This is very long reply, if admins feel its better to be moved to a new topic, plz feel free to do so. If you dont want reading then skip all the way dawn till you find this --> =======================================================================
I would like from moderators and admins to have a look at the "engineer" in Tiberian Sun and try to enable the eng unit to be more effective in defense and attack in TD.
Not saying to adopt TS style for TD, but I'm trying to show you what improvements might be interesting to enable the engineer unit the way it is without altering its mechanic.
I used to play Tiberian Sun a lot, where 1 engineer could save you from losing the game.
Engineers also play important rule in attacking, whether early game or late game. That's the beauty in Engs mechanics in TS.
It is one of those skills that distinguish between the good players and the excellent players.
So, here is how the engs work in TS.
Three engineers are needed to capture a building. One engineer gives u instant fix to your building. Cost you 500 dollars. extremely vulnerable and somewhat slow. But still a must have unit for defense (at least one engineer in base,, no engineer in a base is considered noobish). Also engineer attack can be a game changer if used correctly.
Defense:
An engineer fix-building is a central piece of defense in Tiberian Sun, and requires some practice and skill to repair the building just in the right time, or sometimes for immediately recapturing a building falling to an eng rush.
Engineer repair-structure can be used regardless of type of units attacking you, except for c4 implantation. You could use it to save your building from all types of air strike, tanks, infs, artillaries and even from engineers.
Which buildings you want to save with eng in TS?
usually the followings;
1.Refineries
2.WF
3.CY
4.super-weapons
the placement of engineers should be adjacent to your vital buildings, ideally 1 to 3 engineers per vital building but......
This is in an ideal world, but in reality, most of the time you can't afford doing that because its costy and you need money for other important things. The average players usually tries to put 1 to 2 eng per vital building while the pro might have only 2 engineers in the whole base. why is that? The pro has a better control with eng, so instead of using his fortune in engs, he would for example use 1 engineer to cover two buildings at a time (more into that later)
Now it is not a simple thing to do. Put it like this;
A. noobs are unable to use the engineer fix-structure, because either
1. they can't time it correctly.
2. bad placement of buildings that result in engineer walking for longer time
3.putting engineer in line of fire
4. overwhelmed by an attack and having difficulty in coordinating commands.
B. Average players would usually able to fix the building, but are not able to do so when receiving complicated attack. here is why they might fail to fix the building:
1. incorrect walking direction of engineer (this is important for weapons that have multiple cell damage like bombers, flames, chemical missile, ...etc) so the engineer would be ordered to walk towards the building, but if not taking into account the collateral cells damaged which can kill him instantly before reaching the building or when trying to get into the building. (so it is useful to anticipate which cells are safe to walk to get the building repaired, hence only the pros are able to do it correctly)
2. engineer has no one to protect him. I give few examples, if there is no sam in base, then the enemy might use heli to kill all engs in base before air raids. If there is no sensor, a devil would be used to squish all engineers before an attack. If there is poor anti-inf defense, light inf are used to clear the base from engs then to follow or combine that with heavy attack. Usually a base has 3 to 4 eng, so its not that hard to eliminate engs if base lacking proper defense (well even if there was 10 engineers in base, they are still extremely vulnerable.)
3. improper combo or mixture of defense units that will make you lose the building regardless of engineer. The engineer role here is merely to delay the attacking unit from attacking your next vital structure, which is sometimes useful. So example in TS, you need 3 titans and an eng to save your refinery from a pro or skilled dizz attack (called 1 shot-destroy), otherwise you will lose the refinery regardless. Maybe many here are not familiar with units so an RA equivalent I would say apc with flame throwers attack. so they probably will get the refinery in the first round of fire. so if you place a turret, you know that wont help you, but if u place a pillbox then it will most likely save you. not only that, if say (let's pretend) this attack will result in your refinery getting down with the first round, then an engineer behind the refinery might save the building if sent just before it crumbles. of course most likely he will die in RA because flame weapon damage multiple cells. But I hope you got what am trying to say, So a pillbox + an engineer combo will save your refinery and the attack will fail. if you couldn't buy pillbox, an engineer will save you from first round but obviously not the second round. Still you might need that delay to get units/defense/..etc.
