Eco Update 13 went live on April 8, 2026, and it is the largest rewrite of the game's progression system since Strange Loop Games started shipping Update milestones. Stars now behave like a real currency — you earn far more of them over a game, but you also spend them on specialties, on talents, and eventually on things that have not even been announced yet. On top of that, Loggers finally got the heavy machinery they have been asking about for years, and the economy system got one of its top community requests: store tags.
This post walks through what is actually in the box, what changed in hotfixes 13.0.1 and 13.0.2 on April 15, and what it means if you run a dedicated Eco server.
Release Date
Update 13 shipped on April 8, 2026 as the stable branch release. Two hotfixes followed a week later on April 15, 2026 (13.0.1 with balance changes, 13.0.2 with a block construction fix). The playtest branch was available from late March for server admins who wanted to get ahead of the migration.
Revised Progression — Stars Become a Currency
The headline change — and the one that will reshape how long-running servers play — is that specialties no longer all cost one star. Each specialty now has a tier-based star cost:
- Logging: 1 star
- Farming: 2 stars
- Baking: 3 stars
- Oil Drilling: 4 stars
- Composites: 5 stars
By default (outside No and Low Collaboration modes) every specialty you have already learned adds an extra star to the base cost of your next one. Talents are no longer free either — each one costs a star, and many of the new ones can be picked multiple times to stack their effect at further star cost.
To compensate, you earn significantly more stars across a game now, so the pool of choices is wider, not smaller. The design goal is to make good food and housing matter for the entire campaign, not just the first few days. Strange Loop has explicitly said they will watch the live numbers and ship hotfixes if balance drifts — which 13.0.1 already did.
New & Upgradable Talents
Nearly every talent in the game has been replaced. The new set is narrower and more specialized — you now pick a direction rather than collecting flat bonuses. Talents are designed for expandability: modders can add, remove, or tune talents at any skill level, and it is now possible to author negative-effect talents that grant stars in exchange for a drawback. Expect mod packs to lean on this heavily by mid-summer.
Logging Machines: Scorpion & Tractor Cutter
Loggers were the weak link in the late-game machinery lineup. Update 13 fixes that with two new tools:
- Steam Tractor Wood Cutting Attachment — grabs a tree, fells it, and cuts the trunk into logs on the ground. Logs can be collected manually or with the scoop attachment. A mid-tier option that slots into existing tractor builds.
- The Scorpion — a dedicated logging vehicle that grabs, fells, and stores logs internally. No intermediate step, no log piles in the forest. This is the end-game answer for anyone running a lumber economy.
The Scorpion in particular makes a real difference on populated servers, where forest resources get chewed through fast and loggers have historically bottlenecked the construction tier.
Store Tags in the Economy
Based on one of the top requests on the official feedback tracker, stores can now list tags as buy and sell offers instead of specific items. A "Hardwood Logs" tag buys any matching log; a "Cooked Meals" tag sells whatever fits. The feature is wired all the way through:
- The economy viewer shows stores buying tags that contain the item you are filtering for.
- Item tooltips list stores that buy the item through a tag.
For merchants on high-population servers this is huge — you no longer need 30 store windows for 30 log variants.
Quality of Life
Small changes, but the kind that remove daily friction:
- Hammer tool can now remove blocks — no more switching to a separate tool for deconstruction.
- Fertilizer overlay — shows nutrient changes as floating text when you apply fertilizer, and highlights affected tiles.
- Repair UI reworked for clarity.
- Left-mouse is now the interact button for planting seeds and applying fertilizer (keyboard-and-mouse players will feel this immediately).
- Vehicles no longer collide with tree saplings — goodbye accidentally flattening the forest nursery.
- Pipes now support multi-placement with the hammer.
Hotfix 13.0.1 & 13.0.2 (April 15, 2026)
Seven days after launch Strange Loop shipped two hotfixes. The notable bits:
- Balance: Transmission Pole, Waste Filter, Oil Refinery, Pump Jack, and Electric Machinist Table recipes were rebalanced — the common theme is Basic Circuits replacing raw material inputs, which shifts the Electronics industry earlier in the tech tree.
- Talent fixes: Focused Workflow, Natural Fibers, Modern Materials, Concrete Applications and Set in Stone all had bugs that the 13.0.1 patch resolved.
- Civics: Settlements now have jurisdiction for Reputation Transfer triggers when the target is a deed or picture within their influence.
- 13.0.2: Fixed a "Block type mismatch" error when building with blocks pulled from a stockpile.
What This Means for Your Server
If you run a dedicated Eco server, Update 13 is the kind of patch that is worth planning for rather than auto-updating:
- Back up your world before updating — progression data is structurally different, and while Strange Loop has done the migration work, reverting is painful.
- Warn your players about spec and talent costs changing. Anyone who learned multiple specialties for free will suddenly see a star deficit. Some servers are running partial skill resets.
- Expect a player spike. Big updates always pull old players back for a fresh world; provision a bit more headroom.
- Review your economy rules. Store tags change how shop slots get used — you may need to update any civic laws that cap shop offers per citizen.
- Check mod compatibility. The talent system rewrite will break older talent mods. Wait for mod authors to update before re-enabling them.
Is It Worth Coming Back For?
Yes, and with one caveat. The progression rework is the single biggest gameplay change in years, and long-term players will feel it immediately. Loggers finally have parity with other late-game industries, and the economy gets a quality-of-life fix that server merchants have wanted since launch. The caveat is that existing worlds may feel rough until the balance hotfixes settle in — starting a fresh world with Update 13 is the cleanest way to experience it.
Host Your Eco Server with DoomHosting
Eco punishes underpowered hosts. The world simulation, live economy, and multi-player voting systems all run on the server, and Update 13's expanded progression data adds a little more overhead on top. If you are planning to spin up a fresh 10–30 player world to experience Update 13 properly, host it somewhere built for that shape of workload.
Update 13 rewards players who specialize — run a server that lets them.
