Robot is a character unlocked partway into the game by reaching the Frozen City. They're well balanced for early game and will best suit those who are still learning the ropes of the game. Their passive is a helpful boost in preloop to make better weapons a bit more common in a run, though most notably their active is a way to manually regain health/ammo infrequently throughout the level. This makes them a great choice for the early game of Throne similar to how Fish is.
In loop Robot starts to fall off a bit in viability, as other characters ultras give them significant boosts. Robot has a choice between having even more frequent ammo/health from their passive, or uniquely removing low-tier weapons from the weapon pool permanently. These make for useful tools starting off in loop, but with the increasing insanity/chaos that loop gameplay provides they lag behind the viability of most all the other characters in the game, and by the time deeploop is reached they're just a step up from all the characters who have downsides, giving Robot a reputation for being fairly 'vanilla'. Robot is recommended in preloop and is still a decent pick for loop, though can be passed up on by the time meta/deeploop comes into play.
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Robot | |
Unlock | Reach 5-1 |
B-Skin | Eat a Hyper Weapon |
Weapon | Revolver |
Active | Can Eat Weapons |
Passive | Find Better Tech |
Abilities
- Active
- Robot can eat their primary weapon which will drop one ammo/health pickup directly on top of them.
- The chance of eating a weapon giving HP seems to be proportional to the total amount of health lost. This means that eating weapons are more likely to heal Robot than enemy drops may become health.
- Ammo drops will always give ammo for Robot's uneaten weapon, or a random ammo type if it is full/running ammoless melee.
- Health drops will always give 2 HP, but can give 4 HP instead with Second Stomach.
- Robot cannot eat their primary weapon if they do not have a secondary.
- If eating a cursed weapon, Robot will gain a normal pickup but will also take 7 damage.
- This amount of damage can be lethal, and HP will only be gained after the damage which will not save Robot's life.
- If eating a golden weapon, it will give 4 pickups instead of the usual 1.
- If eating an ultra weapon, it will also drop 15 rads on top of a pickup.
- Passive
- 'Find Better Tech' does not improve the chances of seeing better weapons, but rather adds weapons to the drop pool one area earlier.
- This means that any weapon from the drop table can be moved one column to the left, giving Robot chances of finding better weapons sooner.
- Any source of weapon drops are effected by this, whether it be a chest, enemy drop or via gun gun.
- Once the weapon pool is filled out(typically by 1-3 L1 on Robot), their passive will no longer serve a purpose.
- Thronebutt: Better Weapon Nutrition
- Eating weapons will now give +1 drop on top of the normal amount. This means that weapons eaten will give 2 pickups worth, while golden weapons will give 5 pickups worth.
- This also effects the auto-eat effect for both of Robot's ultras.
- Ultra A: Refined Taste
- Weapons from lower tiers will be removed from the drop pool permanently, which is a direct upgrade to the passive ability.
- This removes 28 weapons from the drop pool, weapons normally seen up to 1-3 L0 as Robot or 2-1 L0 normally.
- The normal drop pool consists of 108 weapons, this ultra mutation brings the weapon pool count to 80 possible drops instead.
- (Maybe make a table later to illustrate this?)
- Ultra B: Regurgitate
- Eating a weapon has a ~43% chance of spawning a chest directly under Robot instead of the usual pickup, which is a direct upgrade to the active ability.
- Chests that spawn will follow chest drop rules.
- This means that ammo chests and present chests can always spawn, as well as IDPD chests if not within Desert, Sewers or Scrapyard.
- Weapon chests can spawn as well as cursed chests if carrying a crown, but big chests cannot spawn. Weapons from these chests will give their respective ammo types.
- Health chests also have a chance to spawn even at full health, however rad canisters are the exception here and will not spawn regardless.
- Both ultras will let Robot auto-eat any weapon left behind upon entering the exit portal.
- Mechanically this behaves the same as their active ability, just done automatically.
- This does not apply to unopened chests.
- Cursed weapons will not be auto-eaten.
- Auto-eaten weapons are not actually destroyed. This means that if Robot auto-eats a weapon before it gets sucked into a nearby portal, they will get a pickup from it but it still gets brought to the next level.
- For Regurgitate, auto-eaten weapons that drop chests will ONLY open if the portal also spawns directly underneath Robot. Otherwise, the chests will be wasted.
