Prospector's Shovel

[AwesoMan3000 4]

Couldn't see anything like this, so decided to post it.

Would basically be the same as its pickaxe variant, but would be able to locate clay, peat and other dirt ores (gypsum generates in dirt, right?). It would have slightly different messages:

Found nothing of interest.

Found traces of Clay

Found a small/medium/(very) large mound of Clay

Found Clay

Basically all of my idea, but we could improve upon it

[Kittychanley 1,002]

There's no such thing as dirt ores. Gypsum, just like everything else, generates in stone.

 

Clay is extremely easy to find because of the goldenrod flowers that grow on top of it. If you were within range of clay to get a reading on a "proshovel" you would be within range to see these very bright yellow flowers.

 

If you want to find peat, you need to be in a swamp biome. From there, the stuff is pretty much everywhere, and is easily found by simply looking at areas that have 2 high cliffs, or water; which exposes the peat because it isn't covered by grass.

[AwesoMan3000 4]

Technically clay is a dirt ore; and although the goldenrods do make it stand out it feels like there has to be some other way to find them. And there could be more "dirt ore" types added.

Mabye it could be used to identify the plants in the area/biome/rock type instead?

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The problem with this idea is that it just doesn't make any sense believably. The prospectors pick is an actual tool that really exists, more commonly referred to as a paleo pick. The way that they work is that you use it to scrape samples off of the stone, and then you can look at that sample for traces of different metals.

 

You really don't need a special shovel to take a dirt sample. You also don't need any sort of special way to identify plants in the area, because they are all readily visible. If you want to know what trees are in the area, go up to the tree and either chop it down, or get a sapling. Things like berry bushes and wild crops don't grow in large enough patches to believably be able to say that they left some sort of usable trace of themselves in the dirt that is 50 meters away.