Getting a solid roblox mining system script voxel setup working is probably the most satisfying thing you can do as a dev. There's just something about clicking on a block, watching it shatter into particles, and seeing the terrain actually change that makes a game feel alive. If you've spent any time on the platform, you've probably seen those "mining simulator" games, but building one that uses a true voxel-based system—where the world is made of manageable, destructible chunks—is a whole different ballgame compared to just deleting a random Part.
I've spent way too many hours tinkering with raycasting and grid math, and honestly, it's easier than it looks once you get the logic down. You aren't just writing code; you're basically building a tiny engine inside of Roblox that handles how matter exists and disappears. Let's break down how this actually works without making it sound like a college textbook.
Why Bother with a Voxel System?
You might be wondering why you'd go through the trouble of a voxel setup instead of just placing thousands of parts in the workspace. Well, if you've ever tried to run a game with 50,000 unanchored parts, you know exactly why. It's a lag fest. A proper voxel system keeps things organized. It allows you to calculate exactly where a player is hitting and updates the world in a way that doesn't make the server cry.
When we talk about a "voxel" in the context of a script, we're really just talking about a 3D grid. Think of it like a giant invisible ice cube tray. Each slot in that tray has a coordinate (X, Y, Z). Your script just needs to know if a slot is "Full" (a block exists) or "Empty" (it's been mined). This makes it way easier to handle things like saving data or generating infinite caves.
The Heart of the Script: Raycasting
If you want a player to mine a block, you have to know what they're looking at. This is where raycasting comes in. It's basically firing an invisible laser beam from the player's camera or tool to see what it hits.
In your roblox mining system script voxel setup, you don't just want to hit "any" part. You want to hit the grid. The trick here is taking the hit position—which might be something messy like (12.43, 5.1, -22.8)—and "snapping" it to your grid. If your blocks are 4x4x4 studs, you'd do some quick math to round those numbers to the nearest multiple of 4. Suddenly, the script knows exactly which "cube" in the world needs to be destroyed.
It sounds complicated, but it's really just a bit of division and rounding. Once the script identifies the specific coordinate, it can trigger the destruction logic and maybe drop some loot for the player.
Keeping Performance in Check
This is where most people mess up. If your script creates a new Part every single time the game starts, you're going to hit a wall. Smart devs use something called "chunking." Instead of the script worrying about the whole map at once, it only cares about the area immediately surrounding the player.
As the player moves, the script loads in the voxels ahead of them and unloads the ones far behind. It's the same trick games like Minecraft use. In Roblox, you can achieve this by storing your voxel data in a large table (or a dictionary) and only physically "rendering" the parts that are visible to the player. If a block is buried deep underground and nobody can see it, does it really need to exist as a Part? Nope. It can just stay as a piece of data in your script until it's uncovered.
The Client vs. Server Struggle
We can't talk about a roblox mining system script voxel without mentioning the dreaded "RemoteEvent." You never want the client (the player's computer) to be the one in charge of deleting blocks. If you do that, exploiters will come in and delete your entire map in three seconds.
The flow should always be: 1. The player clicks. 2. The client script checks if the player is close enough to the block. 3. The client fires a RemoteEvent to the server saying, "Hey, I'd like to mine the block at these coordinates." 4. The server does its own check (to make sure the player isn't cheating) and then updates the world for everyone.
It adds a tiny bit of delay, but it's the only way to keep your game fair. To make it feel "snappy" for the player, you can actually delete the block on their screen instantly (client-side) while waiting for the server to confirm it. This is called "latency compensation," and it's what makes high-end games feel so smooth.
Making it Look Good
A script that just deletes blocks is boring. You need the "juice." When the server confirms a block is mined, your script should trigger a few visual effects.
- Particle Emitters: Burst some dust and rock chips that match the color of the block.
- Sound Effects: A nice "thud" or "crunch" sound goes a long way.
- Animations: Don't just let the pickaxe sit there; give it a little swing.
Even a simple roblox mining system script voxel can feel like a triple-A title if the feedback is right. I usually like to add a tiny camera shake when a big ore block is destroyed. It gives the player that hit of dopamine that keeps them digging deeper.
Handling the Data
Eventually, your players are going to leave the game. If they spent three hours digging a massive tunnel, they're going to be pretty annoyed if that tunnel is gone when they log back in.
Saving voxel data is a bit different than saving a simple "Level" or "Gold" value. You're basically saving a list of coordinates that have been modified. Instead of saving the state of every single block in the world, just save the "holes." When the server starts up, your script reads that list of holes and removes those blocks from the initial generation. It's much more efficient and keeps your DataStore usage low.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I've seen a lot of scripts that try to use Instance.new("Part") for every single voxel. Please, don't do this if you're planning on having a large map. Roblox's "EditableMesh" and "EditableImage" features are starting to change how we think about voxels, but for most people, using a folder of pooled parts or a dedicated chunking system is still the way to go.
Another thing to watch out for is the "debounce." If you don't put a cooldown on your mining script, a player with an auto-clicker will mine through your entire map in minutes. Always check the time between clicks on the server side.
Wrapping Things Up
Building a roblox mining system script voxel might seem like a mountain of work, but it's really just about breaking big problems into smaller ones. Start with getting a single block to disappear when clicked. Then, work on snapping that click to a grid. After that, move on to server-side validation and, finally, performance optimization.
The best part about this kind of system is how modular it is. Once you have the core voxel logic, you can use it for building systems, terrain editors, or even destructible environments in a combat game. It's a foundational skill in Roblox development that really separates the beginners from the pros. So, get in there, start messing with some raycasts, and don't worry if you break the world a few times—that's just part of the process. Happy scripting!