Above average trees, are they worth it?

[bagherthegamer]

I was playing as wurt and i was looking for some salt formations early on to make salt boxes for my crops when i came across a waterlogged biome. Now the thing is since this is really early in the game i have yet to build a proper base with ice flingomatics covering it, And so i thought to my self if i should start to make an AAtree to cover my base instead of ice flingos. 

So what are your thoughts? I never get any bad ideas from the forums so i thought i should make this post. And if they are worth it, is there any neat tips or tricks you have to share regarding them? 

[W0l0l0]

13 minutes ago, bagherthegamer said:

I never get any bad ideas from the forums

I agree we need more.

[BezKa]

I find them very useful, my Bee Box farm is finally safe. The only thing you need is to first stock up on jam, and later you have figs at hand to grow more of them, so you only need to fetch the seeds. 

For advice, the shadow from them is more or less five tiles in each direction. That's to help you space the trees out. 

Remember to plant them close to land so you can jam them from there, and for them to have maximum reach. The claw machine placed at the very corner/edge of the boat is needed for that. The only thing is that the roots will clip into the land, and look weird. 

Another thing to be careful about is that hound Love to get stuck behind them. 

 

[Ohan]

I dont like how it forces u to shape ur base a certain way. Thats the main reason i dont use flingos and the trees are even worse in that regard. To get the most of their small range u have to drop them off right at the edge of the coast which then ends up looking really ugly imo with the giant roots clipping onto land.. 

if we had the ability to create water tiles in the middle of landmasses that would be stellar. But with how things r now i dont think ill even consider smolderproofing my entire base with AAtrees. For small coastal builds or boat bases sure but in general if u want wildfireprotection theres always oasis. Or just caves like i almost always retreat to

[ArubaroBeefalo]

I love cooking in the middle of the sea safely without worry of wildfires, houndsor seasonal bosses and with vines arround for extra fillers or to eat raw 

It takes time to set up but i think they are worth in non measurable ways

[Szczuku]

They'd be better if:

1. Grass Gators considered them their home, so that they don't wander off with that copy-pasted Koalefant AI
2. If their resources disappeard over time. And by that I mean that I don't want my waters to be littered with twigs and grass after every lightning strike. After all these resources are in the sea- sooner or later the water should despawn them. At least I'm pretty sure that AATs drop some grass and twigs when they're struck by lightning/boat. The water around mine is full of those.

[BeeClops]

does anybody know if you burn the figs/mossy vines for the trees you planted, do they respawn and how does it work? 

I planted some near land but so many figs spawned on the ocean I barely got any on land, is there any way I could move them? (on console, no mods)

[BezKa]

7 minutes ago, BeeClops said:

does anybody know if you burn the figs/mossy vines for the trees you planted, do they respawn and how does it work? 

I planted some near land but so many figs spawned on the ocean I barely got any on land, is there any way I could move them? (on console, no mods)

From what another user told me, you have to burn them all, then bump into the tree for it to generate new ones. There will be max of 3, while a newly grown tree can grow more than 3

No guarantees, as I didn't test it

[QuartzBeam]

8 hours ago, BezKa said:

For advice, the shadow from them is more or less five tiles in each direction. That's to help you space the trees out.

The wildfire/overheating/lightning protection range is exactly 5.5 tiles' worth of distance. The shadow on the ground is a pretty bad indicator of it though. The only way to check if a spot is safe is to check if the canopy overlay appears on your screen if you stop and stand there.

[HowlVoid]

41 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

The wildfire/overheating/lightning protection range is exactly 5.5 tiles' worth of distance. The shadow on the ground is a pretty bad indicator of it though. The only way to check if a spot is safe is to check if the canopy overlay appears on your screen if you stop and stand there.

I notice sometimes it extends as you sloooooowly walk out of range and when you walk back it starts at a further distance from when it stopped. What's up with that?

[QuartzBeam]

50 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I notice sometimes it extends as you sloooooowly walk out of range and when you walk back it starts at a further distance from when it stopped. What's up with that?

Unless I misunderstood your post, the canopy overlay has a slight delay before it appears. So if you run towards the tree, it won't appear immediately once you step food within the protection radius (even though the overheating protection will kick in). That's why I specifically said to stop at the point of interest and see if the canopy overlay appears.

[Intrepidpioneer]

If you live on a boat it's great. Otherwise your mileage may vary.

I would suggest not putting the tree close to land. AA trees can burn and be cut down. They can be cut down by merms on accident because their glitchy AI won't make them stop cutting at times and fire dogs fire may reach them unintentionally.

Because the tree is planted in water forcing you to live near the water's edge, try prioritizing what goes under the tree and what is covered by a flingo. If a fire starts near items under the tree, they will still burn.

[Baark0]

for actual prevention of wildfires/lightning? not unless youre boat basing. in my experience ive used the figs to make more jam than actually eating them, so to me their only real use is being pretty decorations

[QuartzBeam]

I am currently working on a mega(ish) base that's cover (almost) entirely by the shade of these trees. I think I've planted like 32 of them so far and there's quite probably another dozen or so to go at the very least. And let me tell you I am having a blast.

I can work on my base all year long, without worrying about producing an ungodly amount of flingomatic fuel or being forced to abandon my base for a quarter of each year. Overheating is not hard to deal with, but being able to just forget about it is a major QoL improvement. And while the wetness protection is only 35%, that's still decent enough to let Webber use the Enlightened Crown during rainy nights without worrying that he'll reach the 30 wetness threshold and start losing sanity like crazy.

And the figs... they are amazing. They don't seem like much when you are starting out, but when you have a bunch of AA trees, you can literally live off of raw/cooked figs. I have a bundle of food in my inventory that has not been opened in ages, simply because I can feed myself off the figs that grow in any part of my base. I've also been using them to keep my beefalo's domestication up. Just shove 3-4 figs into his mouth whenever I pass him by. No salt licks needed. (If I'm not mistaken, even a tiny domestication gain will reset the domestication loss rate.)

And I haven't really had any issues with wildfires, but it probably helps that I've strategically placed lureplants under the canopy, so that if smoldering triggers, it will target the shaded lureplant and fail completely due to the shade. (Mind you, I also surround my base with 2-tile wide cobblestones road, which help keep smolderable plants and trees from regrowing too close to the canopy.)

The only issue, really, is that you need some decent rivers and lakes to take full advantage of Above Average Trees. Coasts aren't bad, but rivers give you roughly twice the amount of canopy-protected land and I can't imagine building such a base anywhere else. And for what it's worth, despite my initial reservations, I found building and decorating within the constraints of the canopy range to be pretty fun.

[LEX-7O2]

Canopy coverage is also great for volt goats, it prevents lightning from charging goat.