Fallout 4 Automatron: Robots

Creating Your Perfect Automatron Companion

Automatron's main draw for many will be the new robot companions we are able to customize through the new Robot Workbench. This Guide will give you general advice on how to make a good companion that suits your needs. I've come up with some solid info from gameplay testing and playing around the bots and will share all I've learned in this guide, though I will not list every robot part. There are far, far too many and your choices will be limited by your character's Perks. Want a good melee Robot? You'll probably need some investment in Blacksmith to do that. Some of the Armor mods require you to dabble in Armorer and weapons Gun Nut. As with weapon mods, you are able to use those that you find in new bots without consuming materials so some players will be able to scrape by with none of these Perks.

Robot Introduction

Getting Started: Unlock Robot Workbench
In order to begin building robots, you must be level 15 and have followed Ada's distress signal which you can pick up on the radio. This will give you the first quest, which unlocks the Robot Workbench. I've got a full walkthrough to getting started in Automatron here. This guide assumes you've already done that, as you'll need the workbench to tinker bots. Continuing through the quest will eventually unlock all the parts for you, so it's recommended. However, you can make a good companion after the very first quest and put the rest off until later. It's actually somewhat challenging as the robots scale with your level.

Automatron's Robot Design Offers Flexibility
If you do not care about your companion's stats in combat, it's very easy to make a really high capacity robot that will lug around junk for you. Since the robots are indestructible (aside from unstable upgrades, more on that later), you can easily create a bot that will serve as a pack mule. Remembering that Sentry legs may cause you to leave your robot behind is important, but the rest is all about improving capacity. When you want a build that will function in combat, that's where good design becomes more important. There are pieces that increase melee and energy damage, or cause opponents to bleed. Stacking these effects is key to creating high-damage robots that will help a lot in combat. They can even steal your kills to the point it's a bit annoying when you're trying to level up.

You can customize Curie (pre-Synth) or even Codsworth if you like, just be sure about this before doing it as it may affect them permanently.

Choosing Weapons: Building a Strong Combat Robot
While there's the obvious - outfitting a Sentry bot with a couple Fat Man launchers to fire nukes during battle, the other means of making a great combat bot are to stack bonuses for a weapon type. The main bonuses are increases to Melee or Energy weapon damage. With or without bleeds. These are the big two. A regular gatling gun is going to fail miserably in comparison to a laser gatling that is being boosted by voltaic parts. Even the explosive minigun (unstable mod) will fail to impress when compared to melee weapons with plenty of spiked parts that increase bleed, or otherwise boost melee damage as with parts on the arms.

Does Inspirational Work with Robots?
Yes, Inspirational does work with the new robot companions. You can see the carry weight and damage resistance applied through the building menu. However, you need to decide if the perks beyond the first are really worth it. The first gives companions +20% damage and makes you invulnerable to their attacks, while Rank 2 gives a minor +20 Damage/Energy Resistance to the robot companion and makes them invulnerable to your attacks. It's definitely good if you are making a Melee robot, or find yourself shooting your own bot frequently. For ranged, not as useful. Rank 3 is trash given robots' already high carry capacity compared to other companions (at least in some configurations) - it gives a mere +25 to carry weight. Awful. Might as well just get Strong Back later.

Unstable Weapons and Armor
Nearly all Unstable parts require you to have a point or two in Robotics Expert, and that may not be worth it. These offer damage and special bonuses, but may break when used, and you'll have to go back to the Robot Workbench in order to repair them. While I can say that using the Unstable armor in some slots is good for improving damage, I can't really recommend an unstable weapon as primary. You just might find your companion useless in combat at random while deep in an indoor area. Weapons get used a lot, so are going to break more. When an armor mod on a slot gets broken, you don't actually lose the arm/leg, you just lose the armor and bonuses added by the armor.

Robot Weapons

Robot Weapons are fun to play around with, and you'll need to do so in order to find combinations that produce a build you like. Automatron weapons go in the left and right arm categories, along with armor for those arms. While many of the weapon types offer very low damage, as you level you can unlock more Perks and access better weapons and upgrades to other body parts that compliment those weapons. Here is a table of all the robot weapons in Automatron with data that I was able to find on them in the game files.

The 5 Mr. Handy weapons aren't listed, they do have unique names but similar/slightly lower stats as the normal melee (grip/pincer), laser, flamer, and lightning gun.

Nearly every melee weapon has a weight of 2. The exception is the Hammer Saw which has a weight of 3. We can assume it's a bit slower to swing as a result.

Weapon List

P = Physical Damage, E = Energy Damage. Lower RoF (Rate of Fire) is better for ranged. GN = Gun Nut, BS = Blacksmith, SCI = Science!, RE = Robotics Expert.

We can safely assume that anything with energy damage can be increased by Voltaic armor, while all melee weapons can be upgraded to cause bleed damage or extra melee damage based on arms and armor modificationsl, so take this into consideration when building your robot.

