Optimal Automated Wood Farming

How to produce 10 times more wood per drill and 50% more wood per seed than conventional builds! Partially updated for 0.4.0.

"Sunken Sea" 0.4.0 Update Changes:

This design still works very well. However, developer changes now mean that more basic designs aren't all quite as weak by comparison. Game changes may still be shaking out. So a full guide update is waiting on further patch notes and in-game testing.

What's currently changed, from patch notes:
• "Roots grow one piece at a time, but more often." - So this build no longer get (so many) simultaneous wood growths popping. But they should occur more frequently, such that it roughly evens out.
• "A Table Saw can be crafted at the Electronics Table that allows players to cut wood into planks." - These can be fed wood directly by this root farm's automation. 1 wood -> 1 planks that currently sell for 1 coin each. So a better money farm than crafting chests.

Not in patch notes:
• Roots can now grow on sand tiles but not Wilderness grass (as shown in my other build, RIP).
• Coral wood can now be found in the new Sunken Sea biome, that can also be turned into planks. This can be seeded and grown in Sea Biome (beach) sand. With the same growth mechanics as regular roots.
• Root seeds (in 0.4.1) grow wood 2 minutes after first watering them. I.e. before fully grown (bug).
• Roots can grow wood adjacent to existing wood, in some circumstances.

Credit to Mz!

This guide was created with enthusiastic permission from Mz, based on their key insights (1, 2b and 5, below) and builds laid out in this detailed Google Docs guide[docs.google.com].

(Close to) Best Design:

Produces 590 about 480 wood per hour (in 0.4.2, while on-screen, measured by Snow81). Important details of operation and construction below...

Key Insights:

(1) Multiple root stumps (the part with leaves) can connect to and grow through a shared root network (the wood branches).

This trick allows multiple roots to take turns growing into the same tile in front of a drill. Whereas, unconnected roots, trying to grow into the same tile, will block each other from *ever* growing there.

It also greatly reduces the number of expensive drills needed per root seed. Which can allow players to build a much more productive automated wood farm earlier, using a small fraction of the scarlet and iron ore. Once one has an excess of these ores, and drills, this clever design is only relevant to reduce space used and potentially improve game performance (lag).

(2) Blocking root growth:

(a) Roots can *never* grow on stone ground, Wilderness grass, platforms (or gaps). So put these under your drills and other equipment (to be safe). I first saw this pointed out in this video by Kytros.

(b) Roots can block each other from growing onto a shared drill. So make sure your root only grows onto each drill from one direction.




(3) Root stumps create new growth within a 5 tile radius. Like a real plant, they can only extend a network of contiguous branches. And only on a suitable ground type (dirt, clay, turf), clear of objects.


(4) Root growth is triggering roughly twice every 5 minutes, via two separate 5 minute growth timers, per stump. These can't share the same growth location.


(5) Drills can be lined up to pass the harvested wood to each other, negating the need for conveyor belts. Saves space, but not much cost. Stops the accidental collection and accumulation of little wood insects.

Construction Walkthrough:

(A) Plan out on the ground where you want the root to grow.

Surround the area with sand, stone, wilderness grass, platform or no floor at all. Mask off the parts reserved for planting more seeds by temporarily placing e.g. wood floor, carpet, or some other floor covering that blocks root growth and can be easily removed without melee hits (which risk breaking the delicate root).

In this build, the dimensions inside the sand boundary are 9 tiles wide by 6 tall. With insets for sitting the drills on.


(B) Seed your shared root network from a single temporary stump on the *outside* edge!

Two root networks will never join. Except occasionally during glitches (when returning from far away). These are probably not controllable.



(C) Plant additional seeds *only after* they are surrounded by the root network on all relevant sides.

Once grown, additional root stumps will help grow the shared root faster, to extend the range of the network indefinitely, for as far as you like. In this build, that would be adding more columns of stumps to the right. Or the left, if moving the robot arm and chest.

Extending the length of the columns of stumps downwards, beyond the 4 shown, will *not* add any extra growth speed or wood production! Also, remember to water your root seeds *after* planting, so they finish growing before the ground dries out (unlike vegetables).


(D) Protect your root's backbone very carefully!

A single stray punch could mean having to destroy and re-grow everything downstream of the break. Because TWO ROOT NETWORKS WILL NEVER JOIN!

Use a shovel to safely dig up the temporary starting stump, once you have others established. Then protect the backbone with a tough wall or full tile of air/water gap. I've used a fence for illustrative purposes.




(E) Add your drills, once all the seeds are in place.

If you don't have many drills, those in the middle should be your priority. Those drills in range of more root stumps will produce more wood. I've numbered them in descending order of importance. There's diminishing returns on adding more drills, see section below for numbers.




(F) This build can be extended quite simply: by adding additional width (to the right).

Or by doubling up with a mirrored build that can share the same root backbone. This would keep it tucked safely away from accidental hits.But illumination may be an issue, if you want to see it. Or you could share a central power wire, as Mz's guide shows:



This design will, of course, also work fine mirrored to run in the opposite direction, left to right. Or rotated to run up/down.

