I was thinking that in the late game since automation is a thing that is going to be expanded on in future updates, I did think that having an automatic ore gather could work for this game BUT it would have to come with quite a lot of drawbacks in order to balance it out.
-In order to get the parts for the machine you will need to go into underground ruins
-You can only build the machine deep underground (it won't work otherwise)
-The machine will make the area temporally unstable, causing more dangerous mobs to spawn around the machine (corrupt, nightmare, double-headed drifters)
-In order to make the threat above much more relevant you will need to come back every so often to fix the machine with a wrench
While this will make the late game easier long term, I think the extra challenge it adds will make it worthwhile to add to the game or maybe a mod if a modder finds this.