blast drill

The Airblast Drill is a Serpulo-tier drill block designed for high-throughput resource extraction. It functions as a powered mining structure that drills adjacent tiles to harvest ores and deposits for conveyor transport. Introduced in early builds of the game, it occupies a mid-to-late game role by combining a high base mining speed with a large item buffer and compatibility with booster effects.

The drill has a high base throughput of roughly 3.42 items per second (subject to small version adjustments) and a build time around 3.55 seconds. Its internal item capacity is 20 items, allowing it to store more output than many earlier drills. The Airblast Drill received a health increase to 765 in later updates and was explicitly given the ability to mine both Beryllium and Tungsten, making it the only Serpulo drill capable of extracting Tungsten. In code and some asset references it is labeled "blast-drill."

Placement and performance considerations:

• The drill consumes power to operate and benefits strongly from booster structures that increase digging speed; its booster potency has been adjusted across versions (notably rising into the ~3.2× range in later updates), making booster arrays an efficient way to multiply extraction rates.
• When placed on light-cover tiles such as scrap or sand covering 1–9 tiles, the Airblast Drill achieves similar effective output to the Laser Drill due to its higher-powered mechanism; in practice this can equalize their per-second yields under those terrain conditions.
• Use the drill when you need a compact, high-capacity extractor that can reach late-game ores like Tungsten and Beryllium; its larger buffer smooths logistics and reduces the frequency of conveyor congestion or overflow compared with smaller drills.
• Defend Airblast Drills adequately: they have higher health than earlier versions but remain valuable targets for enemy waves due to their resource yield.

Upgrade and balancing notes:

• Across updates the base speed, build time, booster multiplier, capacity, and health have been tweaked. The drill’s design favors pairing with power networks and booster infrastructure rather than raw placement in isolation.
• Because it can mine Tungsten and Beryllium, the Airblast Drill is often used on maps or veins where those resources are present; choose drill placement to minimize transport distance to refining and production chains.

The Airblast Drill is best deployed as part of a powered, defended mining cluster with booster support and sufficient conveyor throughput to take advantage of its increased capacity and ability to access high-end ores.