Increase the amount of support beams gained per log

[qualicabyss]

Currently you get 3 support beams per log, with a support beam having a volume of 1/16th of a log, resulting in more than 80% waste per log.
This causes support beams to be pretty expensive for a primarily decorative block.
The Image below shows a small 2 block tall window.

Would you like to guess how many support beams it cost to create?
16, 8 beams per side.
This is a total cost of 5 1/3 logs per window, more than some trees have in total.

While I understand that the process of creating such a thing would cause waste (the wood is debarked first after all) the sheer amount of loss is a bit ridiculous.
I think 8 per log would make them far less expensive to work with (and is also an even number) while still representing the loss in the process, as even with that price the aforementioned window would cost 2 logs.

[Rainbow Fresh]

I too would love it to get more beams even if solely for the reason that I am currently in need of several stacks for a build which is eating my trees like they're sticks with leaves.

However, I am also not sure if there is too much gained in the long run by just making beams cheaper. Going off of your "it's just decoration" statement, you'll find most decoration in the game to be expensive. Want fancy ashlar bricks? Better start painfully mining solid rocks in the most inefficient way possible. Want fancy paintings? Better start bothering every trader in a 5000 block radius. Want fancy clutter? Well... You know how to get that. So having beams, a completely optional decorative build component, be inefficiently expensive kinda falls in-line with that. Furthermore, wood itself is a cheap enough resource. You may need some investment to get started, but if you plant... Is that Pine wood? Or Kapok? Either way, both trees are usually big enough. If you plant atleast 10 saplings of each near your base you'll have plenty of wood to go around. More than you would need for most any other wooden endeavor so you'd then just be sitting on stacks of logs with nothing to do (except turn into firewood I guess).

And on an additional note, in a perfect world beams aren't just decoration. If you were to play with cave-ins enabled, and the cave-in mechanic was any more stable and fleshed out, you'd need beams to support your mining adventures lest you get crushed into a fine mist. Meaning gathering wood to turn into beams to be able to mine ores is, in some combination of difficulty settings out there, and intended step of progression.