Mining is tedious

You pickup the ore with your cursor, mouse over the pickaxe, and right click, I think it says this on the copper ore's description.

 

I hear you about taking time to get good, but is sitting there holding a button over rock really helpful for that? You aren't practicing or gaining skill, there is no application of effort, it is just a time sink .

 

This is how I read his post:

Though I like his offtopic opinion as well.

 

I have yet to see how it is hard to gain ores, I have played for less than 10 hours since the update, and already have a diamond pickaxe and almost a full set of the best armor I can have for my current planets.

 

to improve mining, we need more options beside pick/drill.

EXPLOSIVES! Make them a lot more common, and able to be fabricated cheaply. Also make them have generally bigger radiuses.

Add shaped charges, to allow digging long rectangular shafts easily. And dynamite/C4/Nuclear explosives, for powderising whole screenfuls of blocks at once.

 

Thats the thing. Its NOT hard work. you can throw all sorts of arbitrary time sinks into a game to make it feel like it is harder to get things done. If it was actually hard work to accomplish, it would be better. If I had to fight through hordes of enemies, or set up efficient mining techniques, or well, apply skill in general, then it would mean something. Otherwise, you are just wasting people's time so it will feel harder, without actually being harder.

 

Same.

 

Maybe instead of adjusting the speed, you could change the mechanics of mining to make it fun instead.

There's a free small game called dig n rig where mining was the principle thing you did and it was insanely fun to do.

 

Even with a diamond drill, mining through deep rock takes forever. They could reduce the durability of those types of blocks.

Mining through dirt/sand is pretty fast even with the low end picks so I don't see the problem there...

 

Id love the option to mine a 4*2 horizontal shaft somehow.

 

Mining works great, except for horizontal mining. The mining radius should go up one block vertically so you can keep walking instead of having to break another 1 square to be able to move horizontal. With easy to break blocks it's not an issue, but when mining through magmablock or something like that, it can be a real pain to reach that nice diamond vein. Currently got the Diamond Drill and the speed on stone pickaxe through diamond pickaxe is just fine.

 

I'm playing a game called Starbound and most of my time is spent digging through dirt with a pickaxe. Epic design fail.

 

I agree. I actually wrapped electrical tape and a penny around my mouse and took a nap while I mined through magma rock...

 

I feel the mining speeds are pretty much perfect. And yes - mining IS chewing through rock. Get deep enough and there is less digging through and more wandering caverns.

 

MY only gripe with the current mining balance is that COBBLESTONE TAKES AGES TO MINE, even with the Diamond pickaxe! You'd think diamond would churn through stone like it's nothing but it's SLUGGISH AS FU---

Well, I think the point was made. Also: Some way to mine self-placed blocks instantly-near instantly. It shouldn't take 10 seconds to correct a mistake that took you 0.1 to make.

 

It took me maybe 30 minutes from character creation to get a gold pick axe, I dont understand all these complaints about how long it takes to mine. I am now on sector X with a diamond DRILL, This took me 2 days. If anything they need to make the progression from tiers take LONGER. Ore is to easy to find.

 

The amount of time you (must) spend mining really depends on where you are in the game.
When you just escaped some horrible fate and got stranded on some planet, of course you have to acquire a bunch of resources, and go figure the most useful things are heavy, and heavy elements are found underground.

One thing I'd really like to see is planets that have spaceports and actual civilizations, where you could just buy a few hundred metal bars and go make a robot, but we're still pretty early on content wise and consequently most of the gameplay is early stuff, wherein a significant portion of your time must be spent surviving and obtaining resources because you start with practically nothing.

If you really hate the early game you should come back in a month or two and see all the new stuff.

 

Thanks buddy! That worked.

After testing a bit i must say i dont think its tedious to mine. I mean you start with that super slow "miner" and get stone. Now you have a stone pickaxe and can quickly get some copper. Now you have a copper pickaxe and can get... You get the idea.

Its not long before you have gold, plat and diamond, and when you do the mining is excellent.

 

keep in mind, things have been altered since I started this. I think the mining speed was increased, and the ore densities are much, much higher right now than they would normally be.

 

Early game it feels a bit slow, but every game like this does? Minecraft, Terraria being the two big ones people enjoy comparing Starbound to. I just upgraded from a Gold Pickaxe to a Diamond Drill, I'm astounded at how quickly I mine through everything now, and I'd imagine later on we're going to get even better mining tools. (Maybe a mining laser, which is an upgraded Matter Manipulator, which will mine 3 x 3 ) Seriously mining in this game is blistering fast compared to other games like it with mining, the exception being maybe Infiminer/Brominer but man, if you're comparing Starbound to that, it's like Dos to Windows 7 man.

I think it's just right as it is, if you really have that big of an issue with mining speed, or mining being tedious, I can really only suggest a mod, or if they add it in later, adjusting your difficulty, because right now mining is super easy, I find caves a plenty, and have found tons of ore. The trick is just knowing where to go when you're mining, and torching in the right places to see other caves.