Build and upgrade a sawmill

Goal: mill your own logs and buy your neighbors’ logs for lumber.

Build it

1. Cut a parcel so you have cleared ground. Pick a parcel close to the landing and to the timber you plan to cut. Where the mill sits sets your skidding loss and what neighbors pay to haul to you.
2. Click the cleared parcel. It cannot be the landing, a field or a building.
3. Click Sawmill (4,000 bd ft). You can only build one.
4. A panel called Your sawmill appears in the side panel. It shows the level, logs per hour, the yard (for example “0 / 48”) and what the mill has milled so far.

Feed it your own logs

1. Select a parcel with standing timber. The cut button splits in two: Cut, skid to the landing and Cut, skid to your sawmill. Each shows the percentage of logs lost. The cheaper one is highlighted.
2. Click the one you want. Logs sent to the mill are sawn over time at the mill’s logs-per-hour rate and turn into lumber.
3. For logs already at the landing, use Move landing logs to your mill in the sawmill panel. It shows its own loss figure.

Lumber sawn from your own logs counts toward the deed.

Set a bid for neighbors’ logs

1. In the sawmill panel, find Your bid to neighbors and its slider. It runs from 30 to 150 bd ft a log in steps of 5. Use the mouse or the arrow keys.
2. Read the text under the slider. It says how much of each load neighbors lose hauling to you, what your bid nets them, and about how many logs an hour to expect.
3. Read the last line, “Each one earns you about +N bd ft after you pay for it”. That is town log value (92) times your mill’s recovery, minus your bid.
4. Move the slider until neighbors sell to you and N stays positive. Release it to save the bid.

Neighbors only sell when your bid, after their haul share, beats about 55 bd ft a log. Below that the panel says “At this bid, no neighbors will sell to you.”

The level 1 mill recovers 80% of a log’s value (about 74 on a 92 bd ft log), so any bid high enough to attract neighbors loses money. In one test with the mill on A6, a bid of 75 gave N = -1 and a bid of 100 gave N = -26. Upgrade before you chase neighbor logs. At level 3 (110% recovery) a bid of 80 gives about +21.

Upgrade it

1. Click Upgrade in the sawmill panel. Level 2, Headrig and edger, costs 3,000 bd ft and gives 95% recovery at 10 logs an hour. Level 3, Band saw and planer, costs 6,000 bd ft and gives 110% at 16 logs an hour.
2. The yard grows with the saws (8 hours of milling).

What can go wrong

Neighbor logs do not count toward the deed. Only lumber from logs you cut yourself does.

Neighbors are paid in lumber when their logs arrive. If your lumber runs out, they stop selling to you. They also stop when the yard is full, and the panel says so.

The panel will not refresh while the slider has focus, so click away from the slider to see updated figures.

Rules and numbers: your sawmill.