Agrihand

This article is about the mechanoid from the Biotech DLC. For the artificial body part from the Royalty DLC, see Field hand.

A agrihand is a mechanoid added by the Biotech DLC.

Summary

As mechanoids, agrihands are immune to fire, toxicity, and temperature extremes, despite having a Comfortable Temperature. They do not need to eat, rest, and have no mood. They will be stunned by EMP attacks and will "adapt" for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs), rendering them immune to further EMP strikes. Mechs count as a partial pawn in terms raid points, and still contribute towards wealth.

Work

Agrihands are light mechanoids. They are created from a standard mech gestator with 1 basic subcore and 50 steel, taking up 1 bandwidth from a mechanitor. They take 1800 ticks to initally craft, and then it must gestate for 1 cycle. Mechanoids can be fully repaired at the cost of power and nothing else. A dead agrihand can be resurected for 25 steel and 1 gestation cycle so long as the corpse is extant.

Mechs under player control require power: agrihands use 10% of their power per day while active. If set to dormant self-charging, they instead recharge for +1% power / day, without pollution. They recharge in a mech recharger (constant 200W), for 50% power/day, creating 5 wastepacks whenever the recharger's waste is filled up.

Agrihands will automatically perform tasks under the Grow and Plant Cut work types; they can't be manually controlled, except when drafted for combat. They have an effective Plants skill of 10, resulting in Plant Harvest Yield of 102% however their Plant Work Speed is capped at 40%.

Analysis

Agrihands are fairly simple, increasing the number of crops you can grow and harvest at any one time. With 10 plants skill, they can grow any crop, and as a 24/7 worker, they can allow your colony to grow and harvest a substantial number of additional crops.

Agrihands are useful if pawn time, or pawns with enough skill, are limited. In other words: useful if you need to grow more crops. If grow area is limited, then using a human with >10 skill will maximise the return off the finite space. Ideally, you could use both planters and agrihands when sowing crops, and have the mechs enter dormancy during the harvest. You can set a zone for agrihands if you need a specific area sowed or cut.

As mechanoids are immune to toxicity, agrihands are especially helpful for growing toxipotatoes and other plants in polluted soil - which you may cause by using mechanoids in the first place.

Comparison to growers

An agrihands harvest yield, both per plant and per day, can be outstripped by skilled human growers. Humans can become even more efficent if they are equipped with field hands, have the Plants specialist role, and for drugs, the Drug Use:Essential precept.

There's nothing stopping you from using both human and mech labor, or using mechs so that a human grower has more time for other tasks. But other than the pollution cost, mechs may create too too much yield, too much to actually use.

Version history

Biotech DLC Release - Added.

Mechanoids

Mechanoids | Core: Centipede (Blaster, Burner, Gunner) • Lancer • Pikeman • Scyther • Termite
Combat: Centurion • Legionary • Militor • Scorcher • Tesseron
Command: Apocriton • Diabolus • War queen (War urchin )
Labor: Agrihand • Cleansweeper • Constructoid • Fabricor • Lifter • Paramedic • Tunneler
Cluster | Buildings: Condition causer • Count-down activator • Mech assembler • Mech capsule • Mech drop beacon • Mech high-shield • Mech low-shield • Mech node • Proximity activator • Unstable power cell
Turrets: Auto charge turret • Auto inferno turret • Auto mortar • Mini-slugger turret
Creation | Pawn: Mechanitor
Buildings: Mech gestator • Large mech gestator • Mechband antenna • Mechband dish

Agrihand

Contents

Summary

Work

Analysis

Comparison to growers

Version history

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