Friendly discussion about mining

Hello friends, I wanted to throw a topic up here for discussion about your experience mining in this game. Personally, I totally "dig it" /dodges tomatoes. I was curious about the suggestion (I'm not the first) of an "auto-mining" feature. Not the old "send the miners out to do your bidding" kind, but just a way to toggle it on a regular drill, pickaxe or MM so that we don't have to hold the button down... for hours...

I've read a few threads that came up in search, and discovered a way to toggle an auto-hold of the mouse button from our actual system prefs on the computer, but not within the game itself. That's fine with me, but I was wondering what the community has to say about it at this point.

There was also a mention that the mining tools are coded the same way as all other "usable" items, and therefore can't be programmed to have a toggle for auto/manual. I don't know anything about the magic of programming, but I am curious to find out about your opinions. Please share your opinions in as friendly a way as possible to ensure a nice, productive discussion.

 

Drills. Drill them tunnels good. Use protection, though. *snickers*

 

I've never had a problem with holding the button down, Personally I just straight up don't like the mining in this game. They could make it better by adding Surface caves, like Terraria but not pre-dug. If that makes sense. I get the notion that you could just mine straight down but, that's really no fun. A game so heavily based on Exploration should have a better Mining system in general. Imo.

 

Not sure if you misread. but I said Surface Caves. I know Surface Ore exists. It's just that in Terraria you'll find multiple caves that begin at the surface and requires no digging. I'm asking for Caves like that in Starbound, but obviously not to go down as far. I'm really just sick of going down what I think is a cave only to end up in a pool.

 

Another of the plans was that higher level planets would have more canyons and for lack of a better term geography.

 

How bout this question to get back on topic: Would it be immersion-breaking or game-breaking if all mining tools had an auto/manual mode? At the beginning of the game, there is a LOT of mining to do. On my most recent character, I wasn't able to play as long as I wanted to because it just felt tedious... (not the act of mining or staring at the screen or anything- that stuff was all really fun) but just the button-holding aspect itself, just seemed unnecessary.

 

If you don't mind using mods, check out Starfoundry. There's an automatic quarry machine that will dig a shaft for you, it uses energy (not your character's energy, more like electricity) that you can generate with the other provided items. There's also quite bit more fun things in that mod, so if you get the chance, check it out. You could also find a buddy to play with that can help you on gathering/mining trips, just check out the multiplayer server section of the forums.