner was removed from residency of that deed

Dear Eco Citizens, Update 10.1 is now available! We've been taking a lot of feedback from citizens on the settlement system that was newly introduced in 10.0 and applied it. It's a big system with unique mechanics that only truly play out when you have groups interacting together in their own worlds, and after 10.0 we've learned a lot from our citizens and made the following upgrades:

Homestead Support Papers

Changes to Annexation

Changes to Border Control

Release Notes

Avatars

• Fixed: When connecting to a server after having left it with the avatar sleeping, the UI would show the inside of the avatars face and prevent interactions until reconnecting to the server
• Fixed: When entering water while eating, the avatar would lose its hand animations and prevent any interactions until reconnecting to the server
• Fixed: Avatars that had invalid items could lead to the player only seeing a black screen after connection to a server
• Fixed: The avatar's backpack didn't hide when sitting on a chair or mounting a vehicle

Balance

• Changed: Decreased maximum givable reputation by laws of towns from 20 to 10 and for countries from 30 to 20
• Changed: Culture calculation now uses the lower of the artist's / the picture's reputation instead of the sum of both - this can notably reduce existing culture where it was mostly gained by artist instead of picture reputation and hence lead to influence sizes appearing smaller after updating (If this causes trouble on your server, you can increase the "SettlementInfluenceMultiplier" inside Settlements.eco to make up for this change)
• Changed: Increased shelf life of all cooking oils to match the one of Flaxseed Oil
• Changed: Reduced labour cost of seed crafting from 25 to 20
• Changed: Adjusted lumber recipe to require less Flaxseed Oil, it now yields 2 lumber pieces with only the other ingredient costs increased to match
• Fixed: Geology Modern Papers were having a static ingredient cost for glass, it is now dynamic

Civics

• Added: A setting in the immigration policy that allows determining if child settlements can annex each other
• Added: New civic conditions "Is Government Account" and "Matches Settlement"
• Added: New game value "Settlement of Bank Account", allowing to check if the bank account used in a transaction is hosted by any settlements specified
• Fixed: The influence of settlements could be projected at a completely different place than where they actually were when their foundation deed was located around the 0 coordinate wrap border
• Fixed: There was a discrepancy in regard to where homesteads can be placed between the client and the server at the borders of unfounded settlements
• Fixed: It was possible to accept citizens into an unfounded settlement and then move it, keeping the already accepted citizens now no longer within its influence. When a homestead would no longer be covered by the influence when moving a settlement it will now inform the acting player that the homesteads affected by this will lose their citizenship, which they need to confirm.
• Fixed: Editing deeds via the map didn't take into account the setting for if a settlement allows foreign property ownership, enabling non-citizen players that already owned a property in a settlement to continue to expand their deed even when foreign property ownership was disabled since acquiring that property
• Fixed: Foundations with the default "Everyone" permission did not always correctly prevent players from taking claim papers out of it, which is supposed to only be possible by the Mayor with that permission set
• Fixed: It was possible to edit or remove the citizenship demographic of a settlement, leading to the settlement becoming invalid
• Fixed: Removing a citizen from a settlement while it was offline caused a server crash
• Fixed: Trying to remove a citizenship application on a settlement that was assigned as child of another settlement via admin tools lead to a client disconnect, all applications will now be removed when a settlement is assigned to be a child settlement this way
• Fixed: Multiple civic related server crashes that appeared in unforseen edge cases
• Fixed: Trying to place a capitol on a server that has settlements enabled or placing a foundation on a server that has settlements disabled caused a server crash, placing will now correctly provide an error in the UI
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, civic objects wouldn't allow their usage until forceenabled as they were considering themselves to not be within jurisdiction of a settlement
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, civics weren't considered valid and removed themselves after the invalidity timer ran out
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, claiming would sometimes show an error saying the action would not be valid due to not being within a settlements influence
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, when unclaiming the last plot of a deed the server would crash
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, it was not possible to sell claim papers
• Fixed: With settlements disabled, it was not possible to use the treasury
• Improved: Constitutions can no longer become invalid, preventing players from being stuck with an invalid constitution they cannot edit despite valid options to do so would be available
• Improved: Settlements can no longer become invalid due to missing or invalid civics, only by failing their base requirements
• Improved: Settlements will now automatically try to repair invalid entries by resetting them - this can also be done manually by using the new admin command /resettle
• Improved: Invalidity warnings for civic objects are now sent multiple times during the duration of the invalidity timer to make it more likely that players notice them, additionally the default invalidity timer has been increased from 20 to 60 minutes.
• Improved: Invalidity warnings are now only sent to the creator of the civic object and any players that have authorization on the deed the object is located on and could hence actually solve the problem

Interaction

• Fixed: Interacting with a felled log using a soil sampler caused a client disconnect
• Fixed: Interacting while in third person didn't always reliably work due to the interaction origin being tied to the camera, instead of the player
• Fixed: The skid steer was accepting items it is not intended for that when placed by the skidsteer would create a unremovable white square
• Fixed: Grass that had grown on tilled soil couldn't be removed by tilling it again
• Fixed: Claim stakes defaulted to a vehicle deed if that was the last remaining deed
• Fixed: Stone roads did not have a default form selected when using the hammer
• Fixed: Plants highlighted already harvested fruits when hovering them
• Fixed: Objects displayed and set to be available for purchase in the world couldn't be bought due to an authorization issue
• Fixed: When trying to mount a vehicle multiple times quickly or during lag the player could end up driving a vehicle in the passenger seat
• Fixed: When placing blocks in a multiform with the hammer the error message "Not attached to ground" could wrongly appear when the actual problem was the building range being invalid
• Fixed: Mounting a vehicle in first person view would always rotate the camera to face north
• Fixed: Transferring ownership of a deed to a different player, title or demographic caused a client disconnect
• Fixed: The ramp of the barge could be opened despite not being authorized to do so
• Improved: Paintings can now be added to and removed from frames via simple shift + right click

UI

• Added: The game will now show a information message when connection to the authentication servers isn't possible, informing the player about our status page and the support mail
• Added: Notifications for sales made with the "For Sale" feature
• Fixed: Contract acceptance confirmations didn't show the requirements to fulfill the contract
• Fixed: Crafting orders could show a "Halted" hint in their tooltip despite that wasn't the case due to not taking into account upgrades reducing the required amount of ingredients for a recipe
• Fixed: Holding food in ones hands while in third person view and interacting with something could lead to the food additionally appearing on the screen as it would in first person
• Fixed: Draft settlements were showing in the government UI, clogging up the view
• Fixed: The "x" button to remove applicants for citizenship didn't do anything
• Fixed: Hovering over a link in the notification menu could show the tooltip for something the player didn't hover
• Fixed: The settlement picture area wasn't correctly showing in the foundation UI
• Fixed: The password entry dialogue when trying to join a server was not displaying the mouse cursor
• Fixed: Tooltip parts added by mods weren't reliably displayed due to a loading order issue
• Fixed: Settlement influence wasn't shown on the map until turning the setting off and on again
• Fixed: Map settings weren't saving the selection for settlement influence between play sessions
• Improved: The notifications for removed claim papers will now explain why they were removed
• Improved: Reworked the game entry flow, making the entry to the game menu more smooth

Objects / World:

• Fixed: Grass was spreading onto tilled soil
• Fixed: The fishing trawler was catching fish even if it wasn't moving
• Fixed: The ramp of the barge wasn't correctly synced between all players
• Fixed: The settlement crafting table had wrong occupancy values, it now fits its size
• Fixed: The plastic buoy had wrong occupancy, it now fits its size

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: The game was crashing when trying to join a server on old CPUs that do not support SSE 4.2 / AVX 2, we have implemented a workaround for that
• Fixed: An issue with the chat that could lead to a severe decrease of performance
• Fixed: Twitch integration causing connection issues that slowed the game down when enabled
• Fixed: Branch occlusion in third person wasn't working correctly
• Fixed: Shadows were not moving smoothly with the sunlight
• Fixed: Additional causes for rubble teleporting
• Improved: Multiple changes to animal pathfinding to make it more smooth
• Improved: Added a new volume slider for weather sounds
• Improved: Only unclaiming (instead of also claiming) is now restricted by default when a property has residents on it - the option that can be set by the landlord to enable property changes and warn potential residents about this before agreeing to a rental has been adjusted respectively to reflect that

Server & Configs

• Added: A setting that automatically scales influence sizes of settlements with the world size, enabled by default
• Changed: Changing the property owner of a deed via admin commands will no longer turn off objects on that deed like a regular transfer would
• Fixed: Server restarts were resetting the available item count in work orders to 0 until the linked storages were updated, despite items were available to continue crafting
• Fixed: Changing the anonymous voting setting for the basic default election caused an error in the server ui
• Fixed: The server changed the "AFKOccupancyBeforeAFKKick" config value back to 0 when restarting the server, overwriting the configured value in the config file

• Added: "CraftingQueueQuantity" config variable, defining the number of work orders a crafting table can hold at the same time - defaults to 5.

• Added: "ClaimStakesGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumedAndSettlementsDisabled" config variable, defining the number of claim stakes (usable anywhere) granted when reading a skill scroll when settlements are disabled - defaults vary depending on the collaboration setting.
• Added: "ClaimPapersGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumedAndSettlementsDisabled" config variable, defining the number of claim papers (usable anywhere) granted when reading a skill scroll when settlements are disabled - defaults vary depending on the collaboration setting.
• Added: "ClaimStakesGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumedAndSettlementsEnabled" config variable, defining the number of claim stakes (usable anywhere) granted when reading a skill scroll when settlements are enabled - defaults vary depending on the collaboration setting.
• Added: "ClaimPapersGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumedAndSettlementsEnabled" config variable, defining the number of claim papers (usable anywhere) granted when reading a skill scroll when settlements are enabled - defaults vary depending on the collaboration setting.
• Removed: "GiveStakesAndClaimsEvenWhenSettlementsAreEnabled" config variable.
• Removed: "ClaimStakesGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumed" config variable.
• Removed: "ClaimPapersGrantedUponSkillscrollConsumed" config variable.

• Added: "ScaleInfluenceBasedOnWorldSize" config variable, determining if settlement influence scales automatically with world size - defaults to true.
• Added: "MayAnnexSameLevel" config variable, determining if settlements can annex other settlements of the same level - defaults to false.
• Added: "MayAnnexSubSettlements" config variable, determining if settlements can annex other settlements of lower level - defaults to true.
• Added: "HomesteadSupportClaimsPerCitizen" config variable, determining how many homestead support papers are spawned per citizen - defaults to 5, 5, 5.
• Added: "HomesteadSupportClaimsPerAbandonedCitizen" config variable, determining how many homestead support papers are spawned per abandoned citizen - defaults to 3, 3, 3.
• Renamed: "ClaimStakesPerCitizenPastFirst" to "ClaimStakesPerCitizen".
• Renamed: "LandClaimsPerCitizenPastFirst" to "SettlementClaimsPerCitizen".
• Renamed: "LandClaimsPerAbandonedCitizen" to "SettlementClaimsPerAbandonedCitizen".

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.4 to address the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: Under specific circumstances it was possible to place blocks outside of the allowed height limits, breaking the savegame and leading to a black screen with HUD for all players on the server
• Fixed: Using the "Approve all" function for pictures deleted all pictures that were supposed to be approved
• Fixed: Approving a picture that was already approved deleted the picture

Civics:

• Fixed: It was possible to override the permission to transfer properties outside of law jurisdiction
• Fixed: Laws that use "Citizen Timer" were able to affect players outside of law jurisdiction

Server:

• Fixed: A memory leak related to room calculations
• Fixed: An issue that could cause the server to lock up, halting crafting timers and breaking interaction

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.3 to address the following issues:

• Fixed: Shooting down the meteor could lead to an achievement related server crash
• Fixed: Pictures in a invalid state (having no creator assigned) could crash the server and corrupt the save game, this fix will scan pictures on server start for this state and assign them a creator to fix save games retroactively
• Fixed: Some other server crashes that could be caused by pictures
• Fixed: Achievements were not properly storing progress and some were hence unobtainable
• Fixed: The levelup animation didn't display its graphics correctly

Hey Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 10.0.2 to adress the following issues:

General:

• Fixed: Multiple usability problems with tools, especially the bows and the fishing rod
• Improved: Canoes should feel more responsive to your interactions when steering them
• Improved: Adjusted temperature and moisture ranges for "Flax" plant to have better habitability
• Removed: The network multiplier for reputation was removed, it was causing confusion to players and is no longer necessary with the new settlements system

Civics:

• Fixed: Towns founded by citizens that lost their prior town due to the civics invalidity timer showed a property crisis mentioning deeds that were part of their prior town and do no longer exist
• Fixed: Custom stats that due to the name of the settlement or its founder had special characters in their full internal name were causing database issues that could lead to a multitude of strange effects
• Fixed: The law trigger "First Login" wasn't hidden on worlds with settlements turned on, as is intended
• Improved: Performance on scanning properties when changing laws, this notably improves civic performance

Technical:

• Fixed: It wasn't possible to create a new world with randomized world generation through the game client
• Fixed: It was possible to generate invalid worlds with a height over 160, leading to players seeing a black screen with HUD when joining them after a while. The world generator will no longer generate worlds with a height going over this limit.
• Fixed: Some players could get stuck at around 80% of loading when reconnecting to a server
• Improved: Multiple improvements to face tracking, including better webcam detection

Singleplayer:

Hey Citizens, we have just deployed Hotfix 10.0.1 to address the following issues:

Civics:

• Fixed: Bank accounts created since the last server restart would display a "Dual Permission" error and be unusable
• Fixed: Homesteads were able to be placed outside of a settlement when joining that settlement before placing it down

Crashes:

• Fixed: Changing the owner of a vehicle was causing a crash
• Fixed: Opening the "Influence" page in the Ecopedia was caushing a crash
• Fixed: Immigration policies could become invalid and cause a crash when a player tried to leave a settlement (or was made to)

General:

• Improved: The claim tool will now auto-select the deed with the closest plot among those owned everytime it is selected. Once a manual selection is made, this behaviour stops for the rest of the play session

Hello Citizens, today is the day - we are finally launching Eco 10 for you to play! Our team has put together a massive upgrade for the game, making this the biggest Update we ever made. And due to the introduction of settlements, it's also the one with the most changes to and impact on gameplay - making Eco even more interesting and collaboration focused! What you really want to hear about, though, is probably boats - so after a quick summary for all those of you that prefer to play it right away, let's get directly into what is new. Release Summary: [olist]

Render to Horizon With the upgraded lodding system you can now configure your world to display to the horizon, showing the curvature of the world and giving you a sense of its grandeur![/olist] And now, let's go into the details:

Boats & Coastal Construction

• Discover the worlds of Eco on water for the first time
• Build a Canoe to quickly travel around on your own or craft a Large Canoe to take a friend with you
• Use the Wooden Transport Boat to transport goods and trade on different continents
• Get yourself a Fishing Trawler and become a deep sea fisher
• Transport two trucks with a Wooden Barge or even up to four with an Industrial Barge
• Building in deep oceans is no longer possible, gone are the days of continent spanning bridges
• Swimming in deep ocean is extremely exhaustive - if you run out of calories you will drown and wake up at the shore
• Added new forms centered around docks to the hewn log blocksets to build your ports - or anything else you find them suitable for
• Added two mooring posts on land and two buoys on sea that you can lash your boats to
• Added five decorations fitting the nautical theme - Life Preserver, Ships Wheel, Hanging Buoys, Glass Buoys and Fish Rack

Towns, Countries & Federations

• Players now start the game by claiming a Homestead somewhere on the world
• Players can join together to found Towns, Countries and even Federations
• Each settlement has their own claim stakes to create new deeds and claim papers to expand them
• Each of these settlement ejects influence, a circular area in which their claim papers and stakes can be used
• The influence of a settlement can be expanded through increasing the settlement's culture
• Laws of a settlement are only valid within its influence respectively for its own citizens - no more global government by default
• Settlements can make immigration policies to decide who can join them
• Settlements of higher tiers can annex other settlement through a difficult process

Culture

• Create stunning in-game pictures and images by using the easel or one of multiple cameras
• Use the printing press to upload your own images onto the server
• Make museums and show your pictures off in a multitude of frames
• Collect reputation for your pictures and help your settlement increase its influence

New Avatars & Facetracking

• Completely reworked avatars, supporting facial expressions
• A new creation flow to make your own avatar - saved between play sessions
• Customize your avatar with many new options and outfit it with many new clothing items
• Build a dresser and change your outfit on the server you currently are playing on
• Support for facetracking, calibrate with your webcam and animate your avatars to show your own facial expressions and hand movements

Balancing & Techtree Expansion

• Improved world generation, ores will now generate in veins and plants spawn in localized clusters
• Rebalanced research papers and upgrade modules to require specialty investments
• Revamped power generation and consumption - the power network now properly prioritizes efficient power generators
• Changed the Steam Engine to provide mechanical power instead of electrical and notably reduced the amount of mechanical power that the Water Wheel and the Windmill generate
• Added the Industrial Generator for late game power generation
• Improved Stone Roads - they now fully support form fill types like their asphalt counterpart
• Improved Shovels - each tier of shovel now can hold an increasing amount of dirt
• Rebalanced countless crafting recipes and increased the shelflife of seeds
• Added a new plant to the techtree and incorporated it into the lumber recipes - flax

Miscellaneous

• Added a "Trust Landlord" option for renting, allowing landlords to freely change property with residents on them, improving Quality of Life for players playing together on shared property
• Executive actions now support to target single deeds and allow to change reputation
• Reputation now provides for configurable daily limits and a "Speak Well of Other" bonus to incentivize its usage
• Settlements now also have a reputation contingent usable via laws and executive actions - reward your citizens for helping your settlement improve its culture
• Improved animal pathfinding to be less likely to collide or get stuck

Twitch Extension

To support our amazing streamer community, we've created a unique plugin that will allow viewers to interact with the worlds a streamer plays in!

• Viewers can vote in elections (up to a defined percentage of total votes based on settings)
• Displays graphs of ecosystem and economy data to analyze the big picture
• Shows all relevant info about the server and allows viewers to join based on configurable settings

Were also starting a Twitch Drop campaign today, so watch Twitch streams to get your Update 10 nautical themed unique items, you can find all information on our website: https://play.eco/twitch-drops
Thanks a ton from all of us at the Strange Loop team for all our old and new Citizens, this release marks our biggest so far, and theres still lots more to come. -John K, CEO Strange Loop Games Important Info for the Update: - Migration from Update 9.7.13 should work in most cases, but incompatible data will be removed in the process, changes to the world generation will not be available and the settlement feature can't be turned on for migrated worlds. - A world created on Update 10 with the settlements feature disabled can only turn it on when there is no civics in the world. Disabling the settlements feature is not possible once it was enabled at any point without restoring a backup from before it was activated.

Good day Eco Citizens, we have a big announcement today: after over a year in the making, Eco 10 will be released on December 12th 2023! This is our biggest update ever, and will be a huge addition to the game. Well have some more blog posts giving details about whats in it, but today Im going to give you a look at our new Towns/Countries/Federations system.
Overview of past and coming up blogs: - Boats and Trade - Coastal construction - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries and Federations (This blog) - Culture

Homesteads

Towns

Influence

Countries

Federations

Annexation

Coming 12-12!

Greetings Citizens! Coming soon to Eco 10: ports! With the introduction of Boats, coastal infrastructure will be crucial to opening up trade and travel between continents. Weve added lots of new block types you can place directly on water like docks, and other decorative elements to give you that nautical appeal. Port towns will be very important to the overall economy, and become hubs of trade as resources pass through them between land and sea, connecting far-flung towns with the resources they need from the other side of the world. Overview of past and coming up blogs: - Boats and Trade - Coastal construction (This blog) - New avatars - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture

Coastal Construction in Eco 10

Docks

Buoys

Nautical Decorations

Hey Eco Citizens, Art Director Milenko here, in this blog we will be talking about new avatars, the avatar creation system we are trying to implement, looking back at multiple increments of the avatar development during the game production so far and reminiscing a bit about the game and thoughts we had while making it. Overview of past and coming up blogs: - Boats and Trade - Coastal construction - New avatars (This blog) - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture Let's get right into it.

New Avatars in Eco 10

Old avatars in earlier versions

New Avatars in Update 10

Hello Eco Citizens, big news: the long-awaited Eco 10 update is finally in playtests! We've added a ton of features (over a full year's worth of work), and we're introducing a lot of brand new systems as well as lots of polish. Release date is currently 'when it's ready', but goal is well-before the end of the year. With all the new additions, we want to adequately test it with large groups to make sure they're balanced. So over the coming weeks we're going to be doing blog posts on all the new things to expect. Here's the agenda: - Boats and Trade (This blog) - Coastal construction - New avatars - Face tracking avatars - Photography/painting - New graphical improvements - Expanded tech tree - Twitch plugin - Towns, Countries, and Federations - Culture Well kick it off with the first blog on Boats!

Boats and Trade in Eco 10

Isolated Resources

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

Civics:

• 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.

Art & Effects:

• 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.

Gameplay:

• Fixed: Debris and plants were not slowing down players and vehicles as intended.

Interaction:

• 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.

UI:

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

Server:

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

Miscellaneous:

• 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.

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.

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

UI:

• 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.

Server:

• 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.

Miscellaneous:

• 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.

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:

Optimization - Client

• 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.

Optimization - Server

• 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.

Icons

Avatar

• 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.

Civics

• 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.

Economy

• 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.

UI

• 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.

ModKit

• 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)

Balance

• Changed: Harvest yield of kelp was increased by 1.
• Fixed: Harvesting kelp was not affected by the gathering skill.

Miscellaneous

• 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.

Server & Configs

• 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.

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

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

Civics:

• 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.

Server:

• 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.

Miscellaneous:

• 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: Usability of legacy GameValue API for mods restored, it will be completely removed in Update 10.
• Fixed: Removed rooms were never truly removed from their deeds, using unnecessary memory.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.8, addressing several issues with mod support:

Civics:

• Fixed: Contracts would sometimes not pay the intended person, but someone totally unrelated.
• Fixed: Contracts showed a button label that is only intended to be visible for developers.

Server:

• Improved: Mod files exceeding 32 MB are now supported.
• Fixed: Large data transfers for mod downloads could make the server unresponsive and increase the time needed for players joining massively.
• Fixed: Joining players' mod downloads could lead to lags for all other players on the server.
• Fixed: An issue that could lead to players joining a server only seeing a black screen, being unable to play.

Miscellaneous:

• Fixed: A cause for random crashes that some players experienced.

Hello Eco Citizens, with 9.7 performance updates almost complete (one more big update for this version to come), the majority of the team is working on the long awaited ECO 10! Were going to be doing little quality of life updates along the way, but have a deadline set of April 3rd for the start of public playtest for Update 10. Were going to be demoing the features as we build up to this launch with live streams, heres the schedule, with each livestream from various Eco devs typically happening on Fridays at 21:00 CET / noon Pacific Time. You can watch the demos on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook or directly here on our Steam store page. Weve put together a calendar you can sync with if youd like to keep track of these, click here.

Schedule:

Twitch Election Plugin February 3rd

Avatars with Facial Animation via Webcam February 17th

Boats Demo March 3rd

User Pictures Demo March 10th

Render to Horizon Lodding Demo March 17th

Settlements Demo March 24th

Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.7, please find the changelog below:

Civics:

• Fixed: A failed attempt to overthrow the constitution would nontheless lead to all laws on the server being removed and the web ui no longer displaying prior elections to some players.
• Fixed: After a failed vote to ratify a constitution in some circumstances it was not possible to try to ratify another one.
• Fixed: In specific circumstances it was possible to change demographics instantly without having permissions to do so.

Server

• Fixed: In some cases migration of a world from Update 9.1 could fail.
• Fixed: Migration of a world from Update 9.5 could fail due to "ghost" districts that were not part of any district map.
• Fixed: When placing unavailable technical items that can only be spawned by admins (accidentially), the server would crash and no longer boot. (These items are going to be removed from the list of spawnable items)
• Fixed: An issue with LiteDB that could lead to corruption of the statistics database.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: Some trees frequently had their cut logs being hard to target as their hitbox was offset.
• Removed: Holiday theme for spruces, storage boxes and elks.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.6 addressing a few issues that were reported with our last release:

UI

• Fixed: Some map icons didn't show their tooltips for some players.

World Objects

• Fixed: On migrated worlds some tree branches were displayed wrongly or missing.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: In specific circumstances the tutorial could lead to a server crash.
• Fixed: A very rare issue that could cause an invalid state in the savegame, leading to the server becoming unresponsible whenever someone tried to mine.

Dear Eco Citizens, we are happy to announce that Update 9.7.5, the second part of our 9.7 Performance Update series is now available. Thanks to our wonderful community, especially all players helping us with performance diagnostics and testing this release on official server White Tiger, we are confident that we were able to address most causes for FPS drops over time in Eco. Starting with this update you should no longer need to restart the game after longer play sessions to restore your FPS. Naturally, our playtests cannot test every single possible hardware and settings configuration, so your feedback will be key going forward to fix any potentially remaining issues. There will be a third update in the series expanding on the improvements already made in the new year and we'll soon be ready for more news on Update 10 as well. For now, all that is left for us to say is a big thank you from the whole Strange Loop Games team for your support during this year - we wish you and your families happy holidays and a healthy new year 2023!

Optimization - Client

• Fixed: Transforms update time (those updates happen for every position, rotation and scale change) increased over time and led to reduction of FPS during play sessions.
• Fixed: Rendering time for minimap objects increased over time due to leaking graphics command buffers, which also led to reduction of FPS over time.
• Improved: All trees were rewritten to optimize creation and rendering performance, got mesh based LOD (Level of Detail) and now use static meshes for rendering instead of animated skinned meshes, decreasing the rendering and chunk loading time.
• Improved: In some cases repeating errors getting written to the log files in very high amounts could decrease performance, error logging has been limited so that this doesnt happen while preserving our ability to investigate and address them.

Optimization - Server

• Improved: Stockpiles were generating too many block updates, trying to set blocks of stockpiles that didn't change.
• Improved: Introduced caching to some of the initially sent views, notably reduces lag when players join a server and the loading time for those players.
• Improved: Client updates are now faster, objects that aren't visible to the player are no longer checked as often.
• Improved: The network thread in some circumstances got overloaded, we moved some heavy work to a different thread, this notably reduces the amount of server lag (disconnect symbols) especially on bigger servers.
• Improved: Sped up calculations for predators by searching for potential prey from their own collection, instead of a collection that contains all physical objects.

