Forests recover

[Bruno Willis]

Discussing the wonderful experience of lightening triggering fires, I said that I'd use that game mode, only if forests could recover from fire. The rules that govern what happens in the game after it starts shouldn't contradict the way the world looks when you first log in. If fire can permanently devastate forests, why are there still forests? 

Here's a solution:

• Forest floor has a chance to generate saplings if there are no trees or saplings already growing within 15 blocks. The game would use the generation data to choose what sorts of saplings. If you wanted to clear a forest forever you'd have to dig up the forest floor too. 
• When berry bushes burn down they leave have a high chance to leave "burned bushes" which deteriorate to generate 1-4 berry bushes of that type the following spring. Maybe that's a propagation method? Is that a problem?
• Bushes (the only leaf varieties of trees) grow spontaneously, rarely, in places where they would be generated during world gen. These would generate very rarely, say 1 bush per 100 blocks per year, so that keeping an area clear would be easy, but fire-cleared areas could gradually recover to their original wilderness. 

[LadyWYT]

I like it, but my main concern would be how demanding on the system resources such a thing would require. There was a mod I tried a long time ago that implemented similar forest-growth mechanics, and it was really bad when it came to performance.

18 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Forest floor has a chance to generate saplings if there are no trees or saplings already growing within 15 blocks. The game would use the generation data to choose what sorts of saplings. If you wanted to clear a forest forever you'd have to dig up the forest floor too. 

In this case, I might make some sort of exception for the forest floor if everything is chopped down and no trees planted behind. If there's no more trees left, and no seeds planted for more trees to grow, the forest floor really ought to slowly turn to grassland over time. Trees that are planted on grassland could have the opposite effect, in that if left alone for long enough(like, an in-game year or two) they start turning the ground underneath them into forest floor. That way, the player could, with enough time and devotion, start their own forest.

22 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

• When berry bushes burn down they leave have a high chance to leave "burned bushes" which deteriorate to generate 1-4 berry bushes of that type the following spring. Maybe that's a propagation method? Is that a problem?
• Bushes (the only leaf varieties of trees) grow spontaneously, rarely, in places where they would be generated during world gen. These would generate very rarely, say 1 bush per 100 blocks per year, so that keeping an area clear would be easy, but fire-cleared areas could gradually recover to their original wilderness. 

I would that regular bushes and scrubby trees should be primarily what grows back first after a recent forest fire. Perhaps there could be a small chance of berry bushes springing up there as well, but I think in the case of berry bushes and propagation, that's mainly what the player should be doing at their base. The loss of berry bushes can also serve as a deterrent to players intentionally starting forest fires to quickly kill animals/clear land. 

[Bruno Willis]

24 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The loss of berry bushes can also serve as a deterrent to players intentionally starting forest fires to quickly kill animals/clear land. 

Yeah, for sure. There needs to be some downside. There are often fast growing things which take a forest fire as an opportunity though. Lupins maybe? It would be cool if there were a long-term sign of forest fires left behind. I'd love it if there were a mechanic for some trees to survive, with fire scarred trunks.

27 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

In this case, I might make some sort of exception for the forest floor if everything is chopped down and no trees planted behind. If there's no more trees left, and no seeds planted for more trees to grow, the forest floor really ought to slowly turn to grassland over time. Trees that are planted on grassland could have the opposite effect, in that if left alone for long enough(like, an in-game year or two) they start turning the ground underneath them into forest floor. That way, the player could, with enough time and devotion, start their own forest.

I'd love it if forest floor would form naturally, and also get replaced by grassland naturally. That'd be fantastic.

I would say that trees IRL often leave seeds in the ground that can germinate years and years later (thank goodness). But yeah, performance quality is a big deal. Maybe the game would check to spawn saplings on forest floor only during spring, maybe only at the moment rainfall stops. 

Replacing forest floor with grass, and grass with forest floor, how would we do that? The way forest floor has that nice fade in texture makes it a bit of a challenge. I imagine in autumn trees could turn the ground under them into forest floor (as if they were dropping leaf litter), essentially re-writing the forest floor texture under them, (although that seems like a big performance ask too?) 

