Forestry control tower

The Forestry Control Tower is the building that controls how trees are harvested in a forestry area. Its main function is to set the harvesting option, which determines how large the trees are allowed to grow before they are cut. This directly affects both the amount of wood obtained from each tree and the amount of land needed to sustain a given wood output.

At 100%, a tree is grown to the standard size and yields 20 wood after 12 years. This option maximizes wood per sapling and is the most land-efficient in terms of total harvested wood per planted tree. Lower cut options shorten the growth time but reduce the wood obtained from each tree: 80% yields 16 wood in 9 years, 60% yields 12 wood in about 6.3 years, and 40% yields 8 wood in about 5.7 years. In practice, the lower settings trade output per tree for faster turnover, which can be useful when trying to fit forestry into a smaller area or when the desired wood flow is limited.

Because Tree Planter places roughly one sapling per 45 cells on average, the control tower’s setting also determines how much forestry land is needed to support production. For 1 wood per minute, the required area is about 324 cells at 100%, 304 cells at 80%, 284 cells at 60%, and 385 cells at 40%. The 80% option is slightly more area-efficient than the 100% and 60% options in this throughput comparison, while 40% requires the largest area for the same output.

A practical way to size a forestry layout is to match it to the wood demand of your assemblers. Using the wood generated per sapling per month, the approximate forestry size per assembler can be estimated from the chosen cut option. For example:

• Mk1 assembler: about 91 designations at 100%, 85 at 80%, 80 at 60%, 108 at 40%
• Mk2 assembler: about 182, 171, 159, 216
• Mk3 assembler: about 365, 342, 319, 433
• Robotic assembler: about 729, 683, 638, 866

This makes the 80% option a common middle ground: it reduces growth time without increasing land use too sharply, and it can be easier to fit into compact forestry plots. The 60% option also shortens the cycle further, but the reduced wood per sapling means more planted area is needed for the same sustained output.