First of all. There's been threads on this almost all morning so far. Like really? REPLACE? REMOVE? the pickaxe? You're talking about the fact that this can't happen. Societies like the glitch likely still use it. They're all stuck in an age they are in, it's humourous but still. Another thing to note is. Instead of being narrow minded. Think openly. Look to IMPROVE what exists, instead of gutting it. Upgradable Matter manipulator yes, your poll doesn't allow for the option of well, wanting to keep pickaxes. I 'm all for making the Matter manipulator better, but I'd like to keep the pickaxes. IT's a matter of preference, and style at that point. It gets replaced by the drill very soon after.
I agree! Since this is like a space-themed game, it is realy applicable! Should totally remove pickaxes!
I' had. I perhaps skipped a post or two. But I read the thread in it's entirety It happens. Edit: But I cannot feel lax, to just let people feel the need to take a hammer to it right away. Or as destruction of an object as a solution. There must be a different and more positive outcome than outright removal. And to reinforce the idea is not a good policy.
Then you probably DID NOT READ my post where I said that pickaxes shouldn't be removed but the matter manipulator could fire a drill laser? As long as I recall,you're not playing a medieval glitch,you're playing one that fled in a starship.I,as an avian,have a spaceship too,and I also have a matter manipulator,and a lot of very future stuff.I'll keep wearing a skirt,because that's my people's way,and it's in my culture,but I'll take a laser over a pickaxe anytime.It's isn't Terraria 800 before JC.It's really Starbound,with space,and space suits,and space things.If you want to play with a pickaxe the entire game you can. Besides you're quick to call the others narrow-minded,etc etc,but this is how suggestions work,they are suggested,and then they are approved or not,and broad-mindness is considering what other people have to say;then we're free to agree or not.To me accessing a super high-tech mining gear is a much needed improvement.
The game would easily become too repetetive using the SAME tool every time, even pickaxes do that, which is (I'm assuming) they change it from pickaxes near endgame tiers. I really like how you have to "build up". It's usually how you start most games! (For example Minecraft/Terraria)
I believeI saw it. As for the comment to narrow-mindedness. I find it is appropriate for anyone who believes to outright remove something. Maybe I jumped too quick on my conclusion. I have some frustrations from the multitude of similiar topics from this morning alone. It may have just been best to avoided the topic. I wish for more things, like say mining machinery, similar to a mining quarry in BuildCraft. From minecraft, or maybe Oxygen and gravity variances on other worlds. Things to make construction of buildings much more entertaining. I apologize for being crass, and not taking a moment to hesitate.So I'll bow out the topic, until I cool off.
i think the matter manipulator should get upgraded through Tiers, like the pickaxes do, but scrap pickaxes and have it upgrade the MM... This way, you have something that you've worked at throughout the ENTIRE game with you at the end, instead of having a useless MM that i've put away somewhere.... It should be able to be upgraded to mine quicker, change mining size (maybe shift + scroll-wheel to do so?), range, etc... every aspect should be changeable, i recon... to get a new and improved tool...
Maybe make matter manipulator have advanced 'precision' mode, where it only mines out ore blocks rather than dirt blocks in a 5 x 5 area? Shift click reduces it to a 3 x 3 area. This means it mines it slower but cleaner. You do this by hitting a alt fire key, which would be middle mouse button?
I was also really disappointed when I had to put away my cool sci-fi gadget and start playing Terraria again. While I don't think they should completely get rid of the pickaxe, I would like to see it relegated to the middle game as a sidegrade. While I enjoy anachronisms, having the pickaxe available so early (as well as with all the other standard Terraria conventions) sets the tone of the game to something more fantasy than sci-fi. Also eliminate this silver/gold nonsense and give us iron>steel>diamond tipped (or keep them, but relegate them to bling status: useless but stylish).
No. I think the matter manipulator shouldn't actually be the primary tool for gathering resources. It is fundamentally just an item to move objects within the world. But I do find it silly that you do not even need the thing in your inventory to move stuff, or place blocks. As of right now... we do not know of future resource gathering items. Still in Beta guys! there was talk very early on of the space ship possibly harvesting large amounts of dirt in one go. So honestly, wait and see what will develop.
I'll admit that removing pickaxes altogether might be a bit of an extreme approach to the problem. It is reasonable to say that the pickaxe can function as a good starting tool. That is to say, since you start off with absolutely nothing but your unmodified MM, a pickaxe would be required for the first tier or so for you to get the materials you need to add enhancements to your manipulator. But to have it be your primary tool for the majority of the game is silly to me.
I don't mind starting with the pickaxe, but there need to be better upgrades than just a drill. I like the idea of mining lasers and/or an improved matter manipulator.