I really don't see how they'd get grassland to overtake forest floor again though, although I wish it could. It seems like it'd be really hard to get a nice transition. 

[LadyWYT]

18 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Replacing forest floor with grass, and grass with forest floor, how would we do that? The way forest floor has that nice fade in texture makes it a bit of a challenge. I imagine in autumn trees could turn the ground under them into forest floor (as if they were dropping leaf litter), essentially re-writing the forest floor texture under them, (although that seems like a big performance ask too?) 

Probably similar to how water turns to ice, and vice versa. Or how weeds grow on farmland, albeit perhaps at a slower rate than that since the weeds can spawn pretty fast sometimes.

 

19 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I really don't see how they'd get grassland to overtake forest floor again though, although I wish it could. It seems like it'd be really hard to get a nice transition. 

Perhaps just overwrite the forest floor with the patchy grass blocks to start? It might not be the smoothest transition, but it does make sense for patchy clumps of grass to spring up first before the area becomes proper grassland.

[Bruno Willis]

18 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Perhaps just overwrite the forest floor with the patchy grass blocks to start? It might not be the smoothest transition, but it does make sense for patchy clumps of grass to spring up first before the area becomes proper grassland.

That'd work nicely.

I'm thinking about how clean the transition from grassland into forest floor is during natural generation, but that texture is suggesting leaves and twigs lying over grass, which you want to have a smooth gradient for. If that sort of ground were overtaken by grass again it would be fine if it were a bit patchy, cause it's grass. It's not a smooth process. It gets hold in one patch, then it spreads. 

I'd say the grassland to forest floor process should happen all at once so you get that nice transitional texture. You'd center it at the trunk of the tree, then replace all dirt with forest floor out from there, using the already existing world-gen technique to make it look nice. I think autumn could trigger that change, and perhaps each tree would just have a single chance to do it each autumn. The chance could also be fairly low, so that creating a whole forest floor would take several years. 

[Єгорія]

My vision of the way forests could regenerate is, if regular trees would grow much slower - taking multiple years, sometimes decades, they could get more complex mechanics similar to fruit trees. If that is done different grades of log thickness could exist(so quarter logs would finally make some god damn sense!), but that's besides the point. The way forests could regrow would be simplistic root systems, that could also serve to prevent landslide from happening under trees and leaving floating stumps, by holding the ground down.

The center of the root system could leave a stump and regrow the tree once chopped down - this could also vary by tree type. Many trees are stifled once their main stem is down, and grow into bushes - which we already see in generated landscapes, and could serve as a means to do this manually. These bushes could regrow into proper trees again with trimming, like they often do in real life. This could allow for more propogation methods, other than seeds - saplings could be grown from root segments the player could dig up near a tree, while seeds would have to be gathered seasonally, similar to fruit(maybe allow to plant and grow fruits into saplings too, and if root systems are added fruit trees should also definitely have them)

To limit the performance impact, in addition to it being a much slower process, the growth of worldgen trees could be paused, until their vicinity is tempered with by the player. And actively growing trees could switch to the paused state once they reach a limit set by competition from surrounding trees. Big trees need big root systems - a tree would stop growing once it reached a maximum size allowed by it's current root system, while the root system continuosly failed to expand. But once a player tempers with a tree, it would start to grow again, and so would the trees immediatly next to it, as a root system without a large tree would start receding from its edges, allowing neighboring trees to fill in.

Adding these more complex behaviors could also allow for fun and interesting tidbits, like pines shedding lower branches to create loose stick blocks, and rare events of trees being felled by strong winds. 

Edited February 16 by Єгорія

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 2/16/2026 at 2:12 AM, Єгорія said:

My vision of the way forests could regenerate is, if regular trees would grow much slower - taking multiple years, sometimes decades, they could get more complex mechanics similar to fruit trees. If that is done different grades of log thickness could exist(so quarter logs would finally make some god damn sense!), but that's besides the point. The way forests could regrow would be simplistic root systems, that could also serve to prevent landslide from happening under trees and leaving floating stumps, by holding the ground down.

