Mining Laser

The mining laser can be considered the high-tech successor to the Automatic Mining Drill. It is a 3x3x3 (pseudo-)multiblock that can only be placed underneath a block, though it will remain in position if that block is removed however. It has a 100MHE internal power buffer and a 64,000mb internal crude oil buffer. Its default radius is 3.

Crafting

The mining laser is fairly expensive to produce, requiring the following recipe:

Upgrades

The mining laser can take several upgrades to improve performance in various ways.

Speed Upgrades (Max 12)
- Increases speed of mining, at the cost of exponentially increasing power consumption.
Effectiveness Upgrade (Max 12, max 51 block radius)
- Increases radius of mining, power consumption is linear to radius/upgrade count.
Overdrive Upgrade (Max 3)
- Like speed, but much better and much more expensive.
Fortune (Max 3)
- Increases drop rate of applicable ores and blocks, similar to the enchantment of the same name.
Nullifier (Scrap Destroyer)
- Destroys "useless" blocks mined up.
- Includes: cobblestone, sand, gravel, and stone variants.
Smelter
- Auto-smelts blocks it mines.
Shredder
- Auto-shreds blocks it mines.
Centrifuge
- Auto-centrifuges ores it mines.
Crystallizer
- Auto-crystallizes blocks it mines.
Screaming Scientist Upgrade
- Creative only.
- Every time a block is mined, it plays a Half-Life scientist scream. It gets very loud with a fast miner.

Usage

The mining laser can essentially carve worlds apart to acquire their minerals deep underground. The miner can create gargantuan pits all the way down to bedrock level. When it encounters fluids such as an underground water or lava lake, it destroys the fluid and barricades the rest of the fluid with "Sand Bags" (not available to craft, not even found in creative mode). If it encounters an oil deposit, it will mine it up and add a small amount of its oil to its internal tank.

The mining laser consumes a lot of power, especially with speed and radius upgrades, meaning you'll need something from a powerful large nuclear reactor to even a Watz Plant to power it by itself. The only power port is the one on the top.

A most useful part of the miner are the side ports, which are not only compatible with chests and crates, but also item pipes/ducts from other mods, such as Thermal Dynamics (Thermal Expansion addon), as pictured.

Trivia

The laser itself is dangerous and will damage and set fire to any mob it intersects with. Mob drops are pulled up by the miner as well as any loose items it comes near.
The mining time (per block) is determined by the block's hardness.
The mining laser continues to consume power even when idle, so power it off when it has reached bedrock level.

Gallery

Mining laser with default radius (3x3)
Example of Sand Bags in use blocking off water from a small underground pond
Default mining laser GUI. Note how items are automatically picked up.