Experience: Forestry

[LadyGoo]

In the beginning, growing trees is extremely rewarding: you grow fir for pick axes and bonesaws, use blocks and branches fore hgiher quality axes, make tanning tubs for the leather, herbalist tables for higher quality output from WWW and etc.
The tree quality grows cosiderably fast at first: you discover the new water, soil and clay nodes; higher quality coal lets you to make higher quality treepots that feeds into the progress and you cannot get top quality coal yet until you'll reach level 5 minehole.

Strategy: you grow olive trees, since they grow faster and give more seeds and you need to mass-plant, since a lot of trees have a chance to stop growing; you grow mulberry trees for the silk; you grow fir or spruce for boughs. You might start mass-planting the apple trees as well, for the purpose of making apple pies somewhere in the future when you'll have enough cows.
There is no need to work on other trees, since most of them do not grow fast enough and they do not benefit you as much as the listed trees (like, feeding silk or providing boughs). You also do not need to grow the species that have higher wood material output, since you have to mass-plant your trees in order to make sure that you will have enough of them growing to the late-stage, since 10-15% of the trees you plant tend to stop their growth. As a result, you face the situation when you have a lot of wood material stockpiled, even if you have been planting trees with low wood output (mulberry).

Item sinks: The lack of wood sinks is also an issue, in my point of view. Taar kilns could be a great salvation. However, due to the taar kiln formula, the highest taar kilns and good quality boards could provide only quality 120 coal at max. Therefore, it is more convenient to keep using the underground nodes (which are not that rare). As for the average player, they cannot normally afford top quality tar kilns or bone saws, as a result they get even lower quality coal from the taar kilns.
As for the curiosity sink, the majority of the wood-requiring curios are either too hard to craft (seer's spindle depends on how many sheep you have), or long-lasting, or useless (feather duster and bark boat) for the advanced players. For the average players: they do not need that many curios either (lowers the wood usage).
The stuff such as workstations and tubs could be updated every 2-3 weeks and do not require that much wood either.
The ovens do not need that much wood either. Simply, people do not mass-bake to feel the shortage of wood. + wood could be replaced by the coal. Same for the steel crucibles.


In conclusion,
-advanced players tend to narrow down to 3-4 tree types and do not grow other species. There are some nooby players that attempt to grow something like cherry or king's oaks as well.

-people do not plant trees based on how much wooden logs, blocks and boards they get from the tree type, but rather how fast it grows and the requirement for crafting (boughs for tools). The wood tends to pile up endlessly.

During the late game, you have reached your potential maximum in terms of clay, water, coal, soil qualities. At this point you stop mass-planting trees, since they stop growing in quality as well (hard-capped by the quality of the materials used). You might begin to grow other types of trees for knarrs, but currently it is quite unrewarding investing in something so valuable that can be easily stolen. This is the only item in the game that encourages growing different species.

The current situation: I have more than 100 trees planted a while ago for the selection purposes. We've got enough top quality trees (90-100), as well as the mid quality ones (70-90) to last us for several months. Basically, we have stopped planting trees completely. Since we've reached our quality growth potential and our trees are being capped by the resources.
We've used a fair amount of high quality trees for making cheese racks, but that was only one-time solution for getting rid of excess wood. Ship building could be an option, but knarrs are hard to secure and you do not need that many. Fueling and curio craft consumption just does not consume enough wood either. Our apple tree orchard has around 150 trees and we do not need to keep to replanting them, since the average quality is more than enough. We've stopped growing the cork tree after we've gathered more than 6 cupboards of cork. The only guild that consumes wood is the chef's pin and we do not need that many chef's sets either.
We're selling a fair amount of wood at the market, but it is still not enough to continue planting new trees or different tree species.


Things that could be improved:
- I think the tree quality should not be stopped by the materials you have. It is just quite frustrating when you cannot get your hands on higher quality bone saw and get stuck with the same quality stuff for ages.
- There should be more item sinks in terms of curio and guild craft. Something that would constantly urge you to plant more trees and get rid of the old wood.
- The new items that would require specific wood would encourage growing and progressing the quality of different wood types, (extending the gameplay time).

[Avu]

Seems the exact situation we used to be in when we still played. Lots of wood nobody wanted or needed. Most trees useless. Btw I still think planted trees should renew products on a non random basis. I know server load and shit. But you could make a command for check for fruit or something and only then the tree would check if the time is up.

[ekzarh]

1. I disagree on endless quality spin until automated treeplanting script is made public

Let's assume everybody plants trees manually or everybody has a public script:

I would think about giving the 3-tiered formula to the trees.
Let us assume Qmat = (qSoil∗2+qWater∗2+qPot∗3+qTable∗3)/10 (I've just extracted seed from this formula
- When Qmat -10 > Qseed then Qsprout=( Qmat+Qseed)/2
- When Qmat > Qseed > Qmat-10 Then Qsprout=Qseed +-5
- When Qmat < Qseed then Qsprout = Qseed [+2; -7] (or maybe even +1 -10)

This way it is much more effective to find water, clay,soil until you reach the max. But after that (with a large amounts of massplanting) you can progress even further.

