Combat Technician

MARINE
Combat Engineer	Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Squad Leader Rank: Not defined Duties: Set up defenses, open doors and spam girders. Guides: Construction Unlock Requirements: Not available. Detailed Description: |__________| Not defined |__________|

Introduction

The mainstay of any squad, you can have all the guns and funs in the world, but if you can't get through that bolted airlock door, your squad is as much use as a chocolate fireguard!

As a Marine Engineer, having completed the six month basic training course followed by a further three months of specialisation in the role of Combat Engineer, you can both fix a door and fuck up Aliens.

When you awake from Cryo and get yourself down to the prep rooms, you'll find your very own Engineer room with a ColMarTech vendor that contains everything you'll need to secure sites, build FOBs, set up defences and injure any hostiles that might come your way.

Squad engineers rely on a wide variety of engineering knowledge that is often critical to the success of your squad. If you are unfamiliar with engineering at the level of fully replacing a broken APC, hacking a door, or constructing and deconstructing walls, you may want to practice these concepts at your own leisure with the much less stressful Maintenance Technician occupation.

Tools of the Trade

Image	Name	Function
	Screwdriver	Used for securing and unsecuring sentries, Also used to hack doors.
	Welding Tool	Used for cutting through walls and fixing sentries. Has 20 units of fuel inside.
	Crowbar	Used for Opening unpowered doors and displacing girders so you can move them.
	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.
	Cable coil	Used for fixing robotics and diverting power to other areas.
	Multitool	Used to hack doors/ vendors along with disabling mines.
	Wirecutter	Used for cutting cable coil and mending it.

Materials of the Trade

Image	Name	Function
	Metal	Used for primarily making tables and walls/false walls.
	Plasteel	Used for building sentries and setting up barricades.
	Glass	Used for making directional or full tile windows along with reinforced glass when rods are applied.
	Wooden Planks	Used for creating tables and a wooden barricade to provide temporary safety.
	Rods	Used to make reinforced tables when applied to a standard table and reinforced glass, can also make grilles solely with rods.
	Reinforced glass	Used to create a tougher directional or full window tile.

Playing an Engineer

From the ColMarTech Vendor you obtain mines, Incendiary grenades, C4 explosive charges and, oh yes, a top of the line, assembly required, batteries provided, UA 571-C Sentry Gun or the easier-to-build, mag-fed M56D Mounted Smartgun. If you decide to support your team offensively, then you can use these to support the squad with flexible heavy duty firepower as you tow the Sentry Gun around, place mines and throw grenades. It's a tricky style to play and one that demands a higher level of skill than just running around guns blazing. If however, you can deploy and orientate that turret quickly enough when the Alien wave falls on you, it may turn the tide of the battle.

If on the other hand, you decide to go down the Engineer route, then your strengths will lie in your ability to open any door, repair structural damage, set up near impassable defensive lines, rig up some booby traps and of course, sort out the power.

Engineer Tactics

• Space is your enemy. Not the black space, but the bag space. You will want more than you can possibly carry, and the god of meta-gaming might whisper in your ear just to take some more stuff down in a locker or crate. Don't do it! - remember, you're just a Marine on a routine mission drop like any other. You wouldn't go down towing a cargo hold worth of gear with you.

This is why you need to decide if you want to play Defensive Engineer or Offensive Engineer. The UA 571-C or the M56D takes up one hand slot and cannot be stored anywhere on your person. If you take any part of it out of its storage crate, it will not go back in. There is however, nothing stopping you from carrying a grab bag in a free hand filled with other equipment you might need.

• There will be enough material on the planet to keep you supplied in metal, but pack wisely on the Almayer as you may not get a chance to go back for more. If the worst comes to the worst, you can cannibalise an out-building for more materials.

• If you're setting up a FOB, take a moment to assess routes of ingress and egress. Only the worst Engineer blocks off entry and exit routes so that when you're overrun, reinforcements either can't get in, or the wounded, dying and fleeing, can't get out.

• Cover from view and cover from fire. Two totally different things. If you're building cover from fire (Acid attacks) then consider grilles and windows rather than walls so your Marines can see the approaching enemy. Marines don't need cover from view, they're not sneaking up on anyone - they're big, loud and it's hard to hide a dozen men.

