Tool

A tool is an item which has some practical use to interact with the environment. Although some tools are unique, all tools have certain properties in common.

Usage

How to use a tool often depends on the tool itself. Most tools are used with the attack key (Left mouse button) or the build key (right mouse button).

Mining tools

Many tools are mining tools; refer to Mining for more information.

Weapons

Tools which are able to damage opponents are called “weapons”. Since weapons share all properties of tools, weapons are considered tools, too.

Wear

A tool may wear off when used often. Wheather and how fast a tool wears off depends on the tool type. Each time you use such a tool it becomes a little bit worn off.

You can tell how much a tool is worn off by a small colored bar below the inventory icon. A tool which doesn’t wear off or which is not worn off yet does not have such a bar under its inventory icon. When this bar becomes empty, the tool is destroyed. You might consider repairing a tool before it becomes destroyed.

Repairing

A game can make a repairing recipe available. If this is the case, tools which wear off can be repaired by placing two tools of the some kind into the crafting grid. The recipe is shapeless. Other Minetest games and mods may change this percentage or even disallow repairing completely.

Default tool

When you wield nothing at all (empty slot in highlighted hotbar slot) then you “wield” the default tool. Every game has it’s own default tool and it may or may not be different. The default tool is not a tool because it’s not an item but it is called “default tool” because it shares many properties with tools.

The default tool never wears off and doesn’t behave like an item; e.g. it can’t be thrown away.

The default tool may or may not be a mining tool and it may or may not be a weapon. It is always possible with the default tool to collect stuff.

If you carry an item which is not a tool (for example: a stone), it has the same properties as you’d have with the default tool. If the default tool is a digging tool and you try to mine a block with a tool for which it wasn’t build for, the mining time equals the mining time of the default tool.

Tools in the vanilla Minetest game

The available tools are:

• Hand – default tool; mines the weakest blocks, serves as a weak weapon
• Pickaxe – mines cracky blocks like Stone
• Shovel – mines crumbly blocks like Dirt, Sand, etc.
• Axe – mines choppy blocks like Trees
• Sword – hurts enemies
• Bucket – collects liquids
• Screwdriver – rotates blocks

In the vanilla Minetest game, reparing is enabled. You will receive a tool which is 2% less worn off.

Tools in other games

Mining tools and melee weapons of all kinds are quite popular. But modders can still come up with tools which serve an entire different purpose.

In practice, the default tool is often a hand.

Modders may come up with their own ways to repair tools as well.

Theoretically, modders may even abuse the “wear-off bar” for purposes other than showing the tool’s wear.