Is there a way via scripting to break a material block in the world without dropping the item? I did some experimentation but could not find a way to do so.
world.damageTiles({pos}, layer, pos, "blockish", 9999, 0) This breaks a single block without dropping a matitem. That's what the last 0 does. You can compare it to the function found in /Starbound/docs/. Note that objects will still be dropped if they break due to this action. Tiles with some matmods need this function called twice. Tiles with trees on them can not be broken directly.