I would like to be able to upgrade the matter manipulator, but in a way its not another mining tool. what I think the tool should do is move the matter around, you can break blocks by smashing them into each other, or by dropping them. most people think of manipulate as to move, change, or alter, so thats what it should be besides it already "moves" blocks from your inventory and into the world, why not around the world and just because you have a device that manipulates matter, or a space ship, or the ability to teleport, and you know how to use them, doesnt mean you know how they work look at your tv (if you have one) do you know how to use it? do you know what it does? based off of that knowledge, given the raw materials could you recreate said tv? or computer? or other technology thingy? I do like the idea of having a more advanced tool then a pick or drill, but removing them completely is not how I would like it, and many agree.
There's a mod that adds tiered Steel to Impervium Matter Manipulators for those not satisfied with the current mining situation: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?resources/burning-acids-engame-mattermanipulators.32/ With the exception of the later tiers being a *hair* (read: pretty damn) overpowered, the mod handles them perfectly by introducing them in the steel tier. PICKAXES ARE A GOOD STARTER TOOL!! Is it laughably ridiculous to use a pickaxe in a sci-fi setting? YES! That's the point. When you start the game, your toon has just narrowly escaped death by hopping into a spacecraft and BOOKING IT. You didn't have time to prepare for some journey - it was thrust upon you, and you have to make do with what you've got (basically nothing). Crafting and using a pickaxe really highlights the severity of your toon's situation. Think of it this way: You are Bill Gates. You are accustom to things like the rooms of your house being able to take a reading of your body temperature and you move from one room to another, and adjust the heating until it's within like a 50th of a degree to what you feel would be perfectly comfortable at that time. (note: I have no idea what kind of nifty tech Gates is accustom to...). One day you're cruising around in your convertible private jet, which you own a fleet of because you're Bill Gates, and OH NO! You flew too close to an Apple product, causing the internal circuitry of both devices to combust... since you happened to be riding one of the devices in question at mach 42 (cuz you're Bill Gates) when it ignited, you continue a few hundred miles before finally coming to a halt. Fortunately, you survive the crash because the fall was broken by a several-story high pillar of paper currencies from around the world, which was deployed by your jet's safety mechanism. But wait a second, now you're *just* Bill Gates: all traces of wealth in your immediate vicinity are a burning-pile-of-what-used-to-be-air-craft and a now-burning-pile-of-currency. You're just stuck out in the wilderness without so much as a smartphone to tweet #GonnaStarveToDeath. You then promptly die You then start a quest for survival, which you fail, and die so you start wandering around looking for servants to do physical labor for you, but there are none, so you die tools to help you survive, but unfortunately trees don't have apps, so you die and you find a stick, which you rub against a rock until the tip is pointed, and you begin trying to spear fish out of a stream so that you have something to eat. That's right: You, Bill Gates, who have enough money to send every youth on the planet through college, are stuck in the woods flailing a pointed stick around in an attempt to not starve to death, because the is literally NO OTHER OPTION. Said flailing is unsuccessful, and you die. In case I'm not communicating this as effectively as I hoped: Bill Gates would be the first to die if selected as a contestant in the Hunger Games. Bill Gates = your toon; his wealth = all the cool sci-fi tech that you don't have access to; and his pointed stick = the pickaxe, which you've crafted out of desperation. ...but here's where Starbound has a bit of a hiccup. You use your pickaxe to gather fuel for your ship, allowing you to wander bout the universe and improve your situation, eventually overcoming that initial hardship and pursue other challenges. ...but you're still using the pickaxe... This is like Bill Gates finally getting out of the woods, back to his mansion, back to his wealth and obscenely advanced possessions... and then grabbing a pointed stick and hunting his neighbors' dogs and cats when he gets hungry. WHAT! YOU'RE BILL GATES! YOU DIED IN THE WOODS! HAVE YOUR ARMY OF HUMAN SLAVE THINGS (minimum wage employees) COOK YOU A FREAKING FEAST! BUT, the game situation does improve a bit: You advance from pickaxe to drill. But going from using a pickaxe to a simple drill in a sci-fi setting is kind of like Bill Gates progressing from hunting the neighborhood pets to cooking up hot-pockets in the microwave. Certainly a (pretty big) step in the right direction, but still, YOU'RE BILL GATES! FEEEAAAAAST! Enter the mod linked above. Rewinding a bit, you've gotten passed your initial challenge of having almost NO resources and have a pretty solid hold of the situation: you then quickly get back in touch with the technology of the time, fire your pickaxe into the nearest star, and work on upgrading that low-powered Matter Manipulator you've had on your ship to make it something more useful: a STEEL MATTER MANIPULATOR! (FEEEAAAAST!) ... ... SO! In my opinion, the pickaxes have a very solid role in the game, and do a fine job of fulfilling that role UP TO MAYBE THE SILVER TIER. At that time, you should be pretty well back into sci-fi mode, and have progressed on to the Matter Manipulator. THEREFORE the items that are out of place (again IMO) are only the later tiers of the picks, and ALL OF THE DRILLS. And by "drills" I mean the things with a physical cone shaped drill bit that break rocks and dirt by using the physics of a wedge to physically pry them apart. Those don't belong in a sci-fi game. Check this scene out for a minute or two: See that thing everybody's standing on? THAT'S WHAT A DRILL LOOKS LIKE IN A SCI-FI SETTING! So until we can equip our ships with one of ^those, "drills" should be scrapped. and in their place, advanced versions of the Matter Manipulator.
