Mar 3
Volcanoes and Earthquakes
It's no secret that the biggest problem people face on Eco, is people not sticking around for the long haul. It's pretty normal for a server to get 100 players in the first few day, and then only have 5-10 players after a week or so.
Many servers try to counter this, by creating new objectives for their community - such as big building projects.
My thought, is that rather than just having one, final, live or die disaster (the meteor)... There are also interim disasters which are still very punishing if not attended to in time, but they don't end the game.
So, first, there could be a volcano on the map which needs to be plugged before it erupts. This volcano could be the first disaster (erupting after 1 week) and it depends on low tier skills to resolve the problem. The area around the volcano would need to have certain mining restrictions I think, to preserve the fact that it's a volcano and there are no mechanics in the game to manage the effects of lava. Should the volcano erupt, it would destroy a large area of land around it, and send boulders flying around the map that may or may not, hit houses and make craters in the world. The effect would be very punishing, but it would not stop people from progressing to the destroying the meteor.
The second idea - Earthquakes.
I'm not sure how to make this quite as interesting as the volcano idea... At the moment I think it could just be a global upgrade, a type of communal research, that once finished, provides all houses with earthquake resistance. Should the target be failed, everyone's houses and structures will take random damage... But again, it's repairable and people can still recover from this and continue to pursue to goal of the meteor. This disaster would depend on tier 2 or 3 skills to resolve and would happen after 2 weeks.
Implementing interim disasters such as this, provides new goals to keep people focused and busy, while the greater threat of the meteor, lies further ahead.
Pending