Outbound Crafting Guide: Finding the Sawmill and Processing Everwood
Before you spend hours staring at raw logs wondering why your base will not build itself, you need to bolt a Sawmill to your camper van.
Almost every major upgrade in this game demands refined materials. When you first start exploring the wilderness, you will pick up plenty of raw Everwood lying around the forests. You will quickly discover that raw logs are virtually useless for actual construction. If you want to start snapping walls together or building the essential workstations required for mid-game survival, you need Everwood Planks. The game does not just hand you a saw and wish you luck. You have to hunt down the specific schematic to unlock the processing machinery.
Finding the Sawmill Blueprint
You cannot guess your way through the technology tree. You have to physically locate the data in the open world before your character knows how to assemble the parts.
To secure the Sawmill blueprint, you need to navigate to the forecast tower located just southeast of the Fire Lookout Tower. Bring a Download Voucher with you. Once you interact with the terminal at the top of the forecast tower, you can exchange your voucher for the schematic. If you are struggling to find the right materials to even make it to this tower, you might want to review my breakdown on where to find every basic material.
Assembling the Machinery
Once the data is safely stored in your inventory, head back to your camper van. You cannot just drop this heavy machinery on the floor.
You must first set up camp and ensure you have a basic counter built inside the van. The Sawmill has to snap to a surface. Open your Build Mode menu and tab over to the Workstations section, then look under Material Processing.
If you are constantly running out of space for these raw materials, it is time to look into how to expand your van storage before you start dropping valuable scrap metal in the dirt.
Processing Everwood Planks
With the machine bolted down, the actual processing is just a simple conversion loop.
Interact with the Sawmill and look at the Input tab. Drop your raw Everwood into the slot. The conversion rate is strictly two to one. For every two pieces of raw Everwood you feed the machine, you get exactly one Everwood Plank deposited into the Output tab. Once your wood is loaded, simply select the 'Off' button on the interface to toggle the machine on. The saw will start spinning, and your construction bottlenecks will finally be solved.
