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Re: Eco
« Reply #15 on: July 08, 2018, 05:00:32 PM »
Sneak Peek: Electric Machinist Table
1 June - ShaydenMac   

Here's a sneak peek at the new Electric Machinist Table. The modules shown are large, industrial electrical upgrades to the mechanical tools. This object will replace what's currently known as the machine shop.

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Re: Eco
« Reply #16 on: July 08, 2018, 05:01:15 PM »
Ecostasia: World Tour Highlight Video
5 June - ShaydenMac   

This is just one of the many highlights we came across on our tour of the Ecostasia server. This modern home really caught our eye and we just had to share it with you all!

We will be sharing more of this amazing community's world with you soon!

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Re: Eco
« Reply #17 on: July 08, 2018, 05:01:55 PM »
7.4.7 hotfix released
Eco - ShaydenMac

•   Fixed minimap markers
•   Connecting to a server by ip address now also adds it to your recent servers list in the Join screen.
•   Saved servers (eg. recents, favorites) now also save ip address and port. This means that favorites will have a good chance of connecting, even when the master server is inaccessible.
•   On the Join screen, increased how many servers are processed per frame from 1 to 5.
•   Fixed an issue where placing a vehicle didn't set you as the owner.
•   Fixed an issue where you could not pick up vehicles on someone else's property.
•   Fixed non-LAN servers appearing in the LAN section on the Join screen
•   Fixed the 'Owned by' indicator in object windows - It will again say 'Unowned' if unowned, instead of 'Owned by .'
•   Fixed signs displaying run-off text
•   Fixed the text editing box for signs to show markup tags instead of previewing with them, and now it allows multi-line editing.

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Re: Eco
« Reply #18 on: July 08, 2018, 05:03:31 PM »
Eco 7.5 Released! 'Human Impact Pre-Release' is live.
Eco - ShaydenMac

Hey all, at Strange Loop we've been working on something big for a major update: scaling up late-game human impact with technology.

The arc of the Eco game is one that starts with humans having a small impact on the environment, and ends with them having a massive impact. During the course of that, citizens will need to create a government that can cope with all that power, and an economy that functions seamlessly within it. If they don't, it's very easy to lead to ecological disaster.



So for this update we're adding a bunch of new late game tech, including some new ways of building and moving things in the world. Check it out below.

New Vehicles

Added the Steam Truck!


Added a modular attachment system for vehicles
Added the plough, harvester, and sowing attachments for the steam tractor



New machines and features
Added Elevator for transporting materials and carts vertically!

Added stone, hewn log, and lumber door recipes.

Added wooden standing light, wooden table light, and wooden ceiling light

Added the Assembly Line!

Added cranes! Players can use the crane to build large walls in one click by targeting the corners with the claw

Tons more changes besides those, you can check out the full list here.


Coming next we're going to be polishing up this build and the new user experience, before our official 8.0 Human Impact release. If you have feedback get in touch with us on discord, email, Facebook, etc. Support from the community is what lets us move this fast, and we have lots more to come. Vlog coming up soon as well!



Thanks all and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this release.
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Offline Asid

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Re: Eco
« Reply #19 on: July 14, 2018, 11:05:20 PM »
Beta 7.6.0 Released!
13 July - ShaydenMac

Beta 7.6.0 Changelog

NEW CONTENT

Distribution Station
•   Added a new Distribution Station object. This is a stockpile where the owner can set a ration of items that every new player can take, which they will be notified of with a World Marker when they enter the game. With this object, citizens and governments can set up items to provide to new players to help them get started/catch up. You'll also be able to see the items provided from the Server Browser.
•   You can set the max 'age' of a player for them to be eligible for items.

Added Chainsaw

Starter Camp
•   The camp comes with a small stockpile and contains starting supplies.
•   The camp also serves as a crafting table that can craft a limited selection of things.



