FFF-266

Cite as: FFF-266
Original: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-266
sha256: 3b8895d66c8f346067b12d291922533b134fb305d114480d32d304417957ddde
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260714021848/https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-266
Accessed: 2026-10-26
Licence: © Wube Software; Wayback capture
Credit: Wube's weekly blog, posted by kovarex, 26 October 2018, section "Pickaxe removal".
Notes: Explains removing mining tools for 0.17. The line "this was clearly Minecraft affecting our ideas" refers to the old wooden pick, stone pick, iron pick progression. It is an admission of Minecraft's influence on an early mechanic that Factorio then dropped; quote the section, not the whole post.

Cited on

Friday Facts #266 (2018) says early Factorio had the player craft a wooden pick, then a stone pick, then an iron pick, and calls it "clearly Minecraft affecting our ideas". The post says the chain was soon cut to the iron and steel picks, and that 0.17 removes mining tools altogether.	`Pickaxe removal`	Dev blog
Minecraft's pickaxe chain is a gate: a wooden pickaxe mines stone for a stone one, which mines iron ore for an iron one, which mines diamond ore for a diamond one, and the wrong tier gets nothing from a hard block. Factorio's early wooden, stone, and iron picks, which Friday Facts #266 calls "clearly Minecraft affecting our ideas", were cut to iron and steel picks and then removed in 0.17; the post doesn't say whether Factorio's picks gated any resource the way Minecraft's tiers do.	`Pickaxe removal`	Wiki