Robot Body Parts Guide

Rather than list all of the parts, which would leave you looking at a massive table and not getting much info from it, I'd rather go through the strengths of bot parts in each category. When building a robot, you are able to select its head, left and right arms, torso, legs, voice, and paint. The last two are for roleplaying purposes and not as important to a gameplay guide. There is a special category, but it's only used for the Mechanist Quest. Every part is judged in comparison to the Protectron model, which is the most basic and what you start out with when you create a new Automatron at the workbench. Its only strength is in the carry capacity category for arms so is a good baseline. Some parts have weaknesses (such as lower capacity relative to the Protecton, but improved movement/melee damage etc.)

Armor: Damage and Carry Capacity

For each type of part here, you are able to pick armors that generally just get better and better armor and carry capacity. At times, you will need to choose between slightly more armor and capacity or damage for the robot. The highest armor parts don't seem to offer melee or energy bonuses in most cases, though it's close.

Torso

This is what makes the robots differ most in terms of what parts are available. The Assaultron, Protectron, and Robobrain are basic but offer different health values. The Torso will not make a large difference in the amount of damage/energy resistance you can get on the bot.

A Mr. Handy torso is great for stacking additional energy damage as it can have an extra voltaic part on top, and though it has no head slot the eye goes up front and features a long engagement range with solid accuracy. If you also use the thruster, you get a fast bot that can have 5 melee weapons total (the three mr. handy arm slots unlock when you have both thruster and torso). Sadly, they can't be fitted with 5 pistols but only saws or vice grips if you have arms. However with the three arm slots you can put additional voltaic or serrated armor. The former will increase both melee and energy damage, while the latter stacks more and more bleed damage! If you remove the arms, Mr. Handy can have 3 ranged weapons (special Mr. Handy flamer, laser, and lightning gun with the same stats as normal parts listed above), though it's likely better to have 2 better weapons with the voltaic armor.

It is under the torso category that you can find special mods that give a bonus to nearby allies:

Sentry Torsos will provide you with a left and right shoulder slot, only so long as you aren't using a Mr. Handy thruster. Unfortunately, there is only one non-breakable part for that - cluster bombs, which do good damage and fire fairly frequently, but hardly offer a variety. The other two are Unstable variants of gas bombs (hallucinogens make humans attack one another) and fat man launchers which have about a 12 second delay. The drawback of using a Sentry chassis is that it can overheat, which disables the unit for a brief period of time during combat. Not good for long battles, but not so bad that it's out of commission for long periods. If you DO go with a Sentry bot for the unlimited mini nukes, do get one rank in Inspirational to prevent any accidents. While the bot will not OFTEN fire with you in range, accidents can and absolutely do happen. Taking this will make you much safer and let the bot fight to its maximum potential.

• Hacking Module - Allow the robot to hack up to (possibly) Master terminals given the below info, but it may be the same in that you'd have to reload to try again.
• Lockpick Module - Allow the robot to pick up to Master locks, but if they fail you'd need to reload to try again.
• Sensor Array - Grants +2 Perception to allies nearby.
• Recon Sensors - Acts like Recon scopes and marks enemies for you.
• Radiation Coils - Damages nearby enemies with radiation damage. Good in melee vs humans.
• Stealth Field - Gives nearby allies +20% improvement to stealth ability.
• Tesla Coils - Deals energy damage to nearby enemies. Good in melee in general.
• Resistance Field - Gives +20 Damage Resistance to nearby allies.
• Regeneration Field - Heals +20 points of damage per second when very near to robot and outside combat (Way, way better than Lifegiver!)

Heads: Accuracy & Engagement Range

The Robot's head primarily determines its engagement distance and accuracy, which are both important. Do you want a bot that will charge forward into combat, be medium-range or be more likely to hang back and shoot? The only type of bot that doesn't support a head is Mr. Handy, who gets a special slot for an eye on the torso slot. Engagement range seems to affect how close the robot will need to get before attacking with equipped weapons. You may want to put at most medium engagement range if you were using a scatter laser or minigun, while a sniper laser would be better suited for a long engagement range. Assaultron heads have close engagement and poor accuracy (so good for melee), sentry and protectron medium, and Mr. Handy and Robobrain have large engagement ranges, with Robobrains having the best accuracy of all head (or eye) types - this is exceptional whether using a gatling laser or for sniping.

Arms

The arms are one of the easiest parts to pick for your robot. They are fairly well balanced parts. Protectron is awful, but requires nothing. The Assaultron offers the best melee damage but reduced carry capacity, the Sentry a little less damage but the best capacity. Robobrain strikes a balance between these two. Most players will end up using the Sentry should they have the required Perks. One nice thing about Arm slots is that you can get melee AND energy damage increases from using voltaic armor - which makes sense.

Legs

Legs effect movement speed and capacity. Sentry legs offer the largest boost to capacity, but greatly impact the robot's ability to navigate indoors. Assaultron legs provide a high speed and decent capacity, while the Mr. Handy upgrade seems to give the most speed. Robobrain treads strike a balance between these things and give you indoor mobility and good speed. Highly recommended unless you're using a melee bot. Protectron legs are, predictably, awful but do give you good carry weight for an early-game pack mule.