A laser measuring tool. Point it at any block. Point it at any other block. Your character then states the distance, in tiles, of a straight line between those two points, inclusive. Handy if you're building large structures and you don't want to laboriously measure a few blocks at a time using props or the matter manipulator's aAoE field. Optionally, the laser measurer could highlight the tiles that the line passes through, and maybe the measuring lines persist a bit after the measuring is complete, perhaps able to be removed with another click anywhere on the line. To prevent misuse as a light source, the lines should function like the optical wires placed with the Wire Tool - visible, but not casting any light. Thoughts?
It would be very useful if handheld. I would like to see a large variety of utility equipment like this. Having the lasers persist for, say, 5 seconds (and be only visible to the user to prevent spamming, and have only one laser visible at a time, without casting light) would work pretty well I think. Could also have a less useful placeable laser measurer, which I assume it would work only in the cardinal directions. Whether it had a tool tip to state the distance whenever your character examines it, or a screen that continuously shows the distance to the first obstruction to its line of sight, it could theoretically see use, since it would be persistent and you wouldn't have to pull the tool out to check progress.
I originally envisioned a hand-held tool for personal use. But your idea of a placeable, aimable laser block has some interesting merits to it. Mainly, in that it would allow you to share the measurements with people nearby, which might prove handy for community construction projects. My only real worry is that if it's a block or furniture object, your existing block or furniture layouts may prevent you from placing it, which would be annoying. It also couldn't measure intra-block distances - it could only measure distances across open space.
