Pickaxe
| “ | No respectable miner would leave home without it. |
| — Item Description |
The Pickaxe is a fundamental Support Tool available to every class, used for mining solid materials, and as a weapon. By default, it is bound to the right mouse button when using a Keyboard and Mouse, and the Left Trigger on controllers.
Mining
Swinging the Pickaxe at terrain will destroy it, allowing the player to shape the environment around them. Different materials require a different number of hits to break; this number of hits is referred to as the material's hardness. The area of broken terrain is usually slightly wider than the player, but not as tall as the player. In some materials, the pickaxe carves a smaller shape, while in the terrain of Dense Biozone, the pickaxe carve is larger than usual.
The Pickaxe is also used to mine veins of resources, such as Morkite, where destroying them will immediately transfer the mined material into the player's mineral inventory. Normally only 40 of each resource can be carried at a time; mining more will cause the resource to drop as small chunks in the world, which can be picked up by walking over them once more inventory space is available. The inventory can be emptied by depositing into the M.U.L.E., Drop Pod, or Mine Head, and carry capacity can be improved through the Deep Pockets Perk and an Armor Rig upgrade.
Weapon
The Pickaxe can also be used as a basic melee weapon to damage enemies. It does 27.5 damage per swing, instantly killing weak enemies such as Glyphid Swarmers. The player is slowed by 50% for 1 second after using this attack, and the pickaxe takes longer to swing again after attacking a creature than after hitting terrain.
With the "Power Attack" upgrade the Pickaxe is capable of dishing out much more damage by holding the Right Mouse Button and then immediately followed by pressing the Left Mouse Button (Left Trigger followed by Right Trigger on an Xbox Controller). The "Power Attack" has a larger damage radius and much higher damage, and does not slow the player after use, but has a long cooldown. It also instantly breaks terrain if used for mining, and has a larger terrain carve size that is slightly taller than a player.
Neither attack deals any damage to players, and in fact they can both be used to help thaw Frozen players.
Modifications
There are currently two tiers; one mod for tier one and 3 mods for tier two.
| Driller, Engineer, Gunner, Scout Upgrades | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mod | Effect | In Game Description | Price | |||||
Tier 1 4
|
 Power Attack |
+ Power Attack
Power Attack Area Damage: 120 Melee |
"Channel your dwarven rage through your pickaxe. While holding the mining button, press fire to activate." |
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| Tier 28
|
 Serrated Edge |
+120 Power Attack Area Damage | "Power Attack does more direct damage to your target." |
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 Shockwave |
+1m Power Attack Effect Radius | "Power Attack affects a larger area." |
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 Better Weight Balance |
-10s Power Attack Cooldown | "Thanks to better ergonomics it takes less effort to swing your pickaxe and as a consequence your Power Attack recharges faster." |
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Cosmetics
- Main article: Pickaxe Customization
The paintjobs and models of various components of the Pickaxe can be customized at a terminal in the Equipment Area of the Space Rig. These cosmetic options are unlocked through various means.
Stat Breakdown
Time between consecutive swings:
- When mining: 0.7s
- When attacking enemies: 0.85s
Damage Breakdown
- All pickaxe attacks deal Melee damage, no matter if it’s the normal attack or the power attack.
- Base melee damage is 11.
- Skull Crusher Ale adds 20 damage to your melee attack.
- See You In Hell passive effect adds 20 damage to your melee attack.
- Your melee attack is made of 2 hits:
- The first hit is 1 times your base melee damage versus single targets. It benefits from weakpoints and deals triple damage versus frozen targets.
- The second hit is 1.5 times your base melee damage. It doesn’t benefit from weakpoints or frozen targets but ignores light/medium armor. It is an Area Damage instance with the following properties:
- Damage Radius: 0.8m
- Max Damage Radius: 0.6m
- Minimum Damage: 25%
- So with that in mind here are a few examples on how melee damage works:
- Your basic pickaxe attack damage:
- 11 + (11 x 1.5) = 27.5 melee damage
- With Skull Crusher Ale: (11 + 20) + (11 + 20) x 1.5 = 77.5 melee damage
- With See You in Hell: (11 + 20) + (11 + 20) x 1.5 = 77.5 melee damage
- With both buffs: (11 + 20 + 20) + (11 + 20 + 20) x 1.5 = 127.5 melee damage
- Weakpoint damage versus a grunt head:
- (11 x 2) + (11 x 1.5) = 38.5 melee damage
- With See You in Hell or Skull Crusher Ale (11 + 20) x 2 + (11 + 20) x 1.5 = 108.5 melee damage (enough to kill a grunt in any difficulty except Hazard 5+ Tough Enemies 2)
- Your basic pickaxe attack damage:
Trivia
- The pickaxe's handle changes color depending on the class.
- Driller used to have an upgrade that would allow him to mine terrain with less hits.
- When performing a power attack, the back blade is used instead of the front blade.
Bugs
- Most pickaxe handles will appear brown in the equipment terminal.
- Driller's pickaxe becomes solid yellow during a mission, but while in the Space Rig only the handle will stay yellow.
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