renewable-regrowth mechanic sourced
Renewable regrowth
Harvested stocks such as forests, fish, game, and soil regenerate over time at density-dependent rates, allowing sustainable yield or overexploitation.
definition
A harvestable stock (trees on tiles, fish in a zone, animals in a region, soil fertility) regenerates each tick at a rate that depends on its current level: often logistic growth, sometimes a fixed respawn timer or seed spread to neighboring cells. Harvesting removes stock at the rate set by extraction; if harvest exceeds regrowth the stock falls and, below a threshold, can collapse or stop regenerating. Banished foresters replant cut trees around their lodge; Eco tracks plant and animal populations that players can overharvest; Minecraft saplings regrow trees only where players plant them. Inputs: harvest rate, current stock, environmental modifiers. Outputs: stock level and yield available per tick.
player experience
Stewardship under temptation. Players can take more now and pay later, so they learn to harvest at a pace the land can sustain, replant deliberately, or move on. Watching a forest or fishery recover after a pause makes the system's memory visible.
design levers
- regrowth curve shape (logistic, linear, or timer) and its maximum rate
- collapse threshold below which a stock stops recovering
- whether regrowth is automatic or needs planting or breeding
- spatial spread from neighboring cells versus regrowth in place
- visibility of stock levels and sustainable yield
failure modes
- Fast regrowth makes stocks effectively infinite and removes the tradeoff.
- Collapse thresholds that are hidden make extinction feel like a sudden bug.
- Replanting that is free and instant reduces stewardship to placing one building.
dynamics
- Overharvesting produces boom-bust cycles in yield, the classic tragedy of the commons in shared or multiplayer worlds such as Eco.
- The maximum sustainable yield of a logistic stock is at half capacity, so optimal play keeps stocks at partial depletion.
- Coupled with predator-prey or habitat systems, harvest pressure ripples through an ecosystem.
- Rotating among harvest sites becomes a spatial schedule.
open questions
- Can learned ecological models give regrowth realistic spatial patterns while keeping sustainable yield readable?
- Does shared regrowth in multiplayer reliably produce cooperative norms, or only collapse?