Civics

• Fixed: It was no longer possible to create civics before a constitution was passed and hence there was no way to pass a constitution with additional civics as a multi-election right from the start.
• Fixed: Default demographics could be edited ingame.
• Fixed: Laws would sometimes show a "Ignoring Trigger as that would result in a recursive law" message despite the law not being recursive and the action completing successfully.
• Fixed: Hands were no longer available as a tool for civic triggers.
• Fixed: Civics showed options related to an unreleased feature.
• Fixed: Contracts no longer showed their description on the contract board.

UI

• Fixed: The skid steer could highlight itself as interactable when mounted.
• Fixed: The improved highlighting for selected items during avatar creation didn't apply to all parts of the avatar.
• Fixed: The claim highlights did not display white borders between deeds anymore.
• Fixed: The claim highlights in some cases displayed a color that is different from the set one.
• Fixed: The tooltip for "Citizen" didn't work correctly.
• Fixed: The title of work orders in their tooltips could change to a generic name.
• Fixed: The tooltip for titles displayed "Wages Source Bank Account" in the wrong color.
• Fixed: The position of a player joining the server on the map could be displayed at 0,0 instead of the correct coordinates.
• Fixed: The map UI could break, leading to the player only moving the icon layer when trying to move the whole map.
• Fixed: Empty slots in the "public crafting stations" tab of the economy viewer wrongly showed a empty tooltip.
• Fixed: The tooltip for an election ratifying a constitution didn't update the players eligibility to vote until a server restart.
• Fixed: Depending on world size, the icons displayed on the minimap could be too big.

World Objects

• Fixed: Framed Glass windows that weren't connected to a different block had no collision.
• Fixed: Redwood signs used the texture of saguaro wood.
• Fixed: Shadow placement of glass with glass refraction setting turned on showed only a bright white block instead of the glass block.

Ecopedia

• Fixed: Ecopedia showed hidden items that are unavailable.
• Fixed: Links in Ecopedia lost their color that hints at them being clickable.

Balance

• Changed: Copper plates now require a machinist table nearby to craft.

Miscellaneous

• Added: Holiday theme for spruces, storage boxes and elks.
• Improved: Animal collision with players has temporarily been disabled until their AI is reworked.
• Fixed: The message when hitting the shell of a tortoise with an arrow claimed it bounced off, dealing no damage despite it dealing reduced damage.
• Fixed: Claim highlights on worlds with some specific sizes, such as 120x120, were showing misaligned. (This might need a new world to take effect)
• Fixed: After reloading a chunk, fish could hover above blocks where players built structures over water.
• Fixed: The candle in the starter camp disappeared when sleeping - but it's flame did not.
• Fixed: The player avatar held their empty hands up in third person view after the player ate something.
• Fixed: Multiple visual issues with animal movement when the player has high latency.
• Fixed: Adding labour to crafting projects was sometimes not possible without restarting the project due to the players skills not being properly detected.
• Fixed: Players could be locked in vehicles and on mountable objects by loosing authorization while mounted.

Server & Configs

• Added: The commands dealing with profiling, administrators, bans, whitelist and mutes can now be executed via RCON.
• Added: A new system to automatically kick idle players always or just when the server capacity is occupied to a set percentage and someone tries to join. Idle players will receive a popup warning when they reached the set idle time threshold. Admins are exempt from idle kick.
• Fixed: A rarely occuring issue that could lead to crashes and objects being removed at server start.

• Added: "SkillbookCraftCost" config variable, taking the values "Normal" and "Expensive" - the latter making the recipes for skillbooks harder, which was priorily part of the "EndgameCraftCost" setting.

• Removed: The setting "MaxConnections" was removed as it was replaced by "DefaultSlots".

• Added: "RequiredOccupancyBeforeAFKKick" config variable, taking a value between 0 and 100 to determine how full the server needs to be (when a maximum amount of slots is set) in percent for kicks for idling to be executed. If 0, idle players will always be kicked - that is also the default.
• Added: "TimeRequiredForAFKMinutes" config variable, taking any value in minutes to determine how long a player needs to be inactive to be kicked. The default is 0, which disables the feature.
• Changed: The setting "UsersWithReserverSlotsAtQueue" was renamed to "UsersWithReservedSlotsAtQueue" due to a typo.

Hey Eco Citizens, we have just released Update 9.7.4 addressing a bunch of issues while we continue the work on the second major part of the 9.7 performance update series:

Optimization

• Improved: The /profiler command for server profiling was improved and it is now possible to start all important profilings with /profiler everything.
• Fixed: Some players, usually with a cpu with a low amount of cores, would experience FPS drops when moving.

Civics

• Fixed: Stores using the treasury would close after a server restart.

Tools

• Fixed: The sound for a broken tool was no longer playing consistently.
• Fixed: The display of tool durability showed wrong values.
• Fixed: The durability bar of tools would vanish after a tool was moved.

World Objects

• Fixed: Housing points for multiple, repeated rooms did not get reduced properly.
• Fixed: The Futon Couch was missing its model in the world.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: The game would take a long time to close or crash during the closing process.
• Fixed: In rare cases a client could get kicked from the server when trying to place a Steam Truck.
• Fixed: In rare cases players could crash shortly after joining a world.
• Fixed: A blank entry appeared in the minimap selection settings.
• Fixed: The details for a work order would sometimes not be shown in its tooltip.
• Fixed: In rare cases servers could become unjoinable, instead displaying an error until a restart.
• Fixed: The /unstuck command would fail in some cases when being underground and no longer dismount the player from vehicles.

Playtest

Hey Citizens, we're happy to announce that the Meteor Shard, our very first plushie made in cooperation with our friends at Makeship is now available for ordering at: https://www.makeship.com/products/meteor-plush
The Meteor Shard is inspired by the well-known in-game item that all Alpha Backers received for supporting us early (thank you so much!), comes with the iconic chain for hanging and is only available as limited edition via this Makeship campaign until December 23. The campaign basically works like a crowdfunding: We need to reach 200 orders until the end of the campaign for the plushie to be produced starting at the end of December and shipped in March 2023 - which Makeship does worldwide! If we don't reach that amount, you get your full money back, there are no risks involved. Additionally, everyone that orders a plushie and once it arrived sends us a photo of where the plushie found its new home to support (at) strangeloopgames.com together with their SLG ID will get a unique user icon for their Eco accounts to show off ingame. Eco players are experts in collaboration and saving the day, so we'll manage that easily, right? Let's make it happen together!

Hey Eco Citizens, we just released Update 9.7.3 to address some more issues that were reported to us - thank you!

Optimization

• As announced in the last Update we have made further changes to the minimap that have high impact especially on very populated servers. Specifically we optimized synchronization of the minimap by implementing a delta module, reducing the amount of objects that get sent from server to client by only sending occuring changes instead of a full list whenever a new object got added or removed to / from the minimap. This had resulted in notable FPS drop and server lag on big servers.
• We also optimized several controllers on the server that were sending updates to too many players, for example information about durability of items that belong to other players. On top of that we reduced the count of minimap updates being sent by only sending them when the position change is big enough. This results in notably reduced network traffic on highly populated servers.
• Additionally we added, expanded and optimized several debug tools to help us identify performance problems easier.

Modkit

• Added: Legacy support for block form & fill icons to keep compatibility with deprecated mods and for big images on signs.

Server

• Fixed: In rare cases, If recurring transfers from titles were present in a world, clients could not join the world without being kicked.
• Fixed: When concluding a barter trade the player would be kicked from the server.

World Objects

• Fixed: Elevators could not be placed.
• Improved: Elevators can now also be placed on shafts with uneven solid ground.
• Fixed: Skid steers couldn't unload their contents into stockpiles and vehicles.

Miscellaneous

• Updated: Localizations were updated to the latest state on Crowdin.
• Improved: During avatar creation the selections of the players are now better highlighted.
• Fixed: Vehicle deeds could get wrong default names that were intended for normal deeds.
• Fixed: Several errors that would be logged in the client logs, potentially impacting performance.

Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.7.2 to address some more issues:

Optimization

• Improved: We reduced the amount of position and rotation updates sent for minimap objects.
• Improved: We improved the rendering of deed icons on the minimap by using methods intended for static instead of moving icons.
• Improved: We removed the sending of unnecessary duplicated updates for bank accounts.

Balance

• Fixed: The Modern Glassworking module is now correctly accepted in the Electronics Assembly instead of the Electric Machinist Table.

Server

• Fixed: If recurring transfers from titles were present in a world, the world could not be migrated.
• Fixed: If a chair object that is unavailable to get via normal game means was present in the world, the world could not be migrated.
• Fixed: Under specific circumstances related to titles and tooltips the server could crash.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: A critical exploit related to laws. Fixed: Players driving a vehicle below a body of water would get wrongly ejected from their vehicle for being in water.
• Fixed: When using legacy controls, entering a cart would always place the avatar facing north, no matter what direction it was facing when entering.
• Fixed: Parts of the in-development feature "Settlements" were unintendedly enabled in this release.
• Fixed: The animation for harvesting a plant didn't work correctly when holding a land claim stake.

Hey Eco Citizens, we have just released Hotfix 9.7.1 to address the issue with players without SLG account link being unable to start their local games. Sorry for the inconvenience! Fixed: Creating new or loading existing local saves in the client was not possible for players that had no SLG account linked.

Hey Citizens, we're releasing our first of at least two main releases for our 9.7.x Performance Update series. Please note that this update is only the start, laying groundwork for future updates that will contain a lot more optimization than this one. Next to a bunch of optimizations for both client and server we also have a bunch of gameplay changes and bug fixes. Let's jump right into it:

Client Performance

• We optimized the recycling of unused views. Views are used for data synchronization between client and server, but when specific data is no longer needed on the client these views should be recycled to save memory and avoid useless synchronization. Until now it was possible to have lag spikes during that recycling process, which have now been removed with an improved algorithm.
• We fixed a world object views leak. Views for world objects (like work tables and stockpiles) weren't recycled on the client and kept in memory forever, receiving updates even when out of range or destroyed.
• We simplified tree objects to remove unnecessary elements. When loading chunks, trees contribute significantly to the time it takes to spawn in objects. This change improves the time needed for spawning in trees. This is still work in progress and further optimization on it will follow in the next updates.
• We removed Global Illumination. Global Illumination, which was on by default, led to a very significiant performance decrease due to the implementation used being outdated and by now unmaintained. We can now focus on purely improving our default settings without the impact Global Illumination had while investigating how we can bring back the feature better later on.

Updated Housing System

Server Performance

• Animal Pathfinding was optimized by avoiding repeated calculations, resulting in a 50% decrease of CPU time spent on animals and less memory allocations.
• World Layers were optimized by implementation of a cache for plants based on cells, resulting in a 70% decrease of CPU time spent on world layer calculations and avoidance of memory allocations.
• Localization was optimized by removing the lock that prevented reading localization strings from two different threads, resulting in faster sent client updates.
• Storage (as in Game Saving) was optimized by avoiding the generation of a lot of garbage during the zipping process for the savefile by forking the library we use to do that and making it use ArrayPools, resulting in 50% less garbage created by the process.
• Startup was optimized by improving support of multithreading, resulting in 50% less time needed to start the server for small servers.

Minor Features

Bounding Boxes

Glassworks Table

Vases

Icons

Hello Eco Citizens, today we'd like to give you an update on where were taking Eco after our 9.6 release. As an Early Access title, were always looking to balance adding features with polishing existing ones, and weve decided to have a final Eco 9 update that is focused solely on performance - Update 9.7. A major part of our team will be focused on both client and server performance, fixing some long standing issues that should make the game a much smoother experience, especially on lower end machines. Our CTO Alex will tell you a bit of the details on how we plan to make it work:
Our strategy is to compare profiling snapshots we collect from QA and players on public test servers after hours of gaming. There are no obvious reasons we can easily fix, but one thing we noticed is greatly increased transform update time (every game object in game has a Transform with its position, rotation and scale) while the amount of game objects is not so different. These updates happen inside of the Unity Engine and we dont have direct control over it, but fortunately we found a way how we can inject a tracking for all transform changes and identify places which cause most of the updates and potentially fix them. And you can help us with that by playing on our public playtest server for the first part of Update 9.7 that will start tomorrow at 18:00 CET / 9am PT on our official server Giant Panda - all details and how it works will be published on our discord: https://discord.gg/eco
In an average Eco world you have a lot of trees especially with user tree farms. FPS may drop significantly in such areas. There is also time and resources which need to be spent to create a new tree and destroy a tree which impacts the speed of loading objects received from the server. We are working in two main directions:

• Simplifying tree models to improve instantiation time, saving memory resources and cost of component updates.
• Optimize rendering, especially at a distance. Right now a tree is a set of trunk and branches, but on a far distance (LOD1, LOD2) it may be replaced with a single mesh which might be a bit different, but still pretty recognizable and saves a lot of GPU resources - see the video below.

Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.6.6 to fix a major issue with civics. We expect this to be the last update before 9.7.

• Fixed: Certain conditions in civics were ignored, leading to all types of civics to not work properly in specific circumstances.
• Improved: Adjusted glass to have a bit more opacity, based on your feedback.

Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing 9.6.5 to address the issue with holding the interaction key to pick up materials, thanks for reporting!

• Fixed: Holding down the interaction key to continue picking up materials until the key is released didn't work.

Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.6.4 with a collection of fixes for issues you've been reporting. At the same time we're working on Update 9.7, for which we'll have news soon as well. Enjoy:

Audio

• Fixed: Tools could stop creating sounds after using them for a long time.
• Fixed: Tools could stop creating sounds after eating food.
• Fixed: Tools could stop creating sounds when switching to it from a torch.

Avatar

• Fixed: The avatar of the player could duplicate and exist twice.
• Fixed: When scrolling through empty hotbar slots the avatar animations would reload.
• Fixed: The held tool would not display on the avatar after login if another tool of the same type is in the hotbar.
• Fixed: The camera would rotate around the global z axis in third person view.
• Fixed: When using higher FoV players could not look directly below them.
• Fixed: When in a tilted vehicle the camera would feel inverted.

Balance

• Changed: Hoes, Scythes and Sickles now use a flat 20 calorie cost per use.
• Changed: The experience gain from crafting quicklime was reduced from 1.0 to 0.1.
• Changed: The icebox now requires only Carpentry level 1 instead of 5 to craft.
• Fixed: Cotton seeds would degrade into garbage instead of compost.
• Fixed: Spoiled food would degrade into garbage instead of compost.

Civics

• Fixed: Elections could sometimes not be started due to the confirmation window not popping up.
• Fixed: A "Change Settlement Name" civic action without icon was shown in the multi-selector for civic actions.
• Fixed: Removing oneself as manager from bank accounts and appointed titles without selecting another player to remove first was not possible.
• Fixed: A player would be assigned a fictious place of residency despite not having taken residence anywhere, yielding wrong results for laws working based on residency.
• Fixed: Sometimes your vote could count twice in an election.
• Fixed: Work parties could lead to a server crash when attempting to pay a contributor that has left the work party before payment.
• Fixed: Choosing an executive action in constitutional articles did not work correctly.
• Fixed: A client crash would occur when trying to seize a bank account that has no owner via law, if done via executive action instead a server crash would be caused.
• Fixed: Overriding authentication via law to allow property transfer by players that do not own a property did not work.
• Fixed: In a law where species were selected, the selected species didn't show in the law editor.
• Fixed: The search for law triggers did not yield all the results that were expected to be shown.
• Fixed: The mount action law trigger had no icon.

Graphics

• Improved: Reduced fog in the distance.
• Fixed: When looking through plants the lighting could sometimes be distorted.
• Fixed: Several graphical issues in the main menu were fixed.
• Fixed: Disconnecting from a server while being underwater would lead to the main menu being tinted in a blue tone.
• Fixed: Sunbeams on clouds did not originate from the sun.
• Fixed: Harvesting rice did not show the harvest effect.
• Fixed: Light around objects and trees could flicker when it is raining.
• Fixed: Harvest effects would stop triggering after loading and unloading many chunks.
• Fixed: Glass blocks had unnatural tinting depending on the light conditions.

Stores

• Fixed: Shop carts would use the bank account of the owner of the property it stands on when setting it up.
• Fixed: Stores that were not placed by the owner of the land it was placed on would revert their bank account to the land owners bank account on server restarts.

Tooltips

• Fixed: Crafting orders could sometimes show up as complete despite they were not.
• Fixed: Tooltips in crafting tables would not highlight resources to open their tooltips.
• Fixed: Prior offers of a store that was removed would still be displayed in the item tooltip for "Sell it at".
• Fixed: Several minor issues with title tooltips.

UI

• Fixed: The newsfeed would display too many notification types, leading to it spamming players.
• Fixed: Unauthorized players can no longer try to edit the text on a shopcart just to notice that they cannot save it.
• Fixed: When connecting to a hosted server, then cancelling and trying to load a local save the connection info would display that you are trying to connect to the hosted server.
• Fixed: Trees would be displayed darker than intended in specific zoom levels on the map.
• Fixed: When chatting while the store UI is opened keys pressed would trigger shortcut actions.
• Fixed: The interaction area to move the chat was too small.
• Fixed: Clicking save on the edit tab of a sign placed on your property would pop up a unnecessary message.
• Fixed: Text padding on reference descriptions in Ecopedia was missing.
• Fixed: The pie chart for elections on Web UI would display yes votes as no votes and vice versa.
• Fixed: Vote buttons would be shown on the Web UI even when not logged in.

World Objects

• Fixed: Picking up a log that lies in the zone of a storage would open the storage.
• Fixed: When trying to interact with some world objects two times in a row the second time could require the user to click the interaction button two times to function.
• Fixed: Closing an UI with left mouse button while holding an item that has a left-click interaction could cause that interaction to fire.
• Fixed: Left and right click interactions for world objects like turning on / off or placing something inside didn't work reliably.
• Fixed: The highlight for tiny, lumber and large lumber stockpiles was offset to its actual position.
• Fixed: Players could be disconnected from the game when placing a government object in the world.
• Fixed: A duplication bug involving removing stockpiles and picking up items from the ground.
• Fixed: Starter camps could be placed into the boundaries of other starter camps, making them overlap.
• Fixed: The highlight for buttons inside an elevator didn't work properly.
• Fixed: Clicking on the buttons inside an elevator could open the authorization menu additionally to the expected result.
• Fixed: Placing a door was not possible when there is no solid block on ground height in front of it.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed: When using a hammer to place blocks towards a highlighted block on a property you have no access to or when placing blocks on a property you are only authorized on through a law that ignored authentication the block would be placed as item and not as block.
• Fixed: Worlds would not render correctly on Linux builds and only display a pink screen.
• Fixed: When migrating from 0.9.5.4 districts would loose all their contents.
• Fixed: Migrating worlds directly from 9.4.6 to 9.6.x would lead to a server crash.

Server Configs

• Added: "PercentOfDaysToBeActiveForLongTermDemographic" to Civics.eco to control the percentage of days that a player needs to be active to be part of the demographic "Long Term".
• Fixed: The server configuration setting "AllowOverthrow" in Civics.eco did not prevent players from creating laws that prevent placing a capitol.

Hey Citizens, we just released Update 9.6.3 to address the teleporting issue that was introduced in Update 9.6.2 as a consequence of other teleportation fixes and have added some additional fixes, including for Big Shovel mod and the crane:

Chat

• Fixed: When creating a new chat channel, using "Select All" when adding chat managers or users would result in a disconnect.
• Fixed: Rapidly opening and closing the Eco Log would result in all chat messages to go to the Eco Log
• Fixed: Enabling Chat Zen mode was not always hiding the chat UI

Tools

• Fixed: Using tools and placing blocks could cause the avatar to teleport through terrain
• Fixed: Mods that allowed editing shovel carry size were still not working after latest update

UI

• Fixed: Work Order tooltips were missing information who started the work order
• Fixed: When adding a Text Formula for Civics and Rent, the field would overlap other selections in the UI
• Fixed: Tooltips for Text Formulas were not displaying in all UIs

Vehicles

• Adjusted Shop Cart handles so they are easy to grab
• Fixed: Crane would not allow placement with an error that blocks required solid ground
• Fixed: It was possible to highlight yourself with the Crane
• Fixed: Skid Steer would continue to backup after releasing the key to reverse
• Fixed: It was not possible to deposit blocks directly into a stockpile using an Excavator/Skid Steer

Misc

• Minimum range required between trees reduced to 4m from 5m (can be set in server configuration)
• Fixed: Pitcher Plant could cause a client crash when harvested
• Fixed: Having Discord Rich Presence enabled without Discord available was causing exceptions in the log

Hey Eco Citizens, we're happy to announce that Update 9.6.2 has just released. It contains several fixes for issues that were reported, more polish and we have also slightly adjusted the shelf life for seeds and crops based on your feedback. Please find the full changelog below:

Avatar

• Fixed: Adding items to a stockpile while standing on top of it could cause your avatar to fall underground
• Fixed: Swapping tools would not always display visually to others
• Fixed: Tools could clip through the blanket while sleeping in beds
• Fixed: Sleeping would break some clothing visually

Balance

• Shelf life of Crop Seeds increased by 3 days
• Shelf life of Crops increased by 1 day

Civics

• Fixed: Elected Titles with appropriate permissions were unable to manage the Treasury
• Fixed: It was not possible to reorder vote preferences for candidates once an initial vote was made
• Fixed: Votes from the election website would not always register correctly on first attempt, depending on browser settings
• Fixed: The button for "View All Votes" on the election website was not opening
• Fixed: When drafting civics, the incremental numbers used as a suffix for default names would be missing for every other entry

Graphics

• Fixed: Looking in the direction of multiple smog sources would cause FPS drop
• Fixed: Foxes would sometimes become elongated
• Fixed: Some Linux machines would render all world graphics purple

Stores

• Fixed: Store notifications in the news feed could display incorrect items for sale
• Fixed: The shop cart would not accept trades from linked storages

Tools

• Fixed: After relogging into a server, it was not possible to use the currently equipped tool until swapping tools
• Fixed: An exploit allowed using tools without expending calories or durability
• Fixed: It was not possible to place Asphalt Ramps when the first placement point was lower than the second
• Fixed: Using a tool in third-person view while riding a vehicle would cause the animation to loop
• Fixed: Only Cod and Moon Jellyfish were catchable by fishing
• Fixed: Unclaiming property with the Land Claim Stake would display incorrectly if there was no property to unclaim

Tooltips

• Fixed: Residency information in citizens tooltips would not update until after a server restart
• Fixed: Requirements to be eligible in an elected title's tooltip would not update until after a server restart
• Fixed: Specialty/profession tooltips referenced in civics would only display the title of skill
• Fixed: Modded items could display the incorrect specialty labor required on tooltips
• Fixed: The tooltip for "New Tab Created per Whisper" in the settings menu had overlapping text

UI

• Updated server UI to make naming the server and assigning user permissions part of the "Initial Setup" tab
• Fixed: When resizing the Economy Viewer, it would move to the bottom of the screen
• Fixed: Bank balance tab could become misaligned when resizing the Economy Viewer
• Vehicles
• Fixed: The crane was unable to interact with blocks
• Fixed: It was not possible to move the Shop Cart after a server restart if it was open at the time of the restart
• Fixed: A crash would occur after watching someone pick up a cart then leaving and re-entering rendering distance
• Fixed: Placing a large vehicle on top of an avatar would cause both to be pushed back backwards
• Fixed: Steam Tractor Harvester and Sower attachments had incorrect collision with other blocks
• Fixed: The Wheelbarrow could cause strange physics interactions after repeated use

World Objects

• All world objects that consume fuel now have an On/Off toggle switch
• Fixed: It was possible to duplicate items on busy servers by transferring items to a stockpile and quickly picking up the stockpile right afterwards
• Fixed: Civics world objects migrated from 9.5.4 were not appearing on the world map
• Fixed: The interaction highlight would remain on a bed after starting to sleep
• Fixed: Using HTML tags in the text field for world objects would cause a client crash

3D Food

• Fixed: Held food could become invisible to others when cycling between foods that have a 3D model and those that don't
• Fixed: Cancelling an eating animation by switching to another food would cause a delay in the next food appearing
• Fixed: Eating animations were missing when right-clicking the food in your currently selected toolbar slot
• Fixed: Poke Bowl had different cutlery in first-person and third-person view
• Fixed: Curved shaders were missing in a variety of foods, causing a strange appearance

Misc

• Optimizations to physics interactions
• Fixed: Changes to tools resulted in the Big Shovel Mod unable to be fixed for 9.6
• Fixed: The client would occasionally crash when loading chunks
• Fixed: Contributing to a work party could cause a server crash when under heavy load
• Fixed: Interacting with Taro Root plants would sometimes cause a crash

Hey Citizens, we have just released Update 9.6.1 that includes some key fixes and polish to new features, as well as a built-in sign for the shop cart to display text to potential customers. It has been great hearing feedback from the community on all the new changes, and we are committed to frequent updates as we work towards our next major release! Note: As part of a migration fix for this update, servers that have been created since the release of Update 9.6 with laws that reference the abandoned demographic will need to revise these laws to make sure the demographic is correctly set to "abandoned" - it is possible that laws that were intended to target abandoned citizens will affect active players otherwise!