- Weapon chests that open underneath the portal don't give additional pickups, but do get sucked into the next level.
- Other Perks
- Mention Robot's special text later
Preloop Guide
Robot is one of the characters that actually benefits the most in preloop, especially for newer players. This is mainly because of their active and passive abilities being the most beneficial in this portion of the game.
Starting with their active, Robot can stop to eat any weapon that other characters would otherwise simply leave behind. The extra ammo boost is a bonus that is a lot like Fish, in that it makes ammo consumption much more forgiving. Any lost ammo can easily be regained and requires less risk taking, which is especially useful if learning the game still. On top of this weapons can be left lying around for when Robot takes damage, they can quickly run back to the weapon to hopefully regain that HP quickly. Don't forget to eat weapons before leaving the level though, robot cannot auto-eat until ultra so forgetfulness can hurt their run.
If Robot runs out of ammo or is nearly dead they can even eat one of their two held weapons to quickly get out of a jam, this is not recommended as Robot can put themselves in a potentially worse situation than they were already, but if it's a matter of life or death then it's a risk they may have to take.
As for their passive, this is a temporary boost that lasts until the a filled out drop pool (around loop Desert for Robot). While there is no guarantee of ever finding better weapons as Robot, the main point of the passive is to give more chances of finding better weapons sooner which can help boost Robot's chances of survival. By the by this is a useful addition to Robot's gameplay, and they can even visit Pizza Sewers and Vaults to increase difficulty to better the weapon pool even further, as some of the weapon drops later in preloop can be strongly beneficial against bosses such as Lil Hunter and The Throne which can be big roadblocks for newer players.
Taking a crown for cursed weapons can stack even better with their passive than other characters would benefit from, though this can also impede their ability to eat weapons as eating it will damage Robot for 7 health. While this sounds risky, having a way to dispose of cursed weapons at any point can be of help. Though at any point be careful not to accidentally hit the active button, while this could seriously hurt the run if eating a weapon Robot is depending on to clear levels, it can be immediately lethal if it's a cursed weapon.
As for useful mutations, Robot is a fairly standard character overall and really whatever just feels the most useful is a good idea here. For specific advice though, Robot can choose to pass on ammo/health mutations optionally if there are other viable choices in a set because of how their active benefits them. Though these are still good mutations to lean on as Robot's active doesn't negate them, just makes them a bit more optional. Rhino Skin and Back Muscle are good choices for instance as having more health/ammo levels means that Robot can make sure they're getting the maximum benefit from eating weapons. As for their Thronebutt, it falls off pretty hard in loop but if playing specifically in preloop it's a decent choice but definitely a bit underwhelming.
While extra weapon drops sounds useful on paper, going out of the way in order to get these boosts is not worth it. This is referring to Heavy Heart and Crown of Guns. Heavy Heart requires taking 3 weapon-related mutations and requires a non-ideal set in order to get. Crown of Guns while Robot can help negate its downside, eating weapons continuously may not be enough during some areas where they may burn through ammo. These are great choices for challenge runs, but realistically taking any ammo or health mutation is going to do a lot more for Robot for far less.
Loop Guide
In Loop, Robot runs fairly standard as their ultras are not particularly game breaking, mainly just as another beneficial boost. The reasons why Robot is viewed as a pretty vanilla character is that in loop their passive no longer is useful(a full weapon pool on Robot should be reached by loop Desert), and once proper ammo management is learned coupled with a full mutation set and increased enemies for drops in loop, eating weapons becomes much less of a boost as it takes extra time to execute.
One problem with eating weapons at this point in looping is that it's difficult to do on the fly, as you must quickly swap your weapon for a new one and then eat it, picking up your old weapon. In an open field this can be dangerous, not just because of the risk of getting hit but also at the risk of a misinput. Eating weapons should be done carefully and not while panicking to avoid making grave mistakes.
Both ultras will give Robot the auto-eat function, meaning they don't have to sweep through levels anymore to check for weapons to eat before leaving it. This is useful in speeding up gameplay and helping ensure Robot does not start levels at particularly low HP or ammo levels, though is obviously dependent on the amount of weapon drops. Because these include ammo pickups that follow normal drop pools, if Robot is carrying two weapons it will give ammo randomly for one of the two weapons, so they do not get to choose what weapon gets ammo. If one ammo type is near empty and the other is fine, Robot should manually eat weapons instead to control which pickups they want.
