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Post Engineer Revamp 2020
This thread is for questions and comments regarding the blog post Engineer Revamp 2020: https://www.starsonata.com/blog/engineer-2020/

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Mon Feb 17, 2020 12:33 am
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
im worried

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Mon Feb 17, 2020 1:21 am
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
Don’t panic.

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Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:22 am
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
I'm beyond exciting for us to create alternative playstyles.


Mon Feb 17, 2020 12:29 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
Skill Changes
Engineer Skill
Engineer Class 1: 1 Additional energy slot in support freighters and capital ships
Seems good, we'll certainly need it...
Engineer Class 2: +25% drone ops. (More on how drone ops will now work below.)
We currently get 21% from Drone Mastery, so a slight increase depending on the augs you have.
Engineer Class 3: 1 Extra aug slot.
We currently get the equivalent of a ship mastery 3/4 Augmenter from Engineer class skill 3 if I'm working it out right, so this could easily be improved by another aug slot.

Drone Mastery
+1 drone slot per level (no drone ops anymore)
With no other bonuses, this will have to be taken by everyone regardless, and if you aren't taking it as an engineer, then why bother being engineer?
Beam Mastery
+33% tractor power, +33% tractor range, drones will prioritize your tractor target (both friend and foe if applicable), and do 33% more crit damage against that target (all per level for 3 levels)
Always nice to have tractor bonuses, but no tractor efficiency. With all the other elec drains...hmm...
Damage Control
Engineer overloads his shield with extra electricity. 20% of incoming damage per level is absorbed by the energy bank, scaled with current energy percent. When maxed at level three, this skill will grant the Engineer up to 60% damage mitigation, although that figure will scale down as their energy bank drains. Provided the Engineer has good energy stats, this skill will outperform the current Damage Control skill for mitigation.
So one assumes that at 100% bank you are getting 60% damage to energybank, then at 50% bank you are getting 30% damage to energybank? Least that's how I'm reading it. Could easily drain out your energybank pretty fast though. These two energies will really have to pull their weight.
Adv Subskills
Mechanical Engineer: +3 temporary drone equip slots, can repair while in combat
Will probably be taken for the equip slots more than the repair in combat, which is utility at best maybe. Cheaper repairs for engineer would be my vote.

Computer Engineer: Your attacks leave a computer virus, causing your drones to do up to double damage to target up to 100% of the value of your attacks. Also works with healing.
I'm undecided on this one. I haven't actively used a weapon myself since I was using Magic Drones, and again my energy worries creep in whether I'll be able to power a weapon as well as everything else.

Electrical Engineer: Your weapons do 10x damage, but take 10x more energy per damage to fire, scaled with your energy bank percent.
Play an engineer so you can be like a sniper?

Civil Engineer: +100 armor on temp drones (done)
extra resists for drones I think? sounds okay.

Changes to Drone Ops
Drone ops will no longer give drones a bunch of stats, but instead give drones 1% of your ship’s augmenter stats. All four drone ops bonuses are converted into this new stat.

How this will play out is that instead of Engineers trying to maximize for the most Drone Ops possible, almost at the expense of everything else, they will need to get a mixture of Drone Ops and the stats they want their drones and ship to actually have. We estimate that (with the extra aug slot) drones will overall be a little bit more powerful under this system, but also much more specialized. Drones will also have access to stats they didn’t have before, like electric tempering and transference power. Players will be able to specialize for burst DPS, sustain, tankiness, range, etc. much more than they could before with only a single drone controller. Of course, we will make sure to thoroughly test this change on the test2 server in order to verify our theorycrafting, and make changes accordingly.
I kinda thought this was the point of ops mastery augmenters and the like, but I'll reserve judgement again.

