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.