At this point in the game either ultra can be taken pretty easily, this guide recommends Refined Taste. There are 108 weapons in the pool normally, 80 with refined taste. If carrying 2 weapons already in the drop pool this decreases the number of possible weapons to 106 normally / 78 with taste; otherwise a 0.94% chance of seeing a desired weapon normally or a 1.28% chance with taste. While this seems small percentage wise, the 28 weapons removed from the pool are almost all useless in loop which makes it so Robot is going to constantly be seeing at least semi-useful weapons far more often.
Another added bonus of Refined Taste is seeing golden weapons more often(Carrying 2 weapons is 11.32% chance normally to see any of the 12 golden weapons or 15.38% chance with taste) which means Robot can get strong boosts from golden weapons more frequently. While golden weapons that drop in loop are not useful for a run, for Robot these are actually a great boost serving as a four course meal quite literally.
Regurgitate is a much weaker version of Fish's Confiscate ultra unfortunately. While Robot's ultra is a 43% chance of a weapon turning into a chest, Fish's 20% from any pickup is going to be much more frequent and more importantly, much more convenient for run n gun focused gameplay(especially as Fish can choose when he opens which chests). This is not to discount the ultra altogether, just to explain why it fails to be as powerful as it may look on paper.
In practice this is useful to give additional boosts, any weapon eaten can either give extra health, extra ammo or be rerolled into a new weapon that can also be eaten. As long as Robot can find a safe spot in order to quickly eat a weapon, there's a good chance they'll get even more out of it. Be careful when eating weapons that drop weapon chests as whatever weapon Robot swapped out for could be pushed aside, if in a chaotic part of a level they may have trouble immediately picking it back up.
At this point Thronebutt can completely be ignored as it's easily overshadowed by many other mutations, weapon drops are common enough to warrant skipping it altogether. Similarly to the preloop guide Rhino Skin/Back Muscle can be useful here to help Robot fully maximize their ammo/health drops from weapons as ammo and health can be abundant, but Robot is a fairly standard character so any mutations generally useful for survival is going to be the best picks here.
Meta Guide
Robot really gets their reputation for being the most vanilla character because of how they handle meta, while this is not a particularly negative connotation they also are fairly overlooked, especially in meta. Their passive is very unlikely in aiding the player to find their meta weapon drops, and ammo/HP drops are so frequent in deeploop that the usefulness of eating weapons largely falls off. Their ultras have little to impact moment to moment gameplay, where most other characters have much more ways to differ from the rest with how their meta guides go, Robot should just follow the standard meta guide.
If playing on keyboard it's worth considering to just rebind the active key from X/RMB to something you cannot accidentally click. There have been runs lost because Robot accidentally consumed either of their meta weapons, so having it be rebinded to just a key away from your usual controls is actually recommended here. Doing that any time a Robot run done is a nuisance, especially if it cannot be changed mid-run.
The rate of ammo gained is usually at the rate that Robot does not need to actively stop to eat weapons, rather just relying on the auto-eat boost from ultras to start next level at higher ammo/HP amounts than other characters. Stopping to eat weapons should be a judgement call on when it is both safe and useful to do, it can be especially helpful during boss fights where ammo drops may be a bit more scarce but the area also becomes more dangerous. Generally, eating is best done when SPC is out of ammo and there are not any enemies around to refill ammo levels.
Between ultras they both do not have a large impact on moment to moment gameplay, but Refined Taste is the preferred choice of the two here. As for reasons mentioned in the loop guide, having better odds of finding golden weapons is a huge plus as they're optimal weapons to eat when in tense situations. Otherwise having chances of higher-tier weapons to assist with Big Bandits, Throne II and especially Mom can be vital for a run. Examples of weapons to watch out for here (link later).
Regurgitate shouldn't be avoided, just that the extra drops from weapon chests are not as beneficial to Robot in these situations where gameplay is much more focused on flying through levels with meta. Auto-eating can give a bigger boost entering new levels, but even with Refined Taste applied Robot should be in a pretty comfortable position starting most new levels from auto-eat.
Outside of these notes Robot can stick to standard meta advice, as an average character Robot does not have in-depth strategies that some other character guides boast as there isn't too much they can take advantage of here compared to other characters. They're much better suited for a stronger early game and are a newbie-friendly character so by no means is a bad character, just one that is ultimately left behind in terms of the intense meta gameplay that late game provides.