Originally posted by jonnin:

^^ you are working too hard. the firey guys drop coal... you can kill 5 of them far faster than 5 meat cooks to done, let alone burns on out to coal.

On wood, I also clear the small scrub trees and leave the mature ones. A singe swing gets you several of them in dense areas.

Its not hard work at all. You just put the meat on the spit and leave. They next time you are in your base viola' coal.

The obliterator is just chuck the stuff you collected by accident in, pull the handle, and grab the coal.

No need to go on a time consuming expedition to hunt for surtlings.

^^ you are working too hard. the firey guys drop coal... you can kill 5 of them far faster than 5 meat cooks to done, let alone burns on out to coal.

On wood, I also clear the small scrub trees and leave the mature ones. A singe swing gets you several of them in dense areas.

i've actually been finding plenty of seeds to just keep replanting a small tree farm over and over again. makes harvesting easy because the trees domino themselves alot more when you plant them close. early on i guess there might not be enough but late game just keeping my wood up to supply two people with bolts/arrows, keep the fires/hot tub going and fuel the smelters its been pretty much just farm/replant/repeat for me.

Originally posted by PhotriusPyrelus:

Personally, I explore for the sake of exploring. That said, there's plenty of other resources that incentivize roaming, trees don't really need to be part of that equation. I don't like deforesting the landscape just to have enough wood to build a house. =- \

I felt the same way so I created a separate realm that I can strip mine for rock and de-forest. It looks like Mordor, but my own base looks nice (I built a humongous house 8m above everything else). Just log in and out to switch realms. It's the same trick some use to transport ore bypassing portals.

Also fwiw I have a chest full of beech seeds. Very common, the others less so especially birch.

tree seeds were added later to let you replant near your home after losing your favorite trees to trolls or whatnot. Its not mean for farming bulk trees; like thistle or mushrooms or berries you are supposed to range out and explore to gather wood.

like it or not, the devs want you to explore, and they attempt to force it upon you by limiting your ability to grow everything at home and rarely leave your home.

Incentivizes you to travel further out for materials.

Personally, I explore for the sake of exploring. That said, there's plenty of other resources that incentivize roaming, trees don't really need to be part of that equation. I don't like deforesting the landscape just to have enough wood to build a house. =- \

Just get some wood from some place you'll probably won't be visiting a lot / again.
You can get a good amount of seeds this way to reforest in the area around your base.
The map is just so big that you'll probably find a place where in the aftermath you probably won't even notice that there's some trees missing.

I like to make roads and clear paths when I make outposts. Drop a secure portal on shore for boat access and clear a wide trail to the mining node.

If you always do this, you'll have less wood/stone to gather and if something nasty surprises you while mining you'll have a clear path of retreat and room to fight.

Also the act of clearing the path will draw in all the mobs so you can clear the area before you get down to mining.

If you enjoy being methodical this works pretty good. I know not everyone does.

Originally posted by PhotriusPyrelus:

Personally, I explore for the sake of exploring. That said, there's plenty of other resources that incentivize roaming, trees don't really need to be part of that equation. I don't like deforesting the landscape just to have enough wood to build a house. =- \

You don't have to deforest. You can harvest the fallen logs and tree stumps scattered about that you find while you explore, pick up the sticks on the ground, forage gray dwarves, and use the tress that are destroyed by large creatures like trolls, golems, lox, and abominations. You can also chop up the shipwrecks that you occasionally find and sometimes those give you a bonus.

You don't even have to have wood to make coal for your smelter. You can over cook meat and burn it into coal and you can throw anything that respawns into an obliterator and use that to produce all of your coal.