Is creative engineering dead?

[Renomaki]

Let it be known that, when I get to play as an engineer, I LOVE building shit. I love experimenting with different designs and tactics as well when I can, with one personal design of mine having a lot of mixed opinions from people (that I am still trying to improve, of course).

But all in all, I like to try and be creative as an engineer and think outside the box when I can. However, a lot of people tend to be against designs that go against the meta or their comfort zone. Most other engineers resort to very basic and underthought designs that are so simplistic and pointlessly expensive, yet THIS is considered acceptable, while trying anything that might go against meta (mainly in the form of NOT having 3-4 rows of barricades that stretch out 20-30 tiles long) is considered stupid and wasteful.

If you TRY to make something different, you'll either get called crazy, or an engineer will come in and break your shit because "fuck you, you aren't supposed to do that". Shit like that really puts me off being an engineer because what is the point of BEING ONE if you aren't allowed to experiment?

I'm not saying we should allow engineers to make pointless art projects that don't help anyone, though. What I mean by creativity in engineering is how we build defenses. Maybe we could build something that uses minimal plasteel, for instance? Why not a more open, yet curvy design so xenos have the illusion of easy access, but at the same time make it so that they can't easily rush in and nick marines? Maybe even a more minimalist FoB that only costs about 400 metal can be possible with some creativity? There is only one way to find out, and that is through experimentation, but since people are so against such things, it makes being an engineer a frustrating experience.

In the end, I worry about engineers. it is one thing to have a bad engineer that puts sandbags facing the wrong way right up against barricades, but it is another thing to have an engineer that, despite all his experience, is only capable of doing the same basic shit round after round without an ounce of ingenuity or thought: Just stickin to the books because that is just how things are.

That is just me, of course... What of yourself?

[Lorem123]

I get shit as an engineer just for indenting the corners of my barricades. Trying to be creative or smart just gets the other engies and sometimes PFCs mad at you.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Fuck em, just build however you wish, but keep this in mind.Theres generally two types of people that play this server, the ones that want to win and the ones that want to RP.(you probably already realize this OP, but other engineers may not)

The RP'ers dont give a flying dog turd about your engineering experiments, but the players that play to win most definitely will.Im more for a player that wants to win than RP.However i like variation and experimentation as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of possibly handing the whole round to the opposition just because you wanted to do a experiment, much like that round with the commander trying to ban shotguns could of easily turned out as a major loss, is a good example of this as much as engineers creating a undependable and undefendable FOB that will crumble in seconds, restricts movement etc.

If thats the kind of results your seeing, then maybe dont experiment as much as you are.Otherwise, keep at it.

[Gnorse]

Yeah. If your experiment isn't giving the xenos an insanely easy win, do whatever you want.

[Pedr007]

Try thinking in other creative ways as Engineer: How to Destroy and remap the map in favor of the marines by destruction, not construction. How to C4 and where etc. You can break walls with the 56D too and you got 1400 rounds , mind you. 99% they are never used up. Why not spray down a wall behind which some xenos are suspected? Why not C4 a choke an then MG spam down that 1 tile after the C4 blows up. No, people here dont think out of the box, but they also dont think in aggressive terms as Engineer. Every moron can build you some cades. Try to be an engineer at the frontline with a mobile 56D an a ton of C4 to reshape the battlefield in favor of your squad, Where they need you the most.

[FGRSentinel]

The issue is that forcing people to stick to a meta is, personally, in bad form. If all FOBs look the same because that's all anyone's willing to allow people to make, it means nobody's willing to improve on it. Ideally, every engineer should be making slight changes every round to try to optimize their design, changing things and reversing them if they prove useless or bad.

[Nantei]

I get shit as an engineer just for indenting the corners of my barricades. Trying to be creative or smart just gets the other engies and sometimes PFCs mad at you.

You mean avoiding a sharp corner? Anyone who gives you shit for that is like, actually braindead. Sharp corners are really bad and one of the things that I will almost always fix if I see it in an FOB.

[FGRSentinel]

Yeah, the sharp corners thing is the Marine equivalent of making 1X1 secure nests five deep for Xenos. Engineers think that that one extra gun will make all the difference when everyone hates being the guy on the corner, just like every Xeno except the ones who regularly defend hosts think the secure nests are the greatest thing when the people watching the nests find them obnoxious to deal with.

[RunAwayScientist]

We desperately need engineers who can do [ and ] and |_| shapes. The importance of engineers has doubled up since recent updates with shifts in beno strats, and engies can make or break an assault or last ditch FoB defense. They, in essence, make or break the entire op. Entire Ice rounds have mutinied because of hold-ups from inexperienced engies.

They really are MVM (Most Valuable Marine) of the entire operation.


The stale meta issue is a big one, Renomaki, and you should just take command over the other engies and suppress them to do your experimental design. At all costs. Tell them you're senior engineer or get your SL to back you up. You could also deploy as an MTECH and 'supervise' the engineers.


We need fluid thinkers like you out there to give us new strats and open flanks and options on maps.


