Farmers... Chances are, you probably first looked at the blocks, saw the solar panel, and had a guilty smile inside, before spamming the map with solar panel ships. Or if not that, you made a massive plant farm that also creates infinite R.

We'll be avoiding that, instead, we will focus on playing Farmers a more standard way... No solar panels (Maybe a little to make progression quicker), no plant-abuse, no abuse... All shield, armor, hull, with guns, lasers, and missiles... A lot of missiles.

Farmers, are, probably one of the weirdest-standard style faction. Unlike Terran which has pretty-standard easy-to-understand components, almost all the names of your weapons makes no sense, and have terrible descriptions. Though, here's the guist of everything you need to know.


The standard standard hull blocks are... well, not the best. Unlike their Terran counterpart, their standard hull blocks only have 100hp per a 1 by 1 block. So where Terrans can mostly play shield-less ships perfectly fine, Farmers can not do pure-standard hull ships without some form of alternate defense (Be it speed, shield, or range).
Luckily... you have probably the most powerful-low space intensive block in the game, the Unobtainium Strut. 1,000hp in a half-block, a line of unobtainium struts will protect you modestly well against any non-aoe projectile (Which more often then not destroy the pieces that connect to the struts). Smart arrangement and building of unobtainium struts can easily reduce this weakness. You also have the half-block 'Armor' block, which is the second most HP-dense block you get as the Farmers.
Alongside probably the best armor-per-space block in the game, you have excellent shields. All shield types, the small, medium, and large can be used in most to any design, though the large shield is note worthy of being able to stop Sentinel nukes. Using shields alongside your amazing armor can give you incredibly tankiness, though you should still beware of Sentinel melee-armor.

Aside from the unobtainium strut and great shields, most of your connection and component blocks are standard. You have standard generators, standard shape-blocks, and use mostly-square blocks. Though fair warning to the large generators, their explosion when destroyed is quite large and deadly, so make sure to protect them well and keep them away from your command block. A large cover of unobtainium struts and shields is usually a good protection method.

Lastly, regarding thrusters. Farmer thrusters will definitely struggle if you put a lot of unobtainium struts on your ship. You will usually struggle with ship speed with a lot of armor - I say speed, as clever designs can easily allow for quick turning, and even strafing. Of course shield-ships will suffer less as shields are usually used for easy-protection for low mass, so keep in mind your mass.



Farmers have probably some of the most devestating-close range DPS weapons in the game... No, I will say it here, they have the most powerful weapons in the game...
The MGVD-4 Bolsheivk and the Heavy Turret are probably the most powerful DPS-aoe weapons in the game. These are your anti-Sentinel melee spiners and melee ship weapons, as long as your ship as good point defense and defenses against their normal weapons.
They are a little pricey though... 165 for the MGVD and 386 for the Heavy Turret...


Aside from probably the best DPS-aoe weapons, you also have amazing anti-ship lasers - aside from Reds. Long range (For lases), high damage, and affordable for their damage. Farmers also have a very good point-defense laser, though you are probably best using some of the smaller 1x1 size 'anti-ship' lasers for a little bit longer-range point defense.


As for the short-range small weapons and point defense, Farmers have quite the variety of weapons. Below is the picture of weapons of which I would and would never use, from top being the weapons I would never use, middle being weapons that are good and fine to use, and bottom being weapons that I recommend you use... though this is my list and recommendation on how I think they perform.

As for the weapon names, from left-to-right, starting on the top you have the: RK-12, Swatter, and AF-75. I say they are terrible weapons as the RK-12 and Swatter have too little range, and despite being cheap they don't have enough range to outset that. The AF-75 on the otherhand, despite good looking stats, can never hit anything that isn't a station due to their low weapon velocity. Though... I do have to say that the Swatter can be used as a good-short range DPS spam weapon.

At the middle, you have the: Minigun, MLS Anti-Missile, MLS Avenger, and the MC3. Of them, well... You could say the MLS Anti-Missile weapon could be put in the list above in 'bad' weapons, but it can be used much better compared to the weapons listed above due to the MLS Anti-Missile's weapon velocity. As for the other weapons--... Their range and ability to hit with good velocity makes them worth their cost. In particular, the MC3 is notable of being one of the few weapons I consider medium-range.

