I had to set a colour for Ancient Wood, but I haven’t been able to find any yet. Is it biome-specific in a way I didn’t realize (and possibly locked myself out of) or have I just been unlucky so far? Where does it normally crop up?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips for locating this.
Ancient is pretty biome specific, so it is “possible” that you don’t have any… but you may and just have not found it yet.
I’ve been shaking down the forums and having no luck figuring out exactly which biomes might contain it, though I’m remembering finding it mostly in desert-ish / scrubland regions on other planets, often just a block or two in a low shrubby tree. I might have screwed myself out of it, then, as I don’t have anything even remotely desert-like. Damn. Thanks for the info, though.
Some desert biomes have it… but there are non desert ones as well… the biome with the tall 1x?? trees are ancient, and there are some higher tier biomes with it as well.
The two I know for sure have ancient wood are Bamboo and Grid Platform, if that helps you at all.
Some info on some biome/resource combos is available here: Colors and Their Biomes - #6 by wakeNbake
Has there ever been an exo without ancient? It’s hard to find but iirc someone always finds it
some jungle / swamp biomes have it in smaller quantities. I got a forest planet with many biomes and it appears often in large variety, but very few at a time ( could be a 1 block under a bush)
If jungle/swamp biomes sometimes have it, I might be in luck. I went for a lot of jungle with a side of redwood trees and swamp, and ended up with something a little closer to Dagobah than the Amazon, unfortunately. Maybe I"ll find Master Yoda under some of these boglands in an Ancient Wood hut. 
I’ve found that the “Basket Trees” biome is best overall if you’re looking to gather all three types of wood (it has all three types of foliage, and Gnarled/Barbed grasses, as well!). Most of the trees are reasonably large, and the biome spawns Ancient Wood trees on small mounds within the forest. 
Some of the desert biomes (Palm Desert, Grassy Dunes, Beaches, etc.) contain several palm trees made of modest amounts of Ancient Wood. And, of course, as already mentioned, there’s always “Bamboo”, which contains quite a bit of it.
Another biome with a decent amount of Ancient Wood is “Bushy Hills”. Each of the bushes contains a few blocks, but unfortunately there’s not really an efficient way to harvest them. Definitely not my favorite biome for collecting this type of wood, although I think the areas where the bushes spawn look lovely, and they’re one of the easier biomes from that tier for smooth traveling. That biome also seems to trigger snowfalls, in case that’s something that you’re averse to.
Ancient Wood seems to be pretty sparse in most of the other biomes, unfortunately, if it even exists there at all. Sometimes you can find a few pieces of it in tucked away in some of the more elaborately decorated trees (some of them even have Growth and Thorns in them) or hidden under a tiny bush. Depending on the biomes that you like, it can be really easy to accidentally roll a planet with little to no Ancient Wood.
Kol Huroo (a public planet) has no known ancient wood. And believe me, i spent so long searching for it before realizing there wasn’t any. So it’s possible that your sovereign might have none.
From the list of potential biomes, it’s sounding like I just chose poorly. I’ll keep looking a little longer for some of the small bush spawns, and if there’s nothing, there’s lots of other planets out there to visit. Thanks so much for the info, all, it’s much appreciated!
Man. Basket tree biome gives the big ancient wood tree I love so much? Ah well. I am too far along on this build to reroll for it.