Avatar:

• Fixed: The avatar would get stuck with their arms outstretched after dismounting from carts
• Fixed: It was possible to move others avatar by running into them
• Fixed: Tools would sometimes have an incorrect position on the backpack in third person

Graphics:

• Fixed: Plants & foliage could appear to vanish when turning around in an area
• Fixed: Plants would sometimes fail to render and would only show outline when targeted by a tool
• Fixed: Changing the Shadow Quality could break how water appeared

Food:

• Fixed: Bowls and plates would be missing when eating food with the right mouse button
• Fixed: Eating sounds would not play after the first time when using the right mouse button
• Fixed: Rice and Camas Bulb were not displaying properly when held and during eating animations
• Fixed: Charred Heart of Palm was missing in third person view

Vehicles:

• The Shop Cart now has a built-in sign to display text (only one side for now)
• Fixed: Vehicles would tend to teleport themselves into an unreachable location

Misc:

• Fixed: Work Parties that involved tagged ingredients would crash the server upon restart If they were left partially finished
• Fixed: Worlds that migrated to 9.6 which had civics that referenced the Abandoned demographic would have this demographic changed to the Long-Term demographic
• Fixed: Chat Zen mode would sometimes still show the background when hovering the mouse between tabs
• Fixed: Unneeded debug logs removed from the ModKit

Hey fellow Eco Citizens, after a month of successful playtesting with you, our community, and Eco modders, we're ready to release Update 9.6. This Update focuses majorly on improving the immersion within Eco, adding 3D models to every food in the game as well as a whole new First Person View with countless new animations. We're rounding that off by adding Shop Carts for your mobile business needs and a major new system changing up the economy: Food Spoilage! [previewyoutube=qzxg_Jwana0;full][/previewyoutube]

Food Spoilage

3D Food

First Person View

Shop Cart

Server Queue

New Objects and Building Forms

• Industrial Refrigerator
• Powered Storage Silo
• Canopy Window form for Carpets

Balance Changes

• New room type Living Room that replaces the old General room. World objects with General type can still be placed in all rooms
• Rugs are now crafted from Fabric instead of Cloth
• Cloth recipe Plant Fibers cost increased to 9 from 6
• Max growth age of pickable plants increased by 50%
• Reduced max yield of Agave & Papaya by 1
• Reduced minimum Plant Fibers yield of Jointfir by 1
• Reduced min and max Plant Fibers yield of Barrel Cactus and Big Bluestem by 1
• Decreased operating speed for Steam Tractor
• Experience for crafting hammers & shovels decreased
• Plant growth speed was added to the Difficulty configuration
• Fixed: Favorite foods would not be correctly assigned when joining a server that had calories provided for food edited after the first time launching the server which made these foods eligible/ineligible for favorite food

Optimization

• Significantly improved tooltip optimization by moving more caching to the client
• Improved audio optimization
• Optimizations to chunk rendering
• Optimization for linking items in chat
• Optimization for LOD and trees
• Optimizations for view updates for World Objects
• Optimizations for server performance during the meteor impact
• Optimizations to calculations related to animals

Bug Fixes & Improvements

Audio

• Added rustling sound when moving through plants
• Fixed: Wooden Hammer did not make a broken sound when it should have
• Fixed: Crane was not producing sound effects
• Fixed: Arrastra would continue to play sound effects after the work order was completed
• Fixed: Using the /skills levelupall command would cause audio notifications to continue to play even after logging out
• Fixed: In many cases, buttons were not providing audio feedback

Avatar

• Sleeping in a bed will now cause your avatar to appear in the bed to others, and will stay this way if you log out while in a bed.
• 11 New emotes: Bow, Kneel, Salute, Clap, Yawn, Agree, Disagree, Shy, Shrug, Exhausted, Confused
• Fixed: While using /fly as a server admin, movement hotkeys were not respected and only allowed moving with the default WASD movement keys
• Fixed: Emotes with extended animations (sleep/dance) would not show to players who connected to the server while the emote was already playing

Chat & News Feed

• Mentioning someone in chat will now cause the message to be highlighted for them in their chat screen
• New chat emojis that can be sent using colons (ex.:smile:)
• Sending too many messages in a row quickly will trigger a cooldown timer
• Added a 500-character limit to chat messages
• Craft order notifications in the news feed now display who started the order when hovering over the projects notifcation
• Fixed: Linking multi-word tags in chat had inconsistent format to make them appear
• Fixed: Setting a high UI scale caused the welcome message to have overlapping text
• Fixed: The news feed could not be dragged down below a certain point in the screen

Civics

• Fixed: Environment Statistics were not working in comparisons used for laws
• Fixed: The tooltips for proposed laws would incorrectly say they were passed by executive action while the election was still ongoing
• Fixed: The /titles assign command was not working when trying to assign someone a title that you already held yourself

Elevators

• Fixed: Elevators had synchronization problems when multiple people were viewing the same elevator
• Fixed: Having a vehicle loaded while using in the Industrial Elevator could stop the elevator and prevent it from going up
• Fixed: Loading two vehicles into an Industrial Elevator would cause one of them to teleport to the bottom of the elevator shaft after disconnecting from the server while on the elevator
• Fixed: Walking on elevators did not produce a walking sound
• Fixed: When two people were using the same elevator, the one who didnt press the button to operate the elevator would sometimes hear a falling sound

Modkit

• Added modkit support for flower pots
• Added support for custom links in the Ecopedia with a warning confirmation when clicking the link
• Added support for SkinnedAvatarPart to the Eco modkit to add modded clothing skins

Stores & Economy Viewer

• New hotkey S to store UI as a customer to quickly complete the trade
• Stores now have option to set max durability, and can list multiple items of the same type with different durability
• Durability for trade offers now visible in the Economy Viewer
• In the Transfer UI, currencies you dont have are now hidden from the currency selection dropdown
• Fixed: The Bank Accounts list in the Store UI had very crowded text and would spill over into two lines
• Fixed: Scrolling in the Store UI while an offer was selected would deselect the offer
• Fixed: Having a store with a colored name could cause the color to leak into other text in the UI
• Fixed: Tooltips for Stores in the Economy View would not open if the text for the store name was truncated
• Fixed: Economy Viewer bottom panel became misaligned when shrunk smaller than a certain size

Tools

• Dropping dirt from a shovel no longer requires a target
• Fixed: Modern Rock Drill animation would become incorrect when switching between first person and third person view while the tool was active.
• Fixed: Bow animation would not always complete when firing in third person view
• Fixed: Bow trajectory line would show incorrectly in third person when aiming at a significant height difference
• Fixed: It was possible to get tools into a state where they would all incorrectly display control hints for placing world objects
• Fixed: Available fill types would not change when swapping from a higher level hammer to a lower one while holding a block.
• Fixed: When chopping a tree, if the trunk landed on someone elses property, you were not able to collect the logs if you removed the stump first
• Fixed: Land Claim Stake property highlight would remain when logging off and then connecting to another server.
• Fixed: Shovel actions would sometimes not register while in third person view
• Fixed: All types of hammer had the same speed as the modern hammer

Vehicles

• Increased the light produced by vehicle headlights
• Excavator and Skid Steer will no longer continue to break rocks even when their inventory is full.
• It is no longer possible to exit vehicles with no available exit point and this would result in teleporting to the surface
• Fixed: Wheel animations could become desynced, so the front and rear wheels rotations did not match
• Fixed: Wood cart would drift slightly to the right even when moving straight.
• Fixed: You should be closer to interact error notification would appear when interacting with the arm of a crane or excavator from a valid distance
• Fixed: Skid Steer sometimes had trouble loading its cargo into a Truck, which required leaving and re-entering the skid steer to work correctly.
• Fixed: When driving a Steam Truck and clipping into a corner at the wrong angle it would move the driver into the passenger seat
• Fixed: Skid Steer was able to interact with stockpiles below it even when they should have been out of range.
• Fixed: Using a Steam Tractor could cause the Toolbar to overlap with inventory weight UI
• Fixed: Vehicle controls UI would not update if changing the control settings while already in a vehicle
• Fixed: Excavators could look like the front wheels were hovering when moving forward and viewed by another player
• Fixed: When switching between views or dragging a wood cart backwards in third person view, it could cause the avatar to twist in place
• Fixed: Avatar would twist in an unnatural position when using the crane

UI

• Improvements to all Civics UI to improve readability
• New addition to HUD to show remaining stamina timer when exhaustion is enabled
• New tooltips to clarify the different buttons for notification types
• Property transfer confirmation UI condensed in size and now includes the number of plots being transferred
• New look for Server UI with tabs for categories of server configurations
• Fixed: Some baked goods were assigned to the incorrect Ecopedia category
• Fixed: The Objectives UI was displaying a non-working link to the Ecopedia
• Fixed: The padding for some sliders in the escape menu was incorrect which caused them to clip outside the border of the window
• Fixed: Fuel UI text was not adapting in size based on localization
• Fixed: Viewing the Property tab of the Deed UI would incorrectly display the list of authorized users when access the UI as an authorized user but not the deed owner
• Fixed: Eating a large number of food types in a 24 hour period would cause the Nutrition UI to expand over most of the screen
• Fixed: Server listings would flicker in the server browser when selecting various options for sorting
• Fixed: Opening and closing the Skills UI with low framerate would cause it to drift downwards on the screen each time it was opened.
• Fixed: Icons were misaligned when viewing the inventory of a trash pile
• Fixed: Asphalt Concretes White Edge form had the incorrect icon

World Objects

• New block form for carpet blocks, Canopy Windows
• New world objects: Industrial Refrigerator and Powered Storage Silo
• Fixed: It was possible to get stuck when placing large objects or vehicles when placing them on top of your avatar.
• Fixed: When picking up rotatable world objects, they would always face west rather than the direction they were facing when picked up
• Fixed: When removing an object from a power grid, it would still act as a connection for transmitting power along the grid until the next server restart
• Fixed: Icons would exceed sign borders when stacked on top of each other
• Fixed: Waking from a bed by pressing escape would not stop time from skipping forward
• Fixed: Plants could grow in placed stockpiles, causing the storage to get displaced upwards
• Fixed: The Machinist Table outline highlight would overlap the avatar in third person view

Misc

• Fixed: The meteor was not appearing behind the atmosphere
• Fixed: Light reflected by glass would also pass through the glass as if not being reflected
• Fixed: It was not possible to take blocks directly from storage into the carried slot using shift + click
• Fixed: The auto-accept button for contracts was not working and contracts would automatically complete even when unchecked
• Fixed: Work parties with payments split based on the work performed would appear invalid after a server restart, even though the work party still functioned correctly.

Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.5.4 addressing a regression in the last update in regards to filters, thanks for reporting! Fixed: It was not possible to select multiple entries in civic and work party filters.

Hey Eco Citizens, today we release Update 9.5.3 addressing the following issues reported by players: Fixed: Contract escrow could end up not having the expected amount of currency to pay out contracts due to work parties having refunded their payments. Fixed: Tooltips didn't show the information line under the item name on where it can be crafted anymore. Fixed: The jump tutorial did not progress in worlds where the meteor was disabled. Fixed: Tooltips could show an exception instead of the expected information after being moved through categories in the store. Fixed: It was not possible to remove the content of a filter in civics once any entry was chosen due to the submit button disappearing when all items were unselected. Fixed: Scrolling in a list menu could lead to a different item than the actually selected one being chosen. Fixed: Glass was displaying 'milky' at night. Fixed: Trying to place a starter camp in an area where that is not possible could lead to empty deeds being created that got linked in chat. Fixed: Clicking the highlighted term "Currency Created" in the description of a law would crash the client. Fixed: The law trigger for completed work parties would trigger for every slot of the work party, no matter if that slot was actually filled by a player. Fixed: The ui for displaying server details in the server list didn't display correctly in all cases. Fixed: On some maps, specific areas could lead to the client crashing when entering. Fixed: Entering invalid values as custom stat for wages at registrar titles could lead to the server crashing and not booting anymore. Fixed: Hidden chat would become visible again when opening the construction menu. Fixed: Changing the resolution caused some border lines in the "Set Play Times UI" to disappear. Changed: Unowned objects are no longer automatically linked as storage. Added: User Marked Up names are now moddable. Added: The law trigger for completed work parties does now offer the amount of work added to the work party in calories.

Hey Eco Citizens, we're releasing Update 9.5.2 to address some more of the problems you have been reporting: Fixed: The client would sometimes crash with error message related to concurrent updates Fixed: Setting the Weight Multiplier could cause incorrect weight calculations in inventories Fixed: Increasing the Stack Size multiplier allowed more than one upgrade to be placed in a work station Fixed: For some workstations, like the Machinist Table, placing a module in the same room would not be recognized until after the next room update. Fixed: Laws that used a Citizen Timer trigger were not allowing Citizen to be used as a variable in a Condition check. Fixed: Deleting a vehicle deed could cause empty deeds to be linked in chat. Fixed: Civics would get invalidated after revising and passing them, reverting them to the prior version

Hey Eco Citizens, today we're releasing Update 9.5.1, adding some polish for and fixing some of the notable bugs with some of the new additions in Update 9.5. This update should bring improved stability and includes several fixes for crashes and failed migrations. We also have included some changes to the chat channel system and animal hit notifications based on your feedback. Thanks so much for that, we really appreciate it.

Audio

• Fixed: Ambient sounds during initial game launch were not respecting in-game volume settings
• Fixed: Alt-tabbing while running underwater caused a large sound when returning to Eco
• Fixed: The audio for chopping trees would sometimes stop playing

Chat:

• Changed: Moved civic notifications to chat
• Changed: Added Government notification category in the chat
• Fixed: When responding to a DM from someone with spaces in their name, it could send the message to someone who had the first word of the name as their own name
• Fixed: Chat was not hiding correctly when the Eco Log tab was open
• Fixed: When relogging, unread messages in hidden tabs didn't show their notification badges correctly
• Fixed: In some cases, hidden tabs didn't show their unread message badges even after receiving new messages
• Fixed: Hidden tabs sometimes still showed their notification badges despite all message being read
• Fixed: Italicized text was getting clipped in new lines of the news feed
• Fixed: The chat command for listing admins was showing all players

Civics:

• Changed: Added more info for money transactions related to laws
• Fixed: Debt was not always being removed after repaying a cleared contract
• Fixed: The Withdraw from Election button was not displaying an error when no election was selected

Graphics:

• Fixed: Glass could have strange lighting tints, especially at sunrise and sunset

Storage:

• Fixed: The server config for storage link range settings was not being respected after server restart
• Fixed: The consolidate inventory button was not working for objects with built in storage, like vehicles
• Fixed: Consolidating inventories on migrated worlds where items were stored in objects with new restrictions that would otherwise prevent the item from being stored here would cause a crash. Such items on consolidating will now be moved to Void Storage.

Stores:

• Fixed: Authorized users of a store were unable to rename categories or delete items from sale
• Fixed: When a modded item was added for sale in a store and later removed from the server, it would cause the save to be unloadable. Removed items will now be removed from stores
• Fixed: Barter trades were failing without an error message
• Fixed: When the store was set to barter mode, there was incorrect padding in "Checkout" area
• Fixed: When having over 20,000 items of inventory in a store, the quantity text would exceed the limitations of the frame

Tooltips:

• Added: New hint tooltips for various buttons in the HUD UI
• Fixed: Tooltips were missing from items in the Item Selector
• Fixed: Tooltips tended to refresh when it was not necessary
• Fixed: Complex laws and civics could result in an unwieldy tooltip that took up a large portion of the screen
• Fixed: Recipe tooltips were not displaying text for tags with non-unique plural names
• Fixed: Currency text was missing from the Transactions UI when checking the tooltip for truncated text
• Fixed: Nylon Carpet was showing the tooltip for Wool Curtains

UI:

• Changed: Adjusted up pop-up notifications when damaging an animal with a bow (number only, text doesn't follow animal, different colors for headshots vs bodyshots).
• Changed: Updated Localization for a variety of phrases and languages
• Fixed: Hovering effect not getting updated when scrolling in a dropdown menu
• Fixed: Void Storage Icon was missing its animation
• Fixed: Profession Overview wasn't showing the specialty levels of the players who had learned a specialty
• Fixed: Preferred Playtimes menu was not showing hours above the time grid
• Fixed: The minimap would glitch for one frame when being opened for the first time

Dear Eco Citizens, it's been a while but after two months of extensive playtesting with our community - thank you so much, everyone - Update 9.5 is ready to be released. Next to countless bugfixes and balance changes we have several content additions to the game for builders and decorators and lots of improvements for the focus of this update, the user experience. Let's get into the major changes right away.

New Store UI

Improved Chat

Newsfeed

Storage Management

Lockable Tooltips

Tech Tree Visualizer

New Objects and Building Forms

• Several new furniture items: Hewn Dresser, Hewn Nightstand, Lumber Dresser, Softwood Lumber Dresser, Hardwood Lumber Dresser, Upholstered Chair, Upholstered Couch, Nylon Futon Bed, Nylon Futon Couch, Small Bath Mat, Large Bath Mat, Towel Rack, Wool Curtain, Nylon Curtain, Cotton Curtain, Cast Iron Bed, Steel Abstract Fixture, Steel Hanging Fixture, Steel Hanging Lamp, Steel Kitchen Lamp, Steel Searchlight, Steel Square Fixture, Wood Kitchen Lamp
• Three new building forms for Framed Glass: Window Corners, Window Grilles & Double Window
• Fourteen new building forms for Brick: Window Grilles, Window Grilles (Edge), Window (Edge), Brace, Brace (Corner), Brace (Turn), Side Brace, Small Corner Brace, Thin Floor (Bottom), Thin Floor (Top), Thin Wall, Under Brace, Under Brace (Corner), Under Brace (Turn)
• New Crab Pot object that functions like a Fish Trap but for crabs

Balance Changes

• The minimum distance between trees when planting them in accordance to the distance used at world generation is now 5 blocks (e.g. 4 empty blocks between trees) - this is configurable in EcoSim.eco, values below 3 are not recommended due to tree farms being able to cause severe client lag
• Excavator, Skid Steer, and Steam Tractor now require calories to operate
• Motor vehicles can no longer be used underwater
• Increased default player experience required to gain a new star by 25%
• Calorie reduction for leveling up skilled labor reduced to 20-50% from 50%-80%
• Labor costs for most recipes requiring skilled labor reduced by 30%
• Increased Labor costs for most food recipes
• Food Tastiness feature is now enabled by default
• Major rebalance of food nutrients and calories to make it harder to get a perfectly balance diet and to encourage more variety
• The Icebox and the Refrigerator can now only store food, but can store a significantly larger amount
• Added new recipe for Bean Sprout. They are now crafted in a Farmers Table instead of a random drop from Beans
• Removed Greens tag from Bean Sprouts
• Reduced cost of Heart of Palm in all food recipes they appear to 2 from 8
• Change Heart of Palm cost to Camas Bulbs in "Fantastic Forest Pizza"
• Changed all recipes using Beet Green item to use Greens tag instead to reduce RNG fortunes dictating what to craft food wise
• Added recipes for crushing Mortared Stone and Stone Roads for recycling back into Crushed Mixed Rock
• Hunting: Deadeye talent bonus head shot damage reduced to 50% from 100%
• Hunting: Deadeye talent moved to level 6 and Arrow Recovery talent moved to level 3
• Health of all animals increased
• Recurve Bow moved to Smelting and now costs Iron Bars instead of Steel
• Biodiesel now requires a new ingredient Ethanol which is crafted by Cutting Edge Cooking
• Significantly reduced amount of Tallow obtained as a byproduct
• Render Fat recipe now costs Scrap Meat instead of Raw Meat
• Modern Agriculture Research Paper now has an additional Berry Extract Fertilizer cost
• Added new tag Fertilizer Filler which contains Plant Filler, Pulp Filler, and Composite Filler
• Adjusted several Fertilizer recipe costs to include a Fertilizer Filler cost
• Added new recipe to produce Tallow at the Bakery Oven
• Tallow Candle, Tallow Lamp, Tallow Wall Lamp, now have an additional Cotton Thread cost
• Candle Stand, Ceiling Candle, and Wall Candle now costs Tallow Candle instead of Tallow
• Carved Pumpkin and Tallow Candle is now produced by Farming specialty
• Lights that use Tallow as fuel now consume fuel at a slower rate
• Smith clothing Nylon Fabric cost changed to Cotton Fabric
• Significantly reduced the amount of items that are eligible to be used to back a currency
• Mining Basic Upgrade is now made on a Rocker Box
• Paper Milling Upgrade is now made on a Carpentry Table
• Crabs now drop a Crab Carcass instead of Raw Meat
• Added new recipe for Clean Crab at the Fishery
• Added new Small Fish tag to consolidate recipes on the Campfire
• Masonry Mortar recipe labor cost increased to 25 from 15

Modkit

• Added support for assigning server permissions via mods (Example mod for adding whitelist via Discord)
• Added a post construction hook for modifying the properties of plant species without an override
• Added Modkit support for Eco animal components and animation
• Added support for multiple clients to connect to RCON
• Adds support for executing chat commands via the Eco REST API
• Added some commonly modified values to the server configs so they can more easily be edited: Stack size modifier, Weight modifier, Fuel modifier, Stockpile range modifier, and Plant maturity rate modifier
• Fixed: Accessing the Mod Browser via the Server UI was not refreshing the available mods upon on the first load

Optimization

• Many optimizations to block building and chunk rendering to use less memory
• Mesh builders would not always clean up due to frequent updates, causing performance degradation over time
• Reduce FPS impact of having large amounts of unread notifications
• Reduce performance impact of opening storage containers when many other linkable storages are nearby
• Tooltips now cache on both the server and client, leading to much reduced demands on populated servers and instant-tooltips on the client that don't require a call to the server.
• Optimized thread safety checks
• Optimized burst

New Visual Effects

• New decorative insect Firefly that comes out at night
• Added harvest effects when harvesting with a shovel
• Added harvest effects when harvesting with a steam tractor
• Added harvest effects for underwater plants, urchins and clams
• Updated harvest effects animations for a large variety of plants
• New splash effect when jumping into water

Bug Fixes & Improvements

Audio

• Added a variety of new musical tracks and remixes of existing ones
• Added sound effects for the shooting down the meteor sequence
• Added sound effect for completing a transaction in a store

Avatar

• A larger variety of tools will now be displayed as carried on the avatar when they are added to the toolbar
• New animation for climbing over the top of a ladder
• Zooming in while in third person could sometimes have the avatar blocking the frame
• Trees and another plants will now temporarily hide if they would be blocking the avatar while in third person mode
• Improvements to responsiveness while moving with third person camera
• Fixed: When editing the avatar, occasionally foliage would be blocking the screen
• Fixed: It was possible to get stuck in a roof if placing objects when placing objects below where you were standing
• Fixed: During avatar creation, the avatar would often spawn facing blocks
• Fixed: It was possible to get stuck in a wall when opening a door that pushed you backwards
• Fixed: The avatar would have jerky movement when aiming a bow in third person
• Fixed: It was possible to zoom out in third person view past the intended maximum amount when setting different values for first person and third person field of view
• Fixed: Avatar nameplate could disappear when above water texture

Civics

• Added additional information to tooltips for law conditions
• Added collapsable menus for viewing civics in the Legislation tab of the Government UI
• Election Processes can now specify what happens in the case of tied result: No Winner, Random, or Incumbent Priority
• Fixed: It was possible to start an election for a deleted law draft if two people were editing a law at the same time
• Added expandable lists for advanced fields when drafting civics to make large laws easier to work with
• Added link to relevant Ecopedia page when creating/edit a civic
• Adjusted font colors for civics titles to be easier to read while editing
• Fixed: Elections Processes that had Mininum Percent of Voters Required of 0 would result in win for an election in which no one voted, instead of no declared winner
• Fixed: When starting a multi-provision election, provision names would not update in the pending election UI if their drafts were edited after being added
• Fixed: When a title that was reference in a law was deleted, it was not possible to remove the reference to this title by revising the law
• Fixed: It was not possible to reference items with a parent item in a law (Example: Softwood/Hardwood Boards)
• Fixed: Hovering over "math operation result" on a sidebar message did not work if the message was very long
• Fixed: Laws with a text formula did not allow editing
• Fixed: Blocking inventory access on a deed also blocked access to trucks with position on that deed
• Fixed: "Construct or Deconstruct" with "Ramps" did not work with a law that ignored authorization
• Fixed: Some text found in Constitution UI are overlapping each other while some are outside the border
• Fixed: It was not possible to edit deleted titles on linked articles such as laws, amendments, etc

Crafting

• Fixed: Focused Workflow talent was activating while having two of the same crafting tables in the same room
• Fixed: Crafting time required for a project was not displaying correctly when it was reduced by talents
• Fixed: When opening the crafting UI, sometimes the window would start partially scrolled down
• Fixed: Control hints would not follow the mouse when highlighting a crafting table
• Fixed: The Advanced Crafting button was missing a unique icon
• Fixed: Work party tooltips were not being updated when labor and resources were added to projects

Graphics

• Added new graphics setting that enables high quality water rendering
• Improvements to underwater post-processing effects
• Glass blocks now refract light
• Added sunrise and sunset colors to volumetric lights
• Improvements in lighting saturation
• Increased bloom strength range
• Fixed: Vsync and Volumetric Lighting would not always initialize correctly
• Fixed: Angling the camera by a block in the water caused water fog to disappear
• Fixed: Driving vehicles with the lights on at night caused graphical bug on water surface
• Fixed: Crossing 0,0 point would cause lights and insects to momentarily disappear

Main Menu

• Improved Voice Chat settings to be more clear and provide additional options
• Added confirmation box after pressing Exit to Main Menu while connected to a server
• Fixed: Text was getting truncated in the settings menus after lowering resolution
• Fixed: Pressing enter while a window was open in the main menu would proceed to connect to the most recent server instead of reacting to the window that was open
• Fixed: Main Menu was not displaying correctly on wide screen monitors

Meteor

• Meteors will now destroy objects inside buildings when destroying buildings instead of leaving them floating
• Rooms destroyed by meteors will no longer count as valid rooms
• Meteor craters will no longer create dirt floating in the water when hitting small bridges
• Ramps hit by meteors will be always destroyed entirely
• Items in stockpile's inventory that are destroyed by meteor impact will be removed from stockpile's inventory or turned into dirt
• Crate blocks spawned by stockpiles will no longer be immune to meteors
• Changed size of crater created by main meteor impact from 30 to 50
• Effects of '/meteor addhours' command will now be visible in server's configuration
• Fixed: Using /meteor addhours command was not updating display for hours remaining until after a server restart

Minimap

• The 2D Map can now be zoomed out far enough so it is possible to see the entire map at once
• Different view styles of the map/minimap now retain their own zoom settings
• Fixed: Map marker text would overlap with other elements of the UI
• Fixed: Minimap icons could trigger tooltip popups when hovering outside of the minimap when the minimap was in docked mode
• Fixed: The map would close when editing a deed by selecting the deed on the map
• Fixed: "Follow Player" setting in the minimap would not work in vehicles or after using the /flycommand.
• Fixed: Player arrows in the minimap would face the wrong direction while operating a vehicle if they entered the vehicle while in 3rd person
• Fixed: Black deeds were appearing invisible on the map

Tools

• Hitting an animal with a bow now displays damage taken in a popup above the animal
• The Fishing Pole line can now break if it takes too long to reel in a fish, which is indicated by the fishing line turning red if it is about to break
• Fixed: Attempting to use the shovel with a non-diggable block in hand would cause the shovel to not work without an error to explain why
• Fixed: Rapidly clicking while the hammer was selected would result in placements errors
• Fixed: Fishing pole line was offset in first person when turning down render scale below 100%
• Fixed: Reeling in a fishing pole when cast a very short distance was taking too long
• Fixed: It was not possible to reel in a fishing pole after interacting with another object while fishing
• Fixed: Fishing pole line could be dragged on land by walking away after casting
• Fixed: Switching off and on the fishing pole while a fish was on the line would freeze the fish
• Fixed: Modern Pickaxe tooltip was displaying the incorrect amount of hits required on Basalt
• Fixed: Papaya was giving the incorrect interaction hint when a hammer was selected

