New trees are much more profitable than Sproutrock

[Swiyss]

I was gonna literally make a topic about this, thankfully I found this first. Yeah basically I disagree with some comments here, these people probably didn't really tested mining the trees and planting in this beta. It really is overpowered. Compared to how slow and costly it is to get just 1 thulecite, having all of these free gems with a day 1 available feature that only requires an axe and a day of waiting to profit is absurd really. Woodie can probably feast on those as well.

For me they really need to reduce the amount of gems gotten OR make the tree take like 15 to 30 days to grow. It literally doesn't make sense to get that many gems just by lifting some ground indefinitely. Like.. how much milk can we squeeze out of these cows until the seeds run out and we have absurd amounts of gems for duping, star callers, teleports etc.. This gem rarity is what is cool about the ruins, creating this unbalanced situation would only be reasonable if they added more things to do with the gems.

[Milordo]

4 hours ago, astareus said:

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How many days marble trees grow?

What do you think giving the new tree the growth time of a marble tree?

5 hours ago, astareus said:

 This gem rarity is what is cool about the ruins, creating this unbalanced situation would only be reasonable if they added more things to do with the gems.

Yeaahhh, lol. About that. Fumarole is still randomly in the Caves. Sure we still have a lot of time but still....

[SilverSpoon]

On 9/11/2025 at 3:06 AM, Maxil20 said:

About the boulderboughs, I feel its important to note the tree isn’t just about producing gems. There’s a lot of tables for the biomes and most don’t even include gems whatsoever, especially on the surface. The tree is very flexible for growing in specific biomes based on your needs. I’ve been having a lot of fun, for instance, placing them in the savannah. The high chance of manure in combination with boulderboughs innately giving nitre from the rock turn them into a pretty neat way to farm compost wraps. You could place them on lunar and get a bunch of moonrocks/moon shards. You could place them in the swamp for a chance of tentacle spots, or the desert for bone shards… I think you get the idea that the list goes pretty far that sets it apart from “Gem tree two!”

These are very different compared to sproutrocks, and I feel just comparing the 2-3 biomes where they produce resources like gems is a poor comparison. They are flexible in providing resources based on your needs, and you should use them as such! 

You’re right on target, and my calling it “another tree that produces gems” wasn’t precise enough.

That said, Boulderbough is a “resource produces tree” and also functions as “another tree that produces gems” in some biomes. This is... I personally bit don’t like. If Boulderbough had not only the current Boulder Squashing,  had an interactive harvest cycle that fundamentally changed the “plant and wait” loop, I’d be 200% happy. For fairness, the rewards could even be increased a bit for that.

One more thing I personally bit don’t like on: the ecology of Boulderbough lifting a boulder feels a bit pointless. What benefit does the plant gain from hoisting such heavy rocks? Plants normally expose themselves to light for photosynthesis; I don’t think there’s any real-world ecology where a plant would shade itself. My idea of “the Boulder crushing own loot” is based on my imagined ecology: first the Boulderbough hoists the rock, then lets it press down on itself to hide and protect the roots in contact with the ground under the rock, while the vines that extend from there do the photosynthesis. Does that sound a bit forced? No. Mr. Sansevieria at my home said it made sense.

However in conclusion, if people like the current Boulderbough, I glad to agree with it as is.

Edited September 13, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Radicaljoe]

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

One more thing I personally bit don’t like on: the ecology of Boulderbough lifting a boulder feels a bit pointless. What benefit does the plant gain from hoisting such heavy rocks? Plants normally expose themselves to light for photosynthesis; I don’t think there’s any real-world ecology where a plant would shade itself. My idea of “the Boulder crushing own loot” is based on my imagined ecology: first the Boulderbough hoists the rock, then lets it press down on itself to hide and protect the roots in contact with the ground under the rock, while the vines that extend from there do the photosynthesis. Does that sound a bit forced? No. Mr. Sansevieria at my home said it made sense.

Perhaps the boulder is not a source for shade. The boulder may act as a sort of nutrient holder, or perhaps even a reproduction aid.
As a nutrient holder, easy to explain, big bulb full of nutrients. Perhaps even aids in soil enrichment by crushing anything desperate enough to take from the vines, making the soil richer after the body decays, making future boughs more likely to survive.
As a reproduction aid, perhaps the purpose of the boulder is the replant the seed after the tree ages too much and loses its holding power.
Also, as much as I do like relating real world ecology. This is a plant that grows giant rocks, I believe it might not follow normal rules for plants, even more since it is growing in the dark caves where there's no light already for it to want to expose itself.

[SOS-Ouroboros-K]

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

That said, Boulderbough is a “resource produces tree” and also functions as “another tree that produces gems” in some biomes. This is... I personally bit don’t like. If Boulderbough had not only the current Boulder Squashing,  had an interactive harvest cycle that fundamentally changed the “plant and wait” loop, I’d be 200% happy. For fairness, the rewards could even be increased a bit for that.

Take the plants grown in Ruins as an example. It can also drop items such as Glow Berry, Slurper Pelt, Gears, Lichen, Eel, Ice, Bat Bat, Nightmare Fuel, etc., instead of gems. These are also characteristic items of the Ruins theme.

28 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

Perhaps the boulder is not a source for shade. The boulder may act as a sort of nutrient holder, or perhaps even a reproduction aid.

Oh, considering that they will dig up stones, perhaps they can help us restore the Marble Sculpture after mining...