Example: one spruce group

The spruce calculator does not ask how many crafters you already own. It builds the smallest set that clears a net you type. The set grows by a whole group: 3 crafters turning logs into planks, and 4 crafters turning those planks into slabs. A group is never split.

One log becomes 4 planks and then 8 slabs. Each slab sells for 12$, so one log is worth 96$ if every slab is sold. In this example the log price is 65$, a normal market price, which is what you pay, not the sale.

One group crafts 54,000 logs an hour. That is 432,000 slabs. The sale is 54,000 × 96 = 5,184,000$. Buying every log at 65$ costs 54,000 × 65 = 3,510,000$. Net is 5,184,000$ − 3,510,000$ = 1,674,000$ an hour.

There is no tree farm in this example, so own logs stay at 0. If you produced 10,000 logs an hour yourself, those 10,000 would drop out of the cost and the crafters would still have to process all 54,000. The sale would not change. Only the bill for the logs you still buy would.

Ask the calculator for 3,000,000$ net an hour, with the log price at 65$ and own logs at 0. One group only nets 1,674,000$, so it adds a second group. Two groups net 3,348,000$. The extra 348,000$ is the leftover of that second group, not a bonus from the shop.

If a log costs 96$ or more, buying it cannot profit. The page then uses only logs you already produce. Type a price under 96$ when you want this example to match.