Tools and their Behaviour
Bottles are fine and well, but what about Tools like a Pickaxe or a Sword? Lets go and explore that!
A Pickaxe is made out of two Parts typically, the Tool Head and the Tool Handle, but a lot of people forget that the Tool Head actually is two Parts, and I am not talking of the Bolt holding together the Handle and the Head.
The Front Pointy End of the Pickaxe Head and the Back Pointy End are two different Tools, even when they both happen to be the same Type.
This means you can just turn your Pickaxe around once one of the Pointy Ends happens to become less pointy due to whacking Blocks with it, this can be done in the action Menu as it is a Mode Switch of some sort, and may also happen automatically if both Pointy Ends are the same Type of Pointy End.
A Side Effect is that there is multiple Types of Durability on a single Tool. Each Toolhead itself can become less sharp/pointy/etc when you work with it, and therefore useless for working.
It either doesn’t lose Matter at all, or only so minimal amounts that you wouldn’t notice, like single specs of Dust that will drop in the World, which are technically “there” but nobody would be able to pick them up without some insanely serious scrubbing.
This first Type of Durability Issue can be fixed by a Grindstone (which will also cause small but significant amounts of Dust) or by Re-Forging/Re-Smelting a Tool. Afterall Tool Creation Recipes aren’t going to be very precise about the Amount of Required Material to make them, so losing some Dust wont need to be replaced when Re-Crafting the Tool.
The Second Type of Durability is also rather obvious, the Tool Handle can break in some way, sure the Tool Head will stay intact, but you cant really use it without replacing the Handle.
Now for the Third Type of Durability that might be less obvious: Corrosion. Some Materials might become Rusty in certain Environments, like Iron in a Moist Area for example. But this takes ages ofcourse. What doesn’t take ages is the Rust that builds up on your Sword if you don’t clean off the Blood from it, or if you slice a particularily corrosive Slime with it.
Corrosion will have the Side Effect of actually changing the Material your Tool is made out of, to be a certain percentage of Rust. How you get rid of said Rust will highly depend on the Material that rusted in the first place, sometimes Re-Smelting is just enough, sometimes you need to actually process the Metal chemically to do so.
The Handle itself can Rust or Rot too, resulting in a 4th Type of Durability. If you want to replace the Handle, just pop the Tool Head off the Handle in the action Menu, and combine it with another Handle. This may require some Tools depending on Handle Material and if the Handle is welded/part to the Head or not.
Certain Tools can also be used for multiple purposes, for example a Pickaxe could open a Crate or Door just like a Crowbar could, since it’s essentially a Lever. Though such options would be in the action Menu for Pickaxes while they would be the primary use of a Crowbar and also faster.
One thing I do not want to do is clutter peoples Inventories with seemingly mandatory Tools that take up Volume and Weight, so a lot of Tools can be “misused” for other purposes, like a Pickaxe or Wrench can totally work as a Hammer even if it’s inefficient and slow.
Another way to reduce Tool overload would be just dropping the Tools you don’t use in World. You can totally just put your Pickaxe on the Floor in the Mines for when you come back, Item Despawn wont be a thing whatsoever. Spontaneously grabbing Tools whenever you need them is going to be easy, and Tools needed for Crafting other things in a Crafting Menu, can just lay around closeby without having to be in your Inventory.