Timberborn's beavers might be fluffy and cute. Their industrious work ethic made it possible to survive the post-apocalyptic wasteland brought about by constant droughts, but they're just beavers. They don't work around the clock because they need to eat, drink and sleep. Worse, they even demand entertainment and amenities.
Golems, on the other hand, don't. The only interruption to their work is the time needed for them to sip biofuel. It's a long road to walk before you can start manufacturing these automata but once you invest, you'll find that bringing them online is well worth the effort.
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How To Build Golems
You need to build two structures to start building your new metal beavers, a Golem Part Factory and a Golem Assembler. These structures should be unlocked late in your game, thanks to their eye-watering manufacturing costs that require an already established industrial base to supply. They can be found in the Science Tab.
|
Golem Part Factory |
50 Planks, 25 Gears, 15 Metal Blocks |
|---|---|
|
Golem Assembler |
100 Planks, 50 Gears, 50 Metal Blocks |
You will need both facilities constructed to create your mechanical beavers. The Golem Part Factory processes raw materials to create the three different items that a Golem consists of, the heads, chassis, and limbs. These items will subsequently be assembled at the Golem Assembler before you get your functioning Golem.
|
Golem Chassis |
1 Biofuel, 1 Metal Block, 5 Planks |
|---|---|
|
Golem Limbs |
1 Plank, 3 Gears |
|
Golem Heads |
1 Metal Block, 1 Plank, 3 Gears |
One of the largest hurdles that you'll need to cross to start building Golems is the production of metal blocks. You'll need to have ruins within reach and Smelters to process the Scrap into Metal Blocks to make both the facilities and the Golem Heads and Golem Chassis.
When it comes to final assembly, the Golem Assembler will need 36 hours to assemble one Golem Head, one Golem Chassis, and four Golem Limbs to build a single Golem.
How To Use Golems
Fresh out of the Assembler, Golems aren't very useful. Though they are impressively strong, you need to spend Science at each building that you want them to work at. It could be as little as 500 Science to work at a farm and as much as 10,000 at a Golem Assembler.
Golem-operated buildings have blue-colored lights instead of the usual orange.
Golems are innately more capable than your ordinary beaver. They have a 45% bonus for working speed and a 30% bonus for movement speed. Beavers would need to have bonuses from being well-fed with plenty of amenities to even come close to reaching those bonuses.
Golems don't need any breaks to eat or sleep, letting them continue working continuously. This trait is incredibly useful in jobs that are bottlenecked by time more than resources such as cooking food or working to refine raw materials where they can work through nights.
Like beavers, you can migrate your Golems from one district to another, where they will fill any vacancies available. Though you don't need to have any homes set up, you'll want to make sure that they have the means to recharge themselves.
That covers the general aspects of operating Golems, though each faction runs their Golems differently.
Barrelbots
The Folktails call their Golems Barrelbots. They need to be supplied with Biofuel, produced at Refineries, to function. If there isn't enough, the Golems will cease to function until they are refueled. Biofuel is made with potatoes or spadderdock mixed with water. Though it will eat into your food and water, each Golem will consume less than your ordinary beavers.
It's a good idea to store extra Biofuel at Biofuel Tanks, though simply distributing Biofuel to Drop-Off Points can be enough if you only have a few Barrelbots at a given district.
If you need to make your Barrelbots work harder, you can supply them with a Catalyst, also produced at Refineries with Maple Syrup and Sunflower Seeds. Barrelbots will have their productivity and movement speed practically doubled if they use them, though it'll probably eat up some of your supplies.
Cogheads
Like the differences between the Folktails and the Irontooth, Cogheads differ significantly from Barrelbots. Though they offer similar bonuses, Cogheads don't use Biofuel to function. They use Charging Stations, powered by the same Engines and Water Wheels that the rest of your industry uses to function.
Cogheads have their performance boosted by being within 10 tiles of Control Towers. Though it may be tempting to cover your cities with them to keep the bonuses going, the towers consume your Science to provide their bonuses, which can be produced with sufficient Inventors and Numbercrunchers. Instead, it may be better to leave the Control Towers close to where the Cogheads do most of their work, to cut down on the Science consumption.