4. setting engineers to automatically repair the damaged buildings. This is possible in TS, but not really as effective as the manual control of eng. The engineers would wait to the building to get to red bar (you need to set which buildings are they assigned to) then fix it without the need to manually to order them to do so. This might be useful when you are busy somewhere else, its better than nothing. But waiting for red bar is risky and your eng might not be able to fix it because of heavy firing and your building already disappeared by the time the eng reach it.
Now lets do the pro engineer defense:
1. the pro player will not spend a fortune in engineers surrounding the vital structures, instead he place the buildings in such a way that enable an engineer to cover two buildings a time and with proper protection. Note they don't just place the buildings shoulder to shoulder. what I mean is that a reasonable distance that is not to close nor too far is 2 to 3 cells between the WF and CY, and they have to be placed diagonally so enemy superweapns don't just destroy both WF and CY together. The engineer is correctly positioned in between to have equal distance and is covered by some defense. Thus, you saved money and make it difficult to enemy to reach your eng. A proper defense doesn't have to be bunkering with lots of defense units/structures. You have to be reasonable with defense as well.
2. The pro player is able to time the eng repair so that he doesn't lose either the structure nor getting his eng killed. So for example, in TS you want to save your structure from airstrike then you would command the engineer to fix the building just before the air units release their load. While for a say ground attack, you want to wait till red bar then order to fix. Here I want to give example from Openra that I found it useful in terms of timing when to repair the structure. A classic example is when you are attacked by artillaries. Say now you are in position where the enemy artilleries have the range and the view to get your CY, and you can't see them. What I do usually I have an engineer at the back. I would unpack the CY when it just gets red, then redeploy it just 5/6 cells further, and repair it with engineer. What would happen is the enemy thinks he almost got my CY and only one more round of fire to go. Most of players would try to chase my red-barred CY with either air or pushing his artilleries to the front. They think that this worth losing some helis/arts to my line of defense in exchange for CY. But then he'll lose those units and I still have my CY fully repaired. Also other times I use the eng to repair after air raids or v2 missile. The same concept I can apply it to my allies, when my allies is overwhelmed with artilleries and I feel that the enemy will target his CY soon, I would place bax behind his CY and get an eng ready for the redeployment. Having said that, the engineer repairing the building in RA is much less flexible than in TS. The engineer here has to get to the central cell to get the building repaired. The engineer is completely unsafe when he enters the structure. While in TS, once the engineer inside the building, he is safe from most types of weapons. Its like only bombers, flame and sonic zap that can get through the building and kill your engineer before repairing it. Hence you need the correct angle to get into the building to avoid these types of weapon. However, in OpenRA, even light infantry can shoot through the building and get your engineer which is really frustrating. I am not sure if this was intended, but I find it more demanding in TD to give eng the ability to enter the building through any cell that is under the building and be safe from conventional weapons. Like right now, if I want to repair my CY while under fire from the rifle infantry, then the eng dies regardless. Not only this makes it extremely difficult to repair but also almost unworthy to capture enemy structure and impossible to get enemy CY.
Now let's move to the Eng Attack
Engineer attack can be used both as an early game or late game attacks. Usually GDI players use engineer rush in early game while nod use it as late game attack.
The cost of GDI early game eng attack is 1500 for 3 engs + 800 for APC. The priority is to first capture a refinery then warf then CY. It is not wise to get the CY as a first target early in game with engineers in TS, unless you have no choice but to do so. Why is that? because in TS, you don't get your warf unless your eco is well established. TS players will do 3 refineries and even 4 refineries before getting warf. The first 5 minutes is all about inf skirmishes. Some will do 2 refineries then warf but this is difficult for most players. anyway, my point is if you get the CY early in the game, then your enemy with his well established eco, will spend all his money on units while you are spending it in both units and buildings and you already wasted like 2300 on eng attack. He will end up having huge army to attack you which may turns into a curse to you.
Rarely, but I have seen it done, a player may just decide to walk the engineers to the enemy base and sneak it from behind. This is extremely risky but sometimes successful as no one expect a walking eng attack.
