How to make the new Eco servers

[Mr_Unnecessary]

I thought the Steam release for Eco had the servers integrated, but my friend couldn't join me. Is there something I am missing? It told him connecting for the longest and then just disconnected him.

[Cute Beaver]

Try the simple solutions first. Make sure your firewall is cool with Eco.

For the hell of it ask him to join a public server listed by other community members, figure out if hes having issues joining them too. (His problem) or if hes only having a hard time joining you.

If worst comes to worst making your own private server isn't that hard, we can walk you through it if you discover the single player mode isn't allowing him to join you via steam.

How to make your own private Server

I just checked and Steam actually provides you with the EcoServer application already. I guess when we downloaded ECO the game client it already give us the server application even though most people won't go into the files and click on it lol.

To find the EcoServer.exe

Go to steam library and right click on ECO. Then chose "Properties" and "Browse Local Files"

This will take you to the location in your steam games folder where Eco is installed and where all your save files and configuration files are located.

Server Folder

(Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Eco\Eco_Data\Server)

Right click on EcoServer and click Properties

To avoid any unwanted probelms click on Comptability and then checkbox "Run as Administrator." Click APPLY and close the window.

No sense in changing any ports. The server should have the right ones set up by default.
(Im checking on my end as I write this) Some people may need to do port forwarding if they have excessive security setups or certain network settings which are not typical.

Next this is completely up to you, but I would adjust the skill points so you earn them at a faster rate. Starting with something like 2x the normal amount might make the game more fun.

If you wanted to adjust things (before the worlds created)

From your current location in the server folder, click on:

Configs Folder

(Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Eco\Eco_Data\Server\Configs)

You will now see a list of small files, each one of them can be edited with text. The one which has the skill points in it is EcoSim.eco and you would need to scroll down to the very bottom of the file and change the SkillGainRate:1.0 to "SkillGainRate:2.0" then save if you wanted to adjust how quickly you get exp.

How eco works normally is it takes a full 24 hours real lfie to get like 20 skill points in game. So changing it to 2x the normal rate would cut the time requirements down effectively allowing you to claim those 20 skill points in 12 hours instead.

Its totally up to you if you want to do that, those files listed also control your server permissions. There is one for whitelist / blacklist and admins. The developers also added password functionallity to the servers now.

If you wanted to set a password you should do this prior to launching the server.exe and add the password to the network file.

If you need help setting up the Admin or Whitelist feature I have a post here on Reddit to walk through the process:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EcoGlobalSurvival/comments/7oulal/do_it_possible_to_add_a_password_to_my_server/

For now we can skip that. Your ready at this point to launch the server. So go pull back to the server folder, and click on the EcoServer.exe.

Its going to take several minutes to generate the world, and any settings you did in the configs folders will be applied to this newly generated world.

To begin playing yourself go back up and click on the eco personal client, and you should be able to join your own private server from the menu options. :)

Your friend should be able to join your server, as by default it should be set to public in the network file... By default it will not have a password unless you added one while you were poking around in the configs folder.

When your ready to exit and shut down the server, just to be safe give the game 1-2 minutes before hitting the x buttion. The server autosaves every minute roughly.

~Cheers

[Mr_Unnecessary]

Oh ok so basically I still need to run the server that they provided upon download for it to work?

And thank you so much for the long and detailed reply! I was not expecting that and it's helped me a ton!

[Cute Beaver]

Yep. Hopefully they get the "single player" feature working soon. However this is how we did it in Alpha and it works fine. Once you break it down its not to difficult but going into it blind would be confusing.

Have fun guys :)

[Kyodai]

I'm not sure if it was fixed but I couldn't join my friend's server during Alpha until he made an exception in windows defender on windows 10.

[Cute Beaver]

Good to know. I am still on W7. Still resisting lol.

Edit if anyone with proper networking experience wants to copypasta this and turn it into a guide you have my full permission to use whatever. I won't have the time IRL to maintain one.