Limit to tree density? (necro-thread)

[Cista 428]

Here is fresh proof from inside my deed, once and for all showing that all kinds of timber trees have no problem planting themselves next to another timber tree, as long as the two tiles are on a diagonal. Here two birch trees on diagonal tiles. So the old types of timber trees will do it, as well as the new types like walnut.

 

It looks so far like they will not do it if the tiles are orthogonal, it will take a long time to disprove, but it is an interesting result, all in all I am happy I learned something!

 

Edited November 3, 2016 by Cista

[Cista 428]

I have some final results from my tests on sprout placement.

I made the kind of "alleys" of birch trees that you see in the picture below. Between each row of trees in the alley are TWO empty tiles, free to be colonised by any tree type or bush that I planted nearby. After having had these on my deed for a while, I can now conclude that no tree or bush will ever plant itself there. This confirms my suspicion that while a tree will plant itself diagonally next to another tree, it will not do so on an orthogonally neighbour tile. 

 

 

As you can see in the last picture below, there is no such restraint when a fruit tree or bush has arrived first. In that picture, I had planted the rose bushes and apples. The two central birch trees are self-planted. And as you see, while they will stay away from other birch trees, they have no qualms planting themselves right next to a rose bush. This means that when you see that e.g. cherry forest can grow extremely dense when left to itself, it is not because fruit trees behave different when planting their sprouts around. It is because a fruit tree that is already there, does not count as a tree.

This has the benign effect that fruit trees can not spread themself through a timber forest that is already quite dense.

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by Cista

[Cista 428]

Allow me to finish by summing up all that I now know about the limits to tree density in natural forests in Wurm.

 

1) When a new sprout is dispersed either from a timber tree, from a fruit tree or from a bush, it can plant itself on any suitable tile except:

    a - of course not on a tile where a tree or bush already grows.

    b - not on a tile where a TIMBER tree grows on a neighbour tile in the orthogonal direction (North-South-West-East). No tree or bush will ever plant itself on such a neighbour tile.

 

2) Fruit trees and bushes do not have such "cushion tiles" around them. Any other timber tree, fruit tree or bush can plant itself right next to a fruit tree or bush, even in the orthogonal direction.

 

Therefore, timber forests will never grow very dense when left to themselves, while forests without timber trees will.

 

Thanks for the help!

Edited December 2, 2016 by Cista

[Ayes 3,715]

I don't know Cista but the conclusions you have reached seem mighty peculiar to me. Even the perpendicularity aversion of it all makes me wonder why the Devs would have programmed something so unnecessarily restrictive on the basis of orthogonality. What purpose would this serve? Or is it all just some fluke? Or just someone's imagination running away with them?

 

As far as forests not growing very dense when left to their own devices, on that I can agree based upon the fact that when players cut most of the trees down they are very slow to even come close to their dense virgin state upon the server creation. Simply put, if players want dense forests they will have to plant or replant them themselves. Then there will be no limit to tree density other than the effort put forth to plant them.

 

=Ayes=

[Cista 428]

Just necro-raising this thread for a moment. If anyone is still interested in these rules for how trees spread, I just realised it is very easy to see proof of if you look at the mapdumps that Wurm offers from time to time. 

 

The image below is from Xanadu, and I happen to know that while the top half of this area was forest when the server opened in 2014, the bottom part of this area was clear grassland. And now you can see (although it is blurry) how timber trees in the former grassland after 3 years have organised themselves in a diagonal lattice.

 

This is because they are not allowed by the game mechanics to touch each other orthogonally, as I described in the posts above. In this lattice, every three has 4 "cushion" tiles, in the N-S-E-W directions. On these tiles, no other tree can plant itself.

 

Meanwhile in the original forest in the top half of the picture, many of the timber trees do touch each other orthogonally, so they form solid dark green "blocks" and rectangles of tiles that are occupied by trees. (This was how they were distributed by the devs before launch).

 

It's as simple as that! You can see it on all such maps, but it's especially easy to see on Xanadu.

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by Cista