Coppice - Stumps Resprout or Rot Away

Stumps don't have to be forever. In vanilla Eco a felled tree leaves a stump that stays until someone chops it out, and nothing ever grows back from it. Coppice makes stumps behave more like they do in a real forest.

Broadleaf trees resprout

Many real trees send up new shoots from the stump when they're cut down. Foresters have relied on this for thousands of years; it's called coppicing. In Coppice, a felled Oak, Coast Redwood, Birch, Ceiba or Joshua tree can do the same:

• About a day after felling, the stump sends up a new sapling of the same species.
• The stump's roots are already established, so the sprout starts ahead of a planted seed (15% grown).
• The logs have to be cleared off the stump first, because a sprout needs light.
• Not every stump makes it. Each one gets a species-based chance (Oak and Redwood 90%, Birch and Ceiba 70%, Joshua 60%). One that doesn't resprout rots away instead.

Clear-fell a stand of oaks, haul the logs away, and a young oak wood comes back on its own.

Everything else rots

Conifers (Fir, Spruce, Cedar), Palms and Saguaro don't resprout in real life, and they don't here either. Their stumps rot instead:

• A stump loses strength steadily over 4 days, so it takes fewer axe hits the longer it has stood.
• Leave it long enough and it rots away completely. Rotting gives no wood, so chopping it out early still pays.
• The land clears itself over time, ready for new growth or building.

Old-growth (relic) trees are left alone.

Built to last

Coppice doesn't replace any game file. A background check looks over the world's stumps every few minutes, so:

• it survives game updates,
• it can't clash with mods that change trees,
• existing stumps join in as soon as it's installed. No new world needed.

Each stump's fate is decided once and saved, so restarting the server doesn't re-roll it. Time only counts while the server is running. Removing the mod leaves every stump as it is.

Configuration

Mods/UserCode/Coppice/CoppiceConfig.cfg is created on first boot:

• Coppicers: which species resprout and their chance, e.g. Oak:0.9, Birch:0.7. Add or remove species freely.
• ResproutHours: how long a stump waits before it sprouts (default 24).
• SproutGrowth: how grown the new sprout starts (default 0.15).
• RotDays: how long a non-resprouting stump takes to rot away (default 4). 0 turns rotting off.

Restart the server after editing.

Admin commands

• /coppice status: how many stumps are waiting to resprout and how many are rotting.
• /coppice sweep: run the stump check now.
• /coppice age <hours>: age every stump by that many hours. Handy for trying it out.

Installation

Extract the zip into your server's Mods/ folder, so the files end up in Mods/UserCode/Coppice/. Server-side only: players don't need to download anything. No other mods required.

Made by Storm Veil Gaming. Bugs and suggestions welcome in the comments. Support @ buymeacoffee.com/StormVeilGaming