How large should your armoury be in SteamWorld Build?

Even though your Guards are very brave bots, they'll need a little help every now and then. 

They're perfectly capable of dealing with Creep and even with the occasional creature. But can they hold off an attack from multiple hives at the same time? I think not!

So let's bring out the big guns. Armoury, here we come!

Weapons in the Armoury

In the Dusty Caverns, I bet you didn't even build an armoury. And why should you, there aren't enough enemies to make it worth building one. 

Also, you can't. The room is just not available.

But in the Marshy Ruins, you should really consider building an armoury as you start exploring the mine. Usually there are at least 2 locations from which Hives will spawn attacks and your guards alone will just not cut it.

In Marshy Ruins, there are worms who will eat your bots. They need to be thumped back into the ground. 

And unless you plan on hiring 20 or so Guards equipped with rifles and flame throwers, you'd do well to help them out with some defensive machines from the armoury. 

5 defensive machines guarding a hive spawn point.

From the armoury, engineers can place any of these 4 machines:

• Thumper
• Grenade Turret
• Flame Turret
• Lightning Turret

The turrets deal different amount of damage to enemies. The thumper is more versatile, blocking worms and both slowing down and causing damage to approaching enemies. 

Size of Armoury

An armoury needs to be at least 9 tiles to be able to build any weapons at all. But, once you build one, it grants you space for 4 machines straight away. 

From there on out, every 2 tiles of armoury you add, 1 more machine can be built. 

Refer to the table below to get an idea about the armoury size, the costs and the amount of machines that can be built. 

Now you know which size armoury you need for which amount of machines, how do we figure out how many machines we need?

Amount of defensive machines needed

It's not easy to answer that question. Simply because every game is different. 

If you're playing a balanced game and do happen to have 20 guards armed with rifles and flamethrowers, you might only need a couple of thumpers to keep worms at bay. In those cases, an armoury of 9 tiles, able to house 4 thumpers, will be more than enough. 

But the difficulty plays a role here. In a balanced game, enemies will provide a challenge. As opposed to a casual game, in which enemies are easily defeated. But on the other hand, playing on difficult will mean enemies will be more numerous and more aggressive.

An 48 tile armoury, offering room for 23 turrets.

Also, the less guards you have on duty, the more machines you will need to support them. With 10 to 15 guards on balanced gameplay, you should aim for an armoury of at least 21 to 25 tiles. This means you can build a thumper to keep worms at bay and have enough room to build some defences at the Hive spawn points. A flame thrower, extra thumper and 2 grenade launchers per spawn point isn't a bad idea at all.

If you want to be really sure and have the materials to build them, go for 41 tiles. This will give you enough room to build 20 machines. It might be an overkill, but at least your guards will be able to defend your mine without you constantly having to monitor incoming hive attacks.