Update 9.7 released! Performance Improvements and Housing Upgrade
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
To improve client performance we made several different optimizations:
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which was on by default, led to a very significiant performance decrease due to the implementation used being outdated and by now unmaintained.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.
Please note that there are many other optimizations currently being worked on and being released later.
Updated Housing System
In preparation to another new system in Eco we are currently working on - Culture - we have reworked the way our housing system works. We'll reveal more about the culture feature once it's time for that, so here we'll only talk about the changes to housing.
The calculation of housing points now got a bit more complex: As before, you still have the diminishing returns feature when stuffing too many of the same objects into a room, but now we have additionally sorted furniture into further categories:
- Primary Furniture, that is bound to a specific room type and designates the room type. - Support Furniture, split into the categories "Seating", "Decoration" and "Lighting" that can be used in any room.
The amount of housing points Support Furniture can provide is now capped to a specific percentage of the effective amount of housing points you currently get in that room from the primary furniture you placed into it after diminishing returns were taken into account. For Seating and Decoration that is 50% of that value, for Lighting it's 30%.
The idea behind this is to allow players to be more creative without taking a hit on their housing points if they don't cram everything we have into rooms, forfeiting the decorative aspect of decoration. It also allows us to balance the maximum amount of housing points that are achievable much easier, as we only need to focus on the Primary Furniture for that in the future.
Server Performance
For improving server performance we made several improvements for memory allocations which leads to a decrease in lag spikes that could happen at garbage collection:
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.
Additionally we fixed a commonly observed issue that led to a lag spike whenever a player joined a server, with interactions on the server halted for up to several seconds that was caused by network communication being blocked until the joining player received all initital data.
Minor Features
Bounding Boxes
Glassworks Table
Vases
Icons
We know that many of you like to use icons to decorate and totally love seeing that - from cool shop offering signs to such mimicking paintings! In this update we made some changes to how that works. To display an icon on a sign or elsewhere you need to use the tag. There are two options you can use that we'll explain with an example:
To show an icon with the gradient background (if it has one), you need to specifiy the item ID with the correct capitalization: will hence create an icon of an iron plate with its background.
To show an icon without the background you need to specifiy the item ID in all lowercase: will hence create a icon of an iron plate without its background.
The important thing to note is that you can no longer omit the "Item" part - just using IronPlate will not work anymore.
Balance Changes
New Items
Added: Glassworks table, created by a potter in the kiln for use by Glassworking.
Added: Vases with a housing point value of 1.
Added: Cotton Lint, a new item added into the production chain of cotton thread.
Added: Copper Plates, made by Mechanics using the Screw Press, similar to Iron Plates.
Housing Objects
Changed: Wooden Fabric Bed housing points increased from 3 to 4.
Changed: Hewn Nightstand housing points increased from 1,5 to 2,5.
Changed: Hewn Dresser housing points increased from 0,5 to 1.
Changed: Lumber Dressers housing points increased from 1,5 to 3.
Changed: Diminishing return of all dressers decreased from 0,6 to 0,5. (The value of the diminishing return decreasing means the diminishing returns are effectively higher)
Changed: Cast Iron Bed housing points increased from 3 to 4.
Changed: Cast Iron Royal Bed housing points increased from 3,5 to 4,5.
Changed: Nylon Futon Bed housing points increased from 4 to 5.
Changed: Bookshelves are now considered an object for the living room.
Ingredient Changes
Changed: Animal Mounts now use Hewn Logs instead of Lumber to craft.
Changed: Boilers now require additional copper plates to craft.
Changed: Heat Sinks now use copper plates instead of copper bars.
Changed: Heat Sinks now require more copper wiring to craft.
Changed: Portable Steam Engines now require additional copper pipes to craft.
Changed: Excavators, Skid Steers, Steam Tractors, Steam Trucks and Trucks now require additional Light Bulbs as a static ingredient to craft.
Vehicle Changes
Changed: Vehicle modules now have durability that is used on tile interactions. The durability for them is 2.500 and they are repaired by using iron. Currently affected modules are: Steam Tractor Sower, Steam Tractor Harvester, Steam Tractor Plow.
Miscellaneous
Changed: All items in Glassworking with the exception of Fiber Glass are now crafted at the Glassworks table.
Changed: The calorie reduction per level in the specialty was changed as follows:
Level 1: Decreased from 20% to 5%.
Level 2: Decreased from 25% to 7%.
Level 3: Decreased from 30% to 10%.
