Automatons weak?

[Javik]

I tried gnomes a few times and was wondering why my automatons seem to always get one-shot killed by anything. Even the iron ones seem to at most take one hit (which only drains about 1/5 of their health) and then get executed on the next, no matter how weak the enemy is. Why is that? For balance? in that case its not a very intuitive mechanic.

[funkmonster7]

I'm pretty certain you can give your automaton a "head" which makes it humanoid, thereby allowing it to wear armor. Given that the heavy iron automaton itself starts with something like 40 armor; if you give it armor equipment to wear, it'll become a tank.

[Javik]

their armor value is 36 (heavy 42) which is much better than my usual trash mobs, but those usually took hits until they died like you would expect, taking 3-5 hits to die but i have never seen an automaton with less than 3/4 in any of my 3 gnome attempts before they get "cut in half"

[di eshor ribly]

Here's a few tips for your automaton army:

-Ballista units (two archer heads, one pair of legs) shred most enemies at range before they get close enough to hit anything. Your golems do not learn bypass allies though, so expect swarm archer mechanics. Heavy ballista units (three archer heads, pushed into position and barricaded around) are your home-base defensive auto turrets. An adamantine heavy ballista unit has 80 ranged attack power.

-Fire/Acid Belcher units apply the Burn and Acid debuffs respectively, but for the most part lack the "oomph" needed to be of more use than archery heads. Also the fire one tends to burn loot you can bring home and smelt for resources.

-The flying Helicopterum only has one slot, but has a speed boost. You can use these for fast sniper units/scouts or have a few buzzing around your golems equipped with a Repair Arm (turns it into a fast healer). They're very weak physically so I don't use them much.

-The repair arms will keep all your golems repaired within melee range, if you have multiple golems equipped with them they'll survive a lot longer. Most of your iron golems being killed quickly is probably due to them having an arm/leg chopped off and then their "head".

-Upgrade to adamantine as soon as possible. My "standard" golem army is one Humanoid Golem (arm, legs, humanoid head) in adamantine armor with sword and shield for tanky goodness, a cluster of Arm/Leg/Archer "marines", some ballista units, and a couple Repair/Archer/Leg "battle mechanic" units.

Automatons are tough, but they're not invincible death robots. Their main benefit is they don't need training - they're combat effective the second you install their limbs.

[NixBoxDone]

Automatons are a little bit weaker than other units you can (eventually) get with other factions to account for the fact that they're basically disposable and as strong as they're going to get right out of the box.

Sure, they depend a lot on material (if you're rocking wood automatons, prepare to take losses even against bandits, elves or ants) but you can also stack a lot of them and if they're wearing decent adamantine two-handers there shouldn't be anything they can at least hurt.

That disposable nature of theirs (given that you can just pick up the pieces and re-use em) also means that you can use wave tactics to tire tougher foes out with less of a cost than you could with minions that might have special traits or max training.

In other words, they're really fine. Just make sure you go straight to iron automatons after clearing out your spawn map, then using the iron golems to clear out elves and bandits on friendly maps or surface maps of subterranean rivals for some points to unlock a few extra upgrades.
After that decently built iron golems in equipment should be able to clear down to the first adamantine deposits without issues. From there on it's really smooth sailing.
You'll lose some to tougher fights but you can recycle the parts so it's never a huge issue.

Unlike other factions where I usually eventually end up with a crack squad of elites wearing heavily enchanted adamantine gear, automatons are kind of assembly line minions. You use em to clear stuff and if a few dies you really couldn't care less. Just make sure they don't die for nothing or for dumb reasons.

[Javik]

i think my wording was a little unfortunate here, i dont mean they are "too weak" because on paper they are extremely tanky and decently strong, i was mostly wondering about why they tend to die immediately with nearly full health the second time any damage goes through their defense, and whether there was some mechanic behind them dying that isnt mentioned in the game (something similar to losing vital organs in rimworld)

[NixBoxDone]

Darn. You know what, I don't actually know. What I do know is that automatons get damaged rather easily and that reduces their stats.
Similar to zombies, in that way.
I guess maybe that's it? If something goes through their defense it has a decent chance to destroy something that'll lower their stats further so the same enemy that originally managed to pierce the defenses turns them into scrap metal on the next turn.

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by Javik:

i think my wording was a little unfortunate here, i dont mean they are "too weak" because on paper they are extremely tanky and decently strong, i was mostly wondering about why they tend to die immediately with nearly full health the second time any damage goes through their defense, and whether there was some mechanic behind them dying that isnt mentioned in the game (something similar to losing vital organs in rimworld)

It's the amputation/decapitation mechanics I mentioned earlier. Warhammers have a small chance to apply the Collapsed debuff, battleaxes can amputate limbs. What is happening with your golems is your enemy is getting a critical hit, removing an arm or a leg, and then on a subsequent crit removing the head and killing your automaton. Repair arms are the solution to this problem.

Edit: body parts also add armor for Iron/Adamantine golems. When a limb is destroyed the golem's armor is reduced - making it easier for them to take further damage.

[funkmonster7]

If your keeper (either the evil knight or mage) goes into melee with enemies that he/she can't do any damage whatsoever to, wail on them quite a bit and you'll see arms get chopped off or something. The only "somewhat-of-an" exception is enemies with regeneration, unless you are stringing crits (amputations) otherwise they'll regenerate the damage back.

What's happening to your automatons is exactly that.