Eco Server Difficulty Settings: Difficulty.eco Explained

Eco's difficulty lives in Configs/Difficulty.eco on the server. The settings that change how the game feels are SkillCostMultiplier (how much XP each star costs), CraftResourceMultiplier and CraftTimeMultiplier (recipe cost and speed), ExhaustionEnabled with HoursPlayedPerDay (the daily play limit), and the quality of life multipliers for stack size, weight, plant growth and food shelf life. Stop the server, edit the values, and start it again. Most changes apply to the running world, so you can tune as you go.

Why change difficulty at all?

Eco's defaults are built for a busy server where 20 or 30 players each specialize and trade. A group of four friends on the same settings hits a wall: nobody has enough stars to cover every profession the tech tree needs, and crafting the laser in time becomes a chore rather than a challenge. The reverse is also true. A big public server on generous settings runs out of goals in a week.

Difficulty.eco is where you match the game to your group. Nothing in it is a cheat in the server owner sense: these are the same values the game sets when you pick a preset while creating a world in the client.

How do I edit Difficulty.eco?

1. Stop the server so it does not overwrite your edits on shutdown.
2. Open Configs/Difficulty.eco in a text editor or your host's file manager. It is JSON, so keep the quotes, commas and braces intact.
3. Find the setting by name and change only its value.
4. Start the server and check the console for errors.

A missing comma will stop the server loading the file. If the server falls back to defaults or refuses to start after an edit, the JSON is broken. Paste it into any JSON validator to find the line.

You may read elsewhere to use /serverui in game. That command only opens the settings window for someone at the machine running the server, so on a rented server the file is the way in.

What do the preset fields do?

The top of the file has four friendly sounding fields: CollaborationLevel, GameSpeed, SimulationLevel and DesiredNumberOfPlayers. In the client's world creation screen, choosing one of these changes a bundle of the real multipliers underneath. In the server file, the Eco wiki notes they probably do nothing on their own. Changing CollaborationLevel from MediumCollaboration to LowCollaboration in the file will not make the game easier. Change the multipliers below instead.

Which settings control skills and progression?

SkillCostMultiplier is the big lever. At 0.5, every star costs half the XP, so a small group can cover far more of the tech tree. At 2.0, players stay specialized much longer and depend on trade.

Admins can also see and change the specialty cost live with /skills rate in chat, which is a quick way to test a value before you write it into the file.

The current 14.1 releases have a known issue where the default MaxSpecialtiesPerCitizen stops players taking every specialty. A developer suggested 34.0 as a workaround until a fix ships, so check whether your version still needs it.

Which settings control crafting?

CraftTimeMultiplier matters more than people expect on small servers. Work orders keep running while players are offline, but a group that plays two evenings a week still feels long craft times. Changes to EndgameCraftCost and SkillbookCraftCost do not touch work orders already in progress.

Which settings control daily play and survival?

Exhaustion exists so one player with no job cannot outbuild a whole server in a weekend. It is fair on big public worlds and frustrating on a friends server where everyone plays the same evenings anyway. For a private group, turn it off or raise HoursPlayedPerDay. Admins can top up a single player's hours with /en hours, Name instead of changing it for everyone.

Which settings are pure quality of life?

These make the game less tedious without changing the economy much. Raising ShelfLifeMultiplier helps groups that play a few times a week and come back to rotten food. ConnectionRangeMultiplier makes town layouts more forgiving.

What settings suit my group?

These are starting points, not rules. Tune one value at a time and ask players how it feels after a few sessions.

The meteor timer is a separate decision covered in our Eco hosting guide. If you lower difficulty a lot, consider giving the group less time before impact so there is still pressure.

Can I change difficulty in the middle of a world?

Yes. Multipliers like skill cost, craft time, stack size and shelf life are read when the server starts, so they apply to the existing world after a restart. Players keep the stars they already earned. Only world generation settings are locked in at creation.

Take a backup before you change anything on a world people care about. Lowering StackSizeMultiplier on a world where storage is already full is the classic way to cause trouble.

Tuning difficulty on a hosted server

On an Eco server from GamezServers, Difficulty.eco and the other config files open in the browser file manager, so the stop, edit, start loop takes a minute. One click backups before each change mean an experiment is easy to roll back, and the world stays online for the meteor's real time countdown without anyone's PC running. If you also need admin rights to test /skills rate live, our list of Eco admin commands shows how to set yourself up.

FAQ

How do I make Eco skills level faster on my server?

Lower SkillCostMultiplier in Difficulty.eco, for example to 0.5 to halve the XP each star costs, and restart the server.

How do I turn off exhaustion on an Eco server?

Set ExhaustionEnabled to false in Difficulty.eco and restart. To keep it but relax it, raise HoursPlayedPerDay instead.

Why did changing CollaborationLevel do nothing?

That field is a preset label used by the client's world creation screen. On the server, change the individual multipliers such as SkillCostMultiplier and CraftTimeMultiplier.

Do difficulty changes need a new world?

No. Most multipliers apply to the existing world after a restart. Only world generation settings need a new world.

How do I stop animals attacking players?

Set AnimalBehavior to DefensiveOnly so animals only fight back, or None so they always flee.