At the bottom of the list, weapons I absolutely recommend you use... Phalanx... It has amazing range (For it's cost and size), great weapon velocity, and... Well, it's DPS kinda sucks, but with it's range and spamability, it is an excellent weapon for smaller ships to spam for medium-range DPS.


Now, for the weapons I enjoy using more... The big-longer range weapons (Excluding Missiles). Their long range weapons - when I mean long range, I mean LONG RANGE - are true long-range weapons, not no Terran 'Railgun' turret with 2500 range, all these weapons have 3000+ range.
Let me introduce you to the turreted weapons. The HC2 and HC3 (From left-to-right) are both great weapons, but... Use the HC3. Whilst the HC2 has a higher DPS per cost, and is cheaper, you will find the HC3 much easier to use with it's little-bit extra range and velocity, and extra damage and fire rate. These are excellent weapons to use if you want to play the true-long range (Not sniper range) play style.

Now, the spinal mount weapons the Farmers can actually use... Well, the EXR-1 Railgun (Or the Farmer Railgun) and Longbow (They both look identical, so pretend they are two different weapons) are both 'good' and 'bad'. Bad in that they are spinal mounted weapons, good that they do quite a bit of damage, and they have aoe and range. Where the Terran spinal mounted weapon, the Anti-Matter Cannons had 'a lot' of range, these weapons are the true 'sniper' spinal mount weapons. The Railgun is the early-game, cheap long-range small ship weapon that can be put on anything for basically free. The only hinderance is their size, which will require good design to protect them. Though cheap, the Railgun will be terrible against shields in small numbers due to the low fire rate. The Longbow is the Farmer's Anti-Matter Cannon scaled down, though with more range... Best way to describe it.


Now... the missiles... Farmers are the second-missile spam faction, or perhaps the top-missile spam faction for some.
You have three missiles... though really only two... From left to right, HM1 (The main-damage missile), MM1 (Secondary damage missile), and ZLM Sparrow (Point defense missile, point defense distraction, and small ship missiles). Do note that missiles, especially in large numbers, are very energy heavy, so make sure you either have enough generators for missiles and shields, or be a missile sniper.




The Farmers are a shield-armor faction (I classify armor as factions with a clear-different hull block that can be used as good protection) with an excellent array of diverse weapons. From close-range execution weapons, excellent lasers, good point defense, to long range turrets and spinal mounted weapons, and deadly missiles. They rely on shields to offer them general protection, whilst having the ability to have armor blocks to give their close-range ships massive survivability.

As as newcomer to Reassembly, you may struggle at first getting to grips with building, and getting to know this new faction. From your experiences as Terran, you probably found yourself dying to Farmer Battleships (With the Heavy Turrets) a few times, but otherwise thinking that Farmers were a lack luster faction.

And... they kind of are at the beginning. Their weapons and missile, even shields are pretty standard. Your shapes are even more standard and boring, as you don't even get 2x1 triangles, and will probably end up with a lot of boxy ships.
Of course, you can still make a good ship (Example of a usable early-game fighter ship below), and shields early on will give you a massive advantage against most early ships you will fight, and early stations you risk your life to capture.










As you get into 2000 and above P, you can start to specialize into what you want to do. Anything is fine, an armored box with shields and weapons (Long or close), or your runner-snipers. Of course--, that is broad advise, and making pretty/good looking Farmer ships that are strong can be difficult. Below is one of my personal Farmer ships that is a defensive-missile ship.
As you start to go into more and more P-sized ships, you will soon quickly find yourself into the more-specialized roles. Long range, or close. Laser spam, or the [2] close range AoE weapons for close range. Missile spam, or using spinal cannons (The Railgun and Longbow) for long range runners.
As someone without a really practical ship (I enjoy making more aethisic survivable ships), I crashed built a 4000P close range ship with armor and shields. Alongside my crash-built ship I made in a few minutes, I have also posted one of my old-long range turreted ship.Use it as an example of what you could do rather then an example of a good ship.