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Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Squad Leader Rank: Not defined Duties: Set up defenses, open doors and spam barbed wire. Guides: Construction Unlock Requirements: Not available. Detailed Description: Not defined |__________| |
"But the good news — we got four of these robot sentries with display and scanners intact. They really kick ass, I think they'll come in handy."
―Cpl. Hicks
As a Squad Engineer, you main goals will be fixing power, getting through doors, and setting up fortifications for a FOB (Forward Operating Base) that'll be used for defence and to secure a supply route. Without you, your platoon will have no power or a FOB which is critical for mission success.
You'll have to different playstyles you can experiment with. One, as a FOB building and Utility Engineer, who sets up defences and makes sure power is running. Another way to play Engineer is to be a Combat Engineer, breaching walls, hacking open doors, and repairing robotic limbs on the field. Both are as good as the other, but too much of one is bad. Make sure there is an FOB that will be able to be defended, and if there is one, make sure marines will be able to effectively make it from building to building.
Equipment and Gear
As an Engineer, you'll have many things you'll be able to pickup. To start off, we'll talk about engineer coin items.
| Defensive Equipment: | Description: |
|---|---|
 Sentry Gun |
The Sentry Gun automatically tracks and fires upon any target that is wearing an ID not hooked up to the Almayer's systems. Via IFF, they are unable to hit friendly marines, allowing them to be safely placed behind marine laws as they lay down supressing fire. Comes with various options, such as 360 degree mode, burst fire, and the ability to take control of it. Has 300 bullets.
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 M56D Mounted Smartgun |
The M56D HMG is an emplacement that a marine will have to man in order to fire it. It fires heavier smartgun bullets that have increased penetration, at the downside of being immobile and not having IFF, allowing it to friendly fire. With CTRL-Click, you'll be able to toggle on burst fire. Holds 700 rounds.
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As you can only pick one, discuss with your fellow engineering comrade for the one that best suits your needs. Moving on, the most important equipment, your tools as an engineer:
| Image | Name | Function |
|---|---|---|
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Screwdriver | Used for securing and unsecuring sentries, Also used to hack doors. |
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Welding Tool | Used for cutting through walls and fixing sentries. Has 20 units of fuel inside. |
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Crowbar | Used for Opening unpowered doors and displacing girders so you can move them. |
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Wrench | Used for securing most objects to the ground including girders,vendors, also has another use to rotate sentries. Easily the most used tool in your arsenal. |
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Cable coil | Used for fixing robotics and diverting power to other areas. |
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Multitool | Used to hack doors/ vendors along with disabling mines. |
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Wirecutter | Used for cutting cable coil and mending it. |
You'll want these in your toolbelt 
which can obviously be situated on your belt slot. Alongside these, you'll want to put some 
Insulated Gloves on your hands, and 
Welding Goggles over your eyes (which are able to be flipped up and down). Additionally, you'll get a webbing 
that you'll want to apply to your jumpsuit. For your backpack, you'll either want the Welderpack 
, the satchel 
, or the normal backpack 
| Extra Gear | Name | Function |
|---|---|---|
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M40 HIDP Incendiary Grenade | Used for setting an area ablaze as area denial. |
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C4 | Used for exploding through walls or through people. Mostly used to blow into the CIC to mutiny. |
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Minebox | Used for exploding aliens who run over it. Mostly used for killing survivors and exploded dead aliens. |
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Circuit Boards | Used for fixing various things that need circuit boards, such as airlocks, APCs, and or air alarms. |
| File:Mesons.png | Optical Mesons | Used for seeing the layout of the ship through walls. |
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Light Replacer | Used to replace lights quickly. Feed with glass to refill. |
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Entrenching Tool | Used for digging and filling up sandbags. Can be folded to fit in backpack. |
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High-Capacity Powercell | Used for powering various devices that require power. |
Tasks as an Engineer
Power Duty
As an Engineer, you'll be given a various amount of duties. Generally one of the first two duties is FOB or Power Duty. To setup power, you'll want to locate the geothermal generators 
and assess the damage. Depending on the sprite, the generator will need different steps:
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-> 
-> 
= ->
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With this done, you'll want to turn it on and set up the Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storages, (SMESes) which can be setup by clicking on them and setting input to 250,000W and output to 200,000W. This'll ensure that they are recieving more charge than they are giving out. Do this for all three, and make sure that the SMESes are
Hacking
You'll also be tasked with hacking. Thankfully, it sounds a lot harder than it is. As an engineer, you'll care about three wires: Contraband, test light, and bolts. The test light depowers the door and allows you to crowbar it open, the bolt wire bolts it open or bolts it closed, and the contraband wire is used on vendors to allow for extra goodies.
