How do spawn and respawn of crates, wood, plants, animals, minerals etc. work?

[Elvenkind]

I'm guessing that if you have played for hours, then crates you have looted, trees you have cut, animals you have killed, plants you have picked and minerals you have picked start to respawn, but how fast does this happen - if anyone know?

Saving and exit and loading back again make the process instantaneously, I know, but that feels a bit like cheating.

Wondering if anyone have a certain method in their grinding, so that when a certain area have been thoroughly looted, and another one also, then one can go back to the first one?

[Mattlow152]

I don’t really have a method as such and I’ve no idea what the respawn timers are but I kinda just work on doing big loops from my base and tbh I usually come back with a decent haul.
Having said that though I do have days when it seems really light on crates those become my wood chopping days.

[darknessanubis]

trees seem to be choppable once a day roughly. As for crates, plants and ore they seem to spawn in around me several times a day.

[benzhead]

As items don't respawn in the same location it's a bit hard to tell. Trees refresh a few times a day (someone out there will have an actual time).

One thing that is known is that there is a loot 'bubble' around your character. I find that stopping to chop a tree, mine a node etc. often results in items being spawned close to me. Now by items I mean plants, nodes, crates etc. If your'e having issues with item spawns, try stopping at the mother trees every time you pass one and log it. Then scan around 360 degrees.

Also, I seem to notice that if I clean an area out (re., pick/mine/open everything) then move away and come back 5 minutes later the item respawn density is higher. This is probably just a perception thing though!

Generally though if you set out to find just one item then you'll be disappointed. I find that gathering everything I see as I go along often results in much higher yields. I'm certain it's not programmed that way, but rewarding a hunter-gatherer play style does seem fitting!

[benzhead]

Sorry, meant to add. Doing a complete lap of the main lake in a day is normally very easy. If you stay closeish to the shore then fibre, medicine plant and crate spawns are very frequent. Also, it's much easier to avoid predators. If I get stuck for resources (e.g., decide to make a ton of an item and use everything up) then doing this for a couple of day cycles is usually high-yield.

[Elvenkind]

Thanks for the insightful answers everyone, I understood the question much better how things work now. I had thought that it might take days before crates etc.got respawned.

Originally posted by benzhead:

(someone out there will have an actual time).

Yeah, someone without doubt got answers. Hope some of these people answer :)

[00 Critical]

It's about 18 min before an item goes poof. I say about because unless you see it pop in and then time it it's a little bit of a guess. Now that items are hanging around if the player can see it my earlier testing is valid but I can't reproduce it again.

I will say it feels like if I go one direction for about 15 min and then turn around and go back I find more than I did on the outbound trip. This is a feeling and not a tested fact.

My testing was done about 2 years ago.

[Akeel]

From my observations, you are all correct, but the spawning times are, nevertheless hard to track. I did time the trees, they give logs again after approx. 6 minutes. The one thing I have noticed, and I believe that it has to do with with RNG (Random Number Generation), that even the days rotate in what spawns, when and how much. That's why at times I find a dozen or so scrap metal during one trip and the next day, almost none. The same seems to happen with chickens and plants, with the exception of fiber, which I believe CG mentioned that it was consistently the same.
I have read many posts where players can't find something for quite some time, It's kinda like the luck of the draw, eventually they'll find it, just need to keep looking!