This was added to allow a player to get out of a
rare softlock (trapped inside a cobble room without
any tools). Since then we have not seen much use
of it for this intended purpose.
However, it has caused MUCH confusion among new
players, wondering why it takes so long to mine
dirt or tree trunks, instead of trying to figure out how
to make the proper tool.
Emergency digging is causing more problems than
it's solving and thus it makes more sense to remove
it than to keep it. If we need some mechanic to fill
its niche (i.e. a way out of softlock) then we will need
to consider something that's harder to discover
accidentally to avoid confusion.
This reverts commit 253c2282917ecade5b8356d592edab40b1d517f5.
Apparently this warning is full of crap. Explicitly
setting use_texture_alpha in the node def does
something DIFFERENT than what the engine says
it's doing enabling it internally. use_texture_alpha
enables alpha BLENDING, which is what we
don't want with interpolation filters, whereas
leaving it off enables alpha THRESHOLDING which
is exactly what we want.
Apparently we will be required to enable
use_texture_alpha explicitly for anything using
any level of transparency, not just alpha
blending, in some future version.
This should keep players from being able to trap
themselves permanently by burying or sealing
themselves inside a room with no tools, in theory.
Adjust silk touch logic to prevent presence of dig times
by hand from tripping it.
This may affect game balance of things like not being
able to punch trees in the early game, but since dig
times by hand are so very long, hopefully the effect
will be small.
Item drops are left as-is for now; it just takes a LOT
of patience to dig something without the right tool.