Automated tree cutting - late game heavy machinery
hitzu
With added composite lumber and the amount of materials it requires it becomes very tiresome and tedious to gather wood. It is especially contrasting with miners that have always had not only one but two machines to gather stone and ore. This vehicle could use the same base as an excavator, with maybe a major difference - it should be able to traverse uneven terrain since forests in ECO usually are not flat :)
Starship Spamjunk
This is great and you're totally right about the void that's there for wood collection (while not for rocks/ore).
For me, I'd love to see something a bit different and more expansive for wood collection, though.
The most tedious part, IMO, is the "clean-up." Meaning, after the tree has been felled: the chopping into pieces and hacking away at the debris. The chainsaw does a great job at felling trees, and I honestly think that would end up being faster than a machine like this. If they added the ability to traverse uneven landscapes, as you suggested, then that would help. However, I still bet 2 legs and a chainsaw would be quicker.
My suggestion:
- Add a new "log" block that is un-chopped wood
- Add a "crane" that can pick up logs and place them (much like how the current crane works, or just open that one up to the new "log" block).
- Add a logging truck that can transport logs, or allow the current truck to have alternate beds (like the tractor can have alternate attachments).
- Add a lumber mill that is specifically designed to receive and chopping up the wood (or just let that be done on the sawmill and allow the new "log" block to be placed in stockpiles).
- For debris cleanup, the tractor would be a great help. This may already be possible (I haven't used the tractor in quite some time).
This would make wood collection more of an "industry" than a singular event, and encourage more cooperation—one person felling, one collecting, one running the logs back to the mill. And I believe it would help alleviate some of the tedium with "clean-up." It may also encourage more "tree farms" where machinery/enterprise is set up for a period of time and then relocated to the next "tree farm" while you wait on repopulation.
Just my thoughts here! :)
Z
Zachary Frederick
This should have so many more votes than it currently does. I only disagree on the going up and down rough terrain as that might really cause incentive issues with roads, but if loggers strive to create orchards, preferably with a city land claim and incentives with flat land, this definitely is a great idea.
hitzu
Zachary Frederick tbh I think even tractors should be able to climb one block up so there will be less incentives to flatten half of the world into a boring plane wich will certainly happen more if forest harvesters wouldn't be able to successfully go off-road
D
Dennis Scholz
Merged in a post:
Tree harvester
Kevin Abraham-Coolman
a mobile base with which trees can be felled and sawn directly into small logs. similar to a skid steer
D
Dennis Scholz
Merged in a post:
Logging machines
Xenoun
Similar to how the skid steer revolutionises mining, there should be a tree logging machine that can grab a tree, cut it down, split it into smalled logs and cart em away. Don't know what the plans are for logging based on the 1.0 roadmap but it needs some heavy machinery.