Eco-Lite or Eco-mini Experience for low player count servers?

[jDavidnet]

Eco used to be playable by a small group of friends. We were busy adults and could set up a server and scale a few values, and between 2 - 4 of us were able to experience the whole game.

I love seeing all of the work that goes into the game, but it seems like with every new version, the experience gets farther and farther away from a small group of people being able to set up a server and play a few hours a week.

It would be great if there was an out-of-the-box experience private server scenario that was optimized for 2-10 hours a week of gameplay with 2-10 players.

With earlier versions of Eco, you could scale some of the values around grinding to make it possible. Players could 'learn all of the professions' and you wouldn't get stuck or blocked with a small player count. Now it feels like you need a high online/ active player count to make the economy run.

I don't know if a small server scenario is possible to create by just scaling a few parameters. Or if you would need to add a number of "AI Players" to fill in the gaps.

An AI solution seems big and grandiose, but maybe in 2024, it's a plausible mod/experiment?