The Field Engineer

I have determined, after many attempts to utilize this unit, that it is completely and thoroughly useless. It is nothing but an elaborate nerf to UEF land personal shields (adds +3 RP to the cost).
On the surface these units seem strong enough. Same DPS/range as a rockhead tank with additional HP and the ability to repair units. Awesome, right?
Several problems:
#1: The cannons are essentially useless. The turrets have very limited intersection, cutting their DPS roughly in half because only one of the two guns is ever shooting (usually). Also makes it impossible to micro them to any sufficient effect.
#2: The units are large and cumbersome. Tanks and loyalists can gather together easily, but field engineers take up a lot of space. Makes them unable to participate in proper land blobs.
#3: Because of #1 and #2, they cannot be used as combat units... at all... for any reason.
#4. Cannot reclaim. This bewilders me, but they cannot reclaim. All those dead wrecks on the ground? Helpless against enemy tanks/bots and useless at reclaiming them. Hmm.
#5: Costs 8 RP at least via regen. Most people get range for 3, so it's only really 6.... you'r better off getting parashields and vet bonus, two levels of training, or even saving 1 more RP and getting afterburners. There is no situation in which field engies excel.|||I don't mind that they can't build, But I thought not being able to at least reclaim was just stupid.
What kind of engineer can't reclaim?|||I also noticed that, unlike Cybran gun engies, they don't seem to be able to shoot and repair at the same time. Or am I wrong here? I don't really remember that clearly.|||Theyre useful, but not extremely useful. In some situations, I like going full land tech instead of fatboys/other experimentals. If you have afterburners and demolishers, this engineers is the next thing you want, because you can quickly heal your entire army, theyre pretty good in combat (in blobs they ARE good in combat, because the guns seem to target opponents independently from each other). You try attack moving with engineers + demolishers. Also, if you attack move with engineers, I do believe they both attack and repair at the same time, or else, the engineers in the back repair. So, ATTACK MOVE! Thats your micro. The good thing about UEF land is that you can keep upgrading it forever. So many good upgrades, of which this engineer is one of the lesser ones, but still, a nice addition:
- range
- demolishers
- speed
- training
- pshields
- double barrel
- combat engineer
- nanoshield
- AA missiles
- vet/buildtime
You are only maxed out when you researched everything but the king kriptor and the jackhammer. This is very different for Aeon and Cybran, since those have a lot of useless upgrades in their land trees as well.|||Nephylim|||I find them somewhat useful very early game, before anyone can establish reasonable size blobs of units, but after that they are generally not very good.|||If anything, I regard field engies just as a small addition to my ground army. If you want to get the shields, you'll need to unlock them anyway and then you might as well build a few for the sake of field repairs and mobile radar.
I'm a bit disappointed though that they can't build tactical structures or reclaim like the FA field engy.|||I think that field engineer stat is fine, because it have very high HP. It is a good support unit. But it can't reclaim that is a little stupid.|||it should totally be able to reclaim.
and it should maybe repair faster. or repair while the units, while they are moving.|||FunkOff|||FunkOff|||Nephylim|||Quote:|||The same reason you'd use Shotja on their own. In both cases it's because it looks good on paper until you realise that it's not good in practice.
It'd be cool if field engies were amphibious like normal ones were, then they'd have a unique use.|||Thats right. You mix them with tanks, mobile arty and Pshields. Fear them!|||In the same way that perhaps you should mix Cybran gun engines with loyalists bracks and adaptors. And those guys can make stuff, reclaim it and go amphibious too. If only you could get them to select together.|||That might actually be a good plan - just without the loyalists, engis would replace those. Problem - Engineers cost a lot. They do add an extra regen factor though... But the counter to brack-adaptor-loyalist is mass demolisher, and then engis wont do much good... And for aeon, PD + tanks + shotjas, and engis dont exactly have long range... But same goes for bots, which is why I dont use loyalists lategame... I will need to do some experimenting though.|||Manta|||Iit does work, but what I really want it to do is to add them to strategic view autogroups.|||FunkOff|||Bastilean|||The main problem really being that you can't get at that regen when you're microing, since stuff can't be repaired whilst mobile.|||Maybe, maybe repairing might work the same way as capturing does; speaking of ranges and targets moving away..|||Youre missing the finesse, manta. Driving around and changing directions every 2 seconds is NOT microing. A simple ATTACK MOVE order will do.|||The reason they can't reclaim is that engineering functions are handled by a global value, build power. The field engineer has double the build power of a regular one, giving it double the repair rate. If it could reclaim, it'd also have double the reclaim rate, which would make it kill things faster by reclaiming them than by shooting them.