After losing my first
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What you can mine, with what:
Red = inefficient due to lost output
Coal: Sharp Rock = Chisel (1/2), stone = iron
Gold: Chisel (1/4), iron
lapis: Sharp Rock = Chisel = stone = iron
redstone: chisel = iron
diamond: chisel = iron
emerald: chisel = iron
*Lapis - I'm a little bit surprised there is no penalty for using a stone tier on lapis, seeing as there stone tier ruins the largely-equivalent redstone, but i'm not complaining.
*redstone, diamond, emerald - using chisel here does not waste materials. Surprisingly, scraping redstone ore with your chisel gives you the full yield, not the expected single rs dust
*1 stone pick appears to now has 50[ed] uses, so 1 pick is enough to mine 5 iron ingots.
The stone shovel gets no such love, remaining relatively weak
*1 stone shovel appears to have 50[ed], which is about the area of a big empty house in a village
*Compared to the pick, stone shovels are a weak choice for eliminating dirt/gravel deposits in caves, which can hide valuable ore. This incentivizes finding a shovel zombie?
Same thing with the firestarting "class" of tool. Fire plough -> Bow -> Flint and Steel. Fire plough cannot be used on clay ovens.
Stone tools need string, Iron tools don't: this makes sense mechanically since you are technically "forging" an axe head, or so on, to place on your shaft.
*BTW 4.AH+ is dramatically less wood-grind than prior BTW survival. Near a biome with immediate webs (jungle or rare spider spawner), you can get to your first stone axe, and unlimited wood, after punching the exteriors off just 4 logs and 2 stones. It's a little less efficient without a web on day 1, but my spawns have been near jungles, and the risk pays off. See also: Creeper Mining.
New tools: I've tried a number of combinations to see if there are other new tools or weapons in the early game. In particular it really feels like i'm missing a recipe for a shovel-precursor (trowel? spade?) before accessing the workbench. I've tried all manner of reinforcing materials and I can't find the item, if it exists.