A possible solution I'd offer is to make it so that the check is made when you successfully get a bit of CNR, rather than when you start, to prevent breakage before you get anything, while retaining the current system.
that does sound better. And since we have the option of making the tools. What about giving a higher durability to tools that are crafted out of different material? Copper axe.. breaking the fastest to, maybe iron or platinum being the hardest?
But what prevents people from exploiting it by getting one bit of CNR, stopping, then starting again on a nearby deposit to get the next first bit of CNR, then back again and so on? Or, to say it another way, how does the system track things so there aren't unbreakable tools and infinite 'first bits?' Wouldn't there still have to be some extra counter or toggle checker somewhere?
I can see a couple of problems with that - primarily, palette space. As it stands, the tools are all, as a general rule, crafted with oak and iron, and if multiple tools were being used, more blueprints would have to be added to the palette. Secondarily, as it stands, as long as an item has the correct tag, it can be used as a woodcutter's axe/miner's pick/gem chisel, etc. If we needed to discriminate between tags, that requires an additional check to be added, and this is fired by the deposit's "OnPhysicalAttack" event. We want to keep the number of instructions to a minimum. Even so, aside from the palette problem, it wouldn't be TOO hard to implement, I imagine.
There already exists a different pick axe, a crafted one. It's slightly smaller and hits for slightly more. Would be really nice if it were also somewhat more durable....
Is it possible to change the script a bit to make a crafted pick twice as durable? Like make it have to roll vs the DC twice in order to break, instead of just once. Is that reasonably doable?
Yes, the crafted mining pick is different. Sorry for not being clear.