Auger and mining.

[Ruffio]

I guess this is a bad combo with mining these days. Unless you like visitors in your tunnels and fight in cramped space. ? Does the noise reduction skill help on noise in this regard?

[Vorshin]

not that i noticed which is why i place traps above, did, reinforce area but it does tend to collapse structure parts above ground (little parts) for some reason. also one could be breaking something in a house and beg=hind you the ceiling may collapse or the wall when you break that lamp on the wall in front of you

[Vorshin]

The auger i find is crap once you have steel pickaxe, this is 1 faster, gives more of a harvest and is quieter.

Auger is equivelant to an iron pick, but quicker, noisier.

[LeoBerlin]

No way pickaxe is anything close to auger.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by LeoBerlin:

No way pickaxe is anything close to auger.

Even maxed out skills for mining/destroying blocks, it seems mining now is slower with a steel pickaxe than used to, and the auger seems much faster, it burn through an awful lot of fuel and repair kits though. And attract screamers in droves :p Having several screamers tunneling under ground and then calling for droves of zomibes, almost as excting as horde night :p

[{FU}TheForgeryTTV]

Originally posted by Vorshin:

The auger i find is crap once you have steel pickaxe, this is 1 faster, gives more of a harvest and is quieter.

Auger is equivelant to an iron pick, but quicker, noisier.

And the problem with the Auger is it requires gas to work and for me, it degrades faster than the other mining tools (though it does the job faster). Oh and not to mention, crafting an Auger requires more materials like an engine.

EDIT: And not to mention, the Auger generates heat so prolong use of it might attract a screamer. I like to use the Auger only to break into safes and locked weapon containers before quickly vacating the area.

[Niuq]

Auger is meant as an endgame mining option.

The auger with proper mods like structural brace, iron breaker, bunker buster, grave digger is a xp printing machine. With a17.3 making repair kits fully repair items durability on it is very reasonable.

An hour with the auger got me enough coal and nitrate for 6000 gunpowder.

[BodyBagger]

I've been using the auger for quite some time now in my game—I'm currently at level 199 in a solo game in Alpha 17.1. I have three different mines and always use the auger. I don't think I've ever had a screamer, but I have had a group of Z's show up every now and then (maybe three or four times total). As soon as u hear them above you, all you have to do is go to the surface and kill them and they will not show up again—at least for quite some time (I'm talking days or weeks); however, if you don't do anything I'm sure they will start digging. Just make sure you have a shotgun or SMG equipped and you should be fine if they do get in.

The auger gives you way more resources in a much shorter period of time. Like the previous poster stated, you need to use Mods. It does use a lot of gas, but just start a mine in the desert and drill for oil shale & you'll make tons of gas (you'll need a chem station to do so). You'll get a ton of sand as well, but you need it for making glass jars & cement anyway—and other things.

Also, make sure you max out "mother lode" so you get more resources per strike. If you level up "miner 69er" just keep in mind you get fewer resources the higher the level. Miner 69er breaks down the blocks faster at a cost of getting fewer resources out of those blocks.

Your character will level up faster as well since you will be gaining XP much more quickly with an auger instead of a pickax. Personally, I like it—but I do understand that some people just prefer to use a pickax.