Tutorial

• Updated style of tutorial to be more goal oriented and with additional informative videos
• Shrunk UI for tutorial and notifications.
• Added tutorial for opening the Ecopedia
• Added tutorial for using a Machete to clear paths
• Centered experience multiplier during the Forage for Food tutorial
• Added triggers to active the food tutorial when either at 20% calories remaining or after eating food for the first time
• Tutorials now show their subtasks one at a time when they should be done in a specific order.
• Fixed: The camera would get stuck with strange behavior when pressing escape during the meteor tutorial at the moment the meteor was spotted in the key
• Fixed: If skipping all tutorial steps after first skipping the Nutrition tutorial, the nutrition meter would not load, requiring a reconnect to appear.
• Fixed: The "Reset Ecopedia viewed pages" button was not functioning
• Fixed: Client could crash when using the /tutorials task discord command

Vehicles

• New and improved model for the Wood Cart
• Fixed: After renting out a vehicle, the tenant was unable to drive the vehicle or access the storage
• Fixed: Exiting a vehicle in a narrow space would teleport you to the surface
• Fixed: Wood carts could teleport to the surface if they were confined in too small of a space underground
• Fixed: Crane could have a phantom shadow placement after leaving and reentering when the storage was empty
• Fixed: Avatar would stretch when crossing the world border while operating a wood cart
• Fixed: It was not possible to rotate blocks with the Crane
• Fixed: When using a crane to interact with a stockpile, the control hint would list all items to pick up when it should only have been blocks
• Fixed: It was possible to reduce the calorie consumption of the Hand Plow by eating after running out of calories while operating it
• Fixed: When backing up into a wall with the Hand Plow, it was possible to get stuck when dismounting
• Fixed: When using an Excavator or Skid Steer to pick up large pieces of rubble, it was only providing one stone/ore instead of two
• Fixed: The toolbar was missing while riding in a Steam Tractor
• Fixed: Steam Tractor attachments were not visually synced with other players after turning them on
• Fixed: There was an exploit where you could take finished items from other's work table by giving them authorization on your vehicle

UI

• Added pin button to backpack so that it remains open when pressing Escape
• It is now possible to search the economy viewer by text
• Updated style for many of the UI, including the Escape Menu, Currency Exchange, Bank, Deeds, Status Indicator, and more
• Unified size and settings of various fonts to add more consistency
• Updated style for control hint popups when hovering over an object
• Added additional information for the notification when being invited to join a residence, like deed location
• World Objects that used a paper background for their UI now use a wood background, with the exception of the Bank which uses a metal background
• Notifications from the Currency Exchange are now condensed into one message
• Added tooltip to Currency Exchange amount restrictions to explain its meaning
• Changed colors for object and block highlights to be more color-blind friendly
• Clarified error message on Mint UI when trying to mint a currency with a duplicate name
• Bank UI now displays Personal Accounts and Government Accounts separately
• Fixed: Blur effect was not disabled when hiding the UI while a menu was opened
• Fixed: Changes made on the Authorization UI were not updating for others when multiple people were accessing this UI
• Fixed: Tags did not have spaces when they were multiple words
• Fixed: Research papers and camo clothing did not display their color tints in the Ecopedia and tooltips
• Fixed: The highlight for carried blocks would overlap the current quantity carried when moving more of a block into the carried slot
• Fixed: Icons on the notification banner could exceed the boundary of the background in cases with small amount of text
• Fixed: Icons for the Small Standing Wood Signs would display as salads in the Ecopedia
• Fixed: Background blur was missing when opening a Contract or Workparty from outside of a Contract Board
• Fixed: The notification for claiming the first plot of a deed showed total land 0 square metres claimed
• Fixed: When mousing over the notification for gaining specialty experience to see the tooltip, it would suddenly vanish after moving the mouse away
• Fixed: Asphalt Concrete Ramp was included in the Road Tag when this is already covered by Asphalt Concrete
• Fixed: Some of the marked up text in the Ecopedia did not have a working tooltip when hovering it
• Fixed: Escrow transfer messages for contracts were not displaying the name of the contract associated with the transfer
• Fixed: Rent for Property UI did not have a scroll bar, creating issues when having a large formula for determining eligble renter
• Fixed: In the Economy Viewer UI, the Work Party tab was not scaling when the UI size was adjusted
• Fixed: Changes made to the Set Play Times UI were saving changes regardless of the method used to close the UI

World Objects

• Fixed: Not all plants species would fit correctly in a planter pot
• Fixed: It was possible to place very large world objects in a way that would encroach on a neighbor's property claims
• Fixed: Using /spawn court command was causing the Court to spawn partially inside the wall
• Fixed: Some objects had duplicate Power and Pipe Components included in their tooltip
• Fixed: Using the /build stockpile command with some blocks, like clay, would cause a crash
• Fixed: The Computer Lab would sometimes report there was not enough power to power the lasers when there was adequate power

Misc

• Added option for server admins to disable proximity voice chat
• Expanded the exhaustion feature to allow saving up stamina over multiple days when not becoming fully exausted. The maximum amount of time preserved can be set in the server configuration.
• Added option to the escape menu to view and copy the Server ID of the server connected to for sending to others so they can join
• Greatly expanded the text strings that are localized
• Fixed: There was no error notification when trying to plant a seed on a tilled soil block that had been covered by other blocks
• Fixed: The drop down to select a bank account to pay repair fees was not appearing in the Tool Bench
• Fixed: Smiting an Industrial world object with a Dev Tool would not update the room calculation to no longer be considered an Industrial room
• Fixed: Using the Land Claim Stake near the border of the plot would not display the claim highlight
• Fixed: Server could crash with LiteDB Exception: Databse lock timeout
• Fixed: A crash could occur when quitting Eco while connected to a server under certain conditions related to pollution
• Fixed: Occasionally the client would crash with an null reference exception related to "InventoryChangeSet"
• Fixed: Occasionally the client would crash with an error "Failed to handle RPCResponse"
• Fixed: Base food score was not being added to experience multiplier with zero calories
• Fixed: Claiming an individual plot displayed a notification of the plot have a total land of 0 square meters
• Fixed: The contract clause Add/Remove Blocks was not counting blocks that were stacked on top of each other
• Fixed: Placing a waterwheel underwater could create holes through the water
• Fixed: The camera would get displaced if being attacked by animals while sleeping
• Fixed: "Features" server config tab would not update until after saving the settings
• Fixed: Various typos and text corrections
• Fixed: Animal carcasses would sometimes teleport to the surface

Update 9.4.6 has been released and includes the following changes:

• Fixed: Players and other objects would sometimes appear invisible to others
• Fixed: The audio for chopping trees and other tools would sometimes stop playing until switching tools
• Fixed: Members of a demographic were not given edit permissions when that demographic was assigned as a manager of a registrar title or a bank account
• Fixed: 32-bit build would crash on startup
• Fixed: Casting a fishing pole was creating errors in the server log
• Fixed: Issue with banlist on servers
• Fixed: Using RCON with a non supported command was causing an exception
• Added: /kick, /listusers and /listadmins commands now all have RCON support

Update 9.4.5 has been released and next to removing the holiday skins includes the following changes:

• Added: New emotes: /wave, /sit, /bow,and /salute
• Added: Modkit support for custom images for signs and Ecopedia banners (More Info: Example Mod & Wiki Documentation)
• Fixed: Laws using a progressive percent were unable to accept 0 as the minimum threshold
• Fixed: Firing a bow was creating errors in server logs

• Added: New admin commands to help manage the skill points and levels of other players
• Fixed: It was possible to exploit furniture score calculations by placing furniture in the gaps of the wall between rooms
• Fixed: Plants would not render on the edges of the screen when rotating the camera in third person
• Fixed: Eco client would freeze when failing to get a response from Steam while in the middle of connecting to a server. This now causes a timeout with an error message explaining the problem.
• Fixed: Eco client would freeze when failing to connect to a Cloud Worlds when the relay server was unreachable
• Fixed: Using "Global Timer" as the value for a law effect would cause an exception
• Fixed: There was a situation that could result in some plants dying on a fresh world even when they were in a habitable environment
• Fixed: Exiting a UI with the left mouse button would also trigger the tool being held
• Fixed: Economy Viewer would show negative values for crafting time remaining on public crafting stations with finished orders
• Fixed: Mods downloaded from mods.io were being placed in the incorrect folder
• Fixed: There were still cases of rounding errors for currency transactions with fractions of a cent
• Other: Various Localization updates and fixes

The Holidays are approaching and we want to take this moment to thank our wonderful community for the incredible support this year, we appreciate it so much! In the past months we've been working hard on upcoming Update 9.5 and are excited to share more about it in the coming year.
Until then, we've covered Eco in festive decorations again, for you to enjoy the holidays in your games. Elk got back their sweet reindeer appearance, spruce trees light up as christmas trees and the distribution station has been decorated and is ready for you gifting storage crates wrapped as presents to your fellow players in your communities. We wish you and your families happy holidays and a healthy new year. May your wishes come true! With love, The Eco Team

Update 9.4.3 has been released and includes the following bug fixes:

• Fixed: Harvesting grass and wheat was causing a client crash
• Fixed: The camera was set to a fixed position when driving a vehicle as opposed to adjusting to face the direction the vehicle was moving
• Fixed: Players were often appearing invisible to others
• Fixed: Tool animations would not always display when viewing others use a tool

With this update comes a variety of bug fixes, improvements, and balance changes. Please note: Large servers may experience a longer than normal loading period when initializing properties due to a bug fix that clears out empty deeds from the database.

Civics & Contracts

• Fixed: Custom stats for civics were still recording even when the action that triggered the stat increase was prevented
• Fixed: Text formulas in laws could sometimes cause the server to crash and the save to become corrupted
• Fixed: The Distribution Station was incorrectly using time played to determine if eligible to receive items, rather than using days since joining the server
• Fixed: Contracts were unable to be marked as failed
• Fixed: Admin command /titles unassign was not working when targeting someone besides self
• Fixed: It was not possible to repay loans when using a personal account
• Fixed: Amount owed for a loan contract would not always update to reflect the amount remaining after making a partial payment

Food & Nutrition

• Added modable variables for minimum calories and minimum nutrients provided for food items to be eligible for cravings (default is 200 calories and 12 nutrients)
• Increased default amount of calories provided for food items to be eligible to a favorite/least favorite food to 500 from 50
• Added modable variable for minimum nutrients provided to be a favorite/least favorite (default is 50)
• Increased default minimum calories needed to be considered for Food Variety to 100 from 50
• Increased default number of foods needed for Food Variety bonus to be hard capped from 40 to 60
• Fixed: Food variety bonus would instantly jump up to the hard cap of 50% bonus when reaching the soft cap of 25%
• Fixed: Sound effect for eating was not playing

Modkit

• Added mod support for UI prefabs for a collection of variable types: Boolean, IEnumerable, Int32, and String
• Fixed: Servers with large mods could experience slowdown when multiple people were connecting to the server for the first time and needed to download mods
• Fixed: Quick Join & URL links would not did not properly launch with Steam version of Eco

UI

• Updated Localization to cover many new strings
• Updated tooltips for Lavish Workspace and Frugal Workspace talents to indicate the crafting tables must be placed on claimed land for these talents to work
• Property overlay is now displayed on the map by default (It can still be disabled)
• Fixed: Punctuation marks in chat were displaying an empty deed
• Fixed: Pollution & sea level rise were missing statistics on the web UI
• Fixed: Local worlds saves were unable to be sorted by date last played
• Fixed: When scrolling in the server browser, the background shade for servers was appearing above the server list
• Fixed: Opening the citizen object UI was showing the World Progress tab by default rather than the citizen objectives
• Fixed: Exhaustion preference UI now displays units to indicate the number selection is based on hours
• Fixed: There were typos in the Ecopedia "Trade" and "Property" entries
• Fixed: After playing for a long amount of time, new chat messages and notifications would sometimes stop displaying
• Fixed: "Setting Up Shop" achievement was not displaying an icon when unlocked
• Fixed: When level 0 in a specialty, the experience tooltip for this specialty would display symbols rather than a number for the amount of experience needed to level up this specialty

Vehicles & Tools

• Further polished legacy cart controls to fully restore old cart behavior
• Fixed: Skid steer did not have its normal smooth movement when picking up rubble
• Fixed: Vehicles could slide on ramps even when movement keys were not being pressed
• Fixed: Vehicles would sometimes disappear when crossing zero point on the map
• Fixed: In some situations, tools would no longer work after switching from third person view to first person
• Fixed: When using tools in third-person view, they could have faster animations than when using them in first-person view

General Fixes:

• Fixed: It was possible to place objects on the edge of property that overlapped into other's property
• Fixed: Doors incorrectly required solid ground both in front of and behind the door in order to be placed in a location
• Fixed: On rare occasions, a server would be unable to start after a restart due to being unable to load the chat
• Fixed: Missing inventory stacks caused by removing modded items caused a NullReferenceException crash
• Fixed: Incompatibilities in the latest Unity version were causing hard to identify client crashes
• Fixed: Avatar could sometimes clip through the ground when moving through zero point
• Fixed: Using command "/skills all" followed by command "point" caused Eco to freeze

With our first follow up patch to Update 9.4, we have added an option to enable the legacy cart control scheme, improved mod compatibility for popular mods from 9.3, and implemented multiple bug fixes to address some of the key issues that have been impacting gameplay.

Legacy Cart Control Option

Balance

• Wind generators now calculate height bonus from the center of the blades instead of the top occupancy point
• Brick Fireplace recipe moved to Kiln from Masonry Table so it can benefit from Pottery upgrades
• Slight nutrient buff to Sunflower
• Fixed: Seed recipes on the Farmers Table were not benefiting from increased crafting speed from upgrades
• Fixed: Sunflower did not have increased stack size on Steam Tractor

Modkit

• Fixed: Some popular mods from 9.3 were not compatible with 9.4 due to changes in how chat handled custom commands

Vehicles

• Added option to the control settings to enable legacy cart controls which uses mouse look to turn instead of the keyboard
• Turned down camera sway when turning with a cart in first person
• Fixed: Carts were having trouble getting enough momentum to climb ramps
• Fixed: Carts were not able to easily transition off ramps unless the connected block was tamped with a road tool

UI

• Fixed: Desired purchase quantities for stores would reset to 0 when scrolling with the mouse wheel
• Fixed: Economy Viewer was not displaying all text when using Chinese language

Other Fixes

• Disabled option for servers to enable the experimental Education & Settlements feature
• Decreased match score benefit when a server has the Needs Immigrants status from losing active players
• Fixed: Setting the Specialty Cost Multiplier to 0 would cause the server to crash
• Fixed: A desync in the client would occasionally cause a crash related to the RPCManager

Hello Citizens! We hope that you all had a chance to take a look on our newest Update 9.4 and are very thankful for all the feedback and bug reports we have received from you so far, this helps us a lot to improve Eco for you. During the weekend, we've been closely monitoring all our channels and recognized that one of the most often mentioned feedbacks was about the new control mechanics, especially in regard to carts. We debated the issues brought up and have decided that we will make available an option to choose between the current control mechanics and the ones that you are used to from version 9.3; it is planned to be introduced as soon as it has been developed and tested, likely with one of the first hotfixes - stay tuned for further news about this. We are also aware of several issues with carts and ramps and that some of you are experiencing issues with plants dying and having a wrong skill gain curve after a world migration to the new Update - we're also investigating these and all other reported issues and will provide you with more information and fixes as soon as they are available. The first hotfix is already being worked on and will include the awaited fix needed for some mods to be able to update to 9.4. The modding community is very important to us and we want to make sure that you can play with the mods you love as soon as possible! Thanks a lot for reading and please continue to send us your constructive feedback :)

We are happy to announce the release of Eco Update 9.4! With this update comes a load of new content, gameplay mechanics, and performance improvements. One major focus of this update was to provide more ways to express yourself via the avatar, including new animated emotes and avatar customization choices, We expanded the game with thirty new food items representing well known dishes from around the world. In addition, producing green energy is more realistic, requiring placement with proper access to the elements. We have also been hard at work at optimization, both for the Eco client and for server calculations. You should notice significantly smoother gameplay, though optimization will continue to be a primary focus for us in future updates. Last but not least, we had a heavy focus on bug fixes and other general improvements with a full list of changes included below.

Power Generation Updates

New Hairstyles and Outfits

Animated Emotes & Third Person Camera Improvements

New Food Content

Exhaustion System for Public Servers

Eco RCON Support

Optimization

• Optimized LOD system for rendering objects in the distance
• Optimization calculations involving large deeds especially when unclaiming
• Optimized the database system that results in faster performance and smaller file sizes
• Reduced server impact for civics ticks and room value calculations that will result in less lag spikes for large servers during these times
• Optimized logic for frequent plant spawner calculations
• Optimized interactions when mining with Improved Tool Strength talent
• Optimized calculations that occurred when sea level rise was occurring
• Fixed memory leak when highlighting a block

General Improvements

• New Prairie Dog animal that lives in the grasslands
• Improved visual effects when harvesting plants
• Improved logic for Elevator Call Post so it will control the closest elevator and no others
• You can now sit on either side of a bench (or any seat with no back)
• Reduced frequency for shouting "Timber" while logging, though it will always occur if no trees have been cut in the past 30 minutes
• Improved audio when a tree is falling
• Graphics improvements in less well-lit areas to improve contrast
• Improved property overlay visibility at different light conditions
• Expanded inventory sounds to include picking up items
• Fuel storage is no longer linked by default when placing stores and crafting tables
• Added ability to join servers via a weblink. For full details check the related wiki article
• Added an automatic server backup before migration to an upgraded version starts
• Added a new error message when failing to start a server if the cause is that the save is corrupted
• Chat API has been reintroduced and now endpoints require admin authentication
• Meat category in Ecopedia renamed to Raw Meat
• Papaya now categorized as plant in Ecopedia, while Saguaro Cactus is now categorized as a tree
• Improved animations in images for server categories in server browser

Balance Changes

• Player movement speed increased by 10%
• Small Wood Cart is now crafted by Logging specialty
• Plants will only spread if there is a living member of the species nearby
• New progression for which specialties craft Modern Upgrades: Advanced Smelting -> Industry -> Composites -> Electronics
• All Modern Upgrade recipes labor cost changed to 1000
• Rooms must be fully claimed in one continuous deed to count for house score
• Upgraded hammer tiers now unlock the additional multi-box fill types, with only Point and Line types being available on the Stone Hammer
• Hammer speed increased
• Starter Campsite now starts with a Stone Machete instead of a Torch Stand
• All Research Papers experienced provided by crafting reduced by 25%
• Added nutrient and moisture constraints for Cotton
• Reduced initial spawn percentage of Cotton
• Adjusted diet for Jaguar so they are less likely to wander into other biomes
• Fish trap no longer functions in salt water
• Pastry Dough is now crafted by Baking
• Bread carbs & protein increased, fat and vitamins decreased. Recipe cost increased to 2 Leavened Dough
• Baked Meat now provides more protein than fat
• Reintroduced Clean Moon Jellyfish recipe on Fishery
• CO2 Canister is now an item instead of a food
• Lumber Door recipe cost adjusted to match Softwood/Hardwood variants

Bug Fixes

Audio

• Fixed: Audio when chopping trees would sometimes stop playing
• Fixed: Inventory movement sound was not playing when using Ctrl+Click to move items

Civics

• Fixed: Elections for titles with multiple winning candidates were selecting the incorrect winners for candidates after the highest vote receiver
• Fixed: It was possible to bypass laws that prevented producing air pollution by rapidly clicking the button to turn on an air polluting object
• Fixed: Constitution amendments were not correctly displaying as invalid when viewed from the Civics tab on the Amendment world object
• Fixed: It was possible to exceed the daily limit for giving reputation by using work parties after using the reputation UI to give someone a review with 0 reputation
• Fixed: It was not possible to give reputation to players with a quotation mark in their name
• Fixed: Tooltip for Elected Title's "Who Can Remove From Office" incorrectly stated this action happens at a Ballot Box instead of an Executive Office
• Fixed: Requirements for Admin Demographic listed "Citizen is an admin" twice
• Fixed: Adjusting a law that referenced player statistics on very high population servers could occasionally cause a save to become corrupted if the adjustment happened while the stat was being calculated

Economy

• Fixed: Currency transaction could sometimes result in a failure when the owner had less than 0.01 of the currency needed due to rounding errors from previous transactions with a percent cost
• Fixed: It was possible to create two currencies with the same name
• Fixed: Work party tooltips did not update to reflect ingredients and labor that had already been added
• Fixed: The "Put Items in Container" contract tooltip was not updating with the remaining items needed after some items, but not all, had been placed in the container

Graphics

• Fixed: Visual holes in water could appear when adding and removing blocks
• Fixed: Sign text was not visible when viewed behind glass or water
• Fixed: Stockpile visualizer for trucks was not displaying secondary materials for blocks like Glass
• Fixed: When Lumber was attached on top of Glass, one side of the lumber would turn invisible
• Fixed: Black shadow meshes would occasionally appear on borders between certain block forms
• Fixed: When using the Land Claim Stake, the edge of the property highlight became blurred with neighboring blocks if they were located at a higher elevation

Modkit

• Fixed: Custom blocks created in the ModKit were not appearing in game

Plants & Animals

• Fixed: It was possible for plants to recover from extinction
• Fixed: Joshua Tree's crown was behaving strangely after being cut down
• Fixed: Alligators would sometimes despawn when stepped on
• Fixed: Plants would sometimes block the avatar creation screen after joining a server for the first time

Rent & Residency

• Fixed: Residency invitations were not appearing for Registrar titles if the invitation happened before being added to the title
• Fixed: Housing values for deeds with no residents were displaying incorrect values
• Fixed: Residents could not open doors for property they were a resident on if they did not have full authorization on the property
• Fixed: When creating a rent offer, the currency used was not defaulting to Global Default Currency (it can still be manually changed)
• Fixed: House value was not updating correctly after transferring or unclaiming property

Tools & Vehicles

• Fixed: Vehicles would sometimes fall below the surface when moving faster than the chunks were loading
• Fixed: Carts were jumping in place when blocks or ramps were placed nearby
• Fixed: Using the hammer to place blocks would occasionally cause a disconnect with the error "Failed to handle RPCResponse"
• Fixed: Excavator would spam the dig action after being prevented by a law
• Fixed: Crane arm had strange behavior when crossing zero point on the map
• Fixed: Crane would still function while the escape menu was open
• Fixed: 3rd person tool animations were not perfectly synced up which became noticeable after holding the interact button for an extended period of time
• Fixed: It was possible to speed up tool animations beyond the intended amount by clicking for a fraction of a second to cancel the animation
• Fixed: Shot arrows would disappear when crossing zero point on the map
• Fixed: Fish trap had incorrect world occupancy and so could be placed in walls

UI

• Fixed: Weight values for vehicles in the storage UI were incorrectly splitting between two lines
• Fixed: Hovering over a Tag ingredient in the crafting UI was displaying talents benefits unrelated to the tag
• Fixed: Hovering over icons during the tutorial were not highlighting correctly
• Fixed: Item tooltips & Ecopedia reference section were not displaying icon background colors for things like Research Papers
• Fixed: Other players' icons on the minimap often had jerky movement
• Fixed: Mouse cursor was not changing to a hand pointer when highlighting the disconnect button
• Fixed: During the Campsite Tutorial, moving the Campsite item to a different slot in action bar would not cause the tutorial arrow to follow.
• Fixed: Buttons in Treasury UI had text exceeding the boundary of the buttons
• Fixed: Pressing Enter while a world was loading would cause the Chat UI to appear prematurely
• Fixed: Highlight marker for editing deeds on the minimap would disappear after toggling any layers within the World Layers tab.
• Fixed: When moving a tool, the durability bar would sometimes remain in the original inventory slot
• Fixed: Stockpile UI could get stuck open if opening Block Forms UI before closing
• Fixed: Pressing the skill window hotkey multiple times before the skill tutorial was completed would cause multiple confirmation boxes to appear that would each have to be closed
• Fixed: Species with composite names (Ex: Snapping Turtle) were displayed without a space
• Fixed: Images in Eco News on title screen were often appearing after a delay
• Fixed: The mouse cursor would continuously flicker when pointed at the border of a text with a hint popup
• Fixed: Long usernames and passwords would exceed their respective text boxes on the title screen
• Fixed: Chat channel names would appear stretched out and vertical with exceptionally long chat messages.
• Fixed: Ecopedia frames for selected pages would display incorrectly when toggling "Show Undiscovered" while a page that was selected became hidden
• Fixed: "Can't send string as localizable, because it has too many arguments" error message would occasionally appear in the server logs of very large servers
• Fixed: Tutorial was not automatically displaying the next step when a previous step was completed

Update 9.3.6 has been released and addresses the following issues:

• Fixed a bug with WebUI that could result in severe sever lag with frequent chat requests
• Improved handling of chat history that will result in smaller file sizes for larger saves
• Two new sand concentration recipes for the Screening Machine and Sensor Based Belt Sorter
• Sand Concentrate recipe craft time reduced to 0.7 minutes from 1 minute
• Glass recipe craft time reduced to 1.2 minutes from 1.5 minutes and Sand cost reduced to 4 from 6
• Quicklime Glass recipe yield reduced to 1 minute from 2 minutes, Sand cost reduced to 3 from 10, Quicklime cost reduced to 2 from 3, craft time reduced to 1 minute from 2 minutes, and experience provided reduced to 70 from 175
• Fixed an issue with copying laws that would cause the original law to be changed

Update 9.3.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed bug with client closing after disconnecting from a server
• Improved behavior for splitting deeds so the original deed is maintained while a new deed will be created for the split plots
• Fixed crash when Grant Title was selected as payment for a Work Party
• Fixed crash when environment statistics were referenced but a specific statistic was not selected
• Fixed crash when using modded objects that did not have a prefab assigned
• Fixed bug that could cause trees to go missing when leaving and re-entering an area
• Fixed bug that could result in "Caused by Actions" civic articles to have the reverse effect
• Fixed bug where debts could not be forgiven

Hey all, were starting our weekly updates again and have tons of work to show on Eco. Over the past year weve had the good fortune to double the size of the team, which means lots more in the works. Were working on a lot of features in parallel, so youll see progress on a lot of these then suddenly theyre all the in game at once. As discussed in our last update, were focusing on a couple things with current dev:

• A pack of features we call Eco Infinite, which expands the game to support thriving communities that dont end at the meteor, but can go indefinitely with interesting/challenging gameplay and social connections.
• UX upgrade, making everything cleaner, smoother, and better; especially for new users.
• Performance! Switching the engine over to Unitys ECS system + burst compiler which will give a giant speed up for animals, landscape generation, everything.