Completed reference image:

Performance Comparison (from 0.3.8):

My old build (totally broken in 0.4!) is almost 4 times bigger, 20 root seeds/stumps, 40 drills, only ~483 wood per hour:



It's a somewhat decorative build. But I previously thought it was close to optimal, having tested to confirm that two-way root growth, from a single stump, is as productive as 1-way growth (i.e. 1 seed to one drill).

I measured production rates of the guide build simultaneously with my previous design, to confirm conditions were unchanged in the game between configurations.

(Tests done in Core Keeper Early Access Version 0.3.8)

So, this Mz build is, depending on the number of drills used, between 9.8 up to 16.4 times more productive per drill! (I.e. best is with just 1 drill, in the middle position.)

Uses for All That Wood?!:

Even a mediocre wood farm design will produce enough wood to spam as many platforms and torches as you'd reasonably need for exploring, etc. So what can be done with the many, many more stacks of 999 wood...?

• Crafting skill level farming: grab a load and then just hold the button down (potentially AFK) on making platforms, torches, wood floor (all just 1 wood per craft). Or another pure wood item from this list on the wiki[wikizet.com]. XP appears to be awarded per crafting click (or equivalent tick, holding the button).
  
  
• Money farm: Add a sawmill or two to the end, with an extra robot arm, before the storage chest. Planks take only one wood and currently sell for 1 coin each (in 0.4.2).
  
  Chests are the most resource efficient way to both level crafting and turn wood into cash: 5 wood to 1 ancient coin. But pedestals and workbenches will also give 1 coin each, for a little more wood. Note, wooden armour and tools do not stack, so they will be massively more cumbersome to sell.
  
  
• Scrap: wooden pickaxes and shovels (4 wood each) should again (in next patch) be able to be salvaged for scrap parts to repair more valuable items. This won't take much wood, though.
  
  
• Other ideas...?

Bonus Material (Defunct Since 0.4):

• Mz's fun build that maximises wood output for a single drill, by painstakingly arranging as many root seed stumps within range of it as possible (build instructions in their guide):

• Root's catchup turbo-growth when returning after being far away for a long time (possible contributor to the destructive growth glitch):
https://youtu.be/heiqpX-ZFZs

Links and Acknowledgement:

• Thanks: again, to Mz for the inspiration, via official Core Keeper Discord posts. See their guide document here (copy-paste the link text to circumvent Steam's over-zealous URL blocking): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSB861qapH7fA2RBvDJplbQiHgmv0ZPCigafohEcyvXhwK14Sn4k0TZZDVrAr9DwxpJafYITQDsUq10/pub

• Fellow creatives: if this material inspires some of your content, I'd appreciate a quick shout-out and link back to this guide. 👍

• Core Keeper content and materials are the intellectual property of their respective owners. The above textual and graphical guide information is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0[creativecommons.org]). For as far as this is compatible with Steam community terms and conditions. Specifically, I do not consent to duplication of of my original work for commercial use. Which includes websites running advertisements besides copies of this material (you know who you are).

My Core Keeper Guides on Steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2793169894 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2797638499 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2802836829 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2806120066 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2846860078 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916017422

[ZeroGravitas]

屁东 - You could, provided it's not for profit, including advertising revenue. But this information is a little outdated now. I *think* there were some changes. One could ask in the discord channel linked below.

[屁东]

Can I translate your article into Chinese and publish it on the Chinese internet?

[ZeroGravitas]

@AmorFathernal - This guide certainly needed updating, as of a year ago. I think the design will still work but it's not the best and the numbers are probably all wrong...

I suggest you might go look and maybe ask in the official discord's "#circuity" channel (then report back, if you please): https://discord.com/channels/851842678340845600/1031592236439306302

[AmorFathernal]

Does this still work in new versions? And with the new wood they added, do you know? Thank you very much in advance for this valuable information.

[ZeroGravitas]

@creepy-streaker - That looks like expected behaviour to me, at a glance...

[creepy-streaker]

heres a link to a screenshot of the thing

[creepy-streaker]

heyo i just tried it and it seems like if there is a neighboring root present a new seed will grow into a plant that attaches with the root if you block off all other directions for it to grow before it matures. though im honestly not sure how to tell if it actually attached to the root or not.....

[PlusVera]

Wait, aren't you the HOIKS guy?

Why am I not surprised you're the one who works a trick like this.

[zimmed]

@ZeroGravitas -- Yeah, I just figured out what I did wrong. Torch on the *wall* will block the growth for that tile.

Still works.

[ZeroGravitas]

@VerteX - Wood/Coral growth pattern should be the same as shown in the graphic for the "Key Insights" section. They will only grow in one place at a time. Alternating different spots every ~150 seconds or so.

What ground types do you have around the the seeds? Wood or Coral? Stone, regular sand, bridges, rug, tiles, etc, should block both of these from growing. Beach sand blocks wood, I think.