In Stranded Deep, a plane crash has left you marooned in an isolated part of the Pacific Ocean, left to live off your wits and the land. This PC survival game has finally made its way to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and with that new audience, there are new questions. We’re here to answer at least one of them: do big palm trees grow back? 

Stranded Deep: Do Palm Trees Grow Back?

The simple answer is no. If you take down a full-grown palm tree, it’s gone for good, much like any rocks you collect from your island.

This means that you need to be careful about what you do with the materials you get from it. Palm trees are your only source for wood, palm fronds, and coconuts, so you’ll need to take a tree down eventually to build a shelter. If you run out of available trees, though, you aren’t getting any more wood or coconuts until you manage to find your way to a new island.

What can be a little confusing is that while full-grown palm trees don’t respawn, young palm trees do. These and yokka plants are your primary source of fibrous leaves, which you can go through by the dozen while crafting, and they generally respawn two days after being harvested.

It’s useful to note here that you can use fibrous leaves instead of palm fronds in your water still. A lot of players seem to run out of palm fronds for the still early on, and promptly panic, but you can substitute readily available, renewable fibrous leaves and still maintain a steady supply of water.

Most importantly, try to take things slowly, especially if you’re a new player. Stranded Deep puts a heavy emphasis on scarcity of certain resources, and you can easily get into a no-win situation by trying to rush through things. Palm trees are a good example, as cutting one down generates a big burst of useful resources, but it’s a one-time option. Do as much as you can with the most common materials you’ve got, and only harvest your first island’s trees when you’re out of other options for advancement.

Good luck with your completely inadvertent, do-it-yourself island vacation. If you’re interested in trying to survive in a few other untenable situations, check out some of our other games coverage here at Prima, such as:

• How does Frostpunk work when you try to play it with a controller?
• If you’re looking for a more cheerful shipwreck scenario, have you tried Stranded Sails?
• Check out the early previews of Obsidian’s next game, Grounded, a survival sim about getting shrunken down to ant-size

Stranded Deep has been in Early Access on PC for years, but made its way to consoles in late April. Have you checked it out yet, or are you still saving your survival jones for another, less shark-infested experience? Let us know via our official Twitter, @PrimaGames.