Arbor Tree

Arbor Tree is a domesticated plant associated with the Forest Biome and the Arboria asteroid, where it serves as the primary renewable source of lumber and the backbone of ethanol production. In the wild, it grows slowly and is mainly useful as a food source for Pips and as a source of acorns for propagation. Once domesticated, it becomes one of the most productive industrial plants in the game, but it requires a steady supply of Dirt and Polluted Water.

Arbor Tree can be planted in a Planter Box, Farm Tile, or Hydroponic Farm. It requires 10 kg/cycle of Dirt and 70 kg/cycle of Polluted Water, and it grows only between 15 °C and 40 °C at an ambient pressure of 150 g to 10 kg. A wild tree takes 18 cycles to grow its trunk and another 18 cycles to grow branches. A domestic tree reduces this to 4.5 cycles for the trunk and another 4.5 cycles for branches. Each tree can grow up to 5 branches, and each branch yields 300 kg of Lumber when harvested or self-harvested after 20 cycles.

The tree’s branch geometry is important for efficient production. It needs a 3x3 space for all five branches to grow, centered two tiles above the planting tile, and nearby walls or buildings can block branch placement. Branches can appear in seven possible locations, and each branch can be selected to track its own growth. If a branch is uprooted, it will regrow in another available slot. Because the tree consumes the same amount of fertilizer regardless of how many branches it has, the best return comes from allowing all five branches to grow.

Arbor Tree has strong industrial and ranching uses:

• A wild tree can produce up to 83.33 kg/cycle of Lumber when harvested, or 39.47 kg/cycle if left unharvested.
• A domestic tree can produce up to 333.33 kg/cycle of Lumber.
• One domestic tree can support about 0.56 Ethanol Distillers, or about 1.8 trees per distillery.
• Pips consume the growing branches and excrete Dirt, making Arbor Trees central to Pip ranches.
• One fully supported tree can feed about 12.3 adult Pips if it is tame and happy.

Arbor Trees are also useful for decor. The plant has 15 decor with a 2-tile radius, and that decor applies to the trunk and each existing branch, which can make a fully grown tree valuable in park-like rooms and nature reserves. However, room calculations do not count each branch as a separate plant.

On Arboria, Arbor Tree is especially important because the asteroid lacks many conventional farming resources. Polluted Water is scarce, so Arbor Trees are often treated as an advanced production chain rather than an early irrigation crop. Their growth and ranching value also make them one of the defining plants of the map.

A few practical notes:

• Using manual uprooting can help fit trees more tightly in greenhouse layouts, but only if branch space is managed carefully.
• Branches can be auto-harvested by Waterfalls.
• Submerging branches in liquids can increase Arbor Acorn production, but Pips must be able to reach the trunk to rummage for acorns.
• Since branches are fixed at 20 °C when spawned, while harvested Lumber takes the branch’s current temperature, the tree can interact strongly with heat management.
• Fertilizer boosts only the initial trunk growth in the current version, not later branch growth.

Overall, Arbor Tree is a high-value industrial crop: slow and resource-hungry in the wild, but extraordinarily efficient once domesticated and integrated into a lumber, ethanol, and Pip-ranching system.