• UA 571-C or M56D locations. It's critical you identify a killing zone for the sentry to be most effective. If there isn't one, consider making one through wall structures. Don't be afraid to move it around as the tide of battle flows around your location either, and don't be afraid to move it during the battle as long as you're confident you can resite and get it powered (or loaded, for the Smartgun) up quickly enough. There's nothing worse than watching a turret get smashed to pieces just because it got left behind in the withdrawal.

• Geothermal Generators. If your squad is tasked with getting these generators running, that's your job. Anyone other than an Engineer working on those it's meta-gaming to fuck. Because of this, it's your job to stay with them and maintain them. They break. A lot. Don't set them up then run off. If your squad is holding that area, stay with the generators. Get your turret set up, place out your mines and reinforce the building with structural adjustments in between fixing the generators as they break.

• Note - You cannot build Reinforced Walls as an Engineer on Colonial Marines. Funnily enough, this 'fix' seemed to happen shortly after someone *cough* surrounded the LZ with reinforced walls. Hmm... So don't waste Plasteel trying. It wont work!

Building Your Sentry And Maintaining it

Building Your Sentry [In-Depth]

1. Open the UA 571-C Sentry crate
2. Take out the plasteel inside of the crate.
3. Click the plasteel in your active hand to bring up the construction list, then select "turret frame".
4. Find a wrench then click on the sentry to wrench it into place so it can't be moved.
5. Use cable coil on the turret frame
6. Add the sentry turret on to the turret frame by clicking on it. ( You can find the sentry turret in the sentry crate.
7. Add the sensor to the sentry by clicking on it.
8. Click on the sentry with metal in your hand.
9. Click on the sentry with a welder.
10. Add in the powercell by clicking on the sentry with the power cell in hand. (You'll want a high capacity cell or a super capacity cell generally so that your sentry will rarely run out of power.)
11. Click the sentry with an empty hand to turn it on.

Building Your Sentry [Quick]

1. Sentry Crate
2. Build turret frame from plasteel.
3. Wrench
4. Cable coil.
5. Sentry turret added to turret frame.
6. Sentry Sensor
7. Metal
8. Weld.
9. Powercell
10. Turn on

Moving Your Sentry

1. Turn off the sentry in the pop up window that appears when you click the sentry with an empty hand.
2. Screw the sentry. (Will display the message that you unsecure the bolts.)
3. Pull the Sentry to new location.
4. Screw the sentry in the new position. (Will display the message that you secure the bolts)
5. Click on the sentry with an empty hand to turn it on again.

Rotating Your Sentry

1. Use a Wrench on the sentry when it's turned off.

Maintenance Of Your Sentry

• Use a Welder on your damaged sentry to fix it.
• To replace ammo or a powercell in a sentry just click on the sentry with the new ammo/powercell in your active hand.

Functions Of The Sentry

• Clicking on the sentry whilst it is turned ON with a free hand will bring up a menu, this menu shows you current ammunition, power levels, % health remaining and gives you the option of swapping it's firing modes and directional lock.
• Firing Modes - The sentry has two modes, Single Fire: A slow firing but more accurate mode, uses up ammunition at a slower rate, but is usually outperformed by the other firing mode; Burst Fire: A three round burst with moderate accuracy, this firing mode is for when you want to put the hurt on something, and the increased ammunition consumption rate is rarely an issue outside of lengthy confrontations, and even then the spare ammo case all sentries come with are enough to make it last quite a while.
• Directional Lock - The sentry gun is equipped with a directional lock, leaving this on gives it a 180 degree field-of-fire in the direction it is facing, this mode has a long range, but as previously mentioned, only covers one direction. If you turn off the directional lock it'll set the turret into 360 mode, which will allow it to shoot at hostiles coming in from any angle, not just the one it's pointed at, HOWEVER, doing so DRASTICALLY reduces the range of the turret due to the extra stress this puts on the hydraulics and AI of the sentry gun.

The M56D Mounted Smartgun

This marvel of ass-kicking technology is our latest and greatest form of defensive weaponry.

How to construct it: Place the M56D mount on the ground, click and drag from the mount onto your character. Make sure it's on the ground. Then anchor it with a wrench, then load the gun with a magazine. Mount the gun and then screwdriver it. Wrench to rotate and screwdriver to disassemble into mount and gun.

How to toggle burst fire: Ctrl click the M56D before manning it, when you next hop on it'll use burst fire.