Level 4: Decreased from 35% to 12%.
Level 5: Decreased from 40% to 15%.
Level 6: Decreased from 45% to 17%.
Level 7: Decreased from 50% to 20%.
Changed: The maximum yield of rice was decreased by 1.
Changed: Rice now requires a sickle or scythe to harvest.
Changed: All tools except Hammer, Machete, Drill and Road Tool now use a flat 20 calorie cost per use.
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Audio
Fixed: When switching from a fishing pole in your hotbar to a chainsaw in your hotbar the chainsaw would play the fishing sound effect instead of the one for chainsaws.
Fixed: Fishing pole sounds were playing for all players regardless of distance to the audio source.
Fixed: Players couldn't hear the sound of vehicles of other players until they started to move.
Fixed: Player could still hear the sound of vehicles of other players even though the vehicle had no more fuel and was hence not running.
Fixed: Logging out underwater and then logging into another world caused ambiance sound effects to no longer function.
Fixed: The harvesting sound stopped playing after many chunks were loaded and unloaded.
Avatar
Improved: The running animation for avatars that do not hold a tool has been removed due to reports of causing motion sickness.
Improved: Avatar animations in third person view now match the movement direction instead of sliding when moving diagonally.
Civics
Fixed: When trying to tax a player a negative value through the treasury the UI simply closed without any action taken instead of displaying an error.
Fixed: Civic article names do no longer get truncated when they're within the character limit.
Fixed: When taking a harvest contract and harvesting a shovelable plant for the contract a crash occured.
Modkit
Changed: Vehicle scripts have been moved, which results in any modifications or overrides to them requiring an update.
Changed: Due to changing the tooltip system used for Ecopedia all item and object overrides will need to be adjusted, specifically the attribute "display: InPageTooltip.DynamicTooltip" for Ecopedia needs to be removed.
Tools
Improved: Claiming with the claim stake does no longer play an animation.
Fixed: The fishing pole shadow wasn't attached to the avatar.
Fixed: Fishing line and lure were not syncing properly for other players.
Fixed: Bows and arrows were not syncing properly for other players.
Fixed: When you leave a cart after you entered it with a tool animation playing the tool animation will no longer continue.
Vehicles
Added: The steam tractor now has working lights.
Fixed: In default controls mode, when pushing a cart instead of pulling it the controls got erroneously inverted.
UI
Added: The "Authorized Consumers" text in world objects now has a explanatory tooltip.
Improved: The creation of generic work orders does no longer create a map marker.
Fixed: Some minor issues in the display of title tooltips.
Fixed: UI elements that faded in didn't display correctly.
World Objects
Fixed: Several causes that could lead to world objects becoming uninteractable. We might not have caught all of them, so please keep reports and logs coming if you still experience this issue.
Fixed: World Objects that required solid ground wouldn't stop working immediately after the requirement was no longer fulfilled.
Miscellaneous
Added: A new ecopedia page listing all living room furniture was added for easier navigation.
Changed: Rice is no longer required to be collected to finish the tutorial task "Find Food" due to it now requiring a sickle to be harvested.
Fixed: Players were unable to take fuel out of vehicles when they were authorized but didn't own the vehicle.
Fixed: Lumber Stockpiles could cause error spam in the player.log, leading to diminished performance.
Fixed: Using the /unstuck command while driving a vehicle caused the player to no longer be able to interact with the vehicle.
Fixed: Wolf Whisperer rewards were not available in void storage for eligible players and Alpha rewards had the wrong display icon.
Server Configs
Users.eco.template
Added: "SLGAccountName" config variable, used only for QA mode purposes.
Added: "SLGAccountPassword" config variable, used only for QA mode purposes.
Added: "SpawnSearchRange" config variable, determining the range around a potential player spawn point in which all requirements to finish the tutorial must be available when not using a fixed spawn point - defaulting to 600.
Storage.eco.template
Added: "NewGameTemplate" config variable, specifiying a prepared savegame that is to be loaded whenever a new world is generated instead of regular world generation.
Removed: "UseCacheForDBQueries" config variable, it is now obsolete due to being enforced at all times.
Maintenance.eco.template
Added: "ReasonForAutoShutdown" config variable, acceptable contents are "Restart", "Shutdown" and "Update", determining exit code for the automatic shutdown / reboot feature.
Network.eco.template
Added: "ReservedSlots" config variable, determining the amount of slots available to players assigned queue priority permissions beyond what "DefaultSlots" would allow - defaulting to 5.
