Started a new game, normal settings, Akua start. After the tutorial is triggered the survival tool will no longer harvest materials from rocks nor plants and instead will delete them in any firing mode. Progressing through the tutorial to the part where one builds tools and a constructor will eventually allow the tool to be used, but it will be bugged for the short time after the tutorial is begun. If no progress is made on the tutorial then the survival tool continues not to work and the game becomes unplayable. If a player starts a new game and chooses to skip the tutorial, then the Survival Tool functions as normal and game progresses normally with no issue.
I found this too, just came here to report this as a bug. It appears if you get far enough away from the starting POI then you can pick up rocks etc but if this is an intended feature its terrible and should be fixed asap, new players will not know what is going on here!
Further testing, appears restarting the game fixes it and now I can harvest around the starting POIs fine. Further testing required
I have not experienced this in any new game starts when starting the tutorial after landing in the escape pod the tool is collecting just fine for me with every new game I start. Just to confirm this is SP right ? Did you have the survival tool set to "Resource mode" ?
It seemed to happen for a few minutes, at first I thought it was distance based but when I started a new game I stayed within the starting POI and it started working normally after a short time. Since then I have been unable to reproduce it at all. No matter the starting planet. So no idea whats going on. But for now, somehow, it's not a problem.....for me anyway.