We are pleased to announce that alpha 5.6 has been released! This new version contains many new features such as linked inventories, new graphics options, improved admin tools and more!

Here’s a look at the new features in this release:

Global Illumination We’ve introduced ambient lighting to the game, and it has a huge impact on the visuals. Now the interiors of forests are dark, (even during the day, with sunbeams shining through) mines are appropriately hard to see without lighting, and the shadows inside building corners are much more interesting looking, giving more effects to lighting. Check out the before (left) and after (right) shots:

Realistic Storage Previously in Eco, as with most games, you were able to store massive amounts of resources inside containers, way more than the space the container takes up. With this release, we’ve introduced stockpiles, which will take up the same amount of space as the items stored inside them. This has a huge impact on many facets of the game, and storing pollutants like tailings will continue to affect the environment, so you can no longer escape pollution by sticking stuff in rows of chests. Along with our existing feature that requires vehicles to carry large quantities (preventing players from carrying more than is realistic), stockpiles should affect the gameplay in some interesting ways: to horde huge amounts of resources, you’ll need huge amounts of space, and the way buildings are constructed and located will be affected. How items are stored and managed has been significantly changed. Craft tables no longer have intrinsic storage on them; instead, large objects must be stored in stockpiles or vehicles, and other items can be stored in chests. Crafting tables automatically are ‘linked’ to storage objects nearby, allowing them to both take from and deposit their items. A new experimental lighting model for global illumination has been added. This is a relatively expensive effect but should run well on most modern video cards. Global Illumination models indirect lighting that bounces off other surfaces. This effect makes caves naturally dark, so bring a torch!

Optimized wind animation for plants.

Authorization System The authorization system has been improved; allowing easier control over who has access to various things that you own. You can lockout everyone from a private chest, while allowing people access to another, for example.

Tutorial System A tutorial has been added to Eco, helping new players get a feel for the early game. Existing players may not see much of the tutorial, since it attempts to detect what you’ve already done and skips those.

Pipes Some craft tables need pipe outputs in order to spew hazardous materials from, chimneys work similarly now.

Room Requirements Room requirements are now broken out by line item requirement, and the status is displayed for debugging why a table may not be functioning.

Excavators! We’ve added a new late-game vehicle, excavators. These will let you move huge quantities of dirt, necessary for the giant construction projects required to stop the meteor. We’ll be adding more construction vehicles that let players make big changes to a world, so a late game civilization can (and must) completely change the surrounding environment.

Modkit Support for mod plugins.

Modkit now auto-loads managed DLLs from the Mods folder. Modders can implement IModKitPlugin to add their own mods.

Modkit now auto-loads managed DLLs from the Mods folder. Modders can implement IModKitPlugin to add their own mods. Support for client side mods.

Tutorials can be expected soon, but it is now possible to build asset bundles for client side mods. PM or ask in the modding discord channel for some basic help if you want to get started on this early.

Government Added tools for reviewing user activity.

Automatically creates discussion points from world events.