APC Maintenance

If the APC hasn't been blown up or destroyed during a gunfight always check the apcs wires by unscrewing the apc frame and click on the apc with your wirecutters, if the wires come up with a mend option, mend the wires with the wirecutters. (Click on mend while holding wirecutters in your active hand.) If someone blew up the apc or blasted it into another dimension follow the steps below.

So, someone decided to throw a grenade next to the APC or you just arrived to a broken APC and your SL has tasked you with fixing it whilst the squad holds off the incoming xeno tide. No need to panic as this section will get you to quickly repair that APC.

1. First you'll want to whack off the cover; to do this just hit the APC with any sort of weapon, generally a combat knife is good for this.
2. Take out the battery (Power cell) in the APC once the cover is off with an empty hand.
3. Use a screwdriver on the APC.
4. Use wirecutters on the APC.
5. Use a crowbar on the APC.
6. Build an APC frame from 2 metal sheets then click on the APC with the APC frame in hand.
7. Use wires (Cable Coil) on the APC.
8. Click on the APC with a power control module in hand.
9. Use a screwdriver on the APC.
10. Place a new battery (Power cell) in the APC. (Just click on the APC with the battery in hand.)
11. Use a crowbar on the APC.
12. Open up the APC pop up window once you've completed all previous steps and turn on the breaker.

Hacking

Alright, so you wanna be the Hackerman huh? Well here's where you're gonna find out everything you need to know about breaking into places you shouldn't be entering.

You're going to want to start off the hack by ensuring you're wearing Budget/Insulated Gloves, and then with a screwdriver in your hand, clicking on the door you plan on hacking, this exposes the wires of the door and from here you'll branch off into one of the two following options:

Hacking the door open using a Multitool.

• Alright, so after you've started the hack with the screwdriver, pull out your multitool and click on the door in question, this should bring up a menu that consist of a bunch of colored wires with the words PULSE and CUT next to them, further down you'll see some text telling you a bunch of systems are ON, look for the system titled 'Test Light', this governs the power flow of the door, finding the 'Test Light' wire and pulsing it will short out the system, allowing you some time to use a crowbar on the door and open it. In order to find the 'Test Light' wire though you'll need to go through the list of wires one by one, pulsing each of them and paying attention to which system they turn on or off, pulsing the 'Door Bolts' wire will lock the door immediately, pulsing it again will lift the lock, as long as the door has power at least, try to avoid this wire. Once you discover the 'Test Light' wire by pulsing it and seeing the text for the system change to 'Test Light is OFF', write down the color of the wire for future use, keeping in mind wires change every round, after this, close the menu, pull out a crowbar and with it in hand, click on the de-powered door, this will force it open for a couple of seconds before it closes and power returns to the system.

Hacking the door open without a Multitool, AKA, using Wirecutters.

• Misplaced your Multitool? Or perhaps you forgot to get one in the first place, well don't worry you can still do the job as long as you've got everything else in your toolbelt, this guide follows the same steps as the Multitool guide up to the point where you'll need to start pulsing wires to find the test light, since you can't make use of that PULSE button you'll be testing out the CUT button instead, with Wirecutters in hand you'll want to start going through and cutting wires one by one, and preferably mending them if they aren't the 'Test Light' wire, so you don't cause any irreparable damage to the poor door. Be careful when cutting the 'Door Bolts' wire as it will drop them, and you will be unable to lift them without access to a multitool. After you've cut the 'Test Light' wire, use the Crowbar to open the door and you're golden.

• You can also hack vendors by using a screwdriver on them to allow you to access the wires then, you can use a multitool to pulse the wires until you release the extra gear (The extra gear will pop up.), once that's done you'll know the exact wire to pulse each time to release the extra gear in the vendor.

Mine Placement

So you've noticed your Engie-Vend comes stocked with a box of mines and you're not quite sure what to do with them? Well using that equipment, this guide's gonna teach you how to earn the nickname 'Master Exploder' with just a few easy steps.