Changed: "MaxConnections" config variable was renamed to "DefaultSlots".
Voice.eco.template
Added: "ServerVoiceIdentifier" config variable, for containing an ID for the Vivox voice chat implementation - this is auto generated, should never be changed and never be copied to other servers as otherwise you will hear the same voices on all servers with the same ID.
Update 9.7 - Focus on Performance
Hello Eco Citizens, today we'd like to give you an update on where we’re taking Eco after our 9.6 release. As an Early Access title, we’re always looking to balance adding features with polishing existing ones, and we’ve 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 don’t 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.
There are tons of plants and every plant now has a game object with a few components (including a transform). In previous patches we optimized rendering to be less expensive and now we are ready to make the next step - fully replace these game objects with Unity DOTS lightweight entities. It benefits us in all aspects: memory, maintenance cost, instantiation and destruction speed. Also it lets us use job threads (multi-threading) for plant related updates such as move through detection.
With the power of DOTS (Unity Data Oriented Technology Stack focused on performance and multi-core utilization) we are able to heavily parallelize chunk builds and updates. A chunk is a minimal unit of terrain to be processed by a terrain rendering system and basically is 10x10x10 blocks in Eco. Effectively it reduces the time between chunk data being received from the server and then rendered in the game.
And that's it from Alex. Update 9.7 will be shipped through several 9.7.x updates - we're aiming for at least two, one in mid-late November and one in mid-late December. After that, the next shipment will be Eco 10, which will have two giant additions you've been waiting for: boats and settlements.
We’ll have more updates on this and our long-term plans for Eco soon, so stay tuned. Spoiler alert, they’re big - and some are fluffy.
Version 9.6.6 released!
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.
Version 9.6.5 released!
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.
Version 9.6.4 released!
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.
Fixed: Work parties could lead to a server crash when attempting to pay a contributor that has left the work party before payment.
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.
Version 9.6.3 Released!
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
Update 9.6.2 Released!
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
Update 9.6.1 Released!
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 other’s 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
Update 9.6 released! Food Spoilage, Shop Carts, Immersion and more!
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!
Food Spoilage
A major problem in the real world is food waste. With this Update we are introducing a completely new mechanic that adds a shelf life to all food items and crops in Eco (configurable with a multiplier) depending on the type of the food. Once the shelf life of a food runs out, it spoils and is only good for making compost.
This mechanic will incentivize food producers to think about sustainable production of their goods to minimize losses due to food spoilage and as such introduce a new important factor that needs to be considered within the economy on Eco servers.
Of course, with increasing technology level in your worlds there will be options at your disposal to extend the shelf life. The Icebox and Refrigerator were updated to provide increasing bonuses to food freshness and so does the brand new Industrial Refrigerator which also offers a storage capacity similar to the Silo. And while we're at the Silo - we also added a Powered Silo to allow you to extend the shelf life of your crops as well.
3D Food
Our art team has been hard at work to craft over 140 3D models for all the different food items we have in Eco that will be displayed in your new player hands when you select the food in your toolbar. We do also intend to expand this feature to allow placement of food on and eating it at tables in the future.
Each food has also received it's own eating animation that fits the displayed food. Of course we know that not everyone likes to watch longer animations, so we also added "gulping" for those of you that are so hungry that they need to eat a lot of food at once.
All of this is fully moddable, allowing modders to add their own 3D models and animations for their food. We know there are several food mods out there, and we're eager to see what you all will be doing with these new possibilities.
First Person View
To further improve immersion during gameplay, we have introduced character hands in first person view. You'll now be able to see your character holding their tools and to accompany this new feature we have also updated lots of animations for tool usage.
Shop Cart
A common occurrence many of you might know is that somehow your customers always tend to be somewhere else, often magically at the point most far from you. That's no longer a problem, because with this Update we're introducing Shop Carts that act as mobile stores with an internal storage of a cart, able to link to any other storage in their vicinity. So, if the customers don't come to you, just put a pop-up store next to your customers. Make sure you got the necessary government permits, though!
Server Queue
For the server administrators in our community we added an often requested feature to servers: A server queue that will place players that try to connect to a full server into a queue until the server has enough room for them to join. Administrators can also add reserved slots to allow specific players to bypass the queue or configure priority based queue positions that allow players to join at the front of the queue instead.
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.
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 didn’t 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 don’t 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 else’s 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 Concrete’s 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.
Update 9.5.4 released!
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.
