Multistage Breaking - Blocks Dropping Blocks

[Steel General]

I think the game already has an example of this behavior: hoeing dirt to become farmland is destroying a dirt block and creating a farmland block in that same location.

If we can expand this mechanism, I think many interesting options would be thereby available - example, Roots: You find a block of "Dirt with Roots" - the appropriate tool is a shovel, and it takes as long as a block of dirt to break it, but no item is dropped (maybe a small chance of a piece of clay). Instead you now have, in that same location, a slightly shorter block called "Roots with Dirt", for which the appropriate tool is an axe, and it takes as long as a block of wood and drops no item (maybe a small chance for a stick), but creates in that same location a still-shorter block called "Rooty Dirt", for which axe or shovel are equally useful, and maybe at this point it drops a Barren Dirt.

We could thus make undermining a valid way to fell trees, and also limit tree growth by the number of dirt blocks available to be converted into roots, so thin soil creates stunted trees. We might also need Gravel with Roots and Sand with Roots.

Breaking a block of ore-bearing stone with either pick or bomb could create ore rubble that can be dug by hand or shovel but is much faster with a mining shovel, and which results in a few boulders laying around the area. I'm not sure anyone else would like that to be a more complicated process, but I wanted to come up with at least one more use for the mechanism

(A side thought has occurred while writing this: can a block drop different items depending on what is used to break it? For example, breaking Rooty Dirt with a shovel could yield a dirt block while breaking it with an axe could yield sticks.)

[Facethief]

2 hours ago, Steel General said:

A side thought has occurred while writing this: can a block drop different items depending on what is used to break it? For example, breaking Rooty Dirt with a shovel could yield a dirt block while breaking it with an axe could yield sticks.

Yes, think dried grass or reeds/tule.

[Tabbot95]

Tree roots would also be nice as a way of augmenting dirt gravity to be a little more interesting.. though it might need to wait for an overall overhaul of trees to be growing things.