Drone controllers will still work the same, to get dynamic changes in drone abilities, but the new Drone Ops will allow a much more personalized baseline and create much more interesting augmenter choices than before. In addition, the Engineer’s ship will share a lot of stats with their drones now, making it possible for Engineers to actually use their weapons in combat.. Hello, spacebar!
I kinda think it should be the other way around, you choose the drone controller based on your aug choices rather than vice versa. also, I don't wanna use my spacebar, my drones should be doing the work. It's engaging enough as it is.
Item Changes and New Items
Elec Beam
Instead of giving a constant elec amount to target, elec beams link the two ships’ energy, sending a portion of the elec consumption of the target to the Engineer’s ship to be consumed there instead. If either ship banks out, the beam disconnects. Different beams have different percentages that go to the engineer, with higher constant additional elec cost for higher percentages. We came up with this concept because we weren’t happy with the lack of scaling in the current elec beam mechanic. Once the Engineer can power their end of the beam, there is no advantage to further developing the character’s energy stats. While this new concept will take a lot of testing to balance, it will encourage Engineers to really develop their energy stats, rewarding them with potentially even higher energy support abilities than they can currently get with the highest-tier elec beams.
This beam is going to fall off constantly I think, but my understanding may not be complete. I feel that one end of this beam will be banking out anyway.
Repair Drone
Repair Drone generates a short range field around the drone with nanobots that repair allied ships at a rate of 1% per second as long as the ally can pay the docked repair cost. Can be used in combat. Requires Mechanical Engineer
What's this to be used for? Repairing downed allies in raids? or with the new diffuser wear and tear?

Tesla Field Generator
Tesla Field Generator is a new type of field generator that will wirelessly transmit elec to allies in range (500ish) at a rate of 1% of their missing bank per second scaled by the engineers energy bank percent, doubly effective with drones. (With lightning graphical effects) Rename Super Capacitor and Super Capacitor Mk II to be Tesla Field Gens. Disallow use on slaves.
Seems like a short range, and again dependent on my energybank, which has numerous other drains on it. We're not expected to use all these at once, but I get the feeling 2 or 3 will be enough to cause problems even with two banks.

New High Tech Non-Mobile Drones
Create new high tech non mobile drones that do more DPS and more HPS than the current high tech mobile drones so that mobile drones will no longer be best DPS or HPS for any given tech or damage type.
Cool.
New God Aug Drone Controllers
Zeus, Ares, Athena, and whatever else looks appropriate. Possibly also create plus versions made out of the God+ augs.
Cool.


Mon Feb 17, 2020 12:54 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
Ok old Jeff, nice enough progressive application of Class Evolution as I could gather at a glance, however:-

"..Tesla Field Generator..."

You MUST Ask Elon's PERMISSION to Refer to his Patented, Copyrighted TECHNOLOGY!! Or perhaps face potential Legal Consequences!! Mark my words mate.

Suffice it to suggest: Although you are obviously attempting to pay colloquial hommage to Elon's Industrial and Technological achievements by such a manner of in-game nomenclature, you may be in breach of what will no doubt become more of a respected institution that is concievable today.


Just a word of caution there mate! Cheers.

From Old Laz.

;-}

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Fri Feb 21, 2020 12:34 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
A Tesla field is named after Tesla and is a thing in science. Not named after the company.

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Fri Feb 21, 2020 4:26 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
I see. If Engi Class 3 1 Extra aug slot. only Class on Ship? Support Freighter. you will see Equip slot about for slaves.

You do think that?

If Sele have 4 slot. for only Engi Class 3 1 Extra aug slot. that Sele will have 5 Slot augs XD.

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Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:38 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
All Support Freighters will be re-balanced before this is released.


Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:04 pm
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Post Re: Engineer Revamp 2020
I agree with Koru, I don't want to use spacebar as an engineer, and engineer is engaging enough as it is. I don't log onto my engineer and think "oh God this is boring all I do is support semi-afk (as is the case with Shield Monkey)", it's actually one of the most dynamic, engaging, and fun classes already. There's MORE than enough to do in the engineer role in terms of tractoring ai, providing elec to other members of the squad, scooping and relaying drones, changing drone controllers, using superitems (although these could be made more fun), scooping loot etc.

My engineer literally runs my squad, I don't have the time nor desire to also have to shoot. It's not what the class is about, you're blurring the lines between support and active attacking classes.

I also have concerns about drone elec.

Some of the changes listed are interesting though, and I can see potential. The nanites for example - this could counter the significant peeves I have with the self damage overloaders, which I have already retired because of the severe endurance issues they are causing. And as a proud Yorkshireman I refuse to pay the extortionate in-play repair costs for items!


Thu Mar 12, 2020 7:33 pm
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