Ashen Thicket

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The Ashen Thicket

Overview

Once a forest of giant ashen trees, this land has been ravaged by relentless industrial exploitation and heavy mining, all driven by the lure of Thunderblight Shards - magically charged amber crystals used to craft cornerstones.

Ashen Thicket is exclusive to the Keepers of the Stone DLC.

Effects

Deeply Hidden Riches	Gain a  Thunderblight Shard with every 40 vein charges mined copper ore, coal, and salt. You can receive up to 3 shards, each requiring more resources to be mined.
Cornerstone Forge	There's an ancient forge in this region that allows its users to create Cornerstones. However you will receive no Epic cornerstones in years 3, 5, and 7.
Royal Mining Operation	The crown is investing heavily in the region's industrial development. For every 80 units of  Coal,  Copper Ore, and  Salt used in crafting, an automated rainpunk cart will be assigned to one of your warehouses.

Resources

The Ashen Thicket has an average amount of Fertile Soil and contains the following Resources:

Trees

All trees can be harvested by Woodcutters' Camps to give  Wood. They may also grant additional Resources depending on the biome. These trees have 2 charges each.

Trees	Charges	Bonus Resources	Description
Ashen Tree	2	Resin 15% +  Berries 10% +  Sea Marrow 10%	A diminished remnant of the legendary giant spruce that once inhabited this region.

Natural Resources

Primary Resources	Charges → Resource Deposits		Bonus Resources	Gathering Building	Speed per Unit	Specialization Bonus
Eggs	70 → Snake Nest		40% + 20%	Trappers' Camp ★★	00:17	Meat production Lizards
	15 → Snake Nest		20%	Small Trappers' Camp ★	00:25
Roots  Vegetables	70 → Roots Node 70 → Moss Broccoli Patch		30% + 30% 40% + 20%	Foragers' Camp ★★	00:17	Farming Humans
	15 → Roots Deposit 15 → Moss Broccoli Patch		20% 30%	Small Foragers' Camp ★	00:25
Mushrooms	70 → Bleeding Tooth Mushroom		40%	Herbalists' Camp ★★	00:17	Alchemy Harpies
	15 → Bleeding Tooth Mushroom		20%	Small Herbalists' Camp ★	00:25
Clay	60 → Clay Deposit		75% + 30%	Stonecutters' Camp ★★	00:08	Masonry Frogs
	20 → Clay Deposit		50% + 20%
Plant Fiber  Leather	60 → Flax Field 60 → Water Strider Molt		50% + 30% 100% + 40% + 20%	Harvesters' Camp ★★	00:08	none
	20 → Flax Field 20 → Water Strider Molt		30% + 20% 20% + 10%
Fish  Algae	80 → Thunderfish Pond		100% + 2 50%	Fishing Hut ★★	00:15	none
	80 → Algae Pond		100% + 2 50% + 2 20%		00:08
	60 → Thunderfish Pond		40%	Small Fishing Hut ★	00:20
	60 → Algae Pond		40%		00:12
Copper Ore  Coal  Salt	75 → Copper Vein 120 → Coal Vein 75 → Salt Vein		30% 30% 30%	Mine ★★	00:40	Engineering Beavers

Node weighting

• Algae Ponds have double the normal weighting in this biome. ^[1]
• Clay Deposits have double the normal weighting. ^[1]

Deeply Hidden Riches

After depleting 40 charges worth of mining veins, you will receive a  Thunderblight Shard that can be used in the Cornerstone Forge to create custom cornerstones. After depleting an additional 80, then additional 120 charges, you will receive an additional  Thunderblight Shard each time. You can obtain a maximum of 3 shards by depleting a cumulative total of 240 charges.

Cornerstone Forge

Each  Thunderblight Shard you acquire can be spent in the Cornerstone Forge to create a custom cornerstone based on random options available. Each custom cornerstone will have a condition that must be fulfilled in order to obtain a benefit that scales numerically with how many times the condition has been fulfilled. You may also choose to add a penalty to the cornerstone, which will either loosen the condition or boost the benefit in exchange for some type of drawback. You can customize the name and icon of custom cornerstones using the interface on the right side of the window.

Royal Mining Operation

For every 80  Coal,  Copper Ore, and/or  Salt used as inputs in production recipes, an automated rainpunk cart will be assigned to a warehouse and begin hauling goods to and from buildings, increasing the efficiency of your settlement.

Strategy

• The only accessible way to open Abandoned Caches on Ashen Thicket is to use  Sea Marrow from its Ashen Trees. Consider turning off Sea Marrow in the Ancient Hearth to stockpile it.
• The easiest and most accessible way to proc Royal Mining Operation is to produce  Pack of Building Materials using  Copper Ore.
• Setting up Mines for Deeply Hidden Riches is essential to make use of the Cornerstone Forge. Consider opening a few Small Glades or another Dangerous Glade, if you fail to find any veins in the first Dangerous Glade you discover.
  • Keep in mind that making Thunderblight Shards take a lot of labor. At full Citadel, getting the first Shard is going to take over 18 minutes of labor time, even with optimal Warehouse and Hearth placement. With a Pit Pony upgrade, you can expect it to take 14 labor minutes.^[2] Second and third Shards take 2x and 3x that labor time respectively. Make sure that your immediate needs are solved before committing the labor.
• There are no nodes for  Jerky ingredients in Ashen Thicket. Should you want to produce Jerky sustainably, you will have to resort to using Ranch or delivery lines.
• Ashen Trees yield a considerable amount of  Resin, which can be sold to a Trader or used for  Coats,  Tea and  Crystalized Dew production.
• Due to how mining-focused Ashen Thicket is, make sure to pick up Mine upgrades at Brass Forge level 3 in the Citadel. In Queen's Hand, Ashen Thicket is often the hardest biome to play because of missing Mine upgrades.
• Automated rainpunk carts can be useful, but their automated behavior can also cause problems if you are not careful to disable unused recipes. Normally, if you leave a recipe checked in a building but leave the building unstaffed, no goods will be transferred from the warehouse to the building. However, automated rainpunk carts, just like any warehouse hauler, will transfer input goods to any active building with an enabled recipe when possible.
  • For example, if you accidentally leave your  Pack of Crops recipe enabled in your Makeshift Post, you could find that all your  Grain has been moved into the Makeshift Post by the rainpunk carts, leaving none left to produce  Flour until you remove the Grain manually. You can avoid this issue by turning off any unused recipes when rainpunk carts or haulers are assigned.

Trivia

• Ashen Thicket is the second biome to be added in a DLC. It was added to the Keepers of the Stone DLC 2 months after its release.
• Ashen Thicket is the only biome where you can find all 3 types of veins.
• Before Ashen Thicket was released on the main branch in update 1.5, it went through 5 iterations on the experimental branch. There, Cornerstone Forge had the Rainpunk Foundry model.
• Ashen Thicket along with Coastal Grove are the only biomes that can generate veins in the starting Glade, with a 10% chance. ^[1]

References

1. Datamining done by Discord user @forwindz (Analysis tab) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RBf2XtSbmfLjvDjBohlQPfVUXukKugF1/edit?gid=1858317700#gid=1858317700
2. Testing done by Discord user @aphannnt https://discord.com/channels/418545968666116096/1325406372761960539