Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Difficult to mine? Maybe if you're still using the antler pickaxe they start you with. Upgrade to a bronze pick asap to help make further mining easier.

Or ignore the bronze pickaxe, because it's not actually an upgrade. There's nothing that you can mine with a bronze pickaxe that you can't mine with the antler pickaxe, but repairing the bronze pickaxe requires a forge (which practically requires a small base to support it), where the antler pickaxe can be repaired if you have a dozen or so wood to build a workbench with a roof over it. To add insult to injury, the bronze pickaxe requires more stamina to swing than the antler pickaxe does, while only slightly decreasing the number of swings to "pop a voxel" (ie, break a chunk of copper node).

I wouldn't consider requiring half as many hits "slightly decreasing". That means mining twice as fast, which will get you through the bronze age much faster. Agreed that needing a forge to repair is more cumbersome than a basic workbench, but it's worth it in the end.