NETWORKING UPGRADE

A large part of the networking code has been overhauled for this release. The server now uses UDP on port 3000 for game traffic by default, and TCP on port 3001 for web traffic by default. If you were forwarding ports to your dedicated servers in the past, you will need to update your rules accordingly, including any rules in firewall programs.
In most instances, you should no longer need to port forward when hosting a server. We'd recommend using the steam friends "join game" feature to easily join each other games, instead of needing to find IP address and connect manually.
Moved the "MaxSlots" configuration value from the Users.eco config to the Network.eco config

JOIN SCREEN

New layout and visual style. Among other things, the new layout allows many more servers to fit on the screen.
This screen has been split into 2 tabs - one for only the servers that you are most likely to join (for example, your favorites, LAN servers, and official SLG servers), and the other for browsing for a new server. This allows you to view the first tab without having to query all the servers, which is more expensive.
Added many new searching, sorting, and filtering features
Improved performance by limiting how many servers are displayed
Added a new category on the server browser for 'Test Servers', which for now will link only the official SLG test server for the next version. Players will need to switch to staging to join this build, and a popup will inform them of that if they attempt.

GARBAGE

You can now drop any non-carried items into garbage piles
If left alone, food items will decompose into nothing
If left alone, other items will become trash blocks which will cause minor pollution

VEHICLES

Added a modern pickup Truck!
Added the hand plough
Added a nimble Skid-Steer vehicle
Vehicles can now dump in the water

GAMEPLAY

Unstuck can now extract players from ditches, correct invalid positions, added a delay to unstuck
Added hewn log, lumber, and stone signs for both standing and hanging.
You can no longer consume food when full.
Candle Stands no longer require solid ground.
Zero and low population plants will now be force spawned into worlds without them.
After activating the meteor destruct sequence, removing lasers or generators or otherwise breaking the laser setup will now cancel the destruct sequence.

MOD.IO

Official integration with mod.io is now ready! https://eco.mod.io/
A server can subscribe to, download, and install mods from mod.io

GENERAL SERVER CHANGES

Servers with several thousand world objects should notice fewer cases where world objects seem unresponsive.
We are now tracking which world objects need to be saved and saving is distributed over time.
Saving during shutdown is much faster.
Save all now also saves recent block changes
Added proper detection and handling of save-game corruption.
If a save is corrupt upon starting, it will restore the most recent backup.
If a save is corrupt mid-game, it will delete it and resave everything.
Made the server start auto-backups by default.
Spaced out backups. Now there are by default 6 made for the last hour, 10 for the last day, -7 for the last week, and up to 100 weekly backups. These numbers are configurable in the backup plugin.
Made any server errors that are logged also send to all admins via chat.
Fixed a crash when commands cannot be parsed
Hid many testing chat commands from players
Fixed an exception thrown when a mod overrides
PlayerDefaults.GetDefaultSkills to be empty.
Show a better stack trace in the tooltip if the tooltip errors out.
Blacklisted a few characters from usernames, which caused people not to be able to use chat. Namely '<' and '>'. These will now be automatically replaced with '?' the first time a player signs into a server.

GENERAL CLIENT CHANGES

Now using a borderless window that remains visible when unfocused
Improved client performance a bit in areas with lots of world objects
Fixed a bug that sometimes made you press interact twice when reopening a world object UI.
Fixed some client / server prediction desyncs
Disabled the unfocused fps limiter, it didn't work properly when vsync was enabled.
Users can now copy the log file easily when an error occurs. Log file will also be attached when bugs are reported.
Disabled single player new/load buttons for osx & linux.
Can no longer toggle off all chat channels
Sending an empty chat message once again switches you to that channel without sending a message
Made Skills UI Show All toggle not invisibly take up the whole bottom bar.
Added confirmation when deleting markers
Fixed contract pickers displaying contents wrong, and sometimes excepting https://ecoauth.strangeloopgames.com/changelog

[ 2018-05-09 17:51:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Eco

Strange Loop Games Developer

Strange Loop Games Publisher

2018-02-06 Release

Indie Simulation Multiplayer Coop Tags

Game News Posts: 193

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Very Positive (10380 reviews)

https://www.play.eco

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Enter the world of Eco, where you must team-up to build civilization and prevent a disaster, using resources from a fully simulated ecosystem, where your every action affects the lives of countless species.

Will you and your fellow builders collaborate successfully, creating laws to guide player actions, finding a balance that takes from the ecosystem without damaging it? Or will the world be destroyed by short-sighted choices that pollute the environment in exchange for immediate resource gains? Or, do players act too slowly, and the world is consumed by a disaster that could have been avoided if you developed the right technology? In Eco, you must find a balance as a group if the world is to survive.

A world-survival game

Eco is a survival game in a global sense, where it is not just the individual or group who is threatened, but the world itself. The world of Eco will be home to a population of thousands of simulated plants and animals of dozens of species, each living out their lives on a server running 24 hours a day, growing, feeding and reproducing, with their existence highly dependent on other species.

Enter humans into this equation, and things get complicated. It is the role of players to thrive in this environment by using resources from the world to eat, build, discover, learn and invent. However, every resource they take affects the environment it is taken from, and without careful planning and understanding of the ecosystem, lands can become deforested and polluted, habitats destroyed, and species left extinct.

In the extreme, the food supply of the ecosystem can be destroyed, along with all human life on it, resulting in server-wide perma-death. Eco is a game where the player’s actions have meaningful consequences.

Everything you do affects the ecosystem, and players can destroy their food supply and world (server-wide permadeath)
Create a player-run government to make decisions as a group, proposing and voting on laws
Use data gathered from the world to propose and vote on laws as a group. Debate with scientific argumentation.
Create a player-run economy that allows you to sell not only good but services in the form of server-enforced contracts (simulating a player driven quest system).
Your food level determines your skill-increase rate, making food very important and tying players directly to the ecosystem from which it comes.
A game with goals higher than entertainment. We plan to build it for schools as an augmented classroom world students share.

MINIMAL SETUPProcessor: Intel Dual-Core 2.4 GHz or AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHzMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 or AMD Radeon HD 5850 or Intel HD Graphics 4000 with 512 MBNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 2 GB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPProcessor: Intel Core i5-2300 or AMD Phenom II X4 940 or betterMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 or AMD Radeon HD 7750 with 1 GB VRAM or betterNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 2 GB available space

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