The center of the root system could leave a stump and regrow the tree once chopped down - this could also vary by tree type. Many trees are stifled once their main stem is down, and grow into bushes - which we already see in generated landscapes, and could serve as a means to do this manually. These bushes could regrow into proper trees again with trimming, like they often do in real life. This could allow for more propogation methods, other than seeds - saplings could be grown from root segments the player could dig up near a tree, while seeds would have to be gathered seasonally, similar to fruit(maybe allow to plant and grow fruits into saplings too, and if root systems are added fruit trees should also definitely have them)

To limit the performance impact, in addition to it being a much slower process, the growth of worldgen trees could be paused, until their vicinity is tempered with by the player. And actively growing trees could switch to the paused state once they reach a limit set by competition from surrounding trees. Big trees need big root systems - a tree would stop growing once it reached a maximum size allowed by it's current root system, while the root system continuosly failed to expand. But once a player tempers with a tree, it would start to grow again, and so would the trees immediatly next to it, as a root system without a large tree would start receding from its edges, allowing neighboring trees to fill in.

Adding these more complex behaviors could also allow for fun and interesting tidbits, like pines shedding lower branches to create loose stick blocks, and rare events of trees being felled by strong winds. 

I like the idea of different log thicknesses to create the quarter logs. I also like the idea of a sawmill to help produce these quarter logs with sawdust as a byproduct that can be mixed with other things, or burned as a quick fuel source to make a small fire larger. It could also be used as mulch for gardens.

I also like the idea of a root block, but only for trees and/or bushes that will regrow from a living root. It doesn't make sense to have it for things like pine/oak trees because these just become obstacles for the player to navigate. This is a game, not a real life simulator.

I also like the idea of the more complex behaviors such as trees shedding branches during a storm to provide sticks or trees being felled by strong winds. This would require some significant calculations on the part of the world server, but I think it could be done well enough and without much impact to the server as a whole if the event is not too frequent.

[Єгорія]

13 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I like the idea of different log thicknesses to create the quarter logs. I also like the idea of a sawmill to help produce these quarter logs with sawdust as a byproduct that can be mixed with other things, or burned as a quick fuel source to make a small fire larger. It could also be used as mulch for gardens.

I also like the idea of a root block, but only for trees and/or bushes that will regrow from a living root. It doesn't make sense to have it for things like pine/oak trees because these just become obstacles for the player to navigate. This is a game, not a real life simulator.

I also like the idea of the more complex behaviors such as trees shedding branches during a storm to provide sticks or trees being felled by strong winds. This would require some significant calculations on the part of the world server, but I think it could be done well enough and without much impact to the server as a whole if the event is not too frequent.

I think roots are still nescessary to implement my other proposed mechanics, but i see the ease of digging concern. Dead roots would rot away after a time, and that could be a world config, so people can have them rot away quickly, or set more realistic times if they so desire. Possibly also set which trees can and can't sprout from living roots, with options like all, none, realistic, and increasing or decreasing the probability of it happening by a multiplier, up to an option of resprouting being guaranteed. 

This game is highly configurable, and i would expect nothing less from any new mechanics being introduced.

[Єгорія]

On 2/12/2026 at 11:59 PM, Bruno Willis said:

Replacing forest floor with grass, and grass with forest floor, how would we do that? The way forest floor has that nice fade in texture makes it a bit of a challenge. I imagine in autumn trees could turn the ground under them into forest floor (as if they were dropping leaf litter), essentially re-writing the forest floor texture under them, (although that seems like a big performance ask too?) 

I really don't see how they'd get grassland to overtake forest floor again though, although I wish it could. It seems like it'd be really hard to get a nice transition. 

It could be done with actual leaf litter. Snowfall doesn't seem to have a major performance impact... But it's also not based on what's physically happening in an area(or at least not as much), only world conditions. I wonder if it could be actually simplified with dynamic trees, by basing leaf litter on size data stored centrally for each tree, rather than checking for leaf blocks?