(I've recently been carving out a 24X24 hole, which prompted me to want to post about this)
I've overall not been very impressed with how comparatively slow the auger is as the "final" tier of tools when it comes to breaking blocks, especially compared to the steel pickaxe. While the auger did get a buff to increase it's mining yield in 1.0 (which is appreciated!), it's overall speed still leaves a lot to be desired.
I'm currently running a grave digger + bunker buster + iron breaker + tempered blade mod with maxed out Miner 69er, and I can just barely destroy stone in 5 hits. This results in a speed of 60 stone blocks broken per minute. While it is slightly faster than the pick's 55, it also has significant downtime in the form of needing to refuel the auger and with more frequent repairs (especially since unlike the steel pick, the auger's damage decreases once it gets below half durability...), and the pick requires much less investment after inital setup to achieve constant uptime (you really only need a good mining chest, an ergenomic grip mod, the Usual mining mods, and some food/water to offset the stamina loss/kits to rarely mend the pickaxe, the latter of which you are likely bringing with you all of the time anyway). It really doesn't help how the auger suffers considerably more issues with heat generation as well, especially if you are mining out metals (though the auger is thankfully better at speeds against metal compared to the pick).
I feel like it really should get somewhat of a buff to break common blocks at a noticeably faster pace. I really don't think it should be a tossup to choose either the auger or the pickaxe for clearing holes, especially since the auger does require a pretty solid investment of fuel/kits and is unlocked considerably later on compared to the steel pickaxe. In particular, I would like if a suboptimal setup could consistently break stone blocks in 4 hits, and a very optimal one could break it in 3. This would give the Auger a pretty good edge over the pickaxe in a way where you are considerably more tempted to choose it when digging out large caverns, while still leaving the pick as a niche for more casual projects/scenarios where you are not wanting to spend gas at the current moment. It would also be quite preferable to remove the damage decay, since unless I am mistaken it is the only item in the game that behaves in this way (at least one that retains this niche in the modern versions).
*The chainsaw admittedly suffers slightly from this as well, mainly with chopping trees, especially since an optimal steel axe is quite comparable to an optimal chainsaw. Most of the other things a chainsaw can break are relatively neck-and-neck/surpass it though, so I'm not too bothered about it.
I've overall not been very impressed with how comparatively slow the auger is as the "final" tier of tools when it comes to breaking blocks, especially compared to the steel pickaxe. While the auger did get a buff to increase it's mining yield in 1.0 (which is appreciated!), it's overall speed still leaves a lot to be desired.
I'm currently running a grave digger + bunker buster + iron breaker + tempered blade mod with maxed out Miner 69er, and I can just barely destroy stone in 5 hits. This results in a speed of 60 stone blocks broken per minute. While it is slightly faster than the pick's 55, it also has significant downtime in the form of needing to refuel the auger and with more frequent repairs (especially since unlike the steel pick, the auger's damage decreases once it gets below half durability...), and the pick requires much less investment after inital setup to achieve constant uptime (you really only need a good mining chest, an ergenomic grip mod, the Usual mining mods, and some food/water to offset the stamina loss/kits to rarely mend the pickaxe, the latter of which you are likely bringing with you all of the time anyway). It really doesn't help how the auger suffers considerably more issues with heat generation as well, especially if you are mining out metals (though the auger is thankfully better at speeds against metal compared to the pick).
I feel like it really should get somewhat of a buff to break common blocks at a noticeably faster pace. I really don't think it should be a tossup to choose either the auger or the pickaxe for clearing holes, especially since the auger does require a pretty solid investment of fuel/kits and is unlocked considerably later on compared to the steel pickaxe. In particular, I would like if a suboptimal setup could consistently break stone blocks in 4 hits, and a very optimal one could break it in 3. This would give the Auger a pretty good edge over the pickaxe in a way where you are considerably more tempted to choose it when digging out large caverns, while still leaving the pick as a niche for more casual projects/scenarios where you are not wanting to spend gas at the current moment. It would also be quite preferable to remove the damage decay, since unless I am mistaken it is the only item in the game that behaves in this way (at least one that retains this niche in the modern versions).
*The chainsaw admittedly suffers slightly from this as well, mainly with chopping trees, especially since an optimal steel axe is quite comparable to an optimal chainsaw. Most of the other things a chainsaw can break are relatively neck-and-neck/surpass it though, so I'm not too bothered about it.