The fact is that the pickaxe is wholly redundant to the Matter Manipulator. The drill, being a modern and more or less efficient device, being an upgrade to the Manipulator line by ticking faster is fine. But what does the pickaxe do that is different or couldn't be done by the MM? Another thread was made about this earlier today. It was deleted (I think rather unfairly, the opening post was well thought out and presented even if the tone was a little aggressive) but in it many people were giving the reason that pickaxes shouldn't be removed because how could someone be upgrading a high tech device with crude equipment like a wooden crafting table? This is a silly argument since of course, how could a person be shaping a pickaxe head with their bare hands and in any case what does a person's personal headcanon about the story have to do with design principles? This idea is created whole cloth from the status quo and then used to justify it. That's called circular reasoning. If pickaxes were gone and the MM was upgraded with metal ores and boss drops we'd see many of the same people creating new narratives for what they're seeing. Keep in mind this is the same player character that can make a sentient (albeit hostile) robot without a blueprint, or a transmitter capable of interstellar communication out of wood scraps and dirty rocks. This isn't about what you think should be possible right away. It's about what we already have. It's about sensibility and game design. The pickaxe draws the player away from the high-tech, far future, space focused aesthetics of the game. Even the most primitive cultures in the game are extremely high tech. It also invites comparisons to Minecraft and Terraria, which should obviously be avoided. Pickaxes also make the MM more or less ridiculous to be featured so heavily (such as in the placing of blocks, as a back-up mining device, as the first thing in the game you are told about and interact with...) and are completely redundant with other items in the game. Why are they in? Are they a placeholder that's been held too long? The community clearly cares about this and the threads aren't going to just stop being made. Is the development staff stuck in an investment fallacy? Or do they really think that the mix of style and redundancy is worth the loss of focus and versimillitude? I think official feedback and dialogue would go a long way here. EDIT: Just mod it? Really? That's not a mature solution. The point of an alpha/beta is to get feedback and testing of a product. The vanilla product. Demanding people shut up and mod, especially with so much of the code locked away from modders, is frankly stupid. You can't argue to keep an item or feature because you've made up your own little story about why it's here. From a pure design standpoint, the pickaxes are problematic. Everything they do -- mine 3 by 3, mine faster, chop down trees, demand a sense of progression by requiring upgrades and material grind -- is already done better by other items, including the first item you get in the game, or could be done so easily by them as community modders have already proven with far less accessibility than the development team has with the game. They also do things they shouldn't, like make Starbound look derivative and threatening the immersion of the player in the setting. Until you can answer this criticism, you do not deserve to be in this conversation.
At this point, this argument is pretty much just dueling opinions, with most people in an entrenched position based on their own internal axioms. So of course I've got to pour my own in there! The 'pickaxe question' has more or less solidified into two camps, the "hand tools as starting extraction method w/ progression through other tools" vs. "sci-fi tools from the beginning". Personally, I lean somewhat towards the former, because I'm rather fond of the "rapidly build yourself up from nothing" style. It's what draws me to games like this in the first place. So sell me on an alternative way of progressing. Rooted in the basic, upgradable matter manipulator?You're going to have to do it without appeals to 'verisimilitude' or 'immersion', though, because those are subjective stances on which I don't agree on. And a few minor things because I'm an incorrigible nit-picker: Take a strong stone. Hit a more brittle stone with it until it breaks. Repeat until it's the shape you want. It's called knapping, and it was the first form of toolcrafting. Do you honestly believe that removing pickaxes will have even the most infinitesimal effect on this game being compared to those you've mentioned? Really?
