Your pick-axe hate is misguided: DRILLS are the enemy.

Badprenup's quote of yours gave me an idea. I'm going to repost it, with just a replacement of three words.

This is the double standard I am trying to point out to you. Your arguments against the drill are just as valid against the pickaxe.

 

I don't think you should be able to make pickaxes or drills.... just upgrade/mod the manipulator >.>

 

You could use the crafting table to make some glass lenses and focusing arrays to incress the power and area of affect, when you get the metal working you could craft better lenses and arrays and make a basic primitive curcit out of copper wires..... then with the robotics table you can get realy good upgrades as your able to make complicated stuff to go in there. Machine cut leanses, dimond lesnes, compound lisnes, advance curcetry and all sorts of high tech parts..... mabye even minature reactors fuel rods.

 

Haltus, you need to learn how to pack your idea into few words. The staff has a lot to do and probably won't read your huge wall of text just on a single idea: You're not doing yourself a favor there.
@topic: perhaps pickaxe should have a lot less upgrade levels and drill be introduced further. On top, i'd like th ematter manipulator to be much more important, too.

 

I can see that point, but I like the idea that the player is doing what they can to survive with what they can figure out how to cobble together, either by trial and error or by trading with others. Having them just upgrade the MM just doesn't have the same appeal. I do agree the MM should have upgrades, but they should be parallel to the pickaxe to drill to laser progression and only truly outpace them in the very late game.

 

I can agree with that. Your character can cobble together a pickaxe because he isn't a caveman, and he has some experience in engineering, enough to make a basic drill or a laser. But stasis fields (how else is material lifted into place?), phasing through objects, and complex wiring is too much for him. But he can machine and replace a part following a blueprint, so instead of rebuilding the MM from scratch every time he manages to scavenge replacement parts while exploring, or machines them using blueprints he finds. But he only replaces the easy to upgrade parts, he isn't reverse engineering it or building a new one from scratch.

 

Thats kinda the idea though..... you can upgrade and personalize the MM ... say put the grapling hook in as a right click ablity.... or a flashlight into it... or something..... make it 3x3 or some other small improvements....

But you can't do anything really good till you have a robotic crafting table......

after all it takes robots to make the very very tinny parts to make complex components or cut glass/crystal perfectly.

you can't do much to improve it with just your hands and some tools.... some VERY VERY basic repairs to the curciets, cut some new lenses... polish them later... maybe get some gems set into it.....

but until you have the precision of a robot you can't make anything awsome

 

That's called speculation.

"more easily" is the key term in my last response, which was to your comment stating that I've been sporting a double standard about one tool being just as easily replaced as another.

Both picks and drills are grossly inferior to a device capable of doing what the MM does, therefore both inferior tools are equally garbage in contrast to the MM.

What I've been saying, is that picks are far more simple than drills, making them a plausible tool to assemble, if you're going to bother assembling either in a setting in which MM's exist. Drills require far, FAR more resources to create than pick, and are therefore not a plausible tool to attempt to assemble in an emergency situation, like the pick; but are so inferior to the MM that they're equally implausible to bother trying to craft in a non-emergency situation.

Why drills, though? If your issue is with the jump from pick to MM, from a variety standpoint, why not opt for a progression like pick > Mining Laser > MM > Mining Mech?

That way it still jumps from desperately crude to sci-fi, but the following steps are ALSO sci-fi,

I mean, hell, come up with a sci-fi version of a drill; like, instead of a cone drillbit, it'd stick out a several-foot-long tentacle-y thing that would worm into the ground, grab onto clumps of dirt or ore therein, then twist them out of the ground. Handheld power tool. Wedge physics. Spins. It's a drill! But not one of today's every-one-has-one-in-their-garage drills; a badass sci-fi drill!


The core of my argument is that we should be jumping from a crude, "I don't want to use this, but I have no better option" tool (pick) to a tool that's reasonable in a sci-fi setting (just about anything other than drill). Today's tech should only be utilized in a sci-fi-setting as a last resort kind of thing - not a stepping stone (barring odd situations, like the post-apocalyptic spiel).

Touché, but ignoring the ridiculous squirrel analogy, the 'wrong tool for the job bit' still applies.

