What do I do with Pickaxes in the nightly builds?

Question

In the stable builds, pickaxes and drills are the main methods of mining out things (apart from the Matter Manipulators). However, this has changed in the nightly builds.

I've noticed that Pickaxes and drills are no longer the main progression in mining; they're not in the workbench anymore!
Instead, I've noticed that you're meant to use the Matter Manipulator more often, and that you can't repair picks with ores like in the Stable builds.

Questions:

1. What do I do with pickaxes?
2. Is there any faster mining methods (apart from using the Matter Manipulator or a pickaxe^)?
3. How do I get them?

^Because that would just be very expensive (in terms of ores).

Answer 1

1. Pickaxes are now used as a short-term method to mining slightly faster than the Matter Manipulator. They can no longer be repaired but are now much cheaper to craft. They also have a much more limited range than the Matter Maniplator

2. It seems 2 handed weapons of higher rarity, that shoot projectiles can damage nearby blocks (the projectiles won't damage farther away blocks, only the swing from the weapon itself). They can hit many more blocks than a pickaxe will, but take more hits to mine. You will also not be able to collect any blocks destroyed in this manner, so highly non-recommended.

   You can use both the projectile or weapon's swing to destroy background objects like plants and the destructible white chests, these you will be able to collect. This doesn't work on farm-able plants, just things like reeds in desert oasis' or jungle plants.

3. They can be crafted at an Iron anvil, or found in containers in some dungeons.

Answer 2

1. You can still use them for mining. IMO the diamond drill is a bit faster than the fully upgraded MM but only mines 2x2.
2. No. I don't know if you can destroy blocks with some kind of explosives.
3. /