Bugged terrain/lingering rift effects?

[Teggs 55]

Greetings.

 

For the past few days, I have been attempting to clean up an area on Exodus that's commonly a rift site, and was probably the site of the last rift.  This is the area near the southern border of L21.  However, every time I plant trees, most of them get turned into woodscrap or logs after some time.  The first time it happened, I was still in the area, though not looking towards the saplings, so I know no player was in local.  There was no sound or message in logs, just almost every planted tree had a woodscrap on its tile instead, and one apparently had grown a stage and left a log.  After the next two times I did leave the area, but I doubt some player is coming by and cutting down these saplings and no other trees.  I planted almost exclusively on dirt tiles at first, and I believe all of those trees were scrapped (the grass that comes with planting a tree remained).  I cut into an area of bushes that is usually in the rift zone and planted there as well on the third attempt, and those trees were also scrapped.  The affected zone is at least 64 tiles East-West.  I can't tell the N-S dimension because of the bushy areas on the south side.

 

I was not at the last rift, so I don't know if there was any oddity in shutting it down.  A stone pillar was left, but I mined that out during my first attempt to replant, and as far as I can tell, the area is fully cleansed of rift materials.

 

This is what it looks like with the detritus of three planting attempts making boxes on some tiles in the area:

 

 

Good luck.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Teggs
More affected tiles east-west

[fencejumper 491]

This is most likely a player cutting them down, perhaps done while you were afk or otherwise not looking.

[Teggs 55]

The trees of the fourth planting are still alive, so whatever was going on seems to have stopped. 

 

I utterly reject the idea that some player was invisible in local and cutting down trees the first time, or that anyone would come to the area twice more and cut down only the trees I planted and no others.  Also, trees I planted slightly outside the apparent rift zone were never killed.  I may investigate after future rifts, if I care to, because while the rift graphics are interesting while they are in progress, the bushscape that results after multiple rifts in an area is butt ugly.