Order Automatica Shop, Distill, and merge

Fights in Order Automatica are a replay of the shop you already played. If preparation was sloppy, no amount of 3x speed will save the candles. This page is the economy: Essence, Draw Again, merging copies, Distill, Discard, Hold, and the dirty trick of killing your own units before the battle starts.

Essence is perishable

Each preparation grants a fresh pile of Essence in the orb. Unspent coins disappear when you press End Preparation. That rule punishes “saving for later” more than any enemy. Spend down to zero or to a remainder you can actually use on Cell Effect, Distill, or a 1-cost Draw Again. If the shop is garbage and you still have 7 Essence, Draw Again is the default action, not staring.

Draw Again has a printed cost that Curses can raise. Broken Coin from demo footage added +1 to that price. If a Curse taxes rerolls, you must hit a board earlier and stop fishing for a perfect copy.

Long Order Automatica session showing shop decisions, items, and mid-run pivots

Buying units versus buying items

The bottom row mixes portraits and relics. Units occupy grid cells. Items occupy a unit’s item slots (most units hold up to two). Early Initiate: prefer a second body over a luxury item if you still have empty front cells. Mid Penitent: a well-placed book or mushroom on a level-2 unit often beats a random 1/1.

Hover everything. Pig’s printed reward (“when unit levels up, gain an extra +1 Essence”) is an economy engine, not a combat stat. Baker-style start-of-preparation buffs want to live through the shop, not through the fight. The grey Hold rat wants to sit off the board. Buying those portraits onto cell 1 because they were on sale is how runs die.

Merging copies

When the shop offers a unit you already own, combining copies raises the level. Ability numbers scale on a printed curve (Blood Keeper’s on-kill bonus stepping 1 / 3 / 6 is the classic example). A level-2 body with one item will beat three scattered level-1 portraits that do not talk to each other.

Merge when:

• The unit is already part of your plan (tank, Madame, Imp, Pig).
• The extra level also pays Essence or items (Pig).
• You are about to Distill a leftover copy and would rather keep the stronger one.

Do not merge your only front-line tank into a backline summoner just to “upgrade something.” Empty cell 1 is a bigger problem than a missing plus-one.

Distill

Distill is the slot that turns a unit or item into a different item. Developer commentary treats it as one of the deepest toys in the game. A leftover copy, a dead-end relic, or a unit whose ability you already extracted can go into Distill and come out as a tool the current board actually wants.

Practical Distill habits:

• Distill junk instead of forcing it onto a unit with full item slots.
• Distill a copy after you have merged the keeper, not before, unless you need the item this shop.
• Watch for combos the community already found, such as Manifester plus Disposable: holding Disposable and Distilling Manifester to stack persistent stats. Those recipes move as the 1.00 balance lands; test them, do not worship them.

If Distill is still locked in your current rank, ignore this section and spend Essence on bodies. It unlocks as you climb; the ranks walkthrough notes when new systems appear.

Discard, Poison, and shop-phase kills

Discard removes a unit from the grid. Some items (Disposable in older builds) buff a teammate when discarded. That makes Discard a trigger, not a trash can.

Poison kills the wearer immediately when equipped. Use it in the shop if the wearer has Upon Death, On Kill chains you want to pre-fire, or a Distill setup that cares about a corpse existing before the enemy ever acts. Anything that happens in preparation persists into battle. Anything that happens in battle resets afterward except the candle count.

Do not Poison your only tank in cell 1 unless the death spawn fills the front better than the living body did.

Hold as an economy slot

Hold is where units with between-battle triggers live. It is also a parking space for a merge candidate you cannot fit this shop. Remember it does not attack. At End Preparation, glance at Hold the same way you glance at leftover Essence.

A default shop script

1. Hover every new portrait. Identify tanks, on-death, economy, and Hold units.
2. Fill cells 1-3 with health.
3. Merge if the copy is in-plan.
4. Assign items to triggers (column books, Taunt on the tank, Poison only with a death payoff).
5. Distill leftovers.
6. Draw Again if Essence remains and the board is not yet stable.
7. Spend the last coins on Cell Effect or a 1-cost unit.
8. End Preparation at zero Essence.

Run that script for three Initiate fights and you will feel why the designer calls preparation the game. Then compare the portraits you kept against the unit tier list and the relics against the item tier list. If Curses keep taxing your rerolls, switch to candles and Curses before you Draw Again on instinct.