Engineer

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Upgrading a Turret

The most important class early on in the game, Engineers build the bases that are placed by the commander. Though technically any class can put a building together by approaching it and pressing the USE key (E by default), engineers are given a tool that greatly accelerates the process.

Engineers are limited to using light submachine guns but they carry powerful seismic grenades which deal huge amounts of damage to structures.

The engineer's main asset is a small tool that he keeps clipped to his belt. With this tool an engineer can build and repair vehicles and placed buildings, heal teammates, and even place his own structures (The Turret and Surveillance Gear). To build, repair, or heal, simply walk up to your target and activate (Fire) the tool while aiming at the target. You may also damage enemy structures and vehicles by using your engineering tool on them.

Additionally, the repair/heal tool can be given the ability to Revive an fallen comrades, making an engineer an invaluable member of a squad both during and after firefights. To revive a teammate who has not yet respawned, activate the tool while pointing at his body. You must be near the teammate's body for this to work.

With his skills the engineer can expand his role as a mechanic or a medic, with his versatility limited only by the number of skill slots the player has unlocked. Healing Upgrade and Repair Upgrade are the most basic skills of the class. Healing Upgrade increases the amount of health given for a certain amount of the engineer tool's energy, and Repair Upgrade increases the amount repaired.

Engineers can also use their skills to modify the engine in a driven vehicle, increasing the Vehicle Cooling, or the rate at which the engine dissipates heat. This lets a vehicle driven by an engineer maintain continuous fire for a longer period of time than would be otherwise possible.

Building/Repairing

An Engineer can either repair or build structures placed by the commander, or build a limited range of equipment of his own. When repairing damaged vehicles, the hull is repaired first and armor last. Engineers can also disassemble enemy buildings, equipment and vehicles. Point your repair tool at the enemy structure or vehicle, you should see a red health bar. Now press the "fire" key just like you would to repair a friendly building and you will start disassembling the enemy's structure. Note that disassembling enemy vehicles bypasses the armor and causes damage to the vehicle's hull directly.

Deployables

To deploy your own structures first right click with your engineering tool out to bring up the build menu. From here you can build turrets (machine gun or missile), surveillance equipment (cameras or radars), walls, and ammo crates. An Engineer can only have a finite number of turrets/sensors up at any given time. See the build menu for details: the numbers below each deployable type signifies the how many of them you placed and the total amount available to you at that time.

There are two types of Turrets: Machine Gun (MG) and Missile (ML). Machine Gun turrets will auto-track any enemy infantry that come within its area of effect. ML turrets will fire on any enemy vehicle or structure within its area of effect. Keep in mind that the turrets are not awefully smart and will not prioritize their targets based on their threat level, they will simply pick the closest target and concentrate on it until it's either dead or not in its direct view. The Missile turret for example will pick a wall instead of a tank that's pounding on it if the wall is closer. Both kinds of turrets have unlimited ammo and do not require rearming, but have limited range and firing speed.

The engineer can upgrade his own turrets, granting them increased lethality by increasing their damage and range. The Turret Upgrade skill lets engineers who have placed and built a turret upgrade that turret, first to level 2, and then to level 3. These turret levels do not correspond to those that the commander can research. This means that an Engineer can upgrade his own turrets even if the Commander has not yet researched the corresponding upgrades. Note, however, that an engineer cannot upgrade a turret that was placed by the Commander or another team mate. To upgrade a turret approach it and right click on it with the engineer tool. Select "upgrade turret" from the menu, and then build your now upgraded turret. Remember that while you're upgrading it, the turret is deactivated and vulnerable. The upgraded turrets are not to be underestimated.

Note The MG turret is currently suffering from a bug that allows any infantry unit to be undamaged if they stand or crouch right on top of the turret. For example, a hidden Scout may jump on top of it and stand up in order to confuse the turret while other infantry can pass unharmed.