Real Estate Desk
•   At the desk, you can examine your deeds, edit their settings, move land and vehicles between deeds, create and delete deeds, and unclaim land and vehicles. You can also buy and sell deeds.
•   Deeds are no longer items that you can carry in your inventory.
•   Replaced "Property Claim Flags" with a "Land Claim Stake" tool and "Land Claim Papers". The Land Claim Stake works similarly to how claim flags used to work - hold it and right click to claim some land. It also has some new features. You can hold it and left click on claimed land to unclaim it. You can also target claimed land with it and press 'E' to open the deed window for that land. The Land Claim Stake uses Land Claim Papers. Each paper represents your right to claim 1 plot of land. Unlocking skills will grant you Land Claim Papers, in the same way it used to grant you Property Claim Flags previously.
•   When you claim land with the Land Claim Stake, the deed that the land is attached to is no longer determined by the deed in your inventory (since you can't have deeds in your inventory). Rather, it is determined by the deeds of nearby plots belonging to you, and . If there are none within range, a new deed is created.
•   The treatment of vehicles versus stationary objects with regards to deeds and authorization has been unified, and the 'Auth' tab of the object window - which has been renamed to the 'Authorization' tab and given an overhaul to improve both clarity and appearance - will appear for both. No more 'Lock' toggle for vehicles - they now have full authorization settings support just like stationary objects (that is, the ability to set them to public, whitelist, or inherit from deed mode).
•   Added an "Unclaim Property" action to stats, which can be referenced in laws.

Robotic Assembly Line
 


•   The Robotic Assembly Line is used to craft all internal combustion engine vehicles and other advanced machinery.

IMPROVEMENTS
•   Added calculated exchange rates. Eco will now compare trades of the same item in different currencies to make a rough exchange rate, which can be used by citizens to help understand prices (how to shop and how to set prices). The inner details of how they're calculated is displayed as well, so players can make informed decisions. You can view this in a currency’s ‘Currency Report’. Will be doing more with this exchange rate later.
•   Added intro sequences for food and housing, explaining the concepts with icons and animations.
•   Made it easier to exit water in a few situations like 1 block thick docks.
Third person mode in vehicles now zooms out further and behaves more consistently.
•   Vehicles with tools now attempt to dump into multiple inventories for objects that have multiple inventories.

OPTIMIZATION
•   Made the server browser ping filter go to ‘unlimited’ (previously went to 500ms)
•   Improved client script performance.
•   Eliminated performance impact of using world markers.

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES
•   Added a key binding to toggle 3rd person (defaults to F5).
•   Changed the nutrient values of almost everything, generally a ~20% increase.
•   Nutrient values now scale more aggressively with higher tier food.
•   Recipe costs changed due to recent farming/collection changes.
•   Removed Campfire Cooking skill - the recipes are now available to everyone.
•   Old Campfire Cooking recipes ingredients have been modified due to no efficiency/speed skills.
•   Removed Basic Crafting skill - the recipes are now available to everyone.
•   Basic Crafting recipes ingredients have been modified due to no efficiency/speed skills.
•   Players now start with reduced land claims and a camp item.
•   Most plants now give less resources.
•   Added seed recipe for mushrooms.
•   Gathered seeds no longer increase with gathering skill.
•   Blast furnaces once again produce tailings.
•   Blast furnaces are now harder to make.
•   Lots of miscellaneous changes to late game recipes.
•   Ingots (all kinds) are more expensive, other recipe costs reduced where appropriate.
•   Ingots now weigh less.
•   Steel now requires coal or charcoal to smelt.

BUG FIXES
•   Fixed an issue where a vehicle with both a fuel supply and storage would behave inconsistently in the linked inventory UI. (The UI displayed the fuel supply and the storage as separate inventories with separate settings, but the server treated both inventories as sharing the same settings. Now the server also treats them as separate inventories).
•   Fixed the fishing line not meeting with the lure correctly.
•   When attempting to join a server by ip address, if you enter an invalid ip, it will now show an error message instead of attempting to connect forever.
•   Single-player server will now close itself if the client crashes.

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Offline Asid

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Re: Eco
« Reply #20 on: September 22, 2018, 12:11:14 AM »
7.6.3 Released - July 24th, 2018
25 JULY - JIRRAK


Changelog
•   Modified the colliders on the starter camp and stockpiles to prevent new players from getting stuck
•   Fixed /unclaim crash if a property was already public
•   Fixed bug where currency exchange wasn't checking balances properly
•   Other bug fixes

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Re: Eco
« Reply #21 on: September 22, 2018, 12:12:00 AM »
Eco 7.7 is live with a big focus on collaboration and building communities!
6 SEPTEMBER   - KET

We have pushed 7.7 to live and with it come a host of changes.

Some of the highlights include:

Loans & Bonds,
Recommended Servers,
New Intro Story Sequence
Revamped Mini Map UI
New Economy and Law features
Graphics Improvements, and much more!

