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.

Acquisition

Agrihands can be gestated by a mechanitor at a mech gestator once the basic mechtech research project has been completed. Each requires 50 Steel, 1 Basic subcore and 1 gestation cycle taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to initiate. They take up 1 bandwidth from their linked mechanitor.

Dead, friendly agrihands can also be resurrected at the mech gestator using the "Resurrect light mechanoid" bill. This requires the corpse of the friendly Agrihand, 25 steel, and 1 gestation cycle taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to initiate.

Summary

As mechanoids, every agrihand is immune to fire, Flame and Heat damage, and temperature extremes, despite having Comfortable Temperatures defined. They have 100% Toxic Resistance and Toxic Environment Resistance, making them immune to toxic buildup, rot stink and other toxic effects. They do not need to eat, rest, and have no mood. They will be stunned by EMP attacks for a time proportional to the EMP damage inflicted and will "adapt" and rendered immune to further EMP strikes for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs).

Dead agrihands may be shredded at the machining table or crafting spot for 10 steel. However, these values are affected by mechanoid shredding efficiency, as well as missing parts on the agrihand.

Combat

Agrihands can only make melee attacks. They have a melee hit chance of 62%, equivalent to a pawn with a Melee skill of 4.

As a labor-focused mech, agrihands are never found in mechanoid raids.

As an ally

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.

Work

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, they have a base Plant Work Speed set to 80%, and a further Global Work Speed modifier of 50%. This results in a Plant Work Speed stat of 40%, which is 33% as fast as a human of skill 10.

Analysis

Agrihands are a fairly simple mechanoid, 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, even if all your human growers are injured or otherwise grumpy.

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 maximize 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 an allowed area for agrihands if you need a specific area sowed or cut. With a proper allowed area set, agrihands should never have to get into combat, so they can remain operational no matter how damaged your colonists may be.

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.

Yield calculation

Theoretical yield of an agrihand working 5/6 days.
Top Left: Rice in hydroponics. Bottom Left: Rice in rich soil.
Right: Corn in rich soil.

Most non-tree plants take a base of 370 ticks (6.17 secs) to harvest and resow, which becomes 925 ticks (15.42 secs) due to their Plants Work Speed stat. This results in the agrihand being able to grow 64.9 crops per day online.

It takes about 1.98 days for rice to grow in hydroponics, counting the plant resting period. Therefore, an agrihand can manage almost 27 full hydroponics basins of rice (107 plants), enough to power a little more than 1 full sun lamp setup. The agrihand can recharge as soon as it's done sowing. In rich soil, an agrihand can plant 214 rice plants.

Due to blight, travel time, and general inefficiency, actual yield will be smaller. These calculations also assume that recharge is micromanaged and that mechs work under full light all the time. But in a realistic scenario, you don't always need this many crops, and can turn off the agrihand to save on pollution.

For reference, an agrihand can grow enough rice to practically sustain around 10 baseline humans in a temperate biome when cooked into simple meals, even in the Losing is Fun difficulty, and even after accounting for work inefficiencies. With any other crop, the agrihand can sustain much larger fields - a theoretical yield of 805 corn plants in rich soil or 522 psychoid plants in hydroponics, for instance.

Compared to planters

An agrihand's harvest yield, both per plant and per day, can be outstripped by skilled human growers. A skill 10 human working only 8 hours a day will grow the same 27 basins of rice. Humans can become even more efficient 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 much yield, too much to actually use (even traders have silver limits).

Health

Body parts

Body Part Name	Health	Quantity	Coverage^[1]	Target Chance^[2]	Subpart of	Capacity^[3]	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
Thorax	40	1	100%	23%	N/A^[4]	-	Death Will never take permanent injury
Neck	30	1	10%	2%	Thorax	Communication	Death Will never take permanent injury
Head	30	1	80%	4.6%	Neck	-	Death Will never take permanent injury
Artificial Brain	10	1	10%	0.8%	Head	Data Processing	Death Will never take permanent injury
Sight Sensor	10	1	13%	1%	Head	Sight	−25% Sight. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury
Hearing Sensor	10	1	10%	0.8%	Head	Hearing	−25% Hearing. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury
Chemical Analyzer	10	1	10%	0.8%	Head	-	Will never take permanent injury
Shoulder	25	1	17%	2.5%	Thorax	Manipulation	−50% Manipulation. Will never take permanent injury
Arm	30	1	85%	10%	Shoulder	Manipulation	−50% Manipulation. Will never take permanent injury
Blade	20	1	30%	4.3%	Arm	-	Will never take permanent injury
Leg	30	2	20%	16%	Thorax	Moving	−50% Moving. Will never take permanent injury
Foot	20	2	20%	4%	Leg	Moving	−50% Moving. Will never take permanent injury
Reactor	20	1	6%	6%	Thorax	Power Generation	Death Will never take permanent injury
Fluid Reprocessor	15	1	4%	4%	Thorax	Fluid Reprocessing	Death Will never take permanent injury

↑ Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It refers to the percentage of the super-part that this part covers, before its own sub-parts claim their own percentage. For example, if the base coverage of the super-part is 100%, and the coverage of the part is 20%, 20% of hits would hit the part, and 80% the super-part. If the part had its own sub-part with 50% coverage, the chances would be 10% sub-part, 10% part, 80% super part.
↑ Target Chance is the actual chance for each part to be be selected as the target when each part's coverage has been taken into account(I.E. Neck covers 7.5% of Torso but Head covers 80% of Neck so it actually has only a 1.5% chance to be selected). This is not pure hit chance, as different damage types propagate damage in different ways. See that page for details.
↑ Note that capacities can affect other capacities in turn. Only the primary effect is listed. See specific pages for details.
↑ This is the part that everything else connects to to be considered 'connected'.