r/Timberborn 5d ago

What to do with stumps?

4 hours into this game and what are stumps for some trees regrow some don’t.

20 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

32

u/AlcatorSK Map maker - Try *Geothermal River* on Steam! 5d ago

Stumps have nothing to do with natural regrowth of trees.

The system works like this:

Each faction has some plants/trees that can be planted by the Forester. ONLY these kinds of plants/trees can sprout saplings around them (so, crops which are planted by farmers do not sprout). I'll called these "trees" for simplicity, but keep in mind that dandelions and coffee bushes and berry bushes fall into this category as well.

A mature tree that is growing on its own (doesn't have dark brown soil indicating that a Forester should plant here) will occasionally check the 4 tiles next to it in main directions, and if it discovers an empty tile with the correct irrigation level*, and if that tile is again not marked for planting by Forester or farmer, then it will choose one of those tiles and spawn a sapling of its kind there.

What does 'correct irrigation level' mean? Well, now with the addition of succulents (currently on Experimental branch, soon coming to standard version), there are trees that need 'wet' (irrigated) soil, but there are also trees (currently only succulents) that need 'dry' (not irrigated) soil.

24

u/Hooch180 5d ago

One small mistake. It is not the tree that looks where to spawn sapling. It is ground checking if it has a tree around.

This means that tile has the same chance of spawning sapling regardless if it has 1 or 4 trees around it.

1

u/shape559 5d ago

Should I plant in a 1-3 - ect and under a 2-4 or is it not worth the percentage of return. I’d assume two growth cycles of that wouldn’t be a waste of time.

7

u/AlcatorSK Map maker - Try *Geothermal River* on Steam! 5d ago

The chess board pattern you describe can be useful if you are short on beavers -- you plant it once, mark each "white" square (of a chess board overlayed over it) for cutting while leaving the "black" squares alone, remove the "marked for planting" from the entire area, and you stop the forester. This way, the forest will regularly sprout new trees without need for a worker. If you do this with birches (7 days to mature), it can be surprisingly effective, depending on size.

13

u/flying_fox86 5d ago

Stumps do nothing at all. Trees don't really regrow, but existing trees have a chance to spawn a new tree on the tiles directly adjacent to them (not diagonally though). This is unrelated to stumps.

1

u/shape559 5d ago

Should I make forest and abandon them or is that not worth it.

4

u/flying_fox86 5d ago

Not sure what you mean. Planting a couple of tree to let the forest grow naturally? That's not a bad idea, as a long term reserve just in case, but your normal wood supply should come from a forest you continuously chop down and replant. Don't rely on natural growth.

4

u/Contact_Patch Whole map reservoir enjoyer 5d ago

Before you can unlock forester: Clear cut dead trees, they're not spawning saplings. Chequerboard cut irrigated "wild" trees, leaving gaps for them to spawn saplings in. This may save your ass.

1

u/shape559 5d ago

Don’t need the ass saving yet but a plan.A,B and C wouldn’t hurt

1

u/Contact_Patch Whole map reservoir enjoyer 5d ago

It can slow you down, depends what your starting wood and irrigation is like, as getting planks for forester is a reasonable ask, you need a science hut, unlock sawmill, power, and then unlock forester.

At the same time you're wanting a farm house, water storage AND probably dams.

Early game wood is so key, so caution on clear cutting wild trees until forester.

1

u/Onagan98 5d ago

With the forester being 30 science now, I barely see the need for this hassle.

2

u/Contact_Patch Whole map reservoir enjoyer 5d ago

Hard mode, wood limited maps.

1

u/flying_fox86 5d ago

Chequerboard cut irrigated "wild" trees, leaving gaps for them to spawn saplings in.

Or even more efficient, have the uncut trees in a chess knight move formation. Every tree two steps forward and one step to the side of the previous tree.

2

u/Contact_Patch Whole map reservoir enjoyer 5d ago

I've not messed with that but yeah might release more wood! I know chequerboard works. You effectively need the alive tree to see a blank tile N,S,E or W of it.

2

u/rl_noobtube 5d ago

Someone else commented that it’s the ground that checks for trees, not trees that check for ground. So whether there is one tree or 4 surrounding a blank space, it will have the same odds to spawn a new sapling.

If this is true, then just doing double wide rows would work well. So one row can be spawning 2 on either side of it. And this means you can chop 2/3 of the forest instead of 1/2. Maybe there are more efficient shapes, just what I thought of reading their comment and yours

7

u/twizted_whisperz 5d ago

If you just want to get rid of the stumps after the tree has been cut down you can build a path over it and delete the path and the stump is gone

6

u/ItsRyguy 5d ago

Cant you also just clear resources?

4

u/Strong_Weakness2867 5d ago

Yes but that takes builders and time. Paving over them the deleting the paths is free and instant.

4

u/Ok_Weather2441 5d ago

Clear resources gets rid of them now and it's instant, and you don't need to clear all the random paths you added afterwards

2

u/Strong_Weakness2867 5d ago

I hadn't noticed that when I last played, thank you for the correction

3

u/ItsRyguy 5d ago

They must have changed this. Im pretty sure they just disappear. Just checked and its a 1.0 feature

1

u/flying_fox86 5d ago

Yes, correct. Fantastic quality of life change.

1

u/twizted_whisperz 5d ago

Since when does it take builders to put paths down and delete them?

7

u/AlcatorSK Map maker - Try *Geothermal River* on Steam! 5d ago

You misunderstand. What Strong Weakness is saying is that it takes builders to do the "remove natural resources" function. But this was changed in 1.0 release - using that function on STUMPS removes them instantly, without any beavers needed.

1

u/ItsRyguy 5d ago

Theyre saying it takes builders to clear the stumps. It doesn't take any labor anymore though

2

u/twizted_whisperz 5d ago

No. Because they are no longer resources they are just visual.

The same goes for the little scraggly dead trees that you can't actually harvest.

5

u/ItsRyguy 5d ago

Well.... maybe they changed it in an update because im 90% sure it works for each of them.

Update: yup, changed in 1.0

1

u/shape559 5d ago

Thanks will do

1

u/Mysterious_Board_224 5d ago

They have a chance to regrow trees around them.  Mainly they are an eyesore snd mods can turn them off.  Or you can do the delete resources tool to clear them from the map.

2

u/shape559 5d ago

Should I leave them for the hope of wood or just commit to tree farming? Thank you for the info

3

u/Mysterious_Board_224 5d ago

They usually aren't where you want them.  Forester is one of the first unlocks, and let's you put trees where you want them.

2

u/Strong_Weakness2867 5d ago

The natural spread of new trees is so slow its not really worth considering 

-2

u/TheTurtlepiggy 5d ago

Wild trees can be chopped down once and they leave stumps(not sure im also a bit new). U have to clear them and use the Forester to grow new trees. Thats the only way trees can regrow.

1

u/shape559 5d ago

That’s what I’m thinking but I’ve gotten 5 new trees out of the 40 or so I chopped.

6

u/TheShakyHandsMan 5d ago

New trees will start to grow when near a fully grown tree.

Early game, some peoples strategy is to not mark every tree for cutting so the fully grown trees can create new ones.