I was redesigning my workshop and I saw a Power Coil break a block when the thought hit me: can Power Coils break Mantle? The answer is yes! I used a regular Workbench Power Coil and a Workbench at altitudes 2 and 3 to successfully break many Mantle blocks. You need to use a set up similar to this:
|EM|EM|WK| Altitude 4
|CO|MA|MA| Altitude 3
EM stands for empty space, CO for Power Coil, WK for closest Workbench block to the coil, and MA is for Mantle. Of course, you also cannot place Workbenches outside of a beacon, so you need to plot the area, but the coil will send a current through the Mantle and to the Workbench and break the Mantle block, just like any game block.
Mantle does not drop anything and there seems to be a universal layer of Mantle at altitude 1, so escaping the world does not seem to be possible. I doubt breaking Mantle is useful for anything beyond flattening the ground at the bottom of the world, but it is interesting to know that it is possible.
EDIT: Somebody beat me to this idea >.> I just did a search and Jiivita already has done a video on this. Ignore me :-p
Nice for people who want to work on a flat surface. I always thought Mantle could be used as a road in an underground settlement, though it’s bumpy and all over the place; alas your solution seems viable (if not somewhat painstaking)
It’d need work first I think. Do you also get that funny sticking bug on it? I get a thing where it can bounce me into itself and sometimes propel me like a warp bump upwards. Or sometimes just a big lag jump. It’s weirdly unlike other blocks, it sticks and traps oddly. (Treacle blocks from Syrup, please!)
It’s worth a look, unlike any other block in the game. I suspect it’s not a property of the block but how it’s treated by the engine or something. I often get it whilst out mining, in fact I always stick one block above now to avoid unwanted teleport exits.
I found out about this from @Chonps back in EA when i was introducing him to power coils… much like you, his first thought was “what else can this break?” and went strait to mantle lol… this was supposed to be in the video but i had to re-record it and somehow it didn’t make it back in ><
I had one more idea on using Power Coils to break unbreakable blocks, but I had to run to work as soon as I started this thread. You could potentially use Power Coils to breaks things on plots belonging to other people as well. I mean, if they have anything in the upper corners or the bottom corners of a plot and no plots above or below that plot AND at least 1 empty space for you to plot; then, you could plot that extra plot to place a workbench and then place a Power Coil above or below their plot to get a current that breaks the corner blocks.
EDIT: I guess if they add little beacon buffer zones this will impossible, though.
can you even place coils outside your beacon? I know workbenches you can’t, so that would have to be in your plot. I would assume coils work the same