Check it all out here:
https://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco-7-7-is-live-loans-bonds-recommended-servers-story-sequence-and-more/

The full patch notes are availaible here.
https://ecoauth.strangeloopgames.com/changelog
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Re: Eco
« Reply #22 on: August 31, 2019, 04:58:11 PM »
Create a The Design Pillars of Eco
30 Apr @ 9:39pm - WAVES



This week I’d like to dive into the core of Eco’s design a bit, and talk about the principles that guide the design and development of the game. These are things that go way back to the beginning ideas of what Eco would be, and are used to this day to determine what we choose to bring next in the game.

Game Mission

Eco’s design mission is to have players “Solve the Tragedy of the Commons,[en.wikipedia.org]” taking place among real people. That means creating conflicts among people with the same end goals, where a collection of self-interests is not enough to succeed, you need some representation of collective interest.

To implement that, the game exists within the intersection of the game's design pillars: Economy, Ecology and Government.

The role of these pillars in the game is as follows:

Economy
Encompasses the efforts and progress of humans. Manufacturing, creating infrastructure, building, harvesting, performing research, specialization, trade. Collaboration and competition is a big goal of this pillar, to connect players together in productive (as well as adversarial) creation. The features of the economy should be grown to support these features, as well as influences from the other two pillars. Key goals of this pillar are:
1.   Asynchronicity, allowing players to collaborate across time and space,
2.   Discoverability, making it easy for players to find the information they need about how to participate in the economy.
3.   Involvement, incentivizing players to work together, especially between different levels of experience.
4.   Organization, allowing players to organize labor seamlessly through the interests of many parties, with lots of data on progress and economy state.



Ecology
The substrate of the player experience, this is the ‘reality’ that they are forced to contend with. It is both the source of their solutions and problems. Our emphasis when building the Ecology simulation is a feature-set that both affects and is affected by human actions. That is, resources that are useful to the economy, and systems that are vulnerable to pollution and over-harvesting.

Beyond that, the ecology is a goal in itself, and the beauty of the ecosystem has natural value in the game outside of any human purpose.

Key goals of this pillar are:
1.   Visibility, players should be granted powerful tools (the stats system) to understand how the ecology system works and how players are influencing it.
2.   Impact, simulated features are highly reactive to the actions of players.
3.   Diversity, promoting the usage or more far-spread regions of the world, increasing needs for transport and collaboration, and allowing for myriad complex effects from different biomes.
4.   Existential Threat, the ecology needs to be capable of dying and creating a losing world for players due to their actions.



Government
Government in Eco serves as a tool to manage and dictate the relationship between players in the economy, and between the economy and the environment. It needs to be powerful and flexible enough to express a rich variety of governmental structures, and still easy and fun to understand and build (I see these two goals as supportive of each other rather than opposites). Government must be necessary to win the game, allowing players to dictate the interactions that happen with the environment.

Key goals of this pillar are:
1.   Ease of use. All players should be capable of understanding and using the system.
2.   Power. Many different and deep structures of government should be possible with the system.
3.   Created by Players. Government should be both run and constructed by players, allowing them to form it as a solution to their problems in the economy and in interactions with the ecosystem.
4.   Meta-Game Support. Promotes the positive interaction of players in the meta game (active players coming and going, property arrangements, etc). Serves to handle problems that occur not just in the game but in the meta-game.
5.   Transparent. The workings of government should be available and in fact highlighted for all players to see and participate in.
6.   Iterative. The government should be expected to change throughout gameplay, not simply be created once and run forever that way.



Community
The second mission of Eco is to build meaningful community, and some features may apply to this even if they don’t directly promote the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ goal. Examples of such features include:
•   Meta-features for finding, hosting, and joining servers.
•   Organization of server works among players
•   Avatar creation and customization of appearance, custom animations for interactions
•   Decorations and cosmetic buildings and clothes.


As we start to roll out our performance update for 8.2, we’re tasking out more features for 9.0, and we’ll be using this guide to flesh out the features and content we want to target. We’ll be putting it into a nice ‘Eco Tree’ that shows those parts visually and conceptually as they grow. The community’s feedback will factor in a lot to these decisions, so do share your feedback on our Discord,[discord.gg] in our Suggestions Github Database,[github.com] and via email john@strangeloopgames.com

Cheers and thanks for your support, looking forward to sharing all the new stuff we’ll be building.

