That's similar to my start. What I noticed is that they will attack the farming tower and then leave again. So you can always wait for the pollution to die down again and resume operations afterwards. As long as you build your "base proper" away from the towers.

Note: don't aggro them while they do this because they will follow you to your base!

To avoid "time played" from increasing evolution too much, I designed parts of my base in creative mode and then blueprinted them into the normal game.

Things will get easier far into your playthrough on Gleba once you get coal to make landmines. Until then... Good luck!

Edit: I realized I didn't answer your question... I think you should consider your body lost for now, it will be too hard to get it back. If you still want to try that: I also had success with the follower robots, but they take quite a lot of resources to produce. They do deal good burst damage without needing coal.

You can use a tank as well, as long as you have radar coverage! I learned that the hard way... Keep it near the delivery building where the stuff from space drops, it has free radar coverage even without power.

If you keep it stocked with construction bots, radars and solar panels, it should be an okay backup too.

I made the mistake of leaving Nauvis too early, and my coal train got into a deadlock, killing the power. By that time I was on Gleba already, trying to figure it out from scratch.

Emotionally? It was damn scary! Gleba enemies kept evolving and I didn't have the resources to fend off their attacks. I rebuilt the harvesting towers countless times, letting the spores (pollution) die down each time...

But... Being able to overcome that was amazing! I managed to build a rocket, go back to Nauvis, fight off all biters that took possession of my real estate, and start sending coal shipments to Gleba for landmines. That really tipped the scales.

Right now I'm a few steps further. I built more space platforms to send emergency supplies where they are needed, and each planet has a Spidertron able to fix any emergencies that might pop up. Especially that last part is very comfortable.

So to relieve your anxiety, consider doing Gleba first so you can unlock Spidertron as a backup.

112111, although it used to be 111111 until the trailer. I started saying Glebbah because it sounded so weird, and now it stuck with me.

I think you can horizontally flip the engines to let the fluid pass through, allowing you to place them next to each other.

Not sure though, my platform had only 1 engine. It didn't last very long though, yours is definitely better!