Why so rare?

[Aaron Also]

First, I'm sure this has been asked before, and I know there are mods for this, BUT.... 

Why is pine resin so rare in this game? I live in a area with plenty of pine trees and I can assure you that almost every tree has some resin clumps on it. Some species of Pine in the American south west have such heavy resin production that it is a forest fire hazard and people are not only allowed but encouraged to remove it. This default 1% chance with no regrow and no growth on player planted trees seems like an unrealistic and arbitrary restriction on a necessary survival resource. Common Pines are typically 10-20% resin by dry weight. The practice of scarring trees to produce resin has long been a practice throughout the world, I know there is a mod for this, but why isn't it part of the base game? 

Does this come from a misconception about Pine trees? Or is it just intended to drive exploration and busy work in game? 

on a side note, the same could be said for flax. I commonly have to travel 2000+ blocks multiple times to find even a single flax plant in my games. Again, in my real world area wild wheatgrass is fairly common. While not directly analogous to flax it is a similar concept. Is this just arbitrary to drive exploration, or am I just incredibly unlucky? 

[Vexxvididu]

so, pine resin DOES regrow on the same trees as long as you don't cut the tree down. I agree it's still absurdly rare though.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

3 hours ago, Aaron Also said:

Why is pine resin so rare in this game?

I'm guessing that it might be because it's a bit of a niche resource, and the rarity is meant to push the player to explore and pay attention to their surroundings rather than just visit the nearest pine tree and acquire all the resin they need. But I also think it's also due in part to RNG, since I've had maps that had lots of resin trees within the same chunk.

Do keep in mind that resin can generate on any of the four faces of a log, and can also generate very high in the tree. It's very easy to miss if you aren't looking at the tree from the right angle or the resin is otherwise too high to be seen.

3 hours ago, Aaron Also said:

on a side note, the same could be said for flax. I commonly have to travel 2000+ blocks multiple times to find even a single flax plant in my games. Again, in my real world area wild wheatgrass is fairly common. While not directly analogous to flax it is a similar concept. Is this just arbitrary to drive exploration, or am I just incredibly unlucky? 

This could be bad RNG, or it could be a factor of your world's climate. Flax won't generate if it's too cold, so if you chose cooler spawn parameters or otherwise settled in a colder area, then flax will be harder to find. Flax and other grain crops also look similar to tall grass, especially in their younger growth stages, which can also make them difficult to spot. It's also worth noting that grain crops were changed in 1.22 and now have half the yield in return for spawning in larger, more frequent patches. If your world was created prior to 1.22, that could also be why flax is hard to find--you'd need to visit fresh chunks to get wild grains to follow the new spawn rules.

[hstone32]

It often seems like resources that seemed super rare in the early game suddenly become super common later. I believe that is because as you progress and gain better gear, you become more capable of traveling longer distances, and more often. Early game, you can't venture too far from your base due to inventory limitations, and food supply. At that stage, some resources appear super rare, because you sample size is so small. As you progress, you become more and more capable of taking longer treks away from base, your sample size increases, and the resources appear to you to be more common.

[Byrnorthil]

One other note which might not be helpful to you right now but will definitely be later for, say, your inevitable bauxite hunt: If you take some time to venture into caves, some ruins contain "broken static translocators", which you can repair with some metal parts and 3 (2 for clockmaker) temporal gears. These are a fantastic way to yeet yourself far away from your spawn to find resources which aren't common there (don't worry, they're 2-way ;D). I'd highly recommend digging a ladder shaft straight up from one once you find it, and marking it on your map with a useful name to help you remember where it goes.

[Maelstrom]

I've played worlds from 1.14 on and sometimes the forests don't have a lot of pine trees, making resin seem rare.  other times there's a pine forest that seems to have resin on every other tree.  Similarly, bees seem to suffer a similar situation.  In my first world in 1.14 I had 3 bee hives within 150 blocks of my permanent home, two of which were high up in pine trees; and I had not settled in or near a forest.  In other worlds after that one, I didn't have a single bee within 1,000 block radius of me; despite settling near a forest.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to RNG.  Mostly the computer, but some of our own RNG in how we choose our pathing through forests.  I usually scrub resin bearing trees of all of their leaves and then deforest the surrounding area so that it is easier to find those precious sources of resin. 

[Zane Mordien]

I take ladders when looking for resin and climb up every pine tree to the top and if there is resin I keep the tree and if not it becomes charcoal.