The Drill is a Ship Tool block in Space Engineers. Players use block drills in Survival Mode as an industrial miner to gather ores or to remove layers of stone (also know as voxel material), instead of using the smaller Hand Drill.
Block Drills produce a hole about three small blocks in diameter and one or two blocks deep, depending on how far the Drill is from the surface.
Drill radius diagram by Consty
Clearing out Stone[]
Like Hand Drills, Block Drills have a secondary tool mode (RMB) that simply clears out rock and ores (!) quickly without collecting the chunks. Deleting voxels is mainly useful for getting past the outer stone "shell" of an asteroid or planet to get to the more valuable ore within without having to mine out and collect lots of comparatively less valuable stone.
To use primary and secondary mode of a drill on a ship just as you would a Hand Drill, drag the drill from the "Block Tools" (!) section of the Toolbar Config menu to your toolbar. Now LMB clicking activates the ship drill to collect ores, and RMB clicking clears voxels.
Tip: A drill will not destroy the grid it is built on. If you want to dig out an NPC encounter wreck, drilling will also destroy its blocks. Instead, attach the drill, a seat, and a power source to the wreck(!), sit in the seat and use the secondary tool mode (hold RMB) to clear out the surrounding stone, then grind and rebuild the drill to reach more areas, and so on.
Inventory[]
The grid drills have a built-in inventory with a capacity of 3,375L on small ships and 23,437.5L on large ships and stations. This inventory will only accept ore type items. Drills will send push requests for all of their contents through Conveyor systems.[1]
Placement[]
The drill can be placed on large ships, small ships, and stations.
The small ships' drill is 3x3x6 mini-cubes big, while the large is 1x1x3 cubes (meaning they are the same overall size). The gap between the drills is important: two small drills can be separated by a single space without problem, but with the large drill any gap is enough to allow an unground rock spur to get between the drills, preventing them from boring deeper - or even damaging them.
Power[]
A single Drill uses 2 kW of power while it is running. It does not matter if it is in contact with stone or not.
Drill is a Ship Tool block in Space Engineers. Players use block drills in Survival Mode as an industrial miner to gather ores or to remove layers of stone (also know as voxel material), instead of using the smaller Hand Drill.
Computer
Motor
Large Steel Tube
Small Steel Tube
Construction Comp.
Steel Plate
