5

Mining with stone pickaxe

Single stone pickaxe has 132 durability. With two pickaxes however, you can "repair"(combine) them and have 5% bonus durability which is floor(132*1.05) = 138. So my question is, what is the maximum number of stone blocks can you mine with inventory full of (36) stone pickaxes?

(Assume you can only mine stone blocks)

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  • The table on the page you linked solves the trickier part of the maths. Writing up an answer now. – Studoku Nov 17 '15 at 14:37
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    I attempted to write an answer, then i realized i suck at math and stopped. – Realitätsverlust Nov 17 '15 at 14:39
  • @YUNOWORK That's the reason I'm asking too haha – Q20 Nov 17 '15 at 14:40
  • You can mine many more. Because after you find the first coal and iron, you smelt it and make an iron pickaxe. – Bergi Nov 17 '15 at 23:13
14

4962 blocks- enough to mine a solid 17x17x17 cube.

The most efficient repair possible involves two tools with a total durability of 126. This gives the maximum possible bonus of 6 extra uses.

With 36 pickaxes you will make 35 repairs.

35*6=210 bonus from repairs

The 36 pickaxes themselves will mine 132 blocks each.

36*132= 4752 blocks

4752+210= 4962 blocks mined in total.

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  • Slight change. Due to the prior work penalty of an anvil, a single pick may only be repaired up to 5 times in survival mode before the XP usage becomes more than the anvil allows. Therefore, 2^5 = 32 of these picks may be repaired together, before the resulting pick cannot be used at an anvil. This reduces the total number of repairs from 35 to 34, and the total number of blocks from 4962 to 4956 – Eldritch Cheese Nov 17 '15 at 17:55
  • Why is the overall 4.4% bonus vs the 4752 that just mining each pick to destruction would give less than 5%? – Random832 Nov 17 '15 at 18:05
  • @EldritchCheese Does that include repairing non-magical picks in the crafting menu? – Studoku Nov 17 '15 at 18:33
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    @EldritchCheese if you are not keeping enchantments there is no need of an anvil, any two tools of the same type and material can be combined on the player's inventory (for zero exp) as of 1.8.8 - even enchanted ones: they revert to normal tools – Mindwin Nov 17 '15 at 18:33
  • @Random832 Rounding errors. The bonus durability cannot be a decimal (how would you even add 0.1 of a use?) so it's rounded down. – Studoku Nov 17 '15 at 18:34

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