Manual tools
Start with a metal detector
Named hand tools before belts take over.
Find The Needle starts by hand. Steam's about text names a metal detector as the first search tool, then a shop list of shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, pitchforks and vacuums for moving hay. Those six names are the whole first-party tool table. Prices, throughputs and a full shop order are unpublished except one Demo V8 line: Vacuum Yard is 80 percent cheaper. Buy enough of this kit to sell hay before you freeze a conveyor layout.
| Name | Stage | Acquire | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| metal detector | manual | start | First search tool. Steam says start by hand with a metal detector before belts and machines take over. |
| shovel | manual | buy / start | Starting hand tool named in the short blurb and in The tools heading on the store. |
| bucket | manual | buy | Buyable manual hay tool listed with shovels and wheelbarrows. |
| wheelbarrow | manual | buy | Buyable manual hay mover listed in The tools. |
| pitchfork | manual | buy | Buyable manual hay tool listed in The tools. |
| vacuum | manual | buy | Buyable vacuum listed in The tools. Demo V8 cuts Vacuum Yard price 80 percent. |
What Steam names, and what it skips
The tools heading on the store is a shopping list, not a DPS sheet. Metal detector is the search starter. Shovel appears in the short blurb as well as the tool list. Bucket, wheelbarrow, pitchfork and vacuum are buyable movers. There is no official gold cost beside the Vacuum Yard discount, and no official hay-per-second column.
Demo V8 is the only patch that touches this list by name. Vacuum Yard minus 80 percent is a first-party price change. If a community guide quotes other shop numbers, they are not on this table. Use the detector to find metal in the pile, then sell enough hay to afford the next mover.
The still on this page is the yard with tools and the sell path, not a hidden sixth tool. img-ss-6 on the next block is the pile those tools work against.
Keep the metal detector on you while you cart hay. The shop list is short on purpose: six named tools, then the factory. A seventh unnamed rake in a screenshot is still a screenshot, not a new row. Demo V8's Vacuum Yard discount is the only official price change on this list, and it is enough reason to check that station before you dump coins into a second vacuum.
Why the shop exists before automation
Belts need a reason to run. Selling hay funds the first machines. If you snap a conveyor to the Hay Sell Stand with no hay moving, V8's snap rework still needs hay on the belt. The manual kit is how you bootstrap coins: detect, scoop, cart, dump, sell.
F No Snap Mode and E shutdown are factory keys, not tool keys. They live on the automation page because Demo V8 attached them to conveyors and power poles. The metal detector does not get a published key bind on the store.
Once vacuums and pitchforks feel slow, the store's next sentence is belts, balers, scanners and robotic arms. That is the hand-off, not a second tool tier with secret names.
When the yard feels slow, the next Steam sentence is belts, balers, scanners and robotic arms. Walk to the automation ledger instead of waiting for a hidden tool tier. F and E stay on that ledger because they bind to conveyors and poles, not to shovels.
Frequently asked questions
Do I start with a shovel or a metal detector?
Steam's loop sentence says start by hand with a metal detector. The shovel is named in the short blurb and in The tools list. Treat the detector as the search starter and the shovel as the first named mover. Exact loadout on spawn is not itemized beyond those phrases.
What did Demo V8 change for tools?
The V8 notes cut Vacuum Yard price by 80 percent. They do not republish shovel, bucket, wheelbarrow or pitchfork prices. Conveyor snap, F No Snap Mode, and E on power poles are factory changes, listed on the automation page. Read those three factory notes before you rebuild a snaking line around the booth.
Sources