wood types

[cannonbo]

Pine let's you make bigger, more solid structures than Beech?
Birch and Oak drop the same stuff?
I get that game balance is more important than realism but i can't be the only one who was confused by this when they first picked up the game.

[shadowscion]

honestly they probably just didn't want forests of birch trees everywhere

[knighttemplar1960]

Well there are a couple of good reasons.

Pine trees grow both straighter and taller than Birch, Beech, or Oak with fewer flaws like knots and the weak points in a structure are where beams are joined. So a taller straighter beam allows for a sturdier structure. (This is why White pine trees were used for masts on sailing ships and why President George Washington set aside several acres of White pine forests as a strategic reserve).

Hard woods like Oak, Birch, and Beech are harder to work with especially when you haven't got access to iron. The Beech in question is likely the European Beech tree that yields a tough but dimensionally unstable beam.

I'm not sure why the developers decided that Beech trees were a soft wood equivalent to a fir tree and fir and pine logs are not suitable for fires because of the smokey residue left behind.

[Complaintdesk]

They seem to be similar to the real life equivalents of hardwood & softwood. Conifers like pine, fir, spruce are softwoods and are commonly used for framing and housing exteriors, while hardwoods like birch & oak are generally used in manufacturing desks, tables. Valheim does sort of have it backwards in the sense that using hardwood is preferable to softwood for heating & cooking fuel, as it tends to produce less smoke & resin when burned. Having birch & oak produce both regular wood & fine wood has a level of realism to it in the sense that the branches of both would in real life only be good for kindling/firewood & roof thatching.

[cannonbo]

well i learned something today. and GunsforBucks made me chuckle. So well worth the post.
Personally i'm surprised that Birch is a hard wood. In my mind i equated fast growth with softer wood.

[Happy]

Surprised more people don't use core wood for framing & building larger structures to begin with, it can be found super early on. I use it to build with quite a bit, especially now there are angled core wood beams.

If I remember I'll chuck a few screenies in here of Core Wood type builds I did recently.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by cannonbo:

well i learned something today. and GunsforBucks made me chuckle. So well worth the post.
Personally i'm surprised that Birch is a hard wood. In my mind i equated fast growth with softer wood.

All nut and fruit trees are hard woods. Its why those type woods are used for smoking and fermenting. They burn hotter, longer, and don't leave unpleasant after tastes in food.