Note It is planned to add a third kind of a turret for Anti-Air at the same time as Aircraft is implemented.

Surveillance equipment will detect enemy infantry (Camera) and vehicles (Radar Dish) when they are in their area of effect and display them on the minimap as well as draw an orange diamond around them right on your HUD, which is visible even behind terrain and obstacles. The Camera will even reveal hidden Scouts for a short period of time once in a while. Both of these deployables do not need the line-of-sight to detect the enemy and work through obstacles.

To place walls as an engineer, click on the walls icon in the engineer menu. Then click on the ground where you want your wall to start. You should see a "ghost" of the wall appear. Drag your mouse to build more wall segments (You can even walk around to place longer walls) and then click again to complete the wall. The newly created wall will only be 25% high and needs to be completed using the Repair tool.

Ammo Boxes can be placed practically on any flat surface and can be used by all friendly infantry units to reload. When dropped near a vehicle, the Ammo Box will auto-reload them. Be aware that Ammo Crates persist for a short period of time (a few minutes) and there is a 200 second delay between placing multiple ones, so use them wisely.

Finally, you can recycle equipment that you have placed by right clicking on them with the tool, and selecting Recycle from the menu that pops up. You can recycle your own turrets, sensors and walls but not ammo boxes. You cannot recycle structures or equipment placed by the Commander or other friendly Engineers.

Healing

The Engineer class doubles as a field medic with his ability to heal team mates. Point your repair tool at a hurt friendly so that you can see their health bar and "fire" to slowly replenish their health. The Healing Upgrade skill greatly speeds up healing by restoring more health per each "ammo" point spent.

A very powerful Revive skill allows the Engineer to bring back a fallen team mate back to life, providing that they have not yet chosen to respawn. Not only does reviving a team mate keep them on the front lines, it also saves your team a respawn ticket. In order to revive a "dead" friendly player, point your repair/healing tool at their corpse and press the primary fire button. Due to the way the server and client communicate, a friendly's body might not be at the same place they died (grenades and missiles often move the ragdolls from where they originally fell.) In these cases you might be unable to easily revive your comrade by pointing at their corpse. Try moving around the corpse while holding down the "fire" button to try and get in range. The Revive skill has a large area of effect which should alleviate some of that trouble. Also keep in mind that you will not be able to revive players who have suicided (typed "kill" in console.) Reviving takes approximately half the repair tool's ammo, so make sure you have at least that much before attempting to revive.

Note In addition to the regular rank points for killing enemy and destroying their buildings, the Engineer gains one rank point for every 100 armor points repaired, for every 200 health points healed, and for every friendly he revives.

Note The dead player's corpse is removed as soon as they respawn. This means any corpses you can see are all of players that are waiting to be revived.

Note A revived friendly will be brought back to life with the default amount of ammo. Make sure to put down an ammo box for them to restock.

Note In later versions, it has been reported that a ticket will be deducted upon a player's death, but will be credited back to the team if they are revived by an Engineer. This is currently not in effect though.

Tip: If a fallen friendly changes their class or skills while waiting to be revived, they will come back to life with those changes applied.

Upgrade Guide

See Also: Engineer Skills

Tips

• Placing ammo crates near vehicles will reload them when they are nearby.
• After the 4th promotion the total number of turrets and sensors an Engineer can place is increased by one.
• If your base has no armory yet, try switching to the Engineer class and dropping an ammo crate for yourself and switching classes again instead of asking teammates or the commander for munitions.
• Most of the Engineer's equipment can be used as a makeshift step-ladder in case you need to reach the tops of those high crates.
• Reviving a friendly will save the team a ticket. This is critical in most games, since when the ticket counter drops to 1, respawning at a barracks or at an APC is impossible.
• Sometimes it's better to leave enemy engineers' turrets operational so that they will be unable to build them elsewhere, especially if the turrets do not pose danger to you or your team (e.g. unfinished, behind obstacles, etc.