Let's talk pickups in the clockworks. What do you guys think of 'em? You think most of em are viable or a few of them are crap? Found any ways how to use specific ones?

Here's my take on em.

Health and Remedy Capsules: Always pick these up. Never leave home without em. The time it takes for the effects to be used for a health capsule is longer than remedy, so if you're lit on fire and about to die, use remedy, not health.

Vials: Very weak, only ones that are worth mentioning are curse, poison, and freeze. Curse is pretty useful in general to punish attacking monsters. Poison to prevent healing and debilitate from afar, ( like gremlin menders that dodge away from you if you're too close ). Freeze to completely stop an enemy's attacks, (useful if a trojan charges at you and you sidestep then throw a freeze vial at its back ).

Barriers: Can be useful and always good to have one slot with em. Every variant of em is pretty good, but poison can be especially useful for debilitating as you're engaging in close combat. Also useful for debilitating vana's mask as you're charging your blitz, for the additional damage and poison. Freeze can be used to annoy trojans as it go through their shields and freeze em, if you go in front of em.

NPC Helpers:

Mecha Knight: Worst of the bunch. It inconveniently knocks away enemies for very little to void damage. And the kicker? It's got quite a bit of health, so it's gonna be a while before it dies to stop moving enemies away from you. Do not use these kits as they are more harmful than what little good they are.

Energy Turret: This one is a mixed bag of sorts. It's a stationary turret that uses energy beams to blast away at foes. It can deal a bit of knockback, but it can actually deal some decent damage. I'd use these in some place, then fight far away from it with other enemies as the turret is weakening some of the enemies in its area. E.g. Placing the turret in the center of d25 of FSC, while you're looting the rooms.

Recon Gunner/Knight: Armed with a 2* autogun, these guys won't do much damage, if any at all. There's a little bit of knockback behind their autogun, but not much to interrupt whatever you're doing much. However, the most important part of these guys are their ability to deathmark, just like recons in LD. Deploy them near enemies, and it'll deathmark em as they are arriving, making them doubly(?) vulnerable to damage. Especially useful for vana as these guys' deathmark combined with blitz charges can make quick work of him. Other than that, they are pretty good, relatively stationary distractions.

Ocarina of Slime: Only obtainable from a slime casino machine. This blue slime will travel with you and fight almost like slimes you usually face. I've only ever seen it use that rump shaker or whatever attack, but it deals quite a bit of damage, ( like almost between 1/3 and a 1/2 of a tier 3 wolver ). And it can regenerate its health! Too bad it's event exclusive and once you use it, it'll only be your companion for that depth.