Factorio Forums

Hey, I play this game for quite a while now and I simply love it. One thing is bothering me though and I can't figure out what the problem is.
When I manually deconstruct something using the right mouse button it seems the speed of deconstruction differs. Sometimes it is really slow, sometimes its very fast. It comes in phases and sometimes suddenly changes, also it is not limited to any specifc entities or buildings. I actually feel kind of stupid for asking this question, but I couldn't find an answer anywhere. Please tell me its actually part of the gameplay and I control it somehow but am just to stupid to find out how. Especially in early gamephases when I do not have any construction robots yet it is very annoying if it takes two seconds for every deconstruction.

get a better tool

you can create a pick out of iron as you start and upgrade it to steel after some research

Some items (Chests, Storage-Tanks and I think also Walls) have longer mining times.
But I suspect what is happening to you is that your pickaxe breaks - without a tool all mining becomes much slower - even `mining` your own structures back. Make sure you always have a tool, and if at any point things feels like they take too long to pick up - check if your tool hasn't broken.
Also, a steel axe mines faster than an iron one.

I knew it was somethng stupid I never realized, that deconstruction actually uses up your pickaxe....
Thanks for your help.