9.4 Update

World Generation

Realistic Power Generation

10.0 Updates

Boats

Storage Systems

Wooden Liquid Storage Tank

Steel Liquid Storage Tank

Warehouse Storage Shelves

Update 9.3.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash with meteor tutorial
• Fixed issue where banning a player could result in others being unable to vote
• Fixed crash when a server was hosted in Turkish language
• Fixed bug that could result in being unable to target some fallen trees, carcasses, and carts
• Fixed memory leak with pipes
• Improved optimization when interacting with objects
• Wooly animals may now be cooked on a campfire
• Fixed issue with Modkit that resulted in DiscordLink mod not working

Update 9.3.3 has been released and fixes the critical issue that was observed in 9.3.2, it contains all fixes of 9.3.2.

ATTENTION: This update contained a critical issue and has been retracted. A build that has the issue fixed is currently being created and will be released as soon as possible, containing these fixes. Update 9.3.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash when using Treasury account in stores
• Fixed bug where Shift+dragging items wasn't able to move items between different stack size storages
• Fixed bug with incorrect weight calculation when moving items into empty slots
• Fixed bug with RPC Response Error causing disconnects from server.
• Fixed bug that displayed warning in server logs related to vehicle interaction checks
• Fixed bug that allowed taking money from Contract Escrow using work parties
• Updated Users.eco ban lists to be JSON compatible. Re-save required for existing wrong lists.
• Excavator storage is no longer hidden
• Cotton Boll now has Crop tag and can be stored in silos

Update 9.3.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed bug with pipes disappearing
• Fixed crash related to RPC issues
• Fixed crash with recurring transfers for elected titles and demographics
• Fixed inability to use government accounts in stores
• Fixed bug with using shift+drag to transfer items between stockpiles not working
• Fixed alignment for text in images for Ecopedia
• Fixed potential migration issue with Users.eco config
• Fixed issue that didnt allow to host multiple servers with different IPs but the same ports on the same machine

We are happy to announce the release of Eco 9.3. With this update we are introducing some significant optimization improvements, an expansion of the tailoring specialty, and the experimental rent feature will be fully enabled with some additions to the residency system based on feedback from the community. In addition to these changes, we have a variety of quality life improvements, balance adjustments, and bug fixes listed in detail in the complete patch notes.
With the new rent feature, we had a few goals in mind. Renting a property will be a nice way for new players who are joining an established community to get a nice boost to their initial house bonus to help them catch up. Vehicles can also be rented to help with early transportation needs and to provide new players affordable transport options when joining later in the game. For those who especially enjoy building, they can put their talents to work making nice homes for others while earning a steady income. In addition, rent will play a role in our upcoming Towns & Nations where proximity to your residence will have a much larger impact.
As part of the tailoring update, tailors will be able to select from different materials to produce their fabric, from the new cotton plant to the cheap but high polluting nylon. There are a variety of new ingredients and crafting stations, as well a new tier 4 carpet building material. We are also adding new clothing outfits, each with a different theme. For now these clothing sets are cosmetic only, but we have more new clothes in the works and we plan to expand on these by adding skill bonuses. Upgrading the avatars to have more customization and new animations will be a big focus for us going forward. As mentioned, a key focus for us this update was optimization. We have been hard at work to address Ecos performance issues, specifically the problem with performance degradation over time. We also have optimizations to a variety of our systems, including chunk rendering and database calculations. There should be noticeable improvements, but optimization will continue to be a priority for us with each update. Without further ado, lets get to the full list of changes in Update 9.3:

Features

• Major tailoring profession rework
• New Cotton plant which can be found in the Wetlands biome
• New ingredients: Cotton Boll, Shorn Wool, Nylon, Cotton Thread, Wool Yarn, and Nylon Thread
• New crafting stations: Loom, Automated Loom, Advanced Tailoring Table, and Spin Melter
• New Cotton, Wool, and Nylon fabrics which can be used as an alternative to Cloth
• New Modern Tailoring Upgrade
• New Tier 4 blocks: Cotton Carpet, Wool Carpet, and Nylon Carpet
• New clothing outfits for Builder, Farmer, Smith, and Tailor
• New Gloves clothing slot
• New Corrugated Steel Door and Corrugated Steel Fence Door
• Rent feature is now enabled by default
• Renters belongings are now placed in void storage after being evicted from a property
• New optional control setup for excavator to allow simpler movement
• Added Hands option as a tool selection choice for laws related to plants and construction
• Bank accounts can now be seized via laws or executive actions
• Admins can now ban or mute players based on a timer with a reason given
• Updated icons for tabs in the Economy Viewer

Optimization

• Multiple client optimizations to help address FPS degradation over time
• Optimized sound controller to remove leak that was contributing to FPS degradation over time
• Optimized tree rendering performance
• Optimized calculations for claiming/unclaiming large deeds
• Optimized process for loading chunks
• Optimized database calculations for civics and other periodic ticks
• Optimizations relating to opening and closing UI windows
• Optimized performance for servers with a large amount of mods when multiple players were connecting at the same time
• Optimized minimap when large amount of icons were displayed on map
• Optimized calculations for animal AI

Modkit

• Modifications to existing items and recipes changes can now be made with partial hooks without rewriting the original files. This means changes will not be overwritten with each update. For full details, see the readme in the mod folder.
• Fixed modkit exception while working with block sets

Bug Fixes

• Added anti-cheat detection and various cheat fixes
• Fixed bug where vehicles could be stolen
• Fixed crash with recurring transfers
• Fixed crash and authorization issues with Plow Field contracts
• Fixed crash when setting craft resource modifier to an invalid number
• Fixed crash when making multiple modifications to a Demographic list that occurred in the same Demographic update tick
• when the citizens hours to check was left blank
• Fixed occasional crash when editing deeds on the Real Estate desk
• Fixed crash when attempting to pay rent from an invalid bank account
• Fixed crash when using Hours Played as a condition for maximum residency occupants
• Fixed bug where tooltips would get stuck refreshing even when the mouse was stationary
• Fixed bug with stores being listed multiple times in tooltips and the Economy Viewer
• Fixed bug with election drafts where citizens other than the creator of the draft could start the election
• Fixed bug with being unable to interact with a fish trap
• Fixed bug with tools not working correctly when dragging them into the currently selected toolbar slot
• Fixed bug with server not allowing connections if the meteor timer was set to an extremely large value
• Fixed ability to rejoin a residency after the invite was no longer active
• Fixed ability to become a resident of a property after an invited demographic was removed
• Fixed bug with invited residents being unable to pick up their own objects on their residence when they did not have authorization to the entire deed
• Fixed bug that allowed creating non-contiguous deeds with the Real Estate Desk
• Fixed inability to select Move In or Rent as a condition when drafting a law based on Pay Rent or Move In Fee
• Fixed bug with getting stuck in third person view when pulling a cart with no backpack
• Bank account source for Elected Titles wages can now be set to the Treasury
• Housing value pie chart now has correct proportions for different room types
• Elected Titles no longer have their term extended when the title holders change
• Laws that prevent pollution will now deactivate any objects currently polluting after passing
• Taxes now work correctly for the currency exchange
• Fixed bug with being unable to remove bank account users and title holders when an authorized Bank/Registrar was placed on a non-authorized claim
• Fixed bug with contracts still showing as invalid after updating a removed bank account
• Player movement on minimap is less jerky
• Fixed bug with vehicle deed icons incorrectly displaying in minimap
• Fixed bug with editing a district map when the district crossed point (0,0)
• Fixed bug with minimap where icons on the other side of the world would appear incorrectly in 3D mode
• Fixed graphic issues with minimap after updating the render scale
• Fixed tooltip for crafting recipes displaying perks for unrelated talents
• Fixed the displayed max tier when writing a contract to build a room.
• Fixed bug in Ecopedia where information about the constitution would appear in unrelated entries
• Fixed bug where the interaction highlight could appear green when aiming a hammer at an unauthorized property
• Pressing escape button while sleeping no longer causes the world to continue fast forwarding
• Fixed bug with the hide chat tag button making the cursor flicker
• Pressing + or - button quickly on contracts no longer causes numbers to skip
• Settlement civic objects are no longer visible when the experimental feature is disabled
• Backer items can no longer be spawned by admins
• Wind Turbine table texture changed to metal from wood
• Fishing reel sound now stops when the reel animation stops
• Improved consistency with tree falling sounds
• Various typo fixes

Balance

• Recipes that previously cost Cloth now cost new Fabric tag which includes Cotton Fabric, Wool Fabric, and Nylon Fabric
• Cloth and Cellulose Fiber default craft time increased to 1 minute from 48 seconds
• Cloth recipe labor cost increased to 100 from 50
• Cellulose Fiber recipe labor cost increased to 100 from 20
• Bearpack recipe moved to Advanced Tailoring Table
• Industry vehicles now cost Nylon Fabric instead of Cellulose Fiber
• Compound Bow recipe now costs Fiberglass + Nylon Thread instead of Fiberglass + Steel Bar
• Basic clothing recipes that previously cost Plant Fibers now cost Fabric
• Animal mounts and stuffed animals are now produced by Hunting specialty
• Charcoal recipe craft time reduced to 1 minute from 4 minutes, labor cost reduced to 40 from 80, and experience provided reduced to 1 from 2
• Updated formula for residency penalty for multiple residents
• Large Corrugated Steel Door now costs Corrugated Steel instead of Steel Bar
• Decreased canopy space requirement from Ceiba tree and increased initial spawn percentage
• Agouti can now get calories from Ceiba trees
• Labor cost for crafting seeds on the Farmers Table increased to 40 from 20
• Epoxy, Plastic, and Synthetic Rubber recipes experience provided changed to 1 from 2
• Fiberglass recipe labor cost increased to 150 from 75
• New tags Medium Fish and Large Fish to condense fish recipes in the Campfire and Fishery
• New recipe Fish Stew based on Meaty Stew that uses Charred Fish as an alternative for Charred Meat
• Shuck Clams and Clean Urchin recipe costs reduced to 2 Clams/Urchins
• Water Pumps no longer have unnecessary Economy tag

Quality of Life

• Installed module name is now visible when viewing the module component for a crafting station
• Auto-run no longer stops when checking inventory or chatting
• Adjusted radius of Elevator Call Post so it can interact with the Industrial Elevator from all angles
• Temporary chat notifications no longer appear in non-related chat channels
• Remove From Office UI now only displays Elected Titles the user has permission to remove
• Titles and Bank Accounts are now ordered alphabetically in their respective UIs
• 'Public Crafting Stations' tab in Economy Viewer will now show only publicly listed crafting stations instead of all stations accessible to the player
• Treasury now has a button that displays a list of all government accounts
• Improved sorting of species world layers in the minimap
• Improved excavator suspension to prevent tilting up and down while in use
• Demographics, titles, and elected titles can now be assigned a backup owner for property and bank accounts incase they are removed
• Adjusted brush size for drawing districts in the minimap
• Improved behavior of the top notification panel
• Updated vehicle control UI and removed unused vehicle controls
• Updated display names for Specialty Upgrades to be more readable
• Ecopedia images now have their text localized, as well as a collection of other localization updates
• Fixed ability to swap tools in the repair bench when both tools are of the same type
• Cancelling a civic draft will now reset the editable title text
• Updated Network config template to allow changing settings for Web Server URL and Relay Server Address
• Improved alignment of messages in the notifications panel
• Improved alignment for long district names in Minimap.
• Cursor now updates to the interact symbol when hovering over objects in the minimap
• Clarified error message when hosting a private world with a world name that contains unsupported characters

Hey Eco citizens, in this post I wanted to talk about some of the changes in the pipe with a new additional direction to the game were calling Eco Infinite.
Eco Infinite will be adding gameplay and things to do Post Meteor, building up support for long term servers with goals and challenges to solve, and in the process aiming to create very tight-knit meaningful communities of players. Seeing the worlds that streamers and players are creating and the depth of the societies there has inspired us to extend the game to support long-lasting communities that dont break up after the meteor is destroyed. We want these worlds and the relationships that get built in them to continue post-meteor, with lots of rich challenges still in store. So whats there going to be post-meteor? Plenty, with the underlying theme of building a utopia. This means continuing to improve the lives of citizens through housing and food systems, but also brand new systems that will come over the next several releases like settlements (a blog on this here), education, culture, and tourism, all while living in harmony with the ecosystem. Well also be adding special support for events for players to take part in, like trials, debates, town meetings, and lectures. The more opportunities for collaboration the better, and progress will be unbounded. Achievements will track your progress, both personal and world achievements, and these may unlock aesthetics. More detailed designs will be announced for these as they start to get prototyped out, and our existing priorities will run in tandem with these which the team continues to work on (quality of life issues like making stores easier to use, performance, boats, tailoring, avatars, garbage, much more). These Eco Infinite items are big ticket items and will take some time to implement, most we will be adding as experimental features in an earlier release which players can enable to try out and give us feedback.

Community Tools

Achievements

Update 9.2.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash when using Resident of District law condition when residency was set to a property without a plot
• Fixed crash with experimental rent feature when a resident was unable to afford rent
• Fixed crash with laws that prevented actions when unable to make a payment
• Fixed Object not set error when trying to add a civic to an election
• Fixed calculation for housing value for deeds with large number of residents and rooms
• Improved optimization for claiming/unclaiming large deeds.

Update 9.2.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash when setting up a registrar title with wages
• Fixed crash with strings that were too large for the localizer
• Fixed crash related to controller manager
• Fixed display error on player tooltip when no residency was set
• Fixed display error on store tooltip when the store was setup for barter transactions

Update 9.2.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash related to rent and deeds
• Fixed crash related to animal AI
• Fixed bug with recent and favorited servers showing as offline on Your Servers page.
• Fixed bug with permissions being not being granted to titles
• Fixed bug with main menu where it was possible to open the settings menu twice

Update 9.2.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed an issue that prevented users from selecting the default crafting results for hewn logs and mortared stones.
• Fixed an issue that caused the crafting sound to go on even after crafting has ended.
• Fixed an issue that prevented SLG-Accounts from logging into the game.

We are pleased to announce the release of Eco 9.2. A large focus of this update was bug fixing and quality of life improvements, but we have added some new fun features to Eco as we prepare for Update 10. This update introduces the residency feature which we announced in detail in our housing blog. Housing bonuses can now be shared with others by inviting them to become a resident of your property. This is a great way for friends to collaborate together on on a home, and it also sets the foundation for the rent and residency based demographics features that we are currently working on for 9.3.
The new Industrial Elevator is capable of transporting multiple large vehicles at once. As societies in Eco grow, there is a growing need to consume more natural resources and mining for ore is a large part of this. With tools like the Excavator and the Skid Steer, miners are able to output significantly more resources, but have an increased need to transport materials out of the mine. The Industrial Elevator will allow significantly fewer trips to the surface.
With this update we are also adding the Storage Silo for farmers to store their crops, seeds and fertilizer. This is the first of our new specialty storage containers that can store larger stacks of items than a traditional container, but can only accept certain types of items. This should greatly increase the quality of life for farmers as they can neatly organize their inventory in one container. In a future update, silos will be used to help prevent spoilage.

Features

• New residency system for establishing a primary residence and sharing housing bonuses
• Added an Industrial Elevator that is capable of transporting multiple large vehicles in and out of a mine
• Added Storage Silo with greatly increased storage capacity for crops, seeds, and fertilizer
• Added a collection of new modern signs
• Added new building forms for Corrugated Steel
• Added ability able to zoom in and out while in third-person when holding the Alt key
• Implemented new in-game Bug Fixer icon for those who have helped report and fix bugs on GitHub
• When proposing civics, the proposer can now start an election even if they have permission to pass civics without an election
• New experimental rent feature which can be enabled via the server configs
• Boards have an updated icon

Optimization

• Improved optimization for resizing the objectives UI
• Improved optimization for chat storage
• Improve optimization for minimap with large numbers of world markers
• Improved optimization for serializations
• Eco can now take advantage of additional VRAM. Added setting to change max amount of VRAM used, defaulted to max GPU memory.

Balance

• Deeds must now be contiguous to count as one deed
• Decreased CO2 absorption by trees by 25%
• Increased max CO2 produced by animals to 25 PPM from 10 PPM
• Decreased spread rate for all trees
• Increased craft time for smelting Iron Bar, Copper Bar, and Gold Bar on a blast furnace to 18 seconds from 15 seconds
• Steel Bar recipe Coal cost increased and Quicklime is now a static ingredient
• Increased max carry weight for Wood Cart, Skid Steer, and Excavator
• Increase weight of tailings
• Increased weight of Copper Bar and Gold Bar
• Decreased weight of Steel Bar
• Decreased weight of all Rocks, Crushed Rock, Ore, and Crushed Ore
• Decreased weight of Dirt, Sand, and Clay
• Decreased weight of Ashlar Stone
• Reduced movement speed reduction caused by some plants
• Reduced Fur Pelts provided by Small Animals to 1 from 2
• Reduced experience provided by butchering animals
• Increased Rubber Wheel cost of Truck to 6 to match model
• Glass recipe now costs extra Sand and has Crushed Limestone as a static ingredient
• New alternate Glass recipe using Quicklime that has extra output
• Reduced Glass cost of Fiberglass, Framed Glass, Framed Glass Door, Large Windowed Lumber Door, and Advanced Upgrade Lvl 2
• Increased the amount of Limestone available in world generation and adjusted formation patterns

Quality of Life:

• Added Settings button to the main menu
• Transferring property now requires a confirmation from the new owner before the transfer is completed
• Store tooltips now display the currency balance for the account used in that store
• Deeds are now clearly outlined on the map and easier to identify
• Improved camera view when aiming a bow in third person
• The room tier tooltip will now display how many empty corner blocks are affecting the room tier.
• Resizing the Economy Viewer will now save settings when closing and reopening
• Barter trades in Economy Viewer appear separately in the balance column instead of listing a zero account balance
• The top notification panel can now be expanded by pressing the N key
• World markers can now be opened by clicking on the text of the marker
• Pressing escape while renaming an object will now cancel the text instead of opening the escape menu
• Shortcut keys are now disabled while viewing all option menus
• Ballot Box and Executive Office UI now has additional information about available civic actions
• Improved handling of duplicate pop-up notifications so they are consolidated into one notification
• Renamed old keybinding for Crouch to Dive / Sneak
• Improved transition animation when opening up a notification tab
• Icons for laws are less spread out in law notifications
• Improved notification when attempting to submit an incomplete law draft
• Improved button offsets for minimap in windowed and full-screen mode
• Updated description for Farms, Mines, Pollution, and Data tooltips for Ecopedia
• Updates to the map tutorial to reflect new dockable and pop-out mini-map
• Amendments will now appear as added articles when viewing the constitution
• Pressing escape to close a popup dialog no longer activates cursor
• Added localization support for Ecopedia Reference group names
• Added localization support for contract payment information
• Added localization support for pickaxe tooltip
• Added new server config to set the minimum citizen age required to qualify for the Abandoned demographic

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with being unable to join a friends game via Steam
• Fixed bug preventing placing a Large Corrugated Steel Door
• Fixed physics issue with tree trunks and other objects not settling correctly
• Fixed Log cannot be sliced any smaller error when attempting to cut the end of larger tree trunks
• Fixed water from pipes not expanding outwards
• Fixed bug in Economy Viewer where all currencies were displayed as being created by Jimmy
• Fixed server crash when attempting to pick up a vehicle that was prevented by a law
• Fixed Items Crafted law trigger not checking for crafting byproducts, like Tailings
• Fixed Chop Tree law trigger not recognizing the Not Felled condition
• Fixed Dig or Mine law trigger not recognizing Skid Steers and Excavators
• Fixed a number of law triggers to have more accurate item filters and descriptions
• Fixed elected titles losing permissions for bank accounts after changes were made to the title
• Fixed election website not showing voting history on previous elections
• Fixed Default World Currency not being the initial selection for Stores and Crafting Stations
• Contracts with Nested Clauses now correctly check all conditions when Any is selected
• Fixed bug with incorrect yes vote count when viewing active elections
• Fixed animal pathing to respond better to landscape changes
• Fixed animals falling into caves and get stuck
• Fixed bug with teleporting fish
• Deer have improved hitbox detection
• Fixed Tortoise laying down in awkward angles
• Fixed Snapping Turtle strange behavior while turning
• Fixed animals moving incorrectly on ramps
• Turkey Carcass now correctly has Animal tag for item filter
• Old Growth Redwood no longer spread
• Fixed issue with moisture calculation that could result in patches of a biome missing some of the native plants
• Fixed Skid Steer ability to break rocks on unauthorized land
• Fixed issue with avatar being blocked by plants during initial creation
• Fixed bug with posting contracts where changes made to the contract requirements would not always save
• Fixed Pending Elections notifications box resetting to the top position when using the mouse wheel
• Deeds can now be authorized to Titles that deed owner is not a member of
• Meteor cutscene can no longer trigger while sleeping
• Fixed bug where having passengers in a vehicle could remove road speed buffs
• Fixed error when trying to pick up a vehicle with non-empty storage when having enough inventory space to take all the items
• Fixed bug with being launched into the air that could occur when standing above a block that was broken
• Fixed currency duplication bug that could occur when marking a contract as failed
• Fixed issue with Flat Steel Windows and Floors not connecting
• Fixed visual bug with minimap that occurred when editing a deed and using the hotkey to close/reopen the map before saving
• Toolbench now gives correct error message when trying to insert a non-tool for repair
• Fixed issue with rearranging work orders that could result in a permanent map marker until reconnecting
• Tooltip for additional labor required in Crafting UI now correctly rounds to whole numbers
• Fixed tooltip for Work button in Crafting UI occasionally overlapping the Work button
• Tutorial pop-ups can no longer extend past the edges of the screen
• Fixed bug with government buildings occasionally not retaining proposed amendments after being picked up and replaced
• Currency is now created only after it has been minted for the first time instead of after it has been named.
• Fixed error when trying to create a new currency on unowned property
• Fixed bug with occasionally displaying incorrect number of specialties learned in the profession tooltips
• Fixed incorrect room calculation near wold wrap
• Bullrush now properly displays harvest animation
• Rearranging the linked storage containers in the Storage UI will keep the alternating color pattern to distinguish containers
• Fixed strange behavior with dragging items between linked inventories that have different capacities
• Government account description tooltip is no longer hidden by the interface
• Arithmetic for law operations now display with correct format in law tooltip
• Small Mortared Signs now have a stone table texture for the UI
• Fixed margins on popup error notifications
• Fixed inability to switch tools after using the Land Claim Stake to claim while carrying blocks
• Fixed audio bug with passengers hearing an engine sound if leaving a vehicle after the driver
• Fixed issues when migrating servers from version 9.0.5 to version 9.1 and higher
• Fixed bug with currency exchange not respecting buy limits for exchanges
• Fixed number alignment for difficulty settings when creating a world in the client
• Fixed icons on signs sometimes appearing outside the border of the sign
• Fixed bug with item links being broken in chat when a player joined with a similar name
• Fixed music only playing intermittently
• Fixed tax notification when selling something in a store and the taxed account does not have enough funds to pay the tax prior to the transaction
• When using a Fishing Pole, the line will no longer get stuck outside of water.
• Fixed issue with some recipe names appearing as only Recipe in tooltips
• Fixed connection issues when using Thai regional format in Windows
• Various Ecopedia typo fixes

Happy Holidays! We are so thankful to our wonderful community. We are excited for all the new content that will be introduced in the upcoming 9.2 update, but in the meantime we wanted to bring some holiday cheer to Eco.
Were bringing the festivities to Eco! The world of Eco is getting some festive decorations, just in time for the Holidays! Elk have a new reindeer skin, complete with candy cane antlers. Spruce trees have been decorated with glowing Christmas lights. The distribution station has been adorned with lights and stockings, and storage crates will now appear as wrapped presents.
New Year, New Hopes 2020 has been a tough year for everyone, and we hope gaming can serve as a way for us to continue to connect and lift our spirits. We humbly thank the Eco community and are eager to keep building a place for everyone to meet, build, and grow together. Thank you for playing, and we wish you all a safe, warm Happy Holidays! With love, The Eco Team

With the Eco 9.2 and 9.3 Updates, were adding new features of residency and rental properties, connecting individual skill gain deeper to the economy.

Residency

Roommates

Rent

Property Law

Resident Rights

• Residents can use any world object on the property even if they dont own it, accessing its contents and functions, but not pick it up (so you can use the storage on property, but cant steal it).
• Residents can place their own world objects, and pick up any world objects that they placed down (so you can move your stuff in).
• Residents cannot place down or pick up blocks (cant modify the property, this requires more elevated permissions).

The Big Picture

Update 9.1.8 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed an issue that allowed access to inventories of removed objects and vehicles remotely by using a pot.
• Fixed an issue that created unremovable ghost blocks in stockpiles that persisted during server restart.
• Fixed an issue that could lead to the loss of items when a storage was removed while being accessed.
• Fixed a rare crash when removing an elevator call post.
• Prevented creation of multiple users with same Steam ID / SLG ID.

Update 9.1.7 has been released: Reverted recent physics changes that probably cause issues with teleporting to zero coordinates

Update 9.1.6 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Optimized stockpile calculations to improve performance in crowded areas
• Fixed possible server crash when modifying titles
• Fixed collision with Flat Steel wall corner that could prevent movement in areas it shouldn't
• Fixed ability to jump between ladders
• Increased default movement speed on ladders and added option to sprint on ladders
• Modders can now use apostrophes in item names

Update 9.1.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed bug with skid steer and excavator creating rubble that couldn't be picked up
• Updated User.eco.template to have new format (existing server configs will be unaffected)

Update 9.1.4 has been released and fixes the following issue: Fixed bug with inability to remove fuel from vehicles

Update 9.1.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Can no longer change owners of a property when you have access, unless you are an owner
• Fixed bug with destroying trees by placing a block on them
• Fixed bug with getting stuck on avatar creation if rolling back to a previous update version
• Fixed bug where it was not possible to remove debris or blocks near tree roots
• Tall Boots now start discovered
• Updated description for lumber furniture
• Fixed typo in Plant Fibers description
• Various Ecopedia typo fixes

Update 9.1.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed crash that could occur when updating a server into different localization
• Fixed bug with server configs where it was possible to have 0 experience requirement for specialties
• Fixed bug with placing ramps inside trees
• Fixed bug with strange tooltips appearing in linked storages
• Fixed issue with reference assembles not being included in modkit
• Typo fixes for Henley and Building section in Ecopedia

Update 9.1.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed Sweeping Hands not working
• Fixed Work Party UI to allow customization
• Fixed inability to pick up Ballot Box and Executive Office
• Fixed Crushed Gneiss to have Crushed Rock tag
• Fixed ability to vote on drafts before they have been put to election

We're happy to announce the release of Update 9.1 containing lots of improvements and bugfixes. We've been monitoring your feedback on Update 9.0 closely since release and have already begun work on Update 9.2, introducing a few cool new additions to the game and expected to be released in December. Stay tuned for hints in the coming weeks. You can find all changes in this version in the following changelog. We wish you lots of fun with this release, stay safe!