- Team Eco


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Re: Eco
« Reply #23 on: August 31, 2019, 05:00:16 PM »
Version 0.8.3.0 released!
28 Aug @ 8:48am - SLG-Dennis


Today we are releasing Update 8.3.0, an update that was entirely focused on internal changes in order to improve performance short and long term.

Performance Improvements:
Our developers have been working hard on countless internal changes for this update in order to increase the performance of Eco on a wide range of different hardware configurations. We have noticeably reduced memory consumption on clients, optimized network code, reduced the frequency of FPS spikes (micro lags) during movement and you should now have a smoother experience playing Eco. Please note that there is still more to come in the 9.X updates, as we do have other optimisations prepared and in mind that require more work and / or breaking changes that are better to be introduced in a major update.

Relay Servers:
For this update we added relay server support for cases where connections between client and server cannot be established in a normal way. This should fix most of the connection issues some players have experienced.

The Network.eco config file for servers has the new option “RelayAdress” where a custom relay server can be configured (available for download as docker image from strangeloopgames/relay-server:latest). If no "RelayAddress" and no "RemoteAddress" is specified for a server then it will auto-discovery the relay server with best ping from a list of official relay servers and use it as fallback for clients who fail to connect the regular way.

Other Improvements:
Added auto-run function. It is disabled by default, but you can go to Key Bindings and assign a button. It works both for the character and for vehicles.

Bugs fixed:
•   Fixed an issue that caused players to fall through rendered ground with their vehicles when above mines.
•   Fixed an issue that caused changed keybindings for the moving keys to not be saved.
•   Fixed an issue that made trees non-interactable or vanish during slicing and collecting.
•   Fixed an issue with the french localization in regards to player currency.
•   Fixed skid steer no longer interacting with tree debris.
•   Fixed several server crashes.
•   Fixed ModKit Issues.

Update 9.0 is actively being worked on in parallel and the first non-public staging versions are soon to be released. Stay tuned for more news on that at a later date.


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Re: Eco
« Reply #24 on: December 18, 2019, 02:49:29 AM »
Version 0.8.3.1 released!
Tue, 17 December 2019


We have released patch 0.8.3.1 with the following fixes:

Fixes:

•   Using specific markup on signs and vehicle license plates can no longer crash clients around the object, not allowing them to reenter the game.
•   Giving reputation to a player with a unicode name (shown ingame as "?????") will no longer crash the client of the reputation giver.
•   We added a potential fix for leaves and vegetation on Mac and Linux not being displayed, please give us a heads up if it works.


State of Update 9.0:

As you know Update 9.0 has been in development for quite some time now and while we planned to have it released this year, we feel like the Update needs some more time to be what we want it to be. We already started weekend community tests for invited members of the community some weeks ago and want to take time to implement their feedback and fix as many reported bugs as possible before release.

Update 9.0 next to a lot of new features will now also include major balance changes and lots of background changes to improve performance both on client- as well as on server-side, given those two issues were on top of our priority list after all the feedback you - the community - gave us. All of this takes additional time, as we have to clean out some legacy issues in the game to get to a state from where development will be easier and faster with us being able to switch our main focus more onto new content.

In the process of developing this update we also decided to add additional measures to improve performance that weren't planned previously (for example migrating the server to .NET Core 3 in order to natively support linux servers which also leads to linux users being able to play singleplayer natively after one of the minor updates following 9.0) to have a good base for future updates that can then be released with less content per update, but a higher update frequency.

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Re: Eco
« Reply #25 on: February 11, 2020, 05:21:20 PM »
Version 0.8.3.3 released!
Mon, 10 February 2020

We have released Patch 0.8.3.3 with the following small hotfixes:

Bugfixes
•   Fixed an issue with money transfers not working if some accounts in the list have special symbols in their names.
•   Temporarily removed "Exclusive Full Screen" mode from the game due to it crashing on some user configurations. (Will be reintroduced after Unity has released a fix)


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Re: Eco
« Reply #26 on: February 20, 2020, 03:45:40 PM »
Developer Stream on February 21th (2pm PST): Constitutions
Wed, 19 February 2020



As we are approaching release, the first of a series of livestreams about the upcoming Update 9.0 will start this Friday, 2pm Pacific Time (23:00 Central European Time). We'll be showing everything you need to know about the new Constitutions feature and answering all questions about this feature you may have.


The stream will be broadcasted mainly on Twitch (
), but will also be available on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Additionally we try to stream it directly here on steam.

