Handheld mining plasma cutter

[NesMettaur]

I guess one way to do it would be letting miners build their pods from scratch instead of having one off the bat, but that's just inconveniencing people for the sake of hard labor.

Maybe, make the Rock Drilling Rig and the like have a penalty where it destroys some of the ore in every vein? It's still quick and efficient, but if something really rare (i.e. gold) shows up you're better off ditching the pod.