Features:

• Elections can now contain multiple provisions. IE: add a law, remove a demographic, and update an election, process, etc in a single election.
• A special privilege is granted during a new constitution election, allowing any civic object addition to be attached to that election. Allows the founding constitution to configure multiple aspects of government at once.
• Added new properties to Election Processes to instant-finish with success/fail if the percent of total voters reaches a given value of yes/no.
• When a world object with attached civic objects is removed, those objects become orphaned, and can be reclaimed by anyone who puts down a matching type. IE, if someone picks up the court to kill the laws, someone else can put down another court and reclaim them.
• Pollute Air laws can now reference the location of the pollution source
• Added new building forms for Ashlar Stone, Framed Glass, Reinforced Concrete, Corrugated Steel
• Art improvements for Flat Steel and Reinforced Concrete
• Added new roof forms for Hewn Logs, Mortared Stone, Lumber, Corrugated Steel, Flat Steel, and Reinforced Concrete
• New art for Wooden Elevator Call Post
• Added new variants for Mortared Stone Doors
• Stores owned by titles can now sell items
• Ladders now have an option to climb over the top with a new animation
• Fishing animations now viewable for other players in third person
• The Steam Tractor Harvester now has a down/up animation when activating
• Added "lock" mode for tooltips when "Ctrl" is pressed
• New icon for Deep Crust when using Rock drill at bedrock
• Admins can now globally /mute players in chat
• Admins can now add and remove global map markers

Optimization

• Optimized texture memory usage, which will help with some GPU crashes when running out of memory
• Optimized trade tracker to reduce performance degradation over time
• Optimized stats querying in laws
• Optimized calculations for accessing storage when multiple containers are in the same area
• Optimized calculations when entering and leaving a large room
• Optimized calculations for adjusting text width in UI
• Optimization for memory use in Linux servers
• Synced physics with freshly created rubble

Quality of Life:

• Revising civic objects (laws and such) will keep the old name, unless you change it
• Election voting doesn't start until 'Start Election' is clicked in the side panel
• Laws will now execute all sections even if it's the same trigger, unless 'prevent' is reached
• Anyone can now claim abandoned projects from unowned tables
• Collect button for work orders now updates correctly when changing owners. New owners can see it, but old owners cannot
• Added option to select payment account for transactions on a public crafting table
• Pressing escape no longer closes backpack
• The fishing lure will now be cast towards where the camera is pointing
• Added additional visual feedback for animal attacks
• Special accounts rewards (alpha, beta bakers etc) now added to Void Storage on login and don't occupy backpack space
• Improved global illumination
• Added drop down menu to select input device for voice chat
• Voice chat radius is now displayed in settings
• Creating a world through the client now automatically adjusts crafting cost and time modifiers based on collaboration settings
• Tool break sound now happens as soon as tool breaks
• Footstep sounds in first-person are now more precise and volume was tweaked
• Added more power to Dev Tool to bypass authority
• Voting through the election website no longer refreshes the page
• Starting a server is prohibited if Web Server Url is invalid
• Clarified chat notification for taxes
• Clarifies description of work clothes to indicate only using tools benefits from calorie reduction
• Added Reset to Defaults button for audio settings
• Added confirmation popup for reset to defaults button for Audio, Graphics, and Controls
• Added error notification when trying to place a block in a doorway
• Added error message to Mint if it can not be used to explain why

Balance

• Steam Engine now pollutes and requires water
• Solar Generator now requires water
• Road Tools now give Basic Engineering experience
• Bonus hunting experience is now granted for headshots
• Stove is now crafted by Mechanics
• Rock Drills now benefit from Mining specialty
• Huckleberry Extract is now crafted by Milling
• Flour cost decreased
• Yeast cost decreased
• Bear Claw skill requirement decreased
• Elk Wellington nutrients increased and cost increased
• Fruit Tart nutrients increased and skill requirement decreased
• Macaroons cost changed and nutrients increased
• Pirozhok skill requirement decreased
• Stuffed Turkey nutrients increased and weight decreased
• Baked Vegetables calories increased
• Baked Meat calories increased
• Flatbread nutrients increased
• Fruit Muffin nutrients increased and cost decreased
• Huckleberry Pie nutrients increased
• Meat Pie nutrients increased
• Excavator movement speed now fully benefits from roads
• Decreased experience for Machete & Sickle
• Adjusted recipe for Hewn Log Chair to match variations
• Reduced default Hewn Log recipe labor cost
• Adjusted Coyote Carcass weight to match similar carcasses

User Interface

• Law notification popups can now be disabled
• Removed chat notification when adding ingredients to a work order (still appears for work parties)
• Changed Constitution font to more appropriate style
• Work Party list is now sorted alphabetically
• Sorting by price in the economy viewer now always puts blank prices last
• Minted currencies are now displayed above player credits when viewing account balances
• Changing the item filter now saves settings when closing the window
• Stores no longer highlight red in Economy Viewer when they should not
• Changed highlight colors in title screen to improve readability
• Minimap colors for property and districts are not as opaque
• Resources from different work orders are no longer combined into a single work party marker
• Improvements to election website so it is more clear who won an election
• Improvements to difficulty settings UI when creating world through the client
• Improvements to server password UI for ease of use
• Improvements to control settings UI
• New status bars in crafting UI
• Polished the escape menu UI
• Visual improvements to Work Party UI
• Improvements to UI for selecting block forms
• Fixed alignment for nested clauses in contract UI
• Improved position of election speech textbox when entering election
• Visual improvements to show/hide animation for dialog boxes
• Added scroll bar to in-game bug reporting tool
• Shortcut for Push to Talk is now displayed in voice settings
• Continue button for rejoining a server from main menu now expands with long server names
• Text on Ratify button for constitution now fits correctly in button
• Fixed text overlap in edit property window with very long property names
• Fixed text overlap in election website when using collapse/expand function
• Many UI fixes for Mac

Modkit:

• Added reference assemblies to the modkit for compiling mods. No more extracting them!
• Fixed issue with chat icon sprites for mods

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a number of cases of civics objects not having references auto-update when they change.
• Fixed bug with disappearing civic objects
• Fixed crash when deleting a civic object that had a draft referenced in another civic
• Fixed ignore-auth not working for property actions in laws. Now you can ignore-auth on claiming and unclaiming.
• Fixed property owner not being selectable as context in laws.
• Fixed exception when quickly changing law triggers
• Fixed how values update with custom statistics in laws
• Using a direct tax from the Treasury object now works again
• Fixed bug with animals getting stuck and teleporting
• Fixed bug with teleporting animal corpses
• Fixed crash and exceptions related to animal pathing
• Fixed animals not knowing how to move on ramps
• Fixed strange animation with Alligator dying
• Fixed crash when a store owned by a title had no one assigned to the title
• Fixed server crash with Stack Overflow in specific situations with large mines
• Fixed exception when leaving and rejoining the same work party
• Fixed issue with room calculation where an object touching a wall at a 90 degree angle was treated as an open space
• Fixed ability to pay loans without enough currency
• Fixed title holders not able to unclaim property owned by the title
• Tool efficiency talents now work correctly
• Icons on signs now respect borders
• Fixed exception when rubble or logs were removed after being shot with an arrow
• Fixed world object UI not closing when the player moves away, allowing them to be accessed from unlimited distance
• Fixed salmon being unable to be hit with arrows
• Fixed strange behavior with picking up a bed while someone is sleeping
• Fixed bug with property name displaying incorrect color
• Fixed crash when setting Skill Gain Multiplier to 0
• Fixed chat message when receiving 0 payment from a work party
• Ecko Statue is now hidden from Housing Tag
• Fixed server Discord link in tutorial not linking correctly
• Reaped and potted plants will no longer have ghost-highlights after removal of the plant.
• Fixed some laws being able to prevent play despite server disabling this option
• Fixed footsteps sound occasionally getting stuck
• Fixed glass plates not merging together when building
• Fixed craft button for sub-recipes
• Fixed admin command for assigning titles.
• Fixed Fast-forward command not allowing fastwording to stop
• Fixed /AToB admin command to not fail when player A isn't online.
• Fixed /TargetTo admin command to not fail when the player isn't online.
• Fixed issues with vehicles duplicating when there is extreme server lag
• Fixed occupancy for Mortared Stone Signs
• Fixed Cancel button in server password UI being inactive when Remember Me is checked
• Fixed issue with work party UI not updating immediately
• Fixed law names not being escaped from code in election website
• Fixed text wrapping problems with long tooltip titles
• Fixed issue with resizing objectives window
• Fixed exception when editing visible layers in minimap
• Fixed duplicate notifications when using Pick Up law trigger
• Fixed plow action not working with laws
• Fied bug when making law with missing strings
• Fixed transparency issues with potted plants
• Fixed unowned world objects missing info about who placed it
• Disallowed players to only have a space as a name
• Fixed meteor timer showing in welcome text despite being disabled
• Fixed wrong icon item displaying in tooltip title
• Forage for Food tutorial now always shows 3 different types of food
• Fixed stockpile tutorial to accept Saguaro Rib
• Crafting Tutorial now correctly points to default Hewn Log recipe
• Fixed bug with being unable to skip the tutorial when tasks are already completed
• Fixed description for Charred Fireweed and Advanced Smelting Upgrade
• Server setting Specialty Experience Divisor has been removed from server configs
• Fixed plural names for Rugs & Mortared Stone variant
• Various localization & typo fixes

Weve got a launch date for Eco 9.1, coming November 3rd!
With Eco 9 a year in development, it came with a long list of new features. With 9.1, were iterating on that giant update and moving to a monthly-ish release cycle. Heres whats new:

Elections Packages

New Building Forms and Updated Block Art

Chef Balance

Optimization and Bug Fixes

Update 9.0.5 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• MacOS Client is now available with functioning connection.
• The minimap should now display correctly on Linux and MacOS. (There may be issues with maps > 1 km on MacOS due to limit of tesselation level to 16)
• Some issues with migration from 8.3.3 have been fixed.

Update 9.0.4 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Adjusted initial plant distribution and plant capacity calculations.
• Overcrowding no longer causes plants to die and instead prevents plants from growing.
• Several improvements to plant simulation. Mass extinction in deserts and jungles should no longer happen.
• Nutrients in soil were added back. (On a existing world it can take up to five real days for layers to regenerate)
• Increased initial population of Fireweed and made it growable in Tundra.
• Updated pipes logic. Loops are no longer allowed and the status tab will now give more useful information about possible issues with pipes.
• Fixed an issue that caused plants to spawn too close together.
• Fixed an issue that caused sounds to disappear.
• Fixed a duplication exploit with the lumber stockpile.
• Fixed an issue that caused work orders to occasionally halt their progress.
• Fixed an issue that caused icons to not appear when taking items.
• Fixed an issue with the modkit that caused sprites to not work.
• Fixed an issue with the in-game bug reporting system.

Version 9.0.3 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed a crash that could be caused by looping fresh water pipes from a waste filter back into the fresh water supply
• Fixed a crash that occured when the server was using the French language
• Fixed a bug that allowed two currencies with the same name to exist as long as the casing was different
• Fixed text alignment of the in-game news
• Fixed an error when importing the new ModKit into Unity
• First batch of improvements to plants to improve their survivability

Version 9.0.2 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Linux Client is now available (Including server and - for the first time - singleplayer)
• IP binding for the webserver is now working correctly
• Maximum amount to buy in the purchase list now updates correctly
• The button to choose the type of road in road contracts can be clicked again
• The last clause of a contract can be moved and removed again

Version 9.0.1 has been released and fixes the following issues:

• Not being able to drag a broken tool into the repair slot
• Broken Labor Icon

Today we launch Eco 9, after a year in development! Its been a great big upgrade to the game and underlying tech with a core underlying goal: to set the stage to build this game to the stars. Weve spent a ton of work strengthening the technical foundations of the game, tuning and balancing the design, and adding the foundations for new features that will continue to grow the game.

Follow development through the Eco Tree

Eco 9.0 Launch

UI upgrade Full pass on all UI.[/olist] And the long list:

Government

• Law system moved to ingame with a variety of improvements to help ease of us
• Vastly expanded options for laws and government types
• Constitutions that decide the the foundation of how a government is set up
• New government buildings each with their own function
• Customizable election processes that can be used for different aspect of government
• Districts can now overlap and are viewable with new in-game district map
• Customizable government titles with optional wages
• Government bank accounts that are exempt from personal wealth calculations
• Citizens now have the option to overthrow a government

Ecosystem

• New animal species and predator behaviour
• Updated Geology with new ways for ores to spawn in more compact deposits
• Prospecting drill for locating ore
• Unique log types for each type of tree
• Wetlands biome has been reintroduced
• Adjustments to pollution so avoiding climate change requires more effort from society

Crafting

• New labor system for calorie powered crafting
• Expanded mineral processing system with additional depth and byproducts
• Work Parties that enable collaborative work and hiring skilled labor
• Upgrade modules for crafting efficiency
• Crafting costs reductions are more trade based
• Tagged ingredients for recipes that can accept a variety of inputs
• New crafting recipes, items, and world objects
• A variety of balance changes to expand on the depth of specialties and encourage more interaction

Building

• New tier 4 building materials: Ashlar Stone and Composite Lumber
• Lots of new building forms for existing materials
• Different variations of Hewn Logs and Lumber based on the type of wood used
• Visual update to Asphalt Roads including the ability to have lane lines
• Improvements to the building system so multiple blocks can be placed at once.

Quality of Life

• A detailed Ecopedia explaining most game concepts and mechanics
• Expanded lighting system and additional graphic improvements
• Revamped UI
• Audio improvements with new interactive music
• A new minimap that is visible at all times by default
• Map now has an optional 2D mode and additional filters for information
• More flexibility with claiming and dividing deeds

Optimization

• Fix for performance degradation over time (memory leak)
• Decreased RAM usage
• A variety of server optimizations
• Massive improvements to FPS and overall stability

Final Notes

Eco 9 represented a big refactoring of a lot of core tech of Eco, and were in a good place to have much more frequent updates. Were planning to alternate with minor and major monthly updates, with minor updates containing bug fixes and polish and major updates containing new features and systems, and we have lots in store were starting on already. Cant wait to get there with the community. Important Info for the Update: - Please make a backup of your old world, in case something goes wrong. - When migrating old 8.3 worlds you will loose all government related features, e.g. laws, districts and demographics. Enjoy - John K, Strange Loop Games Founder + Eco Designer

After a year in the pipes were pleased to announce Eco 9 will be launched on September 9th.
The short list of whats new: [olist]

UI upgrade Full pass on all UI.[/olist] And the long list:

Government

• Law system moved to ingame with a variety of improvements to help ease of us
• Vastly expanded options for laws and government types
• Constitutions that decide the the foundation of how a government is set up
• New government buildings each with their own function
• Customizable election processes that can be used for different aspect of government
• Districts can now overlap and are viewable with new in-game district map
• Customizable government titles with optional wages
• Government bank accounts that are exempt from personal wealth calculations
• Citizens now have the option to overthrow a government

Ecosystem

• New animal species and predator behaviour
• Updated Geology with new ways for ores to spawn in more compact deposits
• Prospecting drill for locating ore
• Unique log types for each type of tree
• Wetlands biome has been reintroduced
• Adjustments to pollution so avoiding climate change requires more effort from society

Crafting

• New labor system for calorie powered crafting
• Expanded mineral processing system with additional depth and byproducts
• Work Parties that enable collaborative work and hiring skilled labor
• Upgrade modules for crafting efficiency
• Crafting costs reductions are more trade based
• Tagged ingredients for recipes that can accept a variety of inputs
• New crafting recipes, items, and world objects
• A variety of balance changes to expand on the depth of specialties and encourage more interaction

Building

• New tier 4 building materials: Ashlar Stone and Composite Lumber
• Lots of new building forms for existing materials
• Different variations of Hewn Logs and Lumber based on the type of wood used
• Visual update to Asphalt Roads including the ability to have lane lines
• Improvements to the building system so multiple blocks can be placed at once.

Quality of Life

• A detailed Ecopedia explaining most game concepts and mechanics
• Expanded lighting system and additional graphic improvements
• Revamped UI
• Audio improvements with new interactive music
• A new minimap that is visible at all times by default
• Map now has an optional 2D mode and additional filters for information
• More flexibility with claiming and dividing deeds

Optimization

• Fix for performance degradation over time (memory leak)
• Decreased RAM usage
• A variety of server optimizations
• Massive improvements to FPS and overall stability

Weve been releasing blogs with lots of details on how it all works, check on our past updates for the gritty details and a tour of features. I speak for the team when I say we cant wait to get this out to the Eco community and see what amazing societies people build. And even still, were only at the beginning of where we want to go with Eco.

In this blog post Ill be sharing information about the new animal species being added to Eco in the 9.0 Update! Several new large animals and many smaller species have been added, putting us much closer to our goal of having the building blocks of an interesting ecosystem present in each biome. As always, let's start with the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]In Eco, species have so far been selected to maintain a consistent thematic continental inspiration: The Americas. North American species are prominent in grasslands, and colder biomes like tundra and taiga. The Eco world is its own, and we are certainly not trying to simulate the Americas, but it makes sense when making a game about preserving a fragile and complicated ecosystem to try to look at ecosystems on earth as a whole, rather than mixing and matching random species. In Biomes like the desert, rainforest, and wetlands, the continental inspirations have expanded in 9.0 to Central and South American species. In particular, species are often chosen because they have an interesting or important role in their real world ecosystem. In the Rainforest biome, the big newcomers are the Agouti and the Jaguar!
[previewyoutube=5na2dHKWqfk;full][/previewyoutube] The Agouti is a large rodent species that feeds mostly on fruits and nuts in the rainforest. The rainforest in Eco 9.0 is partly inspired by the Amazon tropical rainforest, where the Agouti has an interesting role. Agouti are both prolific buriers of seeds and also one of just a few species capable of opening some tropical tree nuts, which is required for those seeds to germinate. These propensities make the Agouti a key part of the health of rainforests. [previewyoutube=HZWlo-qUVXg;full][/previewyoutube] In each biome there are multiple levels of consumers that rely on the plant producers of energy at the base of the food chain, and the obvious choice for an Amazon-inspired rainforests apex consumer is the Jaguar. The Jaguar is an iconic predator that like other apex predators can be considered a keystone species because of the pressure they exert on many of the other consumers in their ecosystem that otherwise would likely balloon and dominate the others. Of course, in Eco as in the real world, humans subvert apex predators position in the food chain and it will be up to players to monitor how their activities impact the natural hierarchies around them. [previewyoutube=t-jT9h2o7LI;full][/previewyoutube]
In the Wetlands biome which as of 9.0 is still heavily in-progress, we have added two new animals: The Snapping Turtle and the Alligator. The Snapping Turtle is inspired by the Alligator Snapping Turtle, which inhabits freshwater areas of the U.S. in the real world. These turtles are a very robust species with long possible lifespans and keen abilities when it comes to scavenging and predation of smaller (and even sometimes larger) animals. Snapping Turtles rely on a wide range of food sources, and are a good indicator of the overall health of wetlands and their invertebrates. They are an eccentric species and vulnerable to pollution and habitat destruction. [previewyoutube=JeCC8AecrnM;full][/previewyoutube]
The Alligator is a mostly aquatic freshwater reptile that serves as the Wetlands apex predator. Alligators modify wetland environments, creating Alligator holes, which is something we hope to represent in the future in Eco as part of a nests and dens system. Alligators hunt many types of prey, preferring to do so from the water. Alligators sometimes hunt Alligator Snapping Turtles, but sometimes the reverse is also true! Watch your fingers in the Wetlands. Alligators also are known to consume one of our other new species: Crabs! [previewyoutube=4EJLS3UEm4w;full][/previewyoutube]
Based on Dungeness Crabs from Washington, Ecos new Crab species is a marine crustacean that feeds on clams, mussels, and anything else it can scavenge on the sea floor. Crabs are a tempting source of protein for humans, and one which can be harvested sustainably more easily than more fragile species. Crabs, however, are vulnerable to warming and acidifying waters.
The Coyote is the main addition to deserts in Eco 9.0. Coyotes are fascinating animals that have made deep cultural impressions on people living along-side them. The Coyotes biggest strengths are its adaptability and resilience. These predators of mostly small rodents and mammals can survive in many kinds of places and under many kinds of pressures. It is thought that human pressure on Coyotes may have actually resulted in a smarter and tougher population of Coyotes. Coyotes represent a different kind of consideration for players-- how do you live with a species that is just about as adaptable as you are? Hopefully not with an endless campaign of extermination based on poor science, as has unfortunately occurred and still occurs today in the United States. Up to you though! [previewyoutube=LbZbc1FRDHs;full][/previewyoutube] In addition to these new animals, we also upgraded the look of our Wolf species, which has always been based on the Grey Wolf.
That wraps it up for terrestrial animals, but in 9.0 we have also begun expanding the species that live in the sea and in freshwater! [previewyoutube=6L_PkXtlYqE;full][/previewyoutube] New to marine environments in 9.0 are Moon Jellyfish, Cod based on the Atlantic Cod, Sardines, and Blue Sharks! This suite of additions is designed to start fleshing out marine ecosystems in preparation for further big updates to Ecos oceans and waterways, especially for boating and fishing in the next patch! [previewyoutube=6hUUVZ-1Cbc;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=tGRJrBBSVy4;full][/previewyoutube] In addition to these sea-based species, we have added a Bass fish based on the Largemouth Bass to freshwaters in Eco. [previewyoutube=zr0fh7yZUDE;full][/previewyoutube] In 9.0 we have also begun to expand the behaviour possibilities of animals in Eco. Now, certain species have the ability to defend themselves if you get too close. Various species will now briefly attack the player before fleeing. In addition to this new behaviour, many animations have been added and improved for animals turning in place, along with other improvements. Its always best to give wildlife space! Finally, we have begun to add many more indications of invertebrate life to the ecosystems in Eco, with bees, spiders, grasshoppers, and more. Eventually the intention is to have indicators of invertebrate health in the local ecosystems tied to the appearance of these more decorative species, with some larger species being quite dependent on them such as birds and smaller mammals. We look forward to continuing to deepen and expand Ecos wildlife and representation of the impressive and unique ecosystems we have on planet Earth.
Before we wrap this blog up, our Community Manager Dennis has a request: We're currently looking for pupils (or recently graduated persons) aged 12 - 19 that have played Eco and would be interested in giving a short (10 - 20 minutes) and anonymous audio-only interview (english or german) about their experience with our game for the project "DiSpielGeo" (https://dispielgeo.de/en/) conducted by the University of Cologne. Pupils under the legal age need written parental consent and the parents can of course take part in the interview. The research is about the potential use of digital games (including Eco) for geography education. If you are either of legal age or a parent and interested in helping science out, please contact me at dennis@strangeloopgames.com. Please note that we cannot accept applications from minors directly, if you want to take part, you will need to ask your parents. - Keegan O'Rourke, Lead Artist, Strange Loop Games

Hey all, as we work down the home stretch of big-fixing and optimizations for 9.0, I wanted to talk more about the law system in the game and how its expanded and will support much of the future progress of Eco.
As always, let's start with the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]For those have been following, the Law system is fundamental to a lot of the systems in Eco, and with 9.0 weve built it out to be very extendable and powerful. It can have all kinds of effects triggered by the world, and affecting the world in specific ways. Lets look at a few of them.

Taxes

One of the legal actions you can trigger with laws is currency transfers, either taxing the player or paying them (when incentivizing something). Lets set up a law that does both. We can make a law that detects a negative action, say Pollute Air and taxes it:
We can set which sources will specifically trigger this:
In this case, since its for roads, we can make the vehicles that pollute be the ones that pay it, so we can limit it to just vehicle pollution via this dialog:
Next we setup the action to take when this trigger happens. We can assign a tax:
Here weve set the amount paid to be relative to the amount of the pollution. This is selected as a game value, which through the dropdown can be changed to many different types of calculations:
However, since the truck pollutes relatively slowly, this is going to be a low amount of tax. You can see this on the tooltip for the truck:
0.1 PPM per hour means youd have to drive around for an hour before only paying .1 in tax. Not enough. We can amp this up with an arithmetic operation inserted in there, performing a calculation to get the amount to tax:
Here the rate is taxed amount it multiplied by 100, making it a much more meaningful amount. And submit!
Notice the law hieroglyphics which give you an idea of what the law is about (pollution + tax). Once this makes it into law, driving around in a polluting vehicle will slowly move funds into the treasury:
This notice pops up showing you the amount youre paying each tick while driving. And we can see by clicking on the treasury, its starting to fill up:
To note here, the full transaction record of all bank accounts is public knowledge in Eco, meaning you can explore how the whole economy works. This is of course not how the real world works, but that extra transparency lets you peer behind the curtain, see how the inner economic machine functions, and understand it better. We might make it possible to have private transactions later, which will allow nefarious white color crime a bit easier which should be something players have to contend with. Now we can create the second part, the Spend clause that puts that money to use.
Here it detects construction of road items, and if youre constructing them pays you out of the treasury. To keep a balance, if you deconstruct a road it charges you. So theres an incentive to build roads, but you cant just build and destroy the same piece over and over. Now the law icons grew a bit to show these extra detections:
Now when you destroy road you pay, and when you build you get paid:
This shows how you can use multi-part laws to do connect parts of your world and add economic incentives/disincentives as needed.

Ownership and Property

Ownership is another one you can change now, with a legal action to change property owners. We can make a law that uses the new Demographic system (see blog) to restore abandoned land to the commons. We check when a user first enters the abandoned demographic:


And then use the new Change Property Owner legal action to move it to ownership of a government title (see blog) for redistribution:
Now we have a fail-safe for a common problem in Eco, players who abandon a world clogging up the space with their claimed property. By making the solution something thats implemented through the law system, players get to decide what is the fairest way to handle that redistribution as part of the government decision making process.