Perhaps in a museum showcasing the technological advances of ancient civilizations, yes, but reinventing and using their tech is completely unnecessary on a practical level... I mean, if you want to play your toon as some kind of space-hipster who brings his typewriter to Starbucks to write his novel with, then I suppose that's as valid a playstyle as any other, but even then, using outdated technology is more a style thing than anything else.


[/quote]Yet again, you make an analogy that does not work. Leaving the first planet you went to is not returning to modern society. You are an outcast, and while you might trade for knowledge among the stars, you aren't simply handed it for showing up.[/quote]

...I disagree. leaving your first planet makes you near-infinitely mobile, and if that doesn't return you to modern society, I don't know what does. As for it not being handed to you for just showing up... why not? Even in today's world, all you need is an internet connection and you can look up how pretty much ANY tool works. Why would that be any different in Starbound? Again, keep in mind that we're talking about a power tool, not some crazy military tech.

/shrug.

The same could be said about earth today; if you make it out of the whole lost-in-the-woods scenario, and find that you somehow managed to stumble into a third world country, you're probably going to have to continue to deal with less-than-modern standards. A big difference, though, is the mobility once you get off the first planet in starbound, vs still being stuck in a third world country irl.

In starbound, once your ship is fueled up and you zip over to a different planet, if all that planet has are a bunch of floran chilling out in trees, all you have to do is punch the FTL button and move on to the next planet. Worse case scenario, you run the ship out of fuel again before finding a useful society; but at that point, you can already handle that problem.

Well, I certainly wouldn't bother posting if I didn't enjoy it - I wouldn't expect any less from you.

Well ****. I like that green.

 

If you wonder about the nature of the drill, check out Gurren Lagann

 

Your drill is the drill that will pierce the Heavens!

 

Here's the distinction:

Pick axe = incredibly simple - it's made up of two parts. Those two parts can be plucked out of the ground, so if you have no other resources, you can still make a crude pick.

Drill = Extremely complex, relative to the pick. It's made of hundreds of parts. None, or at most, very few, of those parts can plucked right out of nature.

My quote on "should the drill exist as a commonly used item" stands, because it wouldn't be possible to craft in a zero-resource situation, and wouldn't be worth the time, effort, or resources to craft in a non-emergency situation, in favor of something like the MM.

Should a pick exist as a commonly used item in the same setting? Hell no! I'm not trying to push it as a commonly used item, I'm trying to explain that it makes sense to use it in an emergency situation where there are no better options. When there ARE better options, then ditch the friggin' thing and never look back.

Do you see why that's not a double standard now?



*gotta call it quits for the night. See y'all tomorrow!

 

As well worded and seemingly smart as your post is, I completely disagree. Drills are extremely efficient tools, and it fits the Sci-fi setting well. Matter Manipulators were never intended to be a mining tool, they were meant to well...Manipulate matter. Pick things up and move them around (Kind of like a grav gun) Why would these upgraded space age civilizations have any use for making Matter Manipulators just for mining? They could just make one that does everything. Hell, give it a brain and just have it play the game for you. "Matter Manipulator, Go manipulate that monster to death, then make me some tea". Whats more, who's not to say that the Matter Manipulator isn't new technology? Technology that has yet to be able to be upgraded by even the smartest minds. Who's to assume that the matter manipulator isn't thousands of times more complex than a drill, so much so that it can't be upgraded any further, or it'd be even LESS efficient to try to upgrade or make a new one that making a drill, which in comparison is far simpler?

Drills are cheap, Efficient, pretty, and multi-purpose. I feel as though a good drill will never go out of style, we'll just find ways to make even better drills in the future. I can imagine it now...Laser drills....

To be honest, I'd prefer exactly the opposite of what you're saying. Maybe remove Pickaxes for upgraded matter manipulators, and allow drills to stay. You already have a basic matter manipulator, why not attempt to upgrade it, instead of building pickaxes? To be fair, I'm not super keen on this idea, either.

