Factorio Forums

This has been mentioned previously in various places/contexts, and so I'm writing it here as well.

Phrases such as "Enemy structures cannot be mined." do not make a lot of sense in English - since it may be unclear what exactly you're trying to do to the structure when you "mine" it. That is, maybe you cannot mine a structure simply because it makes no sense to try hitting a building with a mining pick, rather than the intended meaning which is that you cannot "deconstruct + pick up" enemy buildings.

Moreover, mining resources is fundamentally different in terms of game mechanics from "mining" entities, because:

• "Mining" entities is something only a player can do (as opposed to drills which mine resources).
• You can only "mine" an entity once as opposed to resources which can be mined repeatedly.
• Mining a resource is irreversible (i.e. you cannot take a lump of coal and place it back into a coal deposit to increase its count).
• And so on...

My suggestion is to replace "mined" with either "mined or picked up" or just "picked up" when appropriate.
Other alternative may include "dismantled" or even the "deconstructed" which is used for bots.

I think that when talking about structures - the player, like the bots, will deconstruct. Mining should be reserved for ores.

I agree.... "cannot be mined" for resource type entities and "cannot be deconstructed" for non-resource entities.