Add tree growth stages

[Mac Mcleod]

Right now the trees are a sapling for 30 days and then suddenly are full grown.

I suggest adding two more stages to tree growth.

Simple version...

stage 0 (days 0 to 7) behaves as currently
stage 1 (days 8 to 16) Has a 1 block tall sapling with 1 square of leaves on top of it.  Similar to the current fruit trees.
stage 2 (days 17 to 29) Has a 2 block tall sappling with a 3 block ball of leaves on top of it.
stage 3 (day 30) Tree matures.

More complicated version...

stage 1 (days 8 to 16) Has a 1 block tall sapling with 1 square of leaves on top of it.  Similar to the current fruit trees.
Drops a stick if cut down.
stage 2 Has a 2 block tall sappling with a 3 block ball of leaves on top of it.
Drops a firewood if cut down.

The main reason for this is immersion so it's low priority.  But it may be low effort to implement so putting the idea out there for you.   I've been growing a lot of trees lately and it's kinda jarring to see  them go from sapling to full grown tree in an instant.

 

[Thorfinn]

I take it you are not using default settings? Currently most trees take a month or two (9-18 days) while walnut takes around 3 months and redwood around 9.

Personally, if video game logic demands that trees mature in a month, about twice as fast as flax, I'd as soon think there's some different growth mechanism than the one we are familiar with. With that constraint, Athena trees are as realistic as any other model.

[Echo Weaver]

I do find it jarring that trees go from sapling to fully grown in one jump. I'd also like to be able to leave trees to grow taller.

Often folks ask for trees that grow the way fruit trees do. I'd love to see this, but I understand that it's not on the top of the priority list.

[Facethief]

I miss Dynamic Trees every time I see someone talking about this (and if you couldn’t tell, that’d be my preferred implementation).

[Echo Weaver]

14 hours ago, Facethief said:

I miss Dynamic Trees every time I see someone talking about this (and if you couldn’t tell, that’d be my preferred implementation).

I adored Dynamic Trees. It was part of every modded game I played. I know Tyron has asked about this mod specifically, and I'm pretty sure he said they didn't plan to do anything that sophisticated with trees. However, fruit trees have a growth pattern, and that might be extended to other trees.

I do know that Dynamic Trees could get resource-intensive, so there are downsides for a game that has to be very careful about performance.

[Steel General]

In my very first Vintage Story game I spawned on a hillside covered in birch bushes, and I thought I was seeing a new approach to dynamic trees - there were clear stages of progression visible, from lone leaf block to branchy leaf block with leaf blocks around it to a lone birch log with branchy leaf blocks around it and leafy blocks around those to stacked logs and a multilayered crown.

I was many months into that world before I became convinced that the bushes weren't going to grow.

Yes, I like Dynamic Trees, and I too hope it someday spreads beyond the fruit trees, with drops that sprout (but, necessarily this must come with animals that actually eat the environment, not just animate at it). I've wondered if a cellular automata approach (in 3d, with multiple cell types that each have their own rules in relation to the other types of cell) might take less processing than Dynamic Trees did.

[Facethief]

4 hours ago, Steel General said:

I've wondered if a cellular automata approach (in 3d, with multiple cell types that each have their own rules in relation to the other types of cell) might take less processing than Dynamic Trees did.

That’s actually a pretty good idea. I hope the devs see this and have a look into it at some point.

[Mac Mcleod]

On 11/6/2025 at 3:56 PM, Thorfinn said:

I take it you are not using default settings? Currently most trees take a month or two (9-18 days) while walnut takes around 3 months and redwood around 9.

Personally, if video game logic demands that trees mature in a month, about twice as fast as flax, I'd as soon think there's some different growth mechanism than the one we are familiar with. With that constraint, Athena trees are as realistic as any other model.

I'm playing on TOPS.    It  said 30 days for an Oak Tree.   Another Oak Tree had 2 days to go and popped from sampling to fully grown huge 30+ block Oak tree while I was looking at it.   So I thought I would post this idea to improve the game immersion.

[Thorfinn]

Oh, OK, oaks are a little on the slow side, too. Likely right there with walnut.

I was just pointing out that the maple and birch and pine that I plant when getting my first slug of sticks the first few days of May mature in June. Often before my first turnips are mature. That is not in the slightest immersive, just a concession to video game logic.

The trees I planted in my woodlot 25 years ago are just now getting to the stage they can be used as firewood, and consequently  I've shifted a good share of it over to coppicing. Yes, I watched it all grow. My kids grew up a lot faster.

[Mac Mcleod]

On 11/8/2025 at 9:28 AM, Thorfinn said:

Oh, OK, oaks are a little on the slow side, too. Likely right there with walnut.

I was just pointing out that the maple and birch and pine that I plant when getting my first slug of sticks the first few days of May mature in June. Often before my first turnips are mature. That is not in the slightest immersive, just a concession to video game logic.

The trees I planted in my woodlot 25 years ago are just now getting to the stage they can be used as firewood, and consequently  I've shifted a good share of it over to coppicing. Yes, I watched it all grow. My kids grew up a lot faster.

So imagine they still looked like the saplings you planted 25 years ago.

And a couple more years from now... they would suddenly become fully grown trees in less than a second.

I wasn't talking about how long it took for trees to grow- that's a game balance thing.   (It's unrealistically fast).   I was just talking about how they stayed saplings forever and then were instantly fully grown.

[Thorfinn]

Understood. There was a mod that did exactly that, tree stages, plus it had a chance of planting a seed somewhere under its canopy. And regrow leaves, I think. Wild Farming, mayhaps? It was bringing pretty butch machines to a crawl.

Crop stages are one thing. Not even I have more than a couple thousand crop plots growing at once. But all trees within, say, a 768 radius? Give it a shot. See if Spear and Fang (I'm pretty sure he took it over) was able to optimize that somewhat.

[Zero_]

On 11/6/2025 at 3:18 PM, Facethief said:

I miss Dynamic Trees every time I see someone talking about this (and if you couldn’t tell, that’d be my preferred implementation).

Me too. At the end of my MC era, I couldn't play without it.