 

I don't suport the idea of ditching grills but I like upgrading MM

Though I think drills should be 4x4

 

Well, I don't know, maybe having that modern society in the first place is required? If you're stranded in jungle, and somehow was able to find enough fuel for your airplane to get off the ground, this DOES NOT automatically makes you part of a modern society again. You are still alone in the woods with what you got. If you are lucky to stumble upon hi-end society, this is either does not make you AUTOMATICALLY know how to construct mining laser. If they willing to tell you or trade blueprint - they do it. If they not... Well, here you are, in spaceship with pickaxe, because next tier of technological advancement is not yet discovered.

Seriously, it's like saying "If I'm stranded and I need to count and do math, I will use my fingers at first, but when I will be able to craft myself something more efficient (a piece of paper or slipstick), I will NOT do that, and instead will try to craft an computer mainframe for calculations"

 

...not to mention that the frame story explicitly says that the society you came from has either collapsed or kicked you out.

Pick to drill to mining laser, but you can trade with other cultures in the galaxy for access to their technology, possibly letting you skip around in that build tree. I mean the drills are already in the game, would you really be so spiteful as to deny us crazy hipster types our fun (just go with it guys, I think he might finally leave drills alone)?

 

Well, that was disappointing. I was really looking forward to an intelligent response.

Oh well.

 

I still vote for removing drills and pick axes and just making upgrades for the MM. Granted you couldn't make anything good till the robotic crafting table, but you could find them, and they could drop off bosses / mini-bosses.

 

That would give a good reason to fight the UFO and the like over again too. Looking for better tech upgrades for the MM.

 

Personally, I feel drills have a place in the game. I do agree with you that picks should probably go from Copper to Steel, and end there.

But thing is, there's still a progression of technology going on. By the time you're working with steel tools, armor, and weapons, you're also working on building a robot out of harvested brains in order to make a crafting table with its own little robotic assembly-arms. Your anvil has been upgraded with a mini-furnace for carbonizing metals, looted from a marauding UFO full of penguin space pirates. It's at this point that complex modern technological tools are possible and would be a step up.

You've been slaving away with a pickaxe forever, but now you've reclaimed enough technological know-how that you don't have to invest so much backbreaking labor. Enter the mining drill (which should probably progress from copper to durasteel). You're pretty technologically advanced at this point, so the fact that the drill's a complex tool isn't a problem (after all, you're building it on a robotic assembly-station at this point.) You're not quite, however, advanced enough to start rectally violating modern-day knowledge of physics yet. You're at, say... modern-day industrial engineer levels of technological know-how & manufacturing ability. You have guns, but probably not laser or plasma weaponry.

Once you're past durasteel and working with things like aegisalt and cerulium, you're well past the substances humans would recognize and be familiar with. You're well past modern human technological level. It's at this point we get into the really sci-fi stuff - step aside, physics. For the longest time, you've had that matter manipulator languishing in your hold, a relic of your old homeworld, and now, only now, do you have the tech to start taking it apart and tinkering with it. Improving it. Upgrading it. The drill, like the pickaxe, has taken a backseat to the real star of block-movin' tools, the Matter Manipulator. This one progresses all the way up to Impervium. At this point, your swords are monomolecular-edged or use oscillating warp-fields for blades, your guns are lasers or directed plasma or perhaps nanoscopic antimatter particle launchers or quantum-entanglement disintegrators, and you're living out your Han Solo/Lensman/Captain Kirk/Buck Rogers fantasies.

I feel there's a place for drills. It occupies the middle area of technological progression, between "Ugh, cave-spaceman make fire, melt shiny rock into ore and beat into sharp stick, burn coal to make ship go" and "Physics is MY *****! I can weaponize plasma and run this jalopy on fusion, baby! Grow some balls, Heisenberg, your uncertainty principle means JACK to me right now!"

Further, I believe that middle area is necessary, as not all races come from cultures that could justify skipping it. Apex? Maybe - assuming the knowledge could be wrestled away Miniknog. Humans? Possibly, if you could piece together enough technological records - difficult to do considering the loss of your homeworld is basically like the burning of the Library of Alexandria only a hundred times worse. Avians guard the levitation crystals that are a key component of their airships and starships jealously, even from unfamiliar avians. Glitch haven't even reached the middle level of technological progression, and neither have the Florans - they're still primitive hunter-gatherers. Hylotl? Hard to say, but what is known is that you're basically the worst peace-missionary ever.