For those that are not able to watch the stream live, we'll be uploading an edited version to our YouTube channel on the weekend.

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Re: Eco
« Reply #27 on: February 22, 2020, 03:14:01 PM »
Developer Blog: Introducing Constitutions in Eco - 9.0 Update
Fri, 21 February 2020

Hey Eco citizens, we’ve been heads-down working on getting Eco 9.0 ready and it’s 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) we’re starting a series of blogs and streams, launched each week on Friday. We have a LOT to share, here’s the tentative blog and demo schedule:

1.   New Government system: Constitution (This blog)
2.   New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
3.   New Government system: Demographics and Wages
4.   New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
5.   New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
6.   New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
7.   New Government system: Districts
8.   New Crafting: Work Parties
9.   New Crafting: Labor System
10.   New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
11.   New Crafting: New Tech Tree
12.   New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
13.   New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
14.   New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
15.   New Animal System: Attacking Animals
16.   New Ecopedia System
17.   New UI
18.   New Audio
19.   New Hosted Worlds System

We’ll be releasing Eco 9 somewhere in this lineup, and then keep going. So start us off, here’s the details on one of the cornerstones of the new update, the Constitution.


Eco 9: Constitution

Prior to Eco 9, the government was a fill-in-the-blanks affair, you can create very custom laws of course, but the workings of the government – how elections are held, what powers leaders have, how decisions are made – was largely hard-coded. No longer with Eco 9. To start a new government, you’ll need to build a Capitol:



By opening up this object you’ll get access to a Constitution:



In Eco 9, there is no government until a constitution is ratified – this is the first piece that must be created for a government to exist, and it defines how the government will work. So players will not only run their own government, but design it as well.

How does that work? Through the addition of Civic Articles.



A Constitution in Eco is basically a list of Civic Articles, and each Article designates how something works in the government. In the example above, this Civic Article defines how laws are created. Row by row, you can see the settings that can be configured. First, what it applies to (laws), then what types of laws, which can be several options:



You can also set the specific actions which are regulated by this civic article, if you want to get really detailed:



The bottom three settings, Executors, Proposers, and Election Process, determine how the law is created or changed.

•   If you’re an Executor, you can add, remove, or change laws at any time. In the example I’ve set myself as this of course (promise I won’t let the power go to my head).
•   If you’re a Proposed, you can start an Election to add, remove, or change laws.
•   That election will be run using the specified Election Process.

Stay tuned for a future blog on how election processes work, but basically they allow you to define all the specifics about how an election works, and you can have many different types of elections in a single world.

So in this example above, laws are either created by me by fiat, or through a Basic Election which can be proposed by Everyone. That ‘Everyone’ tag is an expanded Demographic feature and can be defined by citizens as well. There’s a few that come with every world for convenience. This lets you divided up the populace in various useful ways and use it for anything government related, from Constitutions to laws to taxes and more. I’ll post more on that in a future update.



So that’s a single Civic Article, but a typical Constitution will have 8-10, designating powers for all the different government features. So as not to overwhelm, we create a default set of these that work pretty well, with everything requiring elections, and let the founding citizens customize it. Here’s a zoomed out look at a few more default articles:



I’ll go into how these other government features work in a future update, but I do want to explain how one special civic object works, Amendments. These are created on a separate Amendments object, and represent Civic Articles added after the Constitution is created, allowing citizens to make changes to the government as needed.

Once a Constitution is ratified, you can no longer edit it, thus to make changes you must create amendments. An amendment is just like a civic article, but it can specify existing articles to replace. Say, for example, I went mad with power to enact any law I wanted, and that power needed to be removed. Citizens could create an amendment like so (ignore the in-progress UI art, still finishing that):



This amendment removes the existing Law Changes By Election article I showed above, and replaces it with one that has no executors, meaning the only way to make a change at all is by a Basic Election, and changes proposers from Everyone to Active, which is a subset of players who play frequently. This amendment can then be put forth in an election, and if it passes, it will replace the old one, which will then look like so on the Constitution:



It's still in the Constitution, just crossed out and no longer has an effect! If something were to happen to the amendment, however, say it was repealed, then this civic article would come back into effect. Using these tools, citizens have the ability to change their government to better suit a changing society. Anticipating all the challenges a population will face in the future is a monumentally hard task, and citizens that allow for changes to their original decisions, and a defined-process for how to make them, will have a lot more flexibility in adapting and changing the government to suit the current needs.