• Mines are simple creatures, if not easily angered, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you point the explodey end towards the enemy, but let's go into a bit more detail in regards to that. To start off the mine placement, you'll want to take one of them out of it's box, once it's in your hand the next step is to stand ontop of the tile you want to place the mine, from there, have your character face the direction you want the mine to be facing, all you have to do after that is click on the mine in your active hand and after a few seconds you'll have that sucker firmly planted and ready to rumble:
• Alright, so you still aren't quite sure how these things work? Well let me tell you the finer details of how these badboys will blow your enemies back into last thursday. These smart pieces of future-tech have IFF tracking technology, they can tell if you're a marine or not, and if you aren't a marine? It'll explode, damaging whatever was dumb enough to step in front of it in the first place, so keep your damn ID's on and don't be walking Colonists through areas you know are mined, I'm sick of filling out the damage reports!
• So you've got your mines, you know how to use them and you know what they do, but you want to know where to place them for maximum effect huh? Well there's a few things you could do, first off there's the time honored tradition of planting a fuck ton of them a short while away from your barricades, so if anything steps on them and it ain't dead, your men on the lines can fix that problem real quick. Then there's the stealthier approach of mining well-used walkways and covering them up with something, most if not all non-living objects won't set off the mines, so feel free to chuck whatever you can grab on-top of them to make sure your enemy won't know what hit them if they try to set up an ambush along your supply route. Another commonly used tactic is to purposely leave a section of your defenses weaker than the rest, and place mines a few key places, namely anywhere along the path of least resistance into your secured area.

Sandbags And You

Alright listen up, some of you may have noticed the combat engineer kit now includes supplementary sandbags for your use, and no, they do not come with the sand included, that part is up to you and it's also where your latest piece of equipment, the entrenching tool, comes into play, here's what the badboy should look like: .

• Next to every Engie-Vend two stacks of 50 empty sandbags spawn at the start of every round (sand not included), these will fit in your backpack and not much else, here is what they should look like: . To fill these up you're gonna want to grab an Entrenching Tool, these can be folded up to store easily in your pack, or folded out to help you dig up that sweet, sweet dirt.

• Alright after you've back-breakingly labored for a good few minutes (clicked on a dirt tile) you should have a shovel full of dirt, you'll want to dump this into one of your empty sandbags and voila! You'll have one full sandbag, you'll need five of these to make a sandbag wall so get diggin' maggot! Here's what a filled sandbag will appear as:

• Things to be aware of: Filled Sandbags only stack up to 25 and do not fit inside any container that isn't a crate or something of the sort. Sandbag walls are quick to build and take quite a lot of beating, this is to make up for the time spent diggin'. You cannot order more sandbags from Cargo (This may change in the future).

• Where should I use my sandbags? Good question corporal, my advice is to give up on placing weaker barricades such as reinforced tables and racks, and simply focus on supplementing Plasteel Barricades with a compliment of Sandbags, these things last a lot longer than any other barricades and therefore are key to maintaining your grasp on a defended position. And don't forget these things function like any other barricade, they'll only stop projectiles coming from the direction they're facing, so make sure you haven't pointed them around the wrong way or you might find all of your shots are mysteriously disappearing...

• How to disassemble: Use your trusty entrenching tool on the sandbag(s) to disassemble it.

FOB Pointers

What makes a good FOB? Well, if it was a bad FOB it'd probably consist of nothing but a few tables and perhaps a metal barricade placed in the wrong direction.

• Key things to remember when building an FOB are 'Can marines get around the FOB with ease?' 'Can marines shoot past these barricades?' and 'Am I fortifying one area too much and not focusing enough on the others?' by asking yourself this periodically, you'll take a step back and look at your work, and possibly notice a few mistakes here and there that can easily be fixed.

• Any kind of barricade you build will only block projectiles coming from the direction it is facing, so try not to accidentally place all your metal barricades facing towards the inside of your FOB, lest some poor SADAR marine attempt to fire a rocket over it.

• A good offense can be a great defense; should you notice an area of your FOB beginning to crumble at an alarming rate, instead of focusing materials on repairing this area, prepare a few barricades facing towards the breaking line and place some marines or sentry guns at them to over-watch the situation. Sure there might not be anything stopping Xenomorphs from running straight into your FOB, but they might think twice if the first thing they see as they walk past the remains of the walls they just melted through is the barrel of an M30 Autocannon backed up by a handful of Pulse Rifles.

• Here is an example of a standard FOB that follows the above mentioned guidelines.

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.

Sources and Reading

• Knowledge of Fortifications and Other Engineering Shenanigans
• AI Sentry Turret Field Manual