How to counter early apc eng rush in TS? just like in openra, an apc with flame throwers depends on the element of surprise. You need to see it before coming. That's why scouting is vital to counter such an attacks.
Nod tend to use engineer rush as late game that usually slowly drain you out. Nod APC is unlocked after tech, and it travels underground. It also costs you 2300 to have an apc with 3 engs. because it is a late game feature, you can't simply pop out the apc in the middle of your enemy base. Usually there are defenses and unit which easily make you attack a complete failure. I'm not going to explain in details how to eng attack with nod, but put it simply like this, you need to be smart on how to fool your enemy. an example is a you send ground troops to enemy base to force your enemy to take all his troops to the frontier then you pop up the apc at the back of his base.
How to counter nod eng rush, usually you only need light infantries and one or two anti-inf turrets. Sometimes you will be forced to use airplanes + flame tanks as a counter to nod eng rush if your enemy is too good.
a typical Nod player tend to use eng attack a lot, two eng rushes per game is the minimum.
More about engineers in TS can be found in fan made manuals in the following links which I highly recommend to have a look at it to have an in-depth understanding of engineers in the game. You could just use cntrl+F and search for the word "engineer" to make easier for yourself.
Here:
1. TS player nickname: Mole40k
Mole40k's 2013 guide:
http://mjryder.net/wordpress/wp-content ... k-2013.pdf
2. TS player nickname: Kaizen
KAIZEN'S 2016 TIBERIAN SUN GUIDE
http://dillonmiles12345.wixsite.com/201 ... -tips-2016
http://dillonmiles12345.wixsite.com/201 ... cks-part-2
Both players can be reached in the CNCNET forums.
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NOW lets talk about TD eng problem!
Yes, the engineer needs to walk through the building to get to the central cell in order to repair/capture it.
But this has 2 problems.............Say instead of 2 engineers, you decided to send 10 engineers to capture this undefended warf. There are only 3 light infantries below it like 2 cells further. What do you think guys? Can you use the 10 eng to get the war factory if only defended by 3 light infs? you might think yes. Maybe the inf will mange to kill two engineers before entering the building, but once the rest (8 left) enters then the building, it is yours, right? NOT REALLY, YOU MIGHT BE WRONG. Believe it or not! 3 inf could instantly kill your 8 engineers in one round if they all entered the same time, and then your engs are completely wasted. Yes only 1-shot and all the 8 dies. This is because all engs if entered the same time, they will stack on top over the central point of the central cell, which means they could potentially get killed in 1 shot regardless of their numbers. Not only that, all my ambush engineer rush failed in TD because of this. (I know I'm not a pro) What's the point of sneaking the engineer behind the enemy line then ending up in the enemy line of fire because he has to walk through the building for another few cells to capture it and the enemy units start targeting him even if is walking inside the building. An Eng can take really very little to die, maybe with only one shot by almost any unit and when they are inside the building they will die all together with one shot.!
The requirement of walking 2 cells inside the building before capturing it is what makes the engineer attack most likely, a failure. In TS its like only one cell to walk inside the building, and still you are able to cancel the repair or cancel the capture of building by retracting your engs. They do not count as 1 unit when entering a building in terms of units shooting them. In TD, if you kill one eng, the others die along with him regardless of their numbers when they reach the 2nd cell.
So in short, Finding a way in how to enable the engineer units to be used in defense and attack more effectively is better than altering the mechanism of engineers to resemble what we have in RA. In RA, its like the only worth structure to be used for engineer attack is the CY and have little role in defense. Most use engineer to merely capture the oil derricks, otherwise you will rarely see the engineer being used to be honest if the map lacks oil derricks. Its like we maybe use the engineer to capture enemy CY if the map has oil derricks. While in TS, the engineer unit is utilized for a variety of purposes and used by all players. Of course TS is not TD, but the idea here is to show the opportunity and the potential for the engineer unit in TD. That is only my humble analysis on the Eng topic. In the end, its up to the moderators who have the right to decide what best is for the game after trial/error experiments.
). Im super slow in TD but I do decent because I know the counters and what my opponent thinks.