Pickaxe

The pickaxe is the simplest mining tool. It needs neither a battery cell nor power and therefore always works – even when the drill's battery has run out.

Its game values mean: every block of terrain has a density from 0 to 1. One stroke takes 0.5 of it from a block and lasts 0.5 s, times the mining factor of the vein – iron 1, gold 5. An ore block releases its ore as soon as it drops below half density. A full iron block thus takes two strokes, i.e. 1 s, gold 5 s. The Mining Drill takes less per stroke at 0.2, but only needs 0.11 s and gets through an iron block in about 0.33 s. For larger amounts the drill pays off; for a few pieces on the way the pickaxe will do.

It is printed in the tool manufactory from iron 2 and copper 1, in 1 s. In the recycler it returns iron 1 and copper 0.5. It fits into the tool slots of the Mining Belt.

Good advice for longer trips: take the pickaxe along as a backup. It takes up only one tool slot and saves you when the battery cell runs empty far from home. How to find ore and how much you can carry is in Mining: finding and extracting ore.