Originally posted by GrinfilledCelt:

A lot of people misunderstand this. They often say, "It depends on how high you go." That's not it at all. It's how many pieces does it have to go through to reach foundation, whether that be the ground, a tree or a rock structure. It doesn't matter whether you are building vertically or horizontally. Adding bracing pieces won't help unless it cuts the number of pieces to foundation.

Wrong, it’s distance based, not piece based. A 4m long log pole provides identical support to 2 2m long log poles. The structure calculations are based on distance along structures to grounded support (which doesn’t have to be the ground, it can be any structure with a strength value higher than the connecting piece’s maximum strength)