Let us use higher tier mats to get several basic tier ones

I'm playing with a friend and we're around lvl 20. A fair chunk of the time we're playing at the moment goes into gathering wood just for coal or basic crafts. It would be great if we could have some kind of conversion like 15 palm wood into 20 hardwood; 15 hard wood into 20 wood logs, or something around those lines. I know that hard woods trees drop more wood than basic trees, but it feels like it's still not enough to carry on with a dynamic game loop in which you want to keep exploring and use your newest mats.