to Titan Methos for taking the time to test and share your observations on the different kinds of trees and how they affect the durability of tools and structures. The exact observations and quotes can be found in the comments section, but I took the liberty of paraphrasing in part and quoting in part those comments in the section on Trees. It's very useful information - thanks again to Titan Methos for sharing it!

Throughout the year this symbol
appears on the wheel of seasons.
It heralds windy weather -
anything from a gentle breeze
to fierce gales or worse.

Every kind of animal on the island but one is edible, and all of them respawn. Only the fish require tools and more advanced skills.

The game doesn't
let you cook crabs,
so your survivors
will eat them raw.
Don't try this at home!


Cooked fish feed more survivors.
The best time of year to catch
them is during the first of spring
since they respawn shortly after.


- not sure what this is -
some kind of shark?
There doesn't seem
to be any way for the
survivors to catch one.

This is the only
animal that has
to be cooked
before eating -
only serves one.


Presumably "Shells" refers to
shellfish: clams, mussels, and
other surf loving mollusks.
These are also eaten raw.

Hovering the mouse over a plant will show basic
information about the plant - what you can harvest
from it, and how long it will take to harvest.


Selecting a plant with the right mouse button will open another window that gives
more detailed information including how many turns before the next phase in the
plant's life cycle.


Hovering the mouse over the evolution pane displays more detail about the
next change the plant will be going through.

Most of the native plants require a little careful management. It's easy to use them up early on, and once gone, there's no way to bring them back. Yet given too much freedom, they can make quite a nuisance of themselves. All of them except flax will grow on stony ground if you encourage them.

This is helpful since it frees up a lot of soil for other uses.

One method of keeping these kinds of plants under control is simply isolating them -
hemming them in with trees or plants, or confining them to little islands where they can't run rampant.


Bamboo matures
very quickly. Giant
bamboo produces
new shoots every
spring.

During springtime,
Bamboo shoots can
be safely removed
and replanted.


Blackberries can be a mixed blessing. The berries they provide every autumn
are helpful - especially when survivors are just starting out, but these prickly
plants can quickly overrun the place. Taking the time to isolate them early on
can save your survivors a lot of time later.


These are fairly slow spreaders, so it's not
too difficult to pick them right out of existence
within the first year. But like blackberries,
they need to be kept in check.


Cattails can be harvested all
throughout summer and autumn.
They spread very slowly, so they
are fairly easy to keep track of.


Flax reseeds itself
in the same spot
until harvested, but
once picked, its seeds
must be resewn by hand.

All three kinds of tree have the same life cycle. They grow from seeds that either fell to the ground in the autumn, or were planted by the survivors. They provide the most resources once they are fully mature, but take longer to harvest. Stumps can be removed with a pickaxe or left to rot away over time.


This is the only tree that produces edible seeds -
though they have to be roasted on an open fire.



The most difficult tree to harvest and work.



The fastest growing of the three,
and the easiest to work with.

Seeds for the following plants can occasionally be found in small chests, collected when the plant itself is harvested, or in some cases - removed from the fruit in the Craft menu.

Spelt reseeds itself every
spring in the same spot
unless it is harvested.
Then it needs to be resewn.

As long as the plants
are not uprooted, tomatoes
will reseed themselves
every year in the same
location.

These also reseed
themselves in the
same spot each
year unless they
are uprooted.

There isn't any coal on the island,
but Survivors can learn how to
make charcoal. It's located under
the Farming tab in the building menu.

Fiber can only be
found naturally by
harvesting flowering
Flax plants.

Straw can be
harvested
from both
Cattails and Spelt.

Soil can be stripped away down to the bedrock or the water level.
Some crafts and building construction require certain kinds of soils.
It is also possible to enlarge the island by filling the shallows with soil.

Sometimes you don't know what is beneath the top layer of soil until it's removed,
and sometimes you can tell at a glance.

Here, for example, several layers of rich soil are plain to see.


While here, beneath the top layer of rich soil, you can just see a layer of clay.


To get to the lower layers, select the agriculture tab then the remove soil action.

These can be confusing at first because there's no way to know what they are until either a survivor learns the necessary skill, a certain workshop is constructed, or both.

In the example below, none of the survivors have
enough experience to build any of the workshops.


It may seem like there's no information available.


But selecting a workshop with the left mouse button displays the requirements.


In this case, some other workshop needs to be built first.
This particular group of survivors has very little experience, so only the silhouette
of the required workshop is shown. But even that can be useful later on once a
few workshops have been built. The workshops look different enough that even
a mere silhouette can help narrow down which one is needed.

There's a required skill too. Selecting it with the left mouse button shows that
someone will need to become an expert at stonecutting before they can build
this unknown workshop.

This is the same system used for the rest of the buildings as well as the crafts.

A mine opens up more possibilities than merely
excavating a bottomless pit.


It's tempting to keep right on mining once you've got one built, but all that leaves you with is a big hole in the middle of valuable real estate that you can't do anything with - and it's unnecessary. Pickaxes will usually get you the amount of rare minerals necessary for forging.


The benefit to keeping a mine shallow is that along
with stone and metals, you also end up with a nice,
level building site. Additionally, it is the only way to
retrieve valuable sand from beneath the water


Because of the way mines work, you can even use them to extend the island.
As seen here in these before and after shots.


In order to mine sand from the water, a common soil
is used to construct a platform for the mine.


The survivors mine 'til they reach the bedrock.


The only real limit to how much land you can reclaim is the amount of soil available for supporting the mine. Clay is the most abundant, but it has to be removed from beneath other soil layers which can take a while.


It may be worth noting that when mining in water tiles, you're left with an area that's below the water level. The soil around the perimeter of the mine is pretty much there to stay. And occasionally you get a fish swimming around your workshops.