They wont add copper tools Because not all materials need a tool version look enerald which are only used for trading with villagers but copper has already plenty of uses, also we just dont need another tool type to compicate the game
Maybe take inspiration from irl, like copper hoes work better, or copper swords do more damage underwater and to creepers, and copper picks go faster underwater.
The biggest problem with this, is that game designers should not leave big decisions up to players with not enough information. A game designer should know enough about their own game eco system to know and decide themselves which new implementation would improve and compliment the game. Leaving it up to players is irresponsible and weird.
all modpacks I played could use copper or other ores from any mod interchangeably, so I dont know about there being issue "oh, for IC machine you cant use thermal expansion copper" or anything, literally only issue was stacking or rodiculous ore generation with ten copper ores generate ten times more but never that "you got wrong copper" literally all modpacks I played made me possible to make blocks of metals with each ingot from different mod, and also some mods could unify stored ingots to one type too, so it was never crippling issue.. same issue has silver and bunch of other less or more obscure ores as uranium or platinum, and it is small issue usually getting iron slower is not bad for progression, iron is literally second tier of "normal" tools/armor minecraft dont seem to have really space for copper tier, UNLESS only difference between that and stone would be durability and maybe little faster mining speed on tools over stone but not reaching iron, and not letting it mine "iron tier" hard blocks, and making "stone tier" armor craftable, since chainmail stands for that tier so far, minecraft has no space to put material tier in middle, remember gold indeed.. none uses gold tools unless they are desperate, and armor is only to make piglins friendly adding tons of ingots for different oxidation of copper would be not thing I would go with, we got already ton of kinds of all copper blocks and their oxidated forms, not need also ingots, armors and tools could oxidate on their own when used, could have random chance to oxidate when durability point is lost, but instead of giving them any improvement, making them worse, needing you get rid of oxidation if they would be too oxidated (so far we seen that more oxidation is supposed to things work worse if they do something, light bulbs and concept for copper golem be examples) also if you cant find enough iron, save 5 pieces with turtle helmet (too bad we have not full turtle aarmor, why none talks about how we need full turtle armor anymore)
weird take: iron being "rarer" encourages exploring. Desert and jungle temples, illager outposts, sunken ships, hidden treasure, etc. used to have some shitty rewards, but iron being less common makes these chests much more valuable, and exploring more rewarding.
Alternatively, Just basically make copper as good as gold tools but with higher durability and can mine iron and gold but not diamond. A fun and easy side-grade that could help you mine to iron faster and/or through deepslate.
Another suggestion is the additional introduction of tin and bronze officially into Minecraft. Then instead of worrying about copper tools and weapons, instead there would be bronze tools and weapons, using copper and tin to make bronze ingots. It isn't impossible at least speaking of gameplay as bronze is strong as a metal but it is still significantly weaker than iron. And although the copper age did exist, in terms of importance to advancing human societies rapidly it is usually seen as stone age, to bronze age, to iron age, with copper metallurgy being included with the stoneage. Although this is just my opinion as me personally I feel like getting too many different metal types for tools and contraptions would just lead to some being ignored over others.
In my oppinion, most of the time when people criticize and suggest fixes, they just try to nudge the game in the direction most favourable to their playstile. They forget that the game has to be adapted to tens of other types of players. i have seen that with the new minecraft updates. Some people say it is too bloated with features, whilst others believe that mojang does not add enough. Some people want the game to be more focused on building and not contain as musch extra stuff, so that they do not get distracted. Others want to have more distractions since they play the game for its extrinsinc gain. Minecraft is lterally being pulled from one side by intrinsic players and from another by extrinsic players. People need to realize that Mojang cant fully satisfy both parties, since catering too much to one of them would make the game unplayable for the other part, so they try to maintain an equilibrated stance. In my oppinion, adding copper tools is inconsequential to the game and would probably end up as gold tools, unused by anyone. Copper is meant to be primarly a building block, that is why you find it so often, and changing its spawn rate would just make it totally unusable.
