Understanding the New Forest Biome

[sol12]

So I've been doing some calculating with the new power systems and getting power from the wood verse coal. Say you have  domesticated tree that you are growing. It takes 70KG of polluted water per cycle to grow the tree and 4.5 cycles to complete the tree's growth period. That comes out to 315 Kg of water PER HARVEST of the wood.

This gives us 300 Kg of lumber. When put into a burner, wood will burn at a rate of 1.2 Kg per second to give you 300 watts per second. That translates to 250 seconds worth of power, which is less than half a cycle's time. 

So to constantly power a base using only 300 watts (terrible) for one cycle, would take 630 Kg of polluted water, 10 cycles, and a ton heat to manage. 

 

Am I missing something about this resource? Because these stats are abyssmal (pun intended), and a huge waste of resources. I guess I could see this as an extra challenge to folks, but for most of the asteroid types to start with this biome now... it just feels like there is a huge gap in difficulty from the 2 starting biomes, and may need some balancing. 

Now I should say that this is more of a first glance for me, so please let me know if I've missed something about this new system.

[Lurve]

2 minutes ago, sol12 said:

Am I missing something about this resource?

You're missing two things:

1) The wood burner is the CO2 machine, or for VERY temporary setups.  Try going straight to ethanol if you want power out of wood.

2) Most of your wood should be wild and free.  You've got pips.  Use them.

[sol12]

I totally get what your saying with the pips; however, it takes 18 cycles for wilds tree to produce wood. That and the pips eat the trees. It all seems kind of pointless without waiting a very long time to get a rotation going. Which I guess is possible, but not ideal when trying to get things off the ground.

I did not think about the ethanol though. What generator am I putting the ethanol into for power?

[DarkReaper115]

I think the petroleum generator accepts ethanol as well now.

[metallichydra]

1 hour ago, DarkReaper115 said:

I think the petroleum generator accepts ethanol as well now.

it does

[Siromatik]

3 hours ago, sol12 said:

I did not think about the ethanol though. What generator am I putting the ethanol into for power?

Take a look at this thread : https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/109039-is-ehtanol-petrolium-generator-system-not-supposed-to-be-self-sustaining/

Keep in mind that values/numbers can change in any next patchs anyway

[sol12]

Thanks Siromatik, that was helpful.

also, "Keep in mind that values/numbers can change in any next patchs anyway" is a good point. I guess that's part of why I'm saying something - for the sake of discussing balance. 

[wronny]

9 hours ago, sol12 said:

but for most of the asteroid types to start with this biome now

• Forest start: Verdante, Arboria, Aridio, Oasisse.
• Sandstone start: Terra, "The Badlands", Rime, Volcanea, Oceania

"Most" asteroids (5/9) still use the old "Sandstone" start.

9 hours ago, sol12 said:

it just feels like there is a huge gap in difficulty from the 2 starting biomes, and may need some balancing. 

Since Klei added Forest Muckroots the gap is smaller than it used to be. While there is still a gap, it really isn't huge. 

• Food is plentiful in both starts.
• Power options are solid either way.
• Water can be sacre in the forest start, but can easily be accounted for.

If anything the main challenge is learning to deal with oxygen (pressure) in the forest start, but even that isn't as pressing as it may seem at first glance.

[MustardWarrior]

I think you are missing something, that is for one tree there are several branches.  300kg of lumber from each branch, not from the tree as a whole.

[sol12]

Wronny - point one: I swore it was more off than that. thanks for clarifying.
                Point two: The whole purpose of this post was to discuss the resource sink that power currently is, to the point that using manual generators is preferable unless your in a pinch (in the forest biome). in addition to requiring you to use water to get your oxygen, there is a very clear gap. Though, the more I play with this biome, the more it doesn't seem quite as bad. 

MustardWarrior - I did not realize the trees were 300 Kg per branch. that does make it a little better. The burners are terribly inefficient still though. I would just save the wood for ethanol unless I really had to use it.

 

Does anyone know if the regrowth rates are faster for the branches once the tree base is formed?

[suicide commando]

Sol, the main purpose of the wood burner isn't really power ( although it provides a bit of that ), the main purpose of the wood burner is to generate CO2 in a quick and easy manner. There are several reasons why you'd want to make CO2 ( Slicksters, CO2 scrubbing to generate pH2O ), the wood burner can supply you with this without much additional setup and for small scale.

 

[metallichydra]

1 hour ago, sol12 said:

Does anyone know if the regrowth rates are faster for the branches once the tree base is formed?

im pretty sure the branches dont grow untill the tree base has grown to 100%

[dcabines]

It would be nice if the kiln could convert wood to coal.

I've been playing on the Aridio map and while I have some wood burners for emergency power I've never used wood as a main power supply. I've found more than enough coal to keep me going. This helps encourage you to dig outside of the forest to find more coal.

Normally I send bathroom water to thimble reeds, but on Aridio the trees can serve the same purpose. The printing pod eventually gave me thimble reeds so I swapped to those for the fiber.

Food on Aridio can be a challenge because it is too warm to grow meal wood, but some insulation and ice fans fix that. I did find some wort seeds in a glacier. Also, glaciers are fantastic for Aridio because it has no ice biomes.

For oxygen, the rust deoxidizers are great. The map has hundreds of tons of rust and salt so I don't see any reason to electrolyze any water any time soon.

I feel like the forest biome is a good moderate step up from the original plains biome. It encourages you to explore sooner, but you eventually get everything you were missing. I think the biggest hurdle in the very early game is oxygen because of the lack of algae. Rushing to rust and salt is necessary. The addition of the forest muckroot was a big help too.