2. Items look different depending on tree used should give bonuses depending on quality (tables, chairs, beds, cheese racks etc) can be qiality dependent. This way if you want pretty chair - you take trees with nice texture. If you want its bonuses - you spin quality of these trees.
As a result - everybody grows different trees (at least for cosmetic reasons).
3. All items whose quality is used in formula should decay while being used. And when repaired they should change quality as qResult=(qItem*3+qRepairMaterial)/4.
This would make a great wood sink for quality wood.
4. Another sink would be making any fire taking fuel Q into account. Formula have to be less rewarding than oven so that using topQ coal or wood is overkill, but still motivating to use mediumQ wood over q10. Also fires may last longer if higherQ wood is used.

[LadyGoo]

1. I did not talk about the endless quality spin As far as I know, you were not able to endlessly spin the trees like some carrots. The thing is that there is a need for progression after you've reached the cap of water, soil and clay (all of them do not change).

Like the formulas, seems to be fine. But maybe decrease the meaning of the clay pot, to speed up the quality growth.

2. Well, so far I have been content with the way how my loom looks and would not work on a new tree type just for the sake of beauty. However, I would do so for a knarr though, since:
- Knarr is quite big and the aesthetic flaws are more obvious. Therefore, I would feel more satisfied with a pretty knarr. Especially when the sketchbook page gets involved. However, the loom, spinning wheel and etc. have a low aesthetic value. On the other hand, beds, cottage thrones and tables could encourage me to grow different species of trees if they would give bonuses that would depend on quality.

3. I am completely against the idea of item decays since world 3.Literally everything would decay back in the time and everyone were extremely relieved when the necessity to repair the walls and etc. was removed.
Implementing decay just for the sake of an item sink is 2 steps back in development imho.

4. Could be a thing. I like the idea of longer-lasting fires more. Just imagine if high quality wood would affect the bonus of bonefires. This would be brilliant.

[ekzarh]

Like the formulas, seems to be fine. But maybe decrease the meaning of the clay pot, to speed up the quality growth.

My basic idea is providing exponential difficulty to quality growth. So going from 10 too 100 should be about the same as from 100 to 130 and then the same as from 130 to 140. This makes being hardcore player fun but not too OP over others.

2. Well, so far I have been content with the way how my loom looks and would not work on a new tree type just for the sake of beauty. However, I would do so for a knarr though, since:
- Knarr is quite big and the aesthetic flaws are more obvious. Therefore, I would feel more satisfied with a pretty knarr. Especially when the sketchbook page gets involved. However, the loom, spinning wheel and etc. have a low aesthetic value. On the other hand, beds, cottage thrones and tables could encourage me to grow different species of trees if they would give bonuses that would depend on quality.

Yeah, tha'ts why knarrs, chairs, beds should also give something depending on quality.
If devs give more of their time to your idea, then oak tanning tubes can drain tanning fluid slower, made some other wood could make tanning faster.
Looms made from springy woods (yew) could either work faster, from sturdy woods - decay slower. (Google says Rowan was used for looms)
Oak is good for furniture
Black locust (acacia) is good for tool and handles
Pine and larch are good for boats
Ash and maple are good for wheeled things

Basically woodden item IRL more or less preferred tree types to make it.

3. I am completely against the idea of item decays since world 3.Literally everything would decay back in the time and everyone were extremely relieved when the necessity to repair the walls and etc. was removed.
Implementing decay just for the sake of an item sink is 2 steps back in development imho.

You took my idea wrong. No decay over time, it's bad. No decay of quality independent items (like walls, houses etc). So if someone leaves the base for 2 weeks - it'll remain the same.
Item decays when and only when it is used. Like woodden and metal plows.
This is another chore I agree, but it makes lots of sense. Using the same saw to cut 10000 boards is uncool.

[sabinati]

walnut > olive imho

[Enjoyment]

Wooden buildings (bridges, piers, indoor floorings and wall panels) could raise a wood sink a lot.
And problem of "reaching the q-limit, due to low-q base materials" affecting the whole game, not just forestry.

[LadyGoo]

People will just use basic quality trees if the quality won't affect the said objects

[jorb]

The wood industry could certainly be deeper.

[Kumodo]

Different woods should have bonuses to different uses.

Analysis of timber samples from Viking long boats shows that a variety of timbers were used, but there was strong preference for oak which was associated with Odin in Viking mythology. Oak is a heavy, durable timber that can be easily worked by adze and axe when green (wet/unseasoned). Generally large and prestigious ships were made from oak. Other timber used were ash, elm, pine, spruce and larch. Spruce is light and seems to have been more common in later designs for internal hull battens (stringers). Although it is used for spars in modern times there is as yet no evidence the Vikings used spruce for masts. All timber was used unseasoned.

Wagons--Designed for hauling heavy loads over rough roads, the covered wagons could carry as much as six tons of freight; each one was handcrafted from wood (including oak and poplar).

Cherry -Fine furniture and cabinet making, mouldings and millwork, kitchen cabinets, paneling, flooring, doors, boat interiors, musical instruments, turnings and carvings.

Plum Tree - Turned objects, musical instruments, inlay, and knife handles

Alder tree--- want to increase soil quality so you dont have to travel an hour to get your planting soil....Because of its abundance, red alder delivers large amounts of nitrogen to enrich forest soils. Red alder stands have been found to supply between 120 and 290 pounds of nitrogen per acre (130 to 320 kg per ha) annually to the soil.

here is a link with search engine. Would be nice to get some sort of wood industry help. Decorative woods bonus to curios...

http://www.wood-database.com/white-willow/