Wealth

The last example Ill give is using the concept of wealth in laws. For example, we can make a wealth tax on a timer. Selecting the Citizen Timer trigger will run a law on a specified period:
This will run an action on every member of Abandoned, every 24 hours. The trigger it runs can detect the wealth and tax based on that:
Here it performs a calculation, taking 10 percent of the players wealth in the given currency. You can see in the Wealth tooltip what its doing exactly:
It looks at non-government accounts, and for multiply owned accounts it takes a pro-rated amount. So, no stashing those funds in overseas accounts, the government will still find you. This just scratches the surface of what you can do with laws, and its really cool to see what kind of societies players are creating in our 9.0 playtests with these tools, from very complex and byzantine law structures to simple flat taxes. All kinds of societal experiments that play out within the game, one of my favorite things about it. Thanks for reading and being patient as we finish up 9.0, its coming soon, we plan to announce a release date in the next few-several weeks. If you want to get your hands on it early and give us feedback, chat to us on Discord and you may be able to join one of our playtests. Also, as usual I'll be covering the contents of this blog in our next livestream this Saturday at 11am (11:00) PDT / 8pm (20:00) CEST, drop by and ask me your questions! - John K., CEO, Strange Loop Games

In a previous Eco Peaks update I showed some of the big updates to world generation for geology and mining coming in update 9.0 for Eco. In this post Ill present the very closely related updates to mineral processing and pollution in 9.0. Mining and mineral processing is an essential part of the global economy, since it provides the raw materials for many industries. It also raises many questions about land management, pollution, and waste storage. Tailings ponds and stacks are places where products and byproducts of mineral processing are stored long term, and they are some of the biggest structures humans build in the real world. We are excited to continue updating Eco until we have a satisfying representation of this kind of mass extraction and management of earth resources, and the consequences of their byproducts.
Underground Mining.
A tailings pond. Before we go on, he is the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]In 9.0 we will be adding more detail and realism to the way players process rock and ore, as a foundation for continued updates to tailings and their effects. This will also allow us to develop other industries in Eco like the chemical industry and better represent things like construction and road building materials. Mining and mineral processing ties into a lot of facets of civilization in interesting ways. The impact of these industries will be represented in future updates to pollution and its containment, as well as remediation of polluted materials.
[Stamp Mills] are an early upgrade to the [Arrastra] crusher, allowing more efficient and timely crushing of rock and ore. Here, two of them are going through a stockpile of [Granite] to make [Crushed Granite], harnessing the power of the nearby [Windmills]. The biggest change from previous versions of Eco is that now to process mined ore, players must first crush and then concentrate ore to get metal concentrates which can be smelted. There is a new suite of world objects which can be used to accomplish these parts of mineral processing. Beginning with Iron Ore from a mine, here is the new layout of machines, products, and byproducts for initial early game mineral processing in 9.0:
From left to right, [Iron Ore] embedded in sandstone from a mine goes through the [Arrastra] which crushes it, producing [Crushed Iron Ore] with [Crushed Sandstone] as a new byproduct. The [Crushed Iron Ore] can then be poured through a [Rocker Box] to concentrate it into [Iron Concentrate], with [Wet Tailings] coming out as a new byproduct. [Iron Concentrate] can then be smelted into [Iron Bars], with [Slag] as a new byproduct. All the new byproducts have varying levels of usefulness, and will necessitate greater operations to store long term. Future updates to Eco will expand on uses for and effects of byproducts, for instance the potential to re-mine old tailings for more metals. For 9.0, crushed stone and other aggregate like crushed slag can always be used in roads and concrete production.
An array of advanced [Jaw Crusher] machines, chewing away at [Granite] and [Copper Ore] from a nearby Copper Mine. Froth Floatation Cells sit waiting to concentrate the crushed ore, on the left. Pipes feed the Froth Floatation Cells the water they need to function from a nearby river. Different ores require different technologies to concentrate effectively. A simple way to think of different kinds of concentration is if they are wet or dry. Some ores like copper and gold need more chemicals and coaxing to separate and concentrate, necessitating a wet process.
In this screenshot you can see an array of mid and end-game mineral processing technology: [Jaw Crushers] for crushing along the top, [Screening Machines], and [Sensor-based Belt Sorters] for dry concentration of iron ore, and [Froth Floatation Cells] for wet processing of all ore types in the middle. On the bottom you can see the tops of [Blast Furnaces], currently our mid and end game smelters. A big difference between wet and dry concentration is in the byproduct produced. In 9.0 we are adding [Wet Tailings] to broadly represent the tailings produced by wet concentration processes. These tailings present a harder management problem, since they must be contained and prevented from leaking freely into their environment to avoid contamination of soils and water with freed heavy metals and residual chemicals from the processing. For now, this means they will act as a more potent pollutant in the environment and their storage must be taken more seriously. In future updates we will greatly flesh out the mechanics of tailings transport, storage, containment, and remediation or re-use. For instance, Wet Tailings will eventually be pipable, so that large mining operations can simply pipe their Wet Tailings into a nearby containment structure.
As we upgrade and deepen the systems in Eco that revolve around extracting and using all types of earth resources, we know there will be lots of balancing and updates needed to make it a satisfying part of the experience-- especially because not many games try to simulate these aspects of the economy and extractive industries! We welcome your feedback as we go, and hope youll look forward with us towards an expanding exploration of earth resources, their role in our economy, and their impact on the world. I'll be covering the contents of this blog in our next livestream this Friday at 11:30am (11:30) PDT / 8:30pm (20:30) CEST, drop by and feel free to ask questions! - Keegan O'Rourke, Lead Artist, Eco

Hey all, John K here to talk about one of the most core systems in eco, the Law system, and how were evolving it for Eco 9. Before we dive into that deeper, here is the overview over our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]From the beginning laws has been one of the driving features of eco, forming the glue between the three pillars of gameplay: economics, ecosystems, and government. It introduces a seldom-seen mechanic in games where the players within a world are designing the rules that govern it, rules that they themselves will be subjected to. This strange, self-referential loop of laws that they govern the very people that enact them creates a new kind of challenge for players: to consider their own needs along side those of the group, of which they are apart. You have to think outside of yourself, take a holistic view of the situation around you, and design a system that will not only help you achieve your goals but be accepted by other citizens. The very act of engaging in this kind of systemic thought is powerful: considering yourself in the context of society, considering the needs and motivations of others and weighing them against your own is a huge part of empathy and building a better world. I believe both the most fun and the most powerful kind of learning happens in these situations, when you are given a challenge that requires a shift in perspective to solve. And so it shouldnt be surprising that laws are a major part of our new Eco 9 update, in fact theyve been essentially entirely rewritten for 9.0, making them fundamental to all actions and stats in the game. Whats more, the foundation for the system has been updated quite a bit, so all future additions will be much easier and faster and more powerful. Were set for the long-haul with this update for all kinds of crazy stuff we want to do with government, like towns/cities/countries. If youre familiar with Eco v8 and prior, youll remember laws are created in a webpage hosted by the Eco server. This has been changed to create them in-game, setting them via the new Court object:
Courts are setup as part of the government system (earlier blog here), which in 9.0 will be designed by players. You can decide who is allowed to set laws, or require that laws be passed by election (blog on elections and elected officers here). Each court holds up to three laws:
Since laws are civic objects, they are governed by the constitution, and may require elections to change. Thus on the second slot, you see a proposed law change that is currently under election. Fun fact: with all civics objects, you can update them via elections and all the usages of them will auto-update too (ie, if you update a district used by a law, that law will update to the new district when the election succeeds). Youll also see the icons for each law. These are a little visual language we created to represent what the law does. The left one, for example, shows an icon for currency creation, and prevention, meaning its a law about preventing currency creation. This lets you know at a glance what a law does, and those icons are reproduced wherever the law is referenced. Plus they look cool, like a kind of legal hieroglyphic. So lets dig into how the law works. Heres a look at a basic law that prevents all chat.
With each law, you define a set of causes and effects. Here, the trigger is the action, Chat Sent. The effect is very simple in this case, Prevent. If this law is active and a citizen tries to chat, this is what they get:
So not an actual law you would use in the game, but an example for simplicity. What you have is basically a programming interface, where you create code that defines civics behavior in the game. Say we want to change the effect to tax instead of prevent. You can click the drop down by prevent and get the list of different effects that are available:
Choosing Tax, we then get a set of properties to configure, with some nice defaults:
Note the gear on the top left, clicking this shows the advanced properties:
By default, it targets the Citizen, which is whoever performed the interaction, in this case sending the chat. You can see that the icon for Citizen has the Chat Sent icon to make this connection. You can change this if you want, but since usually its common to tax the person doing an action when performing a law, its hidden by default. This way we aim to streamline the process of creating laws, making it as simple as possible, but still have room for powerful stuff for advanced users. If I click Citizen, I can pick other targets for the tax:
You can see both users and demographics/titles are included (check out demographic blog here). So if you want to get fancy, you can make an action that taxes a whole group instead of just a single person. Next we can set the tax amount. This as well has flexibility for simple and powerful use. By default, you can just enter a number, like 1 is entered here:
But if you click that dropdown, you get a whole slew of ways to define how theyre taxed:
Now you can use a calculation in determining how the tax amount is determined. Say we want to tax based on a percent of wealth. We can choose Percent and for the value choose Wealth:
Now when you send a chat, it will tax you 10% of your wealth. Not exactly free speech am I right (sorry). You can see all this getting described in words as you construct it:
This is a nice check on what youre constructing: you can see it in both the constructible view with tables, and in plain English. Once this law is active (assuming the dubious result that it would actually get passed in election), you get this when trying to send a chat:
Town coffers being filled! With our chatty populace well be building that new road in no time. But wait, all this tax on communication could have a negative effect. Perhaps we want to make exception. Thats what the conditions are for. Lets revise this law and add an if clause:
Picking the drop down, we get a big list of ways to determine conditions:
Lets make an exemption based on skill highly skilled citizens can chat freely. So we select Skill Requirements:
And choose which skills we want to look at:
And there we go, it checks if theyre a carpenter and only taxes if they dont have it.
Now when I try to chat, Ill get some more detailed reasons:
We made it a goal to make laws very visible to players, so when one passes or fails it tells you why, and it tells you what effect was rendered. So here youre getting taxed, and you know why (because youre not a carpenter), and all the colored text can be moused over for more details.
So you see the approach were taking with laws and all civics actions: making them flexible and powerful, but simple to use, and with lots of documentation and data available at your fingertips to understand whats going on. Dont need a lawyer to get around in Eco, the goal is for most citizens to be actively engaged in the civics and economy systems, so everyone is part of the governance rather than an elite group of players. For part 2 of the laws blog, Ill get into the actions that you can detect and trigger very specific results on, which leads to all kinds of powerful results. And its a big list now indeed, heres a small part of it:
Going forward, many new features will use what were showing here. For example, defining a conditional (Citizen must have carpentry) is an object on itself, meaning it can be used anywhere you want a conditional, and in fact it is used on Work Parties already, if you want to define who can join your work party:

This is one of the reasons we prioritized the civics system with Eco 9, because it requires a foundation that will be super useful for all the future features, and its come along great and will be a solid base for all thats to come. We have a very flexible way to define causes, effects, conditionals, and all kinds of other logic that will apply to many parts of the future game. Well be sharing those ideas with you as well, and you can see a lot of them in the other new objects like demographics, wages, elections, etc. And so we get a step closer to a lot of the bigger goals of Eco where civic engagement by all players is necessary to save the world and prevent catastrophe. Where there are defined government positions that give powers to specific citizens, giving civic responsibility and power in a planned and efficient way, and having to think about how all that should be designed from the ground up. Were already seeing some amazing societies being crafted with these new systems in our 9.0 test servers, and cant wait to see what else people come up with. I'll be covering the contents of this blog in our next livestream this Friday at 11am (11:00) PDT / 8pm (20:00) CEST, drop by and ask me your questions! - John K., CEO, Strange Loop Games

Hello, I'm Leonard and I'm the audio director for Eco. I started working with Strange Loop Games in 2011 on Vessel and am happy to be back with the team again. For version 0.9 we've been hard at work the past half year to improve and expand the audio content while also upgrading the existing audio system. The initial audio system for Eco was built using Unity and this has been entirely replaced by the Audiokinetic Wwise audio system. This new audio system allows us to move a lot faster when adding new content and includes many features not available in the regular Unity audio system. Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]

Hi everyone, my name is Milenko and I am the Art Director of ECO. Since I speak here rarely, before I start talking about UI, I would like to let you know where the art production is at and share a bit of an artist experience from our work so far.
Here's a list of our Eco Update 9.0 Blogs:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]Firstly, the Art team is working really hard at bringing more visual content to the game and we never stop. Many new assets are waiting in the cue to be plugged into the game. However, priority now is working through the latest increment, making it stable and making sure it runs smoothly. So while the engineering team is fixing and polishing the .9 update, the art team is assisting in anything we can help with, putting polish on as much art as possible without causing any issues ourselves and preparing assets for the versions to come. Game systems are getting more intricate, vision more focused and complex and the game itself is getting more depth than before. As the technology improves, we, the art team, are getting the opportunity to make our game prettier and more appealing to the player. For me personally, making art for ECO is the biggest challenge I have had in my career so far, I am learning a lot and had to change my perspective and opinions about the game art compared to any previous experience I had. With the world being procedurally generated and the amount of control given to the players, it is very hard for the art team to oversee and control the final look of the game we are creating. It is still possible to a sufficient extent, but the ways to do it are very different from the ones we as artists are used to. So it requires a bit of change in the way we think about how we do things. Regardless of difficulties, it is a nice challenge and keeps us sharp and on our toes at all times. And that is a good thing. I will try to write up a specific, longer blog post about art evolution on the game at some point soon. In regards to the User Interface, revisiting everything was a process that took months to bring it to the current stage. It took a lot of sketching, prototyping and many, many new art bits and the ways that they needed to be put together. With ECO growing as an experience and reaching the stage where it is ready to move into the next phase of development, there was a need to revise most aspects of the existing User Interface so that the game becomes more streamlined, features more clear and obvious, player interactions easier to understand and the game overall easier to use.
In the course of past months, with a lot of hard work, game design has progressed and evolved and the game-play has become much more intricate with new features and more complexity. Prior to 9.0, the User interface was mostly in the prototype phase and was often built on the spot in order to make a new feature functional. So we wanted to make it more organized, prettier and overall more appealing. It meant breaking many old things and rebuilding them from scratch, coming up with the new common themes and overall unifying it as much as possible visually while making it easier for players to use. In the course of the game development, and with many new features,new, specific, UI groups and functions unique to each other started to become necessary. Thankfully, the current iteration has become faster and more responsive allowing the player to interact with the world and the game with fewer clicks. We came up with different themes for different interfaces, figured out how they work with each other, figured out the way we want to put them together and tried to make sure they work thematically with each other so the overall look still follows the same theme, and fits with the overall game style. Some animations and movement have also been introduced to help with the experience overall. Following are some examples of the look for the new interfaces being built: There is a main on-screen interface which is a redesign of the existing one allowing the player to keep tabs on main aspects of the gameplay.
Mini map got its own category, with minimized, popup and full screen versions, giving the players different options they can use based on their play. It is always visible now and adds to the game a lot.

There is a massive and complex Ecopedia UI, designed to assist players in understanding many aspects of the game. throughout the rest of the interface it can be accessed and should help in clarifying different game segments.
Laws interface allows players to craft civic and legal aspects of the game, helpful in organizing society and managing players' interactions with the world as well as each other.


Work parties interface is there for assisting in organizing and following various tasks throughout the game.


Skills interface is allowing the player to follow their progress and learn about different professions development.
Improvements go on and returning players will hopefully find them enhancing their previous experience and new players will find the overall interactions with the game easy and unobtrusive.

Final Note

Of course, everything is still work in progress and the art style, features and visual functionality are developing and evolving together with the game itself. So the current state is an improved and more organised version of the previous one, and as the game development progresses visuals and style will change to adapt to the needs of the project. The livestream covering this blog will be hosted on Sunday, May 31 at midnight PST / 9am CEST. We're aware this isn't optimal but due to me working from Australia it's the best slot we could get. - Milenko Tunjic, Art Director, Strange Loop Games

Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this weeks development blog focusing on our new Labor system for crafting. Labor introduces an exciting new layer to the economy which allows for a variety of new interactions between players.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]In update 9.0, all crafting projects will require calories to be expended in the form of labor. When designing labor, we had a few key goals in mind:

• Encourage more collaboration through the new labor market
• Increase food demand during the modern eras of technology
• Create a need for dedicated crafters to consume calories

Maintaining Food Demand

One of the design pillars of Eco is to balance the needs of society with the impact on the environment. Part of this is the need to dedicate large areas of cleared land to agriculture. To make this possible, a steady demand for food is needed.
Prior to the labor mechanic, as technology progressed and specialists became more proficient, the need for calories began to slowly decrease over time. Though resource gathering always consumed resources, many of the major industries had minimal calorie requirements. As a result, the market price for food tended to dip once larger farms were developed. With the new labor system, progressively larger farms will be needed to supply the calories required for production. Advanced technologies will still increase the efficiency of resources use, but extra labor will be needed to keep up with the increased production.
Farmer using the new AoE Modern Hoe. The labor market especially benefits farmers, hunters, and chefs. A constant flow of calories will be required to keep the economy running smoothly. To help keep up with this extra demand, we are introducing a variety of new bows and advanced farming tools (see tech tree blog). In addition, we are adding new food recipes for chefs that can accept a larger variety of ingredients.

Labor as a Resource

Crafting in the real world requires work to be performed as part of the production chain. In 8.3, crafting simply required the necessary ingredients and an active crafting table. Some crafting tables had an additional power cost while operating, but otherwise players could operate near limitless crafting tables placed around the globe without needing much interaction. Update 9.0 addresses this by adding labor as an additional cost to recipes to represent the human component.
Crafting UI showing four different types of skilled labor costs. All citizens can perform the basic labor needed for the early starter recipes to establish themselves. Beyond this, most recipes require skilled labor. To craft these recipes, labor must be provided by a citizen who has specialized in the related skill. More experienced specialists will be able to expend less calories while performing labor and help craft more advanced recipes.
Work order in progress with option to add labor. Both resources and labor must be added before work on a project will begin. Labor can be added directly from the Crafting UI or by interacting with a placed crafting table. This encourages crafters to stay in closer proximity to crafting tables. While a work order is in progress, players will still be free to explore the world and interact with their surroundings, but work orders will occasionally need more labor added as new resources are acquired. With this change, small producers will be able to find a role supplying towns with a local supply of resources. Large producers will have incentive to hire other specialists to perform the labor needed to keep their expansion stores stocked with inventory. Both scenarios make it easier for multiple players who share a specialty to contribute to society in their own way.

Labor and Collaboration

A major benefit of the labor mechanic is the addition of a labor market to encourage collaboration. Previously, we showcased how players can hire skilled laborers to contribute to their crafting projects (see work parties blog). We also previewed how new players will have an alternate route to progression by gaining experience while providing labor (see upgrade module blog). These are just some of the ways that labor will promote more interaction.
Economy Viewer showing different work parties available in the world. Large scale projects, like researching new technologies and crafting new government buildings, require large amounts of labor and resources to be contributed. For big jobs like these that benefit the public good, there is incentive to have multiple citizens contributing labor to a single project. When collaborating on research projects, a work party can be created so all citizens that contributed will have access to the technology once completed. Something we want to expand on in Eco in the future is the ability for players to form companies and act as a single corporation. Skilled labor, along with the new wage and work party systems, are important steps in this process. We are excited to see how players will use these new tools while establishing an economy.

Summary

With this blog we will be wrapping up our preview of the new crafting system for 9.0, but we still have plenty of content to showcase in our upcoming blogs. I hope you have enjoyed this look at the new labor system and I look forward to sharing more during this weeks stream. - Todd Glenn, Developer, Strange Loop Games

Hello everyone! Im Keegan, an artist, designer, and developer on Eco. My best wishes go out to everyone right now and I hope you are staying safe as best you can. Our team is keeping busy with giving Eco 9.0 the polish it needs and are eager to get it out into the world for all of you to experience! 9.0 has some big updates to building which Im excited to share with you here.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist] In the previous version of Eco, we added a list of forms to choose from for each building material. This was just the beginning of our plans for player building, and in 9.0 we have greatly expanded this functionality.
Hammer menu Before in current version of Eco. We have refactored the UI and UX to allow for many more forms per material which are categorized and color coded. This is to support adding much more content, variety, and possibilities to building. Expanding the ways in which players can be creative is a primary goal with building in Eco, and we are by no means done yet with core building features to empower players.
Hammer menu After in new version of Eco, 9.0. The first of these new building features we are adding to Eco with 9.0 is a new function on the hammer: Fill Types. As you can see, fill types can be selected in their own section of the UI when you are selecting a form to build. Fill types allow the player to define starting and end points for larger shapes that fill in with blocks. For instance, to put down a long line of fence blocks, you would select the Fence form and then the Line fill type. Then in world you would right click once to set the start point of the line, and a second time for the end point.
The upgraded Hammer in Eco 9.0 supports building multiple blocks at once. Fill Types are the first step towards having more robust placement abilities for building in Eco. Before 9.0, players had to place blocks one by one. Now, with Fill Types, players will be able to create bigger structures by laying down swaths of blocks all at once. For now, inventory restrictions still apply so most materials will allow you to place down up to 20 blocks at once. In the future, we look forward to implementing more powerful building tools that take advantage of these new systems and allow material switching on the fly and many more than 20 blocks to be placed at once. The plan right now is to implement those kinds of powers (along with more fill types) with a total revamp of the Crane vehicle. To get a feel for and preview of this power, players in 9.0 can try out building with admin tools and commands on their own server, using the /give devtool and the /fly commands. If providing creativity is the first priority with the building systems, the second is grounding that creativity in the unique world of Eco and its finite resources. In 9.0, to follow up the massive expansion of the biomes in 8.0, the building materials we focused on first are the ones that come most directly from the environment.
The two new building materials are Ashlar Stone, and Composite Lumber. These two materials actually have variations for every type of tree and every type of rock in the game-- so your buildings made from Shale will look different than those made from Granite or Sandstone, and your buildings made from Cedar trees will look different than those made from Spruce. Though we have a long way to go to flesh out the end-game building material content in Eco, I am happy we tackled these materials now so that players will be able to build cities that exhibit and celebrate the sources of their materials.
The next steps for Eco as far as materials goes is to continue forward in this same manner with fully modern and industrial materials such as reinforced concrete, glass, and steel. We also will be updating older building materials to have many more forms like the new materials do. While we will prioritize end-game building materials to maximize the possibilities of high tier buildings, we do have plans for early building material improvements as well such as peat roofs and adobe.
One update in 9.0 that will be continued as part of the upgrades to high tier building materials is for asphalt concrete, which previously had no forms but now has several, and a much improved look. We look forward to adding many new forms as we go from here on out, and now that we have the UI and UX to allow this, I am confident Ecos building system will continue to expand in unique and exciting ways. - Keegan ORourke, Lead Artist Eco, Strange Loop Games

Greetings Eco citizens! Todd here to present this week's development blog on Eco 9, focusing on the new upgrade module system which will significantly boost your production.
Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist] When designing upgrades we had two main goals in mind: create demand for a skilled labor market and increase the significance of technological advancements.

What are Upgrade Modules?

In short, upgrade modules are our new system for improving crafting efficiency. Crafting tables will have modules in which upgrades can be plugged-in to reduce the resource cost and crafting time for projects on that table. All work orders started on an upgraded crafting table will have the same cost reductions, regardless of the skill of the citizen who starts the order. This last point is especially important because it moves the bonus you get off of your skill and onto this module, which means that new players can have much more of an impact if they make use of an upgraded table.
An upgrade module for the tailoring table.

Upgrades and Technological Progression

When designing the benefits for upgrades, we used the concept of mature technology. As new technologies are invented and introduced to the market, there is a period of rapid advancement. As most of the initial flaws in the technology are worked out, improvement is still possible but the marginal benefits of each advancement in technology decreases. Eventually a new technology will be invented, making the old technology obsolete.
In Eco, this will be seen in the increased benefits provided by progressively higher levels of upgrades. Upgrades come in five different quality levels, each providing an additional cost reduction. Initially the benefits of upgrades increase rapidly, while higher level upgrades start to have diminishing returns.
Mining upgrades of different quality for each era of technology. Crafting tables accept different tiers of upgrades, each corresponding to a different era of technology. For example, early stone age crafting tables can accept a Basic Upgrade while advanced crafting tables, like the Electronics Assembly, require a Modern Upgrade.

New Possibilitites for New Players

With our new skill system, our goal is that players will have an alternative route to establish themselves in an existing economy. Previously all experience for crafting went to the citizen who started the project, regardless of who contributed the resources. Now, experience is gained when players add skilled labor, while adding ingredients provides no experience. Experience for the project will be split amongst all citizens who contribute skilled labor, relative to the amount of labor each contributed. Upgrade modules, along with work parties (see blog), encourage this exchange of labor on a large scale. Citizens who own upgraded crafting tables will have incentive to hire laborers to work on their projects to maximize production. Specialists of all skill levels will be able to contribute to the same project without affecting the crafting time or the amount of resources needed. This will help create a healthy labor market.
The economy viewer showing work parties available in the world.

Future Plans for Upgrades

Now that we have the core system of upgrades implemented, we have a variety of plans to expand them in the future. A few of these ideas include:

• Specific upgrades for different crafting tables (For example, different quality saw blades for a sawmill)
• Upgrades that can store labor to help automation
• Upgrades that unlock unique crafting recipes

Summary

We hope you have enjoyed this look at the new upgrade modules. From our initial playtesting, upgrades appear to add a lot to the game. Thanks for reading and we look forward to everyone getting a chance to try them out for themselves. Our next livestream will take place this Thursday, 11am PST / 20:00 CEST on our Twitch and YouTube channels, on Facebook and on Steam. Save the date!