How do you hack? Simple. Screwdriver open the door, click on it, and pulse with your multi tool until the desired effect occurs. Need to open it? Pulse until test light is off, and then cut it or crowbar it open. Need to bolt it? Pulse until the door is bolted with a notification displayed in the chatlog. Need extra goodies from a vendor? Screwdriver the vendor, then Pulse until the goodies show up in the vendor list. Keep the wire colours in mind, since they're all universal. Sometimes when you pulse a wire shocks will come out. In this case, you'll want to cut the wire with wirecutters and then mend them. Problem solved.
FOB Duty
As an Engineer on FOB duty, you'll be setting up the base that the marines will primarily use to organize, to heal up, to retreat to, and to make a final last stand at. To make a good FOB, you'll want to make strategic use of your landmines, the smartgun HMG or the sentry gun, and various defensive emplacements. A good FOB is the difference between losing the round and holding off long enough to make a push back and finally win the round since it provides a safe place for marines to rest at.
Fortifications of the Trade
| Image | Name | Material Needed | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
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Wood Barricade | Wood | Used for a hasty defence against aliens. Mostly seen prespawned. |
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Metal Barricade | Metal | Used for constructing auxillary fortifications that aren't apart of the main FOB |
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Sandbags | Sandbags | Used for making directional defences, multiple can be applied to a tile. |
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Plasteel Barricade | Plasteel | Used to allow passage by closing it, and providing heavy protection. |
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Barbed Wire | Metal | Used to make barricades and sandbags stronger, and making it so they can't be ran or climbed over. Also damages any thing that attacks it. |
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Wall | Metal | Used to fully block off an area. |
FOB Duty Cont.
Barricades will block block projectiles from the direction it's facing, including boiler globs, which should be kept in mind while setting them up. Additonally, you'll want to keep a few key things in mind: Can marines easily move around the FOB, is it easily acessiable, and if needed, is it easy to retreat from and does it have multiple exits?
Another extremely important aspect of your FOB is looking out for flanks. The enemy can and will use these to their advantage, either to sneak in and harass wounded, or the burst in and slaughter the entire FOB. As well, you'll want to keep a look out for walls that have acid sprayed over them. This means in time another opening will present itself, and you'll want to throw up more barricades to compensate. Additionally, if you have barricades and metal to spare: THROW BARBED WIRE ON EVERYTHING as this'll increase strength, make it so runners can't run over it, and damage any attacking xenos. They only cost two metal, they're good.
General Tips
- Examining an incomplete Sentry frame will list what it is and isn't missing. This can help if you stumble upon somebody's half-assed arts n' crafts project, or if you find yourself forgetting steps mid-construction.
- When constructing your defenses, keep in mind that some of your enemies can simply bypass them due to their speedy and slight nature, plan for this by ensuring some of the men guarding your defenses are geared, or at least prepared, for close quarters combat.
- All vendors contain a 'contraband' wire, pulsing this wire after beginning the hack with a screwdriver will cause a few new items to show up in the vendor, but as a general warning, it is against Marine Law to hack the vendors on the Almayer, so keep an eye out for MP's before you accidentally cause trouble.
- Plasteel and Metal are valuable resources sure, but just remember that you aren't the only person that needs them, don't hoard loads of building supplies otherwise you might find other players unable to perform their jobs.
- In a pinch, even the average door can make a solid defense, by welding a door shut it will no longer be able to be wrenched open, either by Xenomorphs or a man wielding a crowbar. Hacking the door and forcing its bolts down has this same effect, but welding is substantially quicker and a lot safer when you've got bad guys breathing down your neck.
- As an Engineer, it's in your job description to keep any defensive structures you or another engineer builds in tip-top shape, this may include having to repair metal barricades and the like in the midst of combat or replace melted structures with new ones, which is dangerous, but it's what you signed on for. This also goes for APC's and any broken lights you may see, you'll want to replace these post-haste so that marines may benefit from their existence.
- Just as a general reminder, if you intend to be hacking open doors or pulsing wires in vendors, you'll want to be wearing Insulated Gloves, Budget Insulated Gloves work too, but aren't as good. Failure to wear the correct PPE* for your work environment will result in a hearty shock if you touch the wrong wire. (*Personal Protection Equipment)
- You might've noticed that the welder is one of the two most important tools for an engineer to have, you may also have noticed it carries a measly 20u's of welding fuel before it needs to be refueled, or you could replace it with another welder that would eventually also need to be refueled. To do this, you'll need to find either a Welding Kit (It looks like two propane tanks were turned into a backpack, or some kind of futuristic jet pack) or a Fuel Tank (This one is a large gas canister that fills an entire tile, hard to miss it), the Welding Kit can be placed in the backpack slot for easy access, but carries less fuel than the Tank, the Tank carries a large amount of fuel, but can only be dragged around. After you've located your refueling utensil, have your welder in hand, make sure it is turned OFF (This part is key to success) and click on the Kit/Tank, you'll get a bit of flavor text saying 'the welder has been refueled' if you've done it correctly.