Wood

Wood is a solid, organic element found and used in Oxygen Not Included as both a building material and a combustible fuel. It appears on maps as a mineable resource and can be stored, transported, and built into structures like other solid elements. Wood is categorized with other solids and is neither a metal nor a refined mineral; it functions primarily as an alternate construction ingredient and as a fuel source for heat and power production.

Wood is commonly used as a substitute raw material in several early-game building recipes, allowing construction when mineral ores are scarce. It enables construction of basic infrastructure items (including ladders, cots, Outhouses and Drywall) and other simple buildings where mineral inputs would otherwise be required. Typical ingredient mass requirements for such constructions fall within the hundreds-of-kilograms range (examples in practice include 100–400 kg class requirements depending on the specific building), making Wood a convenient bulk raw material for early expansion.

Wood is also an effective fuel. It can be burned directly in combustion devices such as the Wood Heater to produce heat and secondary outputs while generating usable energy. In workshop and processing contexts, Wood can be fed into certain buildings and crafting chains as a fuel input or a material to be converted into other resources; it participates in recipes and processing routines that yield both energy and byproducts. When processed or burned at steady rates it produces predictable heat output and throughput, making it useful for controlled heating or as a stopgap power/fuel source before the player unlocks refined fuels and electrical generators.

Practical notes and interactions:

• Use Wood early to build essential infrastructure when mineral ores are not yet accessible; it prevents stalling construction progress in new colonies.
• Because Wood is combustible and produces heat when burned, plan placement of combustion devices and storage to avoid overheating sensitive plants, critters, or equipment.
• Wood is bulky: store and transport in mass quantities and consider dedicating storage zones or compacting by-products if available.
• Wood functions in multiple processing chains and may be consumed by machines that accept organic fuels; check each building’s fuel/ingredient list before assigning Wood as the input.
• As a solid element, Wood obeys normal temperature transfer behavior when built into structures: its temperature contributes to the temperature of buildings and adjacent tiles, so cold or hot Wood will influence the thermal environment of constructions that use it.

Wood is an accessible, multifunctional resource suited to early- and mid-game needs for construction and fuel. Transition away from primary reliance on Wood once more efficient or stable materials and energy sources are unlocked to reduce fire risk and thermal management overhead.