Lifehack: How to use propick faster!

[Beloks]

I want to share an obvious but cool lifehack:

Put the pickaxe and propick in the first and second slots. start smashing the block with pickaxe. After the block is almost broken, switch to propick and break the block. In this way, finding ore becomes much faster.

If you are interested in my method of finding ore, I can also tell you about it.

[Vratislav]

Yeah, I do it for a while too.

[Thorfinn]

I never actually tried that. I saw that starting to dig a dirt block, then switch to a different tool restarted the breakage percent. Chopping trees, too. Did not realize anything else worked differently.

[Cetasaya]

Yup.  Been doing this for a long time.  Cause breaking blocks by just the copper prospecting pick takes way too long.  And it saves the prospecting pick's durability as well.  But iron prospecting picks are fast enough to make this method completely moot.  Great advice though.  Everyone should be doing this for copper and bronze picks cause there's literally no downside.

[Maelstrom]

Crafted 2 bismuth bronze pro picks and then found iron.  Saved the iron to make steel and forged a steel pickaxe for my first post bronze age tool.  Steel breaks blocks so fast that switching can be a bit of a mini-game itself.  

I guess I could just bite the bullet, forge a steel pro-pick and just grit my teeth and despawn the two bronze ones.  Even in a video game, I'm loathe to waste stuff.  Darn you mom and dad for embedding such frugality into me so strongly! 

[Never Jhonsen]

5 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I guess I could just bite the bullet, forge a steel pro-pick and just grit my teeth and despawn the two bronze ones

Frame the unused one.

”Tin Bronze Pickaxe. Never Used.”

[Maelstrom]

These are bismuth bronze.  The unused tin bronze one has a treasure hunter's name on it.  As soon as I find said treasure hunter.  Found multiple furniture, building material and clothing traders but not a single treasure hunter yet.   Curse you RNGods!!!

[Never Jhonsen]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

These are bismuth bronze.

Oh whoops, I misread

"Bismuth Bronze ProPick, Never Used"

[Bumber]

On 3/13/2025 at 5:47 PM, Thorfinn said:

I never actually tried that. I saw that starting to dig a dirt block, then switch to a different tool restarted the breakage percent. Chopping trees, too. Did not realize anything else worked differently.

Was that a somewhat recent fix? I remember you could chop with a bronze axe and switch to a stone one at the last second. (This was 1.18, I think?)

Edited March 16, 2025 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

Dunno, @Bumber. I only noticed it recently, as in 1.20 recently. I can tap away at a block of clay, then realize I'm hitting it with a stick, scroll to the shovel, and all the cracks go away. Same with chopping down the massive trees. "Ah, crap, I'm starting all over!"

Might be because of that exploit. If you tossed the bronze axe so it wasn't in your inventory, all the durability would be lost in your stone axes.

Edited March 16, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Bumber]

26 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Dunno, @Bumber. I only noticed it recently, as in 1.20 recently. I can tap away at a block of clay, then realize I'm hitting it with a stick, scroll to the shovel, and all the cracks go away. Same with chopping down the massive trees. "Ah, crap, I'm starting all over!"

Might be because of that exploit. If you tossed the bronze axe so it wasn't in your inventory, all the durability would be lost in your stone axes.

You have to swap directly from axe to axe for it to work. Switching to another item type resets it.

[Thorfinn]

Hmmm. Pretty sure in the case of lumber, I was switching from axe to axe. I don't think cracks show up in trees if you are not using an axe, but I could be mistaken.