Is there a faster way to mine?

Is there a faster way to mine be it a better pick or another mining tool of some sort? I am using a copper pick and man it is a little on the slow side lol. Thanks...

 

Get a gold one, and so forth.

 

A part of me hopes that at some point we will have a mining mech...i really want to be able to drive around a giant drill and eat a planet over the course of several hours.
Might be OP, unless it uses fuel or something, but hnnnnnng giant mining drill mechs.

 

Upgrade your pickaxe.

Just give the battle mech a drill upgrade.

Remember this! This drill will open a hole in space. And that hole will become a road for those that follow! The hopes of the fallen and the hopes of those to come...Combining these feelings into a double-helix, I'll dig a hole to the future! That's Tengen Toppa! That's Gurren Lagann! My drill is the drill that creates the Heavens!

 

^This.

 

Also watch how many blocks you're mining at once. I sped up drastically when I started making sure to get as much use out of the 3 x 3 square as possible.

 

Explosive mining with bombs/grenades/morphball mines.

 

I want me some of them Terraria dynamites, that was some digging equipment right there.

 

^This.

 

Like Loki said, just upgrading your pick is all you can do. I got pretty lucky in my tier 1 progression finding diamonds and platinum and gold ohh my in chests.
I think it would be nice if when you concentrated on mining a single block if it would go faster since that is precisely what you are doing, concentrating all of your force on 1 spot.

 

also make sure you pick hasn't worn out by repairing it yah know in case you haven't noticed its got a durability bar =P

 

Bombs. Lots of bombs.

 

As far as mining tools go, upgrading to a gold pick is your ticket to faster digging. (platinum/diamonds are just too inaccessible till much later in the game)

As far as mining techniques go, there's a number of different techniques, but here are a few I use:

Surface skimming - just run along the surface and dig up whatever you find. The deposits aren't usually all that big, but you can cover a lot of ground quickly as long as the planet is low enough level for you to deal with the enemies easily. You won't get a ton this way, but its quick and easy (and easy on your pick too). Important note - unless its day or you expend torches liberally, you'll miss a lot of deposits right below the surface in the dark, so stick to doing surface mining during daylight hours. This, oddly, is generally the most dangerous mining method.

Basic Spelunking - just head down into caves and try to find one (or dig one) that connects to a big cavern network. Use torches liberally near walls in order to reveal deposits. This is much more productive than shaft mining (digging long shafts through rock) because you get to see a lot more rock more quickly. It's also more dangerous because of the risk of deadly falls or being eaten by monsters.

Core Mining - Drop a 3-wide shaft straight down several thousand feet. Keep it sealed on both sides and ignore caves until you are waaay down there, then find some deep caves and start exploring. The main advantage of this is that you are much more likely to find higher level minerals, and you'll find much larger deposits of regular minerals - also, it tends to be a little bit safer way down there, oddly. The main disadvantage is that it can take an hour or so to sink the shaft, and you may end up in layer of super-hard rock. Try to find a deep-but-soft strata to explore, like mud or ice for fast mining. This is the best way to get very large amounts of minerals, but the setup time is considerable. Again, stick to exploring caves rather than digging tunnels if you want to find minerals quickly.

Oh, almost forgot: Sand Mining

This is a really easy one if you have a junk pick, like copper. Head for an arid desert world, find any near surface cave with a vast sand/gravel pit in it, and just start digging in it. Ore will be magically conveyed to you from everywhere in that pit.

 

Sand mining (and its brother, Gravel Mining) are the fastest way BY FAR to mine. Indeed, wise men always mine on desert worlds - they are the best place to go.

Why? Because sand is not only a really, really easy material to mine through, but because fine sand (the stuff that shifts when you mind down through it) is incredibly common on desert worlds, and gravel is fairly common as well. The trick is to start mining down through that stuff, destabilizing it and finding ore quickly via the whole "falling down onto your head" thing, but also simply because the stuff is super fast to mine through. It just takes way less time to mine on a desert world than anywhere else.