Yes, I really do. Minecraft in particular has the pickaxe as a symbol. Using it prominently in a sandbox game necessitates reminder. The fewer cues you have, the more the game becomes it's own thing. Human memory is based wholly on reconstruction and cues. That shouldn't be reinforced at every turn. When we see the UI of Halo or TF2 or any other shooter you care to mention we don't start immediately think "Oh this is just like Doom/Quake/Counter-strike/etc". The core mechanics and feedback are just part of the genre. When we play a Rogue-like, most people don't even become reminded of Rogue and the genre is named after that title. This doesn't happen, in spite of a huge pile of similarities, because each of these games have their own flavor. It is the little differences we latch onto. The structure we just chalk up to genre convention. By having the pickaxe, we ruin that flavor. We erase some of the little differences. And thus we heighten the sense of the derivative. To decrease that sense we have to play to consistency. If the Matter Manipulator is the first item you get, if building and destroying, mining and collecting are the core of the sandbox -- and they are -- then you have to be consistent with it. We have an item, immediately, that 1) plays up the sci-fi and 2) already does everything a pick-axe can do and 3) encourages a sense of uniqueness in a game with very iconic competitors in its genre. This is what I mean by versimillitude. You don't change the tone and the capabilities to invite reference and overly strict convention. That is simply bad design. Your reference to knapping just reinforces what I said in my last post. You've invented a narrative to explain the status quo. We don't have to use a free block of granite in our left hands while the crafting table window is open on the stack of cobblestone in our right with ten clicks to simulate knapping. We carry a wood pile, we carry a cobblestone pile, we click the recipe and poof a pickaxe into existence. The knapping never occurs. You make it occur, retroactively, to explain what you've done. You will do the same if and when it is the Matter Manipulator we're reconstructing and upgrading. You will imagine this space-farer hunched over his crude table, snapping open the casing, switching out parts and crude fascimile, and carefully screwing it all back into place. You might have imagined something similar when not two hours later your space-farer was stuffing a stolen brain into a robot body they made with nothing more than a power source and that same crude table next to a ramshackle anvil contraption. It doesn't change the story of coming up from nothing. Instead of having a futuristic pocket knife and refusing to use it in favor of a variety of shaped stones that do the same but cruder for no particular reason, you leverage one of two assets you've been able to retain (the other being the ship you don't seem to have any problem with keeping in your story of rebuilding) and turn both it and you into a finely honed and powerful explorer of the galaxy. The matter manipulator turns from just this thing you have to place blocks I guess into a reflection of your journey and who you are as a survivor. So this narrative you've made doesn't matter. It will change on the circumstance. We have to look at the objective, mechanic principle of Matter Manipulator versus Pickaxe. On the one hand, we prominently use an item. It is also the first item the player is given and told about. It is also from the setting, unique in design and genre-rare in flavor. It is then immediately abandonned, while never ever being lost, in favor of an item that contradicts that flavor but does the exact same thing. There is no reason that the Matter Manipulator couldn't be made to do the things the pickaxe does. So, simply, it should be made to do those things. This is cleaner design.
There's certainly a lot of dueling going on in here. I'll just slip on by that and post my two cents on the matter. I believe that Pickaxes have a place here, if mostly to convey a sense of progression. Some facts, The Matter Manipulator is the main tool that is generally used for gently enveloping stationary items and placing them on the ground. Pickaxes are simple, easily replaced tools that most any schlub could make. When you start off in Starbound, you have very few belongings. The Matter Manipulator is a very complex item, technologically speaking. It would make sense for it to eventually surpass the pickaxe in efficiency, but when it comes to things of high-complexity, they tend to function better as a "Do one thing well" kind of deal. The matter manipulator is ultimately not meant to be a destructive tool, and so, it would be a simple matter to make something that -is- designed to destroy rock and dirt that is of the same level of complexity, but far more efficient. It would take quite some time to work yourself up to having the resources to create something to rival the Matter Manipulator so it makes a sense that we'd be stuck toiling in the mud and rocks for a while. 'Till then, we could have all sorts of tools. Think Civilization type progression. But I would be all for making mods for the Matter Manipulator. It should very endgame, though. Even a Sonic Screwdriver has its limitations, and we're talking about going above and beyond that.
There's a flavor argument and there's a realism argument. We're talking scifi here though - dilithium crystals and inverting the resonance frequency. It doesn't have to be real. The flavor of the pickaxe is *completely wrong* for the game. Even drills are borderline too-low tech. The only reason a pickaxe makes sense at all is if you crashed on a planet, your matter manipulator got damaged, and you need to use low tech tools until you can call for help. Same goes for the anvil. And the stone furnace. Hell, even swords are silly without some shielding technology a la Dune to make projectile weapons ineffective. All of those things should disappear from the game after the first hour or so it takes you to leave the planet. Even the current story doesn't justify the low tech items well enough. The one exception is the Glitch, and I would be fine with different races have different mining tools. Glitch should be a vibropick or something, to keep it high-tech but still keep the medieval aesthetic.