Hello Eco citizens, today Im going to talk about the super-fun world of Demographics. I bet you didnt know that demographics are fun. It sounds like a really boring word, probably. One of my favorite things about Eco though is that it connects things you think are boring to a wider system youre engaged in, and suddenly they become fun. Taxes, for example, probably one of the least fun things there is, is one of our most interesting features. I once saw a server even implement parking tickets, which to me sounds incredibly fun. Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

Demographics and Wages

So what is a demographic anyway? Its a division of people. IE, People who have played more than 5 hours in the last week, or People who have more than 500 Eco Bucks currency or People who have butchery skill greater than 5. Turns out these ways of automatically dividing up a populace are really useful for organizing, and were expanding a lot on this feature for the 9.0 update. You can setup demographics at the new Census Bureau object:
Each Census Bureau lets you create up to three demographics:
Like all new civics objects, your civic duties and abilities when it comes to demographics are determined by the constitution (see our Constitution blog). In this case, all changes to demographics must be passed via election (see Election blog), so changes are something that citizens must agree on (unless they install a dictatorship of some kind, of course). Lets take a look at some things you can do with demographics. Say we want to have a new player bonus that goes to citizens just joining a world. First, we can define who is in that group with a demographic:
Here weve compared two values: the number of hours played (over the last 0 number of days, which means ALL days), and 10. If hours played is less than 10, theyre a newbie. From there we can define wages, which is a new addition with 9.0 This will pay them out every civics tick with the value specified. Well keep it simple and pay out 10 per hour, counting online hours only:
On a server that has been around for awhile and has a lot of rich players, this can be a good way to give new users a legup. You could do it in a more complex way, too; perhaps incentivizing certain skills that are needed on the world. Heres what the demographic looks like when you mouse over:
And you can see the list of active demographics in the government viewer under Population.
You can also use this demographic anywhere you specify a person, and it will take that group instead. You could set property rights on a truck to be shared among all newbies, for example, making a village vehicle that newbies can use for a period of time:
You can specify it in laws, perhaps designating a certain district to only allow newbies to claim land (see District blog).
You also may have noticed the auto-generated demographics that each world starts with, Active, Admins, and Abandoned. Active is defined by server properties, defaulting to players who have played more than .05 hours (3 minutes) in the last two days. Abandoned contains citizens who havent logged in for several days. These are great for dealing with the usual eb-and-flow of citizens coming in and out of your world, handling what happens to their property when they leave, and giving them special privileges when theyre active. In fact, you can detect via laws when a user enters or leaves a demographic. For example, we could make this law that reclaims all property when a user enters the Abandoned demographic:
Here the law detects the demographic change event, and reassigns all the property of the abandoned citizen to be owned by Newbies, the demographic we specified earlier! That means that newbies will be able to get a legup by choosing property from abandoned players, which will be given special permission only to them during their first 10 hours of play. Recycling for the win. This is of course just one example of how you can design your government in Eco 9, and since we have a dynamic programmable system with lots of connections to the game there are TONS of interesting things that can come out of this, plenty we have not anticipated Im sure, thats the fun of it. Will be really interesting to see the kinds of societies players create, and how well they allow them to organize labor and progress to stop the meteor without destroying the ecosystem. Thanks for following us as always, Ill do a live stream (John K) this weekend 11am Sunday PST where Ill demo this for folks that would like to check it out and ask any questions. And as always ping us on discord or me on twitter if you have feedback. Thanks to the awesome community supporting the game as we build out this huge update! - John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

The russian website mmozg.net released an (extremely) long article where it shows off our game in much detail, trying to answer the following five major questions: [olist]

Greetings all Eco citizens! This weeks blog will be presented by Eco dev Todd Glenn who works on game balance and helps with some of the design aspects of Eco. We will be focusing on updates to the technology tree, which is the progression of items in the game that players get through research and technology. Weve added a ton of content with 9.0 with a few goals in mind: encourage more interaction between the professions, make advances in technological advancement feel more impactful, and expand on our end game content. Here's an overview of the Eco 9.0 blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

New Craftable Items for Professions

We have a huge collection of new craftable items for each profession, fleshing out the many professions in the game and adding depth and interesting choices to be made for each. These include:

• New food recipes for expert chefs
• Fancy high-end furniture for carpenters and masons
• End game Tier 4 building materials
• Advanced tools to aid in large scale resource gathering
• New crafting ingredients to promote more trade between professions

We will go over all of the new building materials and styles in a dedicated blog, but here is a quick peek at the new content:
As technology progresses, we want players to continue to upgrade their homes with higher quality furniture to increase the experience bonus from having a high housing score. We will be adding new lighting objects, fireplaces, and a variety of household appliances. Part of this change will be lowering the experience bonus for more primitive housing objects. Instead there will be plenty of new ways to continue to improve homes at all stages of the game. We are also adding some outdoor features like fountains and statues, though these can be placed indoors as well.
In addition to the items listed above, we will be adding new crafting tables, animals, and utility objects like the transmission pole. There are too many items to go over each individually, but here is a look at some of the new icons so you can get an idea of some of the new content being added.

Tool Improvements

One of the focuses of Eco 9 is increasing your power-progression through the arc of the game. As your civilization gains in technology, your ability to amass large amounts of resources should increase in tandem, as will your environmental impact. To support that, weve added new area of effect tools, as well as some altogether new tools. In our previous blog we showcased the prospecting drill, but another new tool is the machete.
The machete is used to quickly clear plants from an area, tearing a hole through the jungle that lets you move about much more easily, but at an environmental cost. Though wild plants provide numerous benefits to an ecosystem, their presence can sometimes be a burden when growing next to a developing town, either by hindering transportation or encroaching on agriculture. The machete allows players to quickly clear all plants with one tool, removing the need to switch between various tools or clearing plants by hand.
The modern hoe, pictured above, is one example of a tool with an area of effect. It tills large rows of fields at once with each swing. These crops can be quickly harvested using another area of effect tool, the modern scythe, which can harvest large sections of field at once. When combined, these tools enable farmers to more easily create the large scale farms needed to supply the extra food required for a well-established society to function.
Advanced bows will be added that are more accurate, fire faster, and do more damage than a traditional wooden bow. The recurve bow, pictured above, has significantly less firing arc. To help accommodate these upgraded bows and to make the hunting specialty more useful, we have increased hunting difficulty when using a wooden bow without specialization.

Crafting Updates

We have several quality of life improvements to our crafting system that allow for a smoother experience when dealing with similar groups of recipes. One of these changes is the option to have tagged ingredients:
In 8.3, recipes that needed stone required the different types of stone to be processed into a generic stone type before they could be used as ingredients. In 9.0, these recipes will simply have a tagged ingredient Rock that accepts any type of stone without a need to create a separate work order for each type. Tagged ingredients will appear in a variety of recipes, for example a fruit muffin recipe that can use any type of fruit.
In addition, some recipes with tagged ingredients have multiple variations that use a specific ingredient to create a similar but distinct product. For example, when crafting Mortared Stone a generic type can quickly be crafted using the Rock tag, or a variation can be selected that accepts a specific type of stone. Previously players had to scroll through a list of all recipes to find the variations, but now they are all contained under one parent recipe.

Skill System Revamp

With our new work party and labor features, players are encouraged to hire skilled laborers to help with large scale crafting projects (see our previous blog on Work Parties). We have updated our skill system with two goals in mind: allow players with the same specialty to collaborate on the same project and encourage more frequent interactions between different specialties. One of the most significant changes is the introduction of the upgrade module system. Reductions to the amount of ingredients needed for recipes are now caused by having an upgraded crafting table. All work orders performed at an upgraded table will have the same cost reduction, regardless of skill. We will explain upgrades in more detail in the upcoming efficiency redesign blog. The new bonus for leveling up is that progressively less calories are required when contributing skilled labor. Players of various skill levels will be able to contribute to the same project without changing the amount of resources needed for the project. Almost all recipes will require skilled labor to be performed before they can be crafted, so it will no longer be as easy to be a jack-of-all trades.

Specialty Additions & Changes

We will be adding two new endgame specialties capable of using wood or stone to produce the highest quality building material. These specialties, Advanced Masonry and Composites, will help carpenters and masons serve an essential role as society advances to the modern age. A main function of the Basic Engineer in Eco has always been to help contribute to the transport infrastructure. We are expanding on this role by having them responsible for producing all the different types of roads. In addition, Basic Engineers will receive a calorie reduction when using road tools to allow them to fill the role as the early road builders. In 8.3, the specialties Logging & Mining had nice benefits for gathering resources, but some players reported the specialties felt lackluster compared to other specialties with unique crafting recipes. Logging will now be responsible for producing hewn logs, which are an essential building material throughout the carpentry profession. Players with Mining will now need to crush and process ore before it can be smelted into metal bars by a smith.

Summary

We hope you enjoyed this look at some of the upcoming updates to the tech tree. We have more updates than could be covered in this blog, but we are very excited for everyone to see and experience the upcoming changes for themselves. Our next livestream will take place on Friday, noon (12:00) PST / 9pm CEST (21:00). Todd will be showing off all the content of this blog live on our Twitch and Youtube channels as well as on Facebook.

Hi folks, this week's Eco update will be presented by Eco artist and dev Keegan O'Rourke. We're going to get a close look at all the changes to mining and drilling, which is a way to let you prospect and find new places to mine.
Here's the Eco 9.0 hype-train of blogs so far:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

Geology Generation

In Eco as in real life, many of the most important resources for a civilization come from the ground. The largest efforts to extract resources from our planet center around what we can use that is locked underground in rock. In our 9.0 update, we are improving and expanding our representation of these resources and their use in industry. We have also improved the procedural generation of the world in Eco to better control how and where these resources are located. We are laying the groundwork with 9.0 to keep evolving what mining is in Eco and how it impacts both players and the environment. I think our players will be excited by some of the changes, let's take a look:
Prior to 9.0, we had in place a layer system that allowed us to generate different layers of rock in the environment, and assign these layers to different biomes. With this we could begin thematically creating a diverse world of different types of rock and ore located in different places. But biomes can be large, and ore deposits are not all shaped like layers. To combat that, we've created a newore deposit module in our generation:
One of the biggest improvements to this is that in 9.0 we have an ore deposit module in our world generation system that allows us to insert ore bodies into the layers which have their own definable shape and likelihood of appearing. We can also locate these at any level we want in the layers, and define size ranges for them. With this, we finally are generating a set of earth resources that works much more like the real world. These improvements will have a good impact on how mining feels. Players will likely get a bigger sense of reward for finding a deposit, and have much more to think about when it comes to efficient extraction and the shape of their mines. Here's a series of cutaways using a new admin command we added to debug ore generation. In the first shot, all the soil has been removed. In the second, the bedrock granite has been removed to reveal bedrock basalt and gold ore. In the third all rock and ore has been removed except copper ore


And here is a view from the bottom up, where you can see some of the copper ore deposits that have formed deep below the surface.
Since ore deposits have massively concentrated where resources like metal ore and coal are located, players will have more incentive to create efficient infrastructure to link a successful mine to other parts of their civilization. Mining towns will grow around these deposits, supplying miners with the tools and resources they need to extract the resources. It also means that players will have to explore for earth resources much more, since where deposits are located in particular biomes will be different for every different world.

Introducing the Drill

To aid in this process and to lay the groundwork for a powerful future mining tool in Eco, we have added a new Rock Drill tool to the game. This tool will let players find out what blocks are beneath them much more quickly than shoveling up all the earth in the way. As players get a feel for where deposits show up in the biomes, they will be able to learn to search intelligently for them using the drill.
To use the drill, you can aim it in any direction at a landmass and activate it. Based on the tier of the tool, it will inform you what is buried beneath the surface to a given depth. You'll be able to easily mark these positions in space with world markers.
With this addition, exploration and prospecting will become an important first step to every mining operation.

Adding Crushed Ore and Rock

One cool new addition is that because all rock and ore have crushed varieties that fit into other improvements to mineral processing in Eco 9.0, we are also able to use crushed rock and ore to begin to simulate natural erosion of rock and ore in the world.
As part of this update, all of the layers which contain ore and other resources like clay and sand have been revamped and improved with an eye both towards balance and future improvements coming to mining and industry in Eco. Mineral processing has been deeply expanded in 9.0 to more realistically break down rock and ore and create the correct byproducts from the right processes, which will be detailed in another update! We are in the process of big updates to the balance of different ores with regards to their byproducts, so with all these factors changing we are being generous with ore quantity to start. We are excited that as far as whats waiting under their feet, players will have a brand new world to explore in 9.0.
Our next livestream will take place on Thursday, noon (12:00) PST / 9pm CEST (21:00). I will be showing off all the content of this blog live on our Twitch and Youtube channels as well as on Facebook. - Keegan O'Rourke, Eco Lead Artist, Strange Loop Games

Hello all, hope youre enjoying your quarantining around the world and getting lots of gaming time in, stay safe and get your socializing in virtually. Our update today is on the new Districts system weve added for Eco 9. Heres the current lineup:[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

Districts

The purpose of districts in Eco is to define specific rules for various areas of the map. Weve had this for awhile, but with Eco 9 its getting a big upgrade. To start, districts are now set in-game and are contained in the new Zoning Office object.
You can now have multiple District Maps, each containing a set of districts defining an area. Each map is totally independent, meaning maps can overlap other maps. In the Zoning Office is this UI:
Each Zoning Office lets you define three maps, and as normal civic objects the Constitution defines who can modify them, what kind of election is required, etc. You can see on this map, the Constitution defines that districts can be changed only by election:
(Check out the Constitution blog for more info on how that works). In this Zoning Office, there are two district maps active, Protected Areas and Claimable Property, and one under election, Logging Regions. Lets revise the protected areas.
In the editor that appears, you can paint on the different areas of the map, revising any previous map that was already there. You can add and remove districts and make any changes you want. When you submit, it will go to election (if thats what the constitution requires):
This election then occurs like any other election, defined by the election process (check out the Elections blog for details on how that works). Once the election passes, it will apply the changes.
Any law that referenced a previous district will be updated to the new district, automatically propagating the change to anything referencing these districts. You can start to see how all these systems work together; since district maps are a regular civics object (like laws, elected titles, demographics, etc), they automatically get all the features like revisions, error testing, reference updating (when they get modified), tracking of state (draft, proposed, active, removed). So now lets make use of one of these districts, in a law.
Well go over in detail how laws work in a later blog, but for now you can get an idea how it works. The trigger (hunting a specific species) with restriction (inside a given protection region) will be prevented. Tons of flexibility is allowed here, say we want to make a special area where only certain citizens can claim land:
Only citizens possessing Title 1 can claim land in this district now. Title 1 could be defined in many ways: it could be an elected position, it could be a title assigned by players, it could be a title gained by completing a work party (see Work Party blog).

Summary

With this new districts feature, the ability for citizens to define the use of land becomes greatly expanded, connected to all the other parts of the civics system. In a game about ecosystems and the resources from land and the pollution put upon them, this can be extremely important for the success of your world. Defining how resources are used, and how citizens may use them, is a key element in finding a harmony with your environment and solving the tragedy of the commons. Lots more to come, stay tuned for more Eco 9 updates and the release (on a date to be announced). - John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

Hey Citizens, hope everyone is staying safe with the global pandemic going around, here at Strange Loop were a remote team already so theres no interruption in our development (if anything an acceleration as we all become shut-ins). Stay safe and take care of yourselves and those you care for. Our small contribution is providing a game world where you can socialize remotely and slow down the spread. Today I want to debut our latest update on whats coming for 9.0, with one of the new features Im most excited about: Work Parties.
[olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]One of the biggest factors behind designing the economy of Eco is that I wanted there to be a very rich market for both goods and services. That means a labor market that easy to use, super-helpful for the success in the game, and fun to boot. They should be the games quests, but unlike typical quests in game, they are not artificial (added by designers for NPCs to give endlessly), but actually arise from other citizens with real needs in the game. Lets take a look at how they work.

Work Parties

Work Parties are similar to contracts (which already exist in Eco) but are expanded in a lot of ways to make them fit the game better (eventually, contracts and work parties will likely be merged together, but for 9.0 theyll both exist).

• A work party can accept any number of workers, paying based on how much they contribute.
• Payment can take many forms.
• Research (crafting skill books) has special support to share the gained knowledge.

To use them, first start some work orders you want help with, and then post a Work Party. The work needed will automatically be populated:
Here on the Work Party you can see clearly everything in three sections: the laborers attached to the party (currently just me), the work to be done, and the payment that will be given. Before posting you can customize this if you want. Because I checked the setting expand slots when full, extra open slots will become available as people join. We can also make slots for a limited group if thats preferred. Lets make a special slot for workers who have the mining skill, since thats needed to perform the labor:

This restriction could be anything: members of a demographic, holders of a title, non-admins, people who have chopped 5 trees in the last week, whatever. It uses the same logic system we created for laws, so theres tons of flexibility there to design who can join your team. Down in the payment section, it defaults to 100 of my currency, and 10 reputation from me. We can have other types of payment too:
Payment can grant a title to a user upon performing some percentage of work, or grant knowledge as well. Granting knowledge is especially useful, as a citizen can setup a project to create a skillbook and then get contributions from the whole village, and when the skillbook is complete they will automatically receive the knowledge.
Note that you can grant knowledge of either a skillbook in your possession, or a skillbook that is being crafted. This can become a really powerful work-for-knowledge tradeoff that will let newer players work for older players in a meaningful exchange. Once set, you can post the work order, locking its settings into place. Any work party youve joined will show on the right side of the screen in a pull out menu:
This gives a quick reference as to the work left to be done and who the other laborers are. A world marker is also created in game showing what you need to do:
If another player comes along they can see this work party in the economy viewer, and if they travel to the contract board join the team, even if Im not online.

Being part of the work party, theyll get special access to contribute to the project even if they dont have permissions on the object:
Then as they contribute to the work party, it will increase their percentage worked:
Notice the weights along the right, this lets you designate some jobs as more important than others and give them higher rate of pay. Once all the work items are satisfied, payment is disbursed based on how much work each person did:
Here Dennis did 100% of the work so he gets 100% of the rewards. Nice job Dennis. You can also configure it to pay as-you-work, instead of a lump sum at the end. And now Ive got some nice Geology Research Papers to enjoy, waiting for me when I come back:

Using Work Parties

One of the cool things about this system is how it interacts with our new labor system which Ill be talking about in a future blog. Basically, many craft recipes will now require specialized labor, and the citizen performing them will have to possess the specialty to do it. This means that having the ingredients isnt enough, youll also need someone skilled to do to the work, and this will create a great need for other peoples help. One can imagine a top level laborer coming online and traveling around the world taking jobs for labor they can perform, collecting payment, and then using that payment to setup work parties of their own for ingredients and specialized labor they dont have. The citizens and economy both grow richer, and an interesting game dynamic is added. Work Parties can also work quite well with the government system, allowing for government contractors. Say a village has collected a lot of money in taxes, and wants to put it to good use. They can create work parties that pay out of the town coffers to fund research that will benefit all citizens, and citizens from around the globe (inside the town and out) will be drawn to help contribute by the prize.
This is the first iteration of Work Parties, and were planning to expand it to many other types of work: building roads, farming, constructing houses, mining, and basically everything else you could want to hire people for in your world. Thanks to our community playtesters who have been putting this through the ringer and looking forward to seeing what kinds of cool projects your citizens and governments will fund. Ill give a live stream demo of this on Tuesday, drop by our Discord to get details if youd like to watch. Cheers and as always thanks for the support from our awesome community, one of the most positive and helpful communities Ive seen in an online game! Keep the feedback coming and thanks for your support. - John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

This week were going to take a break from Civics to talk about another feature coming up in Eco 9, the Ecopedia.
Jumping around in our schedule a bit, heres the series so far: [olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

Ecopedia

The game has grown in complexity over the years, and its with Eco 9.0 we're putting in a lot of love to assist that learning curve with the Ecopedia. Eco is a game about ideas, and we wanted to make something special that explains those ideas, so weve created a comprehensive guide that explains everything in the game, from Getting Started to the major concepts of the game, to getting help on specific objects, to a reference of all the items (both natural and player created) in the game. This is especially useful for civics, as weve added a lot of new parts that can get complex, so having the Ecopedia as support is critical to allowing users to get the most out of it.

In the components section, we describe each component in the game and how to operate it, giving examples of the interface:
The Reference section shows all the items and objects in the game.
I especially like the selection animation our developer Sergey added when you change pages:
In the World Index, you can see all the citizen-created items, a list of each entity in the game, where you can get tooltips to get more details.
And on top of that, its really easy to add mods to this. A custom server can simply drop in an XML page and all citizens will get that in their Ecopedia when they connect to the server. Weve made getting to these help pages easy, each tooltip that has an associated Ecopedia page will have a button in the tooltip, like in the top right here:
And on each component here:
With these changes weve made it significantly easier to understand the features of Eco, especially the new forthcoming features in the 9.0 update. One thing weve heard a lot of feedback on during Early Access is the learning curve of the game, and this should give a big boost towards understanding how all the systems of Eco work together and how citizens can use them to achieve success. It also sets us up for the future as we add more and varied systems, and lets server owners have complex modding cases that can be properly explained to players. As always catch me and the team in our Discord or email me, always great to hear feedback from players, the community is really the heart of what makes this game awesome and were grateful to have such an amazing and supportive one. - John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

Hi citizens, our Eco 9 series continues with a look at Elections and Elected Titles: [olist]

New Hosted Worlds System[/olist]

Elections

Elections are one of the most fundamental parts of a democracy, and with 9.0 we're adding a lot of flexibility for how they can be used (or not used at all, if youre more into the dictatorship thing). Prior to Eco 9, elections in Eco were only used to elect the World Leader with 9.0, they can be used to make virtually any civic decision as well as elect player-defined Elected Titles. This means no more single world leader, but potentially a whole slew of different elected leaders, each with different responsibilities. Polling the populace can now be a core way that a world makes decisions. Elections are tied to Civic Actions, which are things Citizens can do that affect the government, in a way defined by the Constitution (see last weeks blog). An example of some of the civic actions you can perform in the game:

• Add, change, or remove a civic object (law, civic article, demographic, elected title, election process, etc).
• Perform an Executive Action (ie, tax all players with time in world > 5 days).
• Remove a leader from office

Elections are started automatically based on the rules of the Constitution. The constitution sets which actions need an election to pass, and who can propose it. Every civic object contains a handy list of what privileges you get from the constitution at the top, so you can always tell what youre able to do, in the form of your civic duties: Here's what your civic duties might look like on a court, for example:
You can see it outlines all the things you can do there, as well as the articles of the constitution that give you that right. You can also see all your civic duties for every type of civic object in the government menu:
Then when you edit a law, it will go to election:
From there, everyone gets notified in their new notification tab:
Then voting can happen by visiting any ballot box (or just going to the web ui of the server):

On the webpage, you can review the proposal, see the current votes and election details, and participate in discussions about the election.
Each election has a forum attached, where you can add graphs and maps arguing for your point of view. Arguments can easily be rooted in actual data from the world, encouraging citizens to formulate and debate using scientific reasoning.
Once the election is finished, the law will either pass or fail. If it fails, it can be edited and resubmitted.

Election Processes

So the way each election works is also something that can be determined by citizens. In fact, the election process is simply another civics object that can be changed, either by fiat or election, depending on whats in the constitution. You can create these at a Board of Elections object:
Each Election Process defines a set of properties for how the election works, from basics like who can vote and veto, to advance rules like how often the election may occur.
As with every feature in Eco 9, weve added popup help text to everything, with the aim to create powerful features that allow for complex societies but are still easily accessed and understood by everyone.
Election Processes let you do cool things like design different tiers of government, creating representatives who are elected and then are permitted to vote on laws (you would create one type of election for choosing representatives, and another for letting them change laws). You can add protections in the form of vetoes that are limited to a subset of leaders, and determine how rapidly you want elections to happen and finish, balancing stability of government with adaptability to changing conditions.

Elected Titles

Before this update, there was only one elected title for everyone to fight over, that of the world leader, and they had tremendous power. This didnt allow much flexibility in leadership, and would easily lead to a crisis if that leader went rogue or left. Now you can create many titles, and divvy up powers for them in many different ways. To add a new Elected Title, you can set them at a Government Office:
Each position has a big set of properties that can be used to configure how the elected title works. You can pick the Election Process that elects the leader, decide who can run, requirements of candidates, etc. Positions can be held by multiple people, and a variety of privileges can be assigned to the office holders. Here's a look at the properties that players get to configure:
You can see above that each position has special privileges to some government features, like adding global markers (markers in the world that everyone can see), setting tax rates in the treasury for things like sales, fees, and contracts, and creating and managing government bank accounts. Lots of power, which is wise to divy up accordingly. Elected Titles can be specified anywhere you pick a citizen, and this is how you give special access to the leaders you choose. For example, we can go back to our election process described above and revise it to give this Minister of Finance special veto powers:
As you can see here, you can select options that are currently in a draft form, or under election, and if/when they become active they will automatically take effect in the new setting (but not before then). This allows you to compose a set of civic objects that reference each other and get them all passed simultaneously, instead of having to wait for them to each pass before you can set the next one. Once the position is added, you can then start elections and enter them as a candidate from a ballot box:

Then let the campaign begin! Citizens can vote in the election at a ballot box in the same manner as described above:
The critical difference with elections for positions is that voting is performed using Ranked Choice Voting, which allows citizens to choose the order of preference of candidates, instead of selecting a single candidate. This has a number of positive effects on elections, especially when there are many candidates running: you dont have to commit solely to the candidate you think will win but can choose your favorite preference and select a separate one as your second/third/fourth/etc choice. Then if your main choice doesnt win, your vote goes to your next preference.

Connecting it All Together

These three parts of the system: elections, election processes, and elected titles really shine when connected all together and to the rest of the game. One of the most difficult problems of building a society is giving power and flexibility to act quickly in a way isnt destabilizing. By carefully defining how decisions are made, who makes them, and giving lots of checks and balances that ensure those decisions stay positive for society, you can craft a government that can last the ages and successfully steward your society to success in the race against the meteor, while preserving the ecosystem upon which the populace depends. There are lots more civic objects that get added to the mix and make this even more powerful including districts, demographics, executive actions, and especially laws. Stay tuned for future blog posts on them. Public playtests of Eco 9 are starting! Chat to D3nnis3n, our community manager in our Discord server if youre interested in helping out. No stream this week, but expect a double feature next week. Chat soon and cant wait to see what people build with our new systems, and always feel free to send me and the team feedback.
- John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

Hey Eco citizens, weve been heads-down working on getting Eco 9.0 ready and its getting close, REAL close, date to be announced soon! Don't miss todays stream at 2pm PST / 23:00 CEST (in about two hours from the time of publishing this blog). One of the main focuses of this update is the government system.
So to start the hype train up for 9.0 (choo-choo) were starting a series of blogs and streams, launched each week on Friday. We have a LOT to share, heres the tentative blog and demo schedule:[olist]