Of course, it comes with dangers as well: a populace can make ill-advised changes that can create terrible circumstances as well. Designing the government to both stay powerful over the tests of time while also being flexible enough to changing needs will be a major challenge. Much debate should ensue as citizens design their initial governments.


Ratification

Lastly, a tour about Ratification. In order to take effect, a constitution must be ratified, that is, it will be put to vote in a Basic Election. It will not take effect until this election has successfully passed, meaning the constitution must reflect the will of a majority of the people to start. From then on, the Constitution will remain in effect, as long as the building that holds it stands and remains a valid room.

However, there is a safety mechanism to a rule of law that no longer serves the people: citizens can organize to overthrow the government. This is accomplished by building a second capitol which is grander than the first – meaning, it has a higher room value by 50%. The Constitution in this second capitol will then show if it can overthrow the existing one:



Here, 'Constitution the Sequel' has a higher value than the current government, and can thus overthrow the existing government if it passes the ratification election. This allows citizens a way to finally overcome a government that is too limiting, if none of the measures of change within the existing government (amendments, etc) are proving sufficient.


Government Beginnings

Building a constitution sets the rules for how your growing society will function, and designing the inner-workings can lead to incredibly different styles of government. Over the coming weeks, we’ll give examples of those different kinds of government, and all the parts that can go into creating a diverse set of rules to suit the people’s needs.

This has been something I’ve been excited to get into Eco from the beginnings, and forms a key part of the philosophy of the game, which is that the government is one with the people, they create it, they run it, they are it, and they have no one to blame but themselves if it becomes malignant. By allowing the government to be essentially programmed by its citizens, Eco provides a super valuable tool, and creates an event that, within the context of the game, is historic: the formation of the government. In a world that you invest in, care about, and hope to save, that can be an incredibly powerful moment, and the thoughtful discussions, plans, and forethought among players that goes into that is what Eco is all about.

Stay tuned for more, and follow us on Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook to see the streams I’ll do along with these blogs, where you can ask questions too. Can’t wait to see the governments people design and run with this system when we launch Eco 9.

- John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games


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Re: Eco
« Reply #28 on: March 01, 2020, 01:39:29 PM »
Developer Blog: Elections and Elected Titles in Update 9.0
Sun, 1 March 2020



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

1.   New Government system: Constitution (see above post)
2.   New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles (This blog)
3.   New Government system: Demographics and Wages
4.   New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
5.   New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
6.   New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
7.   New Government system: Districts
8.   New Crafting: Work Parties
9.   New Crafting: Labor System
10.   New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
11.   New Crafting: New Tech Tree
12.   New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
13.   New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
14.   New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
15.   New Animal System: Attacking Animals
16.   New Ecopedia System
17.   New UI
18.   New Audio
19.   New Hosted Worlds System

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 you’re 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 week’s 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 you’re 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 what’s 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, we’ve 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 didn’t 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 don’t 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 doesn’t 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 isn’t 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 you’re interested in helping out.

No stream this week, but expect a double feature next week. Chat soon and can’t 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



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Re: Eco
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2020, 12:47:13 AM »
Developer Blog: Ecopedia
Sat, 7 March 2020

This week we’re 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, here’s the series so far:
1.   New Government system: Constitution
2.   New Government system: Elections and Elected Titles
3.   New Government system: Demographics and Wages
4.   New Government system: Laws Part 1: Using the system
5.   New Government system: Laws Part 2: Taxes, Ownership, Property, and Wealth
6.   New Government system: Laws Part 3: Tour of different actions, and Executive Actions
7.   New Government system: Districts
8.   New Crafting: Work Parties
9.   New Crafting: Labor System
10.   New Crafting: Modules and Efficiency Redesign
11.   New Crafting: New Tech Tree
12.   New Building System: Hammer and new Building Styles
13.   New Mining System: Mineral Dispersion and Drill Usage
14.   New Mining System: New Processing Path and Pollution Info
15.   New Animal System: Attacking Animals
16.   New Ecopedia System (This blog)
17.   New UI
18.   New Audio
19.   New Hosted Worlds System
Ecopedia

The game has grown in complexity over the years, and it’s 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 we’ve 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 we’ve 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.

We’ve 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 we’ve made it significantly easier to understand the features of Eco, especially the new forthcoming features in the 9.0 update. One thing we’ve 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 we’re grateful to have such an amazing and supportive one.

- John K, Eco Designer, CEO Strange Loop Games

 
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