Some of the FoB designs from Jan -> April were insane, and they literally allowed us to pull out wins from near defeat or severely grind the benos down.

[Renomaki]

I myself am still experimenting with cost efferent designs that can be held by small numbers of marines and defend vital points of the map.

My "pillbox" design is a design I tinkered with many times: a 5x5 360 defensive structure that 2 or 3 marines could easily hold that only costs 10 plasteel, 50 sandbags and 44 metal [aka a wall on each corner] (not counting barbed wire). I had this battle tested in several situations, and it has proven to be moderately sturdy and easy to defend against most xenos (barring boilers, but those guys pretty much make ANY defense difficult if they are present).

However, it isn't always easy to make these things, moreso when people make a big fuss about them and call me crazy or stupid, or even claiming I made an "autism fort" (Which is funny considering I have autism). I don't make these for me, I make them for the marines.

And even now, I think up new designs and ideas that merely need to be tested on the field and on the right map. If only people trusted me more...

[Lorem123]

I myself am still experimenting with cost efferent designs that can be held by small numbers of marines and defend vital points of the map.

My "pillbox" design is a design I tinkered with many times: a 5x5 360 defensive structure that 2 or 3 marines could easily hold that only costs 10 plasteel, 50 sandbags and 44 metal [aka a wall on each corner] (not counting barbed wire). I had this battle tested in several situations, and it has proven to be moderately sturdy and easy to defend against most xenos (barring boilers, but those guys pretty much make ANY defense difficult if they are present).

However, it isn't always easy to make these things, moreso when people make a big fuss about them and call me crazy or stupid, or even claiming I made an "autism fort" (Which is funny considering I have autism). I don't make these for me, I make them for the marines.

And even now, I think up new designs and ideas that merely need to be tested on the field and on the right map. If only people trusted me more...

Can I see a picture of one of these pillboxes?

[Renomaki]

Can I see a picture of one of these pillboxes?

Well, I have this here ol' blueprint here that I recently figured out how to upload.

She is old, back before warriors and defenders, but I bet she still viable with the right placement. Keep in mind that this is only the best case scenario: It won't always turn out like this due to a number of factors.

https://78.media.tumblr.com/90eb5b3b91c ... 1_1280.png

[DriedMilk]

Creative Engineering is fine aslong as it's EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE.

Just take these 2 words to account when trying something new.

[RunAwayScientist]

I, too, would like to see your pillbox design. It sounds modular, able to be deployed everywhere with enough space. That's good cost savings, too.

The extended metal cades infront of the main cades is a *VERY* good idea to catch boiler attacks. Brilliant.

Tactically, I'd say this design is best used to protect the rear and supply lines on LV-624, Big Bread, and maybe Ice for surface engagements. This box design is also basically T-Fort on LV.


Autism forts are integral to winning OPs. Hands down. Ignore them, do your thing, pester the SO for more metal. Profit.

[Nantei]

Generally I don't like putting up pillboxes just because what ends up happening usually is people will stubbornly insist on manning them with way too many marines. At this point I have experimented abandoning tablefort entirely in favor of just closing up the caves and defending there. If you lose the cave chokepoint, marine win is unlikely anyways. Hydro has a similar issue where people will stubbornly defend it even though you should be using it for wounded and key chokepoints. In other words, I am thinking of engineering around Marine idiocy.

[NoahKirchner]

if anyone ruins your barricades or is a dick to you just buckshot them in the head clearly, then hide the body and go on a shooting spree.

jokes aside, I don't think anyone will actually care if you explain it to them, and if they call you a retard just call them a retard back and do it anyways

[immaspaceninja]

'Creative engineering' died when free wall-moving was sacrificed to the gods of 'muh realism'.
Creative defences is not about how weird or unusual your baricade placement is, but about how you use space and resources around you to your benefit. Engies used to have an ability of freely moving walls around as they please, which resulted in them being able to turn any shack abandoned by god into fort kickass. Now that the process of getting rid of walls is more complicated, you usually dont have enough time to adjust your surroundings unless you're either buckshotting walls for your tank or doing said stuff at the FOB.

Now, i dont mind engies doing their own thing, unless it will clearly lead to deaths of other people. Engineers are, just like medics, meant to keep their fellow marines alive, but instead of reviving and treating injuries, they prevent those injuries.

Lets examine your pillbox, for example. Its hella expensive, with over 100 metal 60 sandbags and 20 plasteel invested into it. It might be fun to build such thing and maybe it looks pretty, but is it really fun to defend? I imagine defending it can be frustrating, since you'll get attacked from all 4 directions, while you only have 8 safe tiles inside, plus you'll probably end up dancing around the gun in its center, trying to not get FF'd. A single queen screech or a precice boiler shot will end the lives of any poor bastard defending it. All those materials could've been spent on something else, like frontline cades that can prevent queens from instantly ending a round for someone with their screech. Mind that b-mats prices will inscrease with each crate ordered.

Standart baricade placement is so popular because it allows for more people to shoot and move freely. while being well-protected, leading to less shoving, friendly fire and unnecessary deaths aka less frustration.

I'd rather have a cool last stand with some rather boring baricade placement than a 30 second long fight holding some LIDL lego fort where i cant move or shoot freely.


TLDR: we need free wall-moving back. Unusual baricade placement doesn't mean that defending them will be fun.

[Lokiki_01]

There're two types of engies(maybe three including C4/mine kit):
For FOB duty with a lot of metal and plasteel
And for forward deploying with sandbags, plasteel and wire

You can't really make FOB more efficient than it is, since you need to protect all sides. If you want to be creative, move sandbags to the front and help marines against crushers and boilers. Couple of cades in the backline of push with claymores will stop hunters from killing your medics left and right. 2 lines of sandbags in a choke will make a great M56D nest which can hold boiler gas and crushers, somewhat even Queen.

About pillboxes, they are totally useless, as engineer you only need to cut off chokes or making big defence lines.

It doesn't matter what role you are playing, you can be usefull to your team in a right place, or be just another dead weight. All that matters is what you do and when.

[Renomaki]

Lets examine your pillbox, for example. Its hella expensive, with over 100 metal 60 sandbags and 20 plasteel invested into it. It might be fun to build such thing and maybe it looks pretty, but is it really fun to defend? I imagine defending it can be frustrating, since you'll get attacked from all 4 directions, while you only have 8 safe tiles inside, plus you'll probably end up dancing around the gun in its center, trying to not get FF'd. A single queen screech or a precice boiler shot will end the lives of any poor bastard defending it. All those materials could've been spent on something else, like frontline cades that can prevent queens from instantly ending a round for someone with their screech. Mind that b-mats prices will inscrease with each crate ordered.

Well, one thing to note is that this blueprint was made back when sentries were the main defensive structure, long before tanks were a thing and sometime during the gasmask update, along with the fact that this came pre-prep update as well.

Although... Keep in mind that the red boxes around the objects are supposed to be situational pieces, not pieces you always build (what another member called modular), so it isn't going to cost quite that (although barbing might be a bit costly).

As well as the star around the gun is the PLACEMENT range for the gun, not the aiming range. IN fact, placing a gun smack dab in the center will hold it back somewhat. Sentries aim a little better when they are a bit closer, although considering how people don't use sentries anymore, I'm not quite sure if MGs will work as effectively (might as well build a different design in that case).

But all in all, it is fun to build, and YES, it is fun to defend inside of. I remember one round on Big Red Pre-tank update where I built a forward pillbox not far from the lab, and we held off the xeno swarms for a good while, even with gas. Was quite thrilling, if I do say so myself.

But like any design, they could always use improvement, and that is the fun of inventive engineering. Moreso on maps like Big Red, where people just build the same mindless defense round after round with no attempt to try something different (which is shocking considering how often same said defense just gets flanked via Tcomms anyways).

[immaspaceninja]

snappety snap

I still can't see any reason to build something like that pillbox. Not only because you could use those b-mats to protect more than a dozen people, instead of 3, but also because i don't think that defending it would be more fun than defending a properly-built line of cades. Frontline engineering is about securing some chokepoint you'll be fighting for (Cave entrances on LV, for example), as well as it's flanks and making it easier for marines to survive gas attacks, rhino charges, queen screeches, roaming benos. It is not about building a cute-looking fort that doesn't prevent free movement for benos.

I've seen you talk many times about how engies build 'mindless defense' that gets flanked via tcomms on big red. Well, the only solution to that is build better defences at tcomms and other flanks. No 'creative way to build a FOB' can save you from that. People build multiple rows of cades at the hangar entrance because its the best way to protect the FOB.

[liltiptop]

One thing I want to do with FOBs is have the infared sensors linked to a speaker next to a radio, so that people can hear when xenos try to enter.
Problem is that it also would report when marines walked past it.

[Grubstank]

I still can't see any reason to build something like that pillbox. Not only because you could use those b-mats to protect more than a dozen people, instead of 3, but also because i don't think that defending it would be more fun than defending a properly-built line of cades. Frontline engineering is about securing some chokepoint you'll be fighting for (Cave entrances on LV, for example), as well as it's flanks and making it easier for marines to survive gas attacks, rhino charges, queen screeches, roaming benos. It is not about building a cute-looking fort that doesn't prevent free movement for benos.

I've seen you talk many times about how engies build 'mindless defense' that gets flanked via tcomms on big red. Well, the only solution to that is build better defences at tcomms and other flanks. No 'creative way to build a FOB' can save you from that. People build multiple rows of cades at the hangar entrance because its the best way to protect the FOB.

I agree. It's good to try re-innovating, but at the end of the day, defenses serve two purposes; those being to inhibit alien movement and to allow marines to hold out against disproportionately large numbers of aliens. In any situation except for a wide open field (there are comparatively few of these on our maps, and they rarely hold strategic value) the pillbox would be far outperformed by traditional cades. Pillboxes do not restrict alien movement, and their relatively high cost makes them an inferior option as compared to just fortifying the nearby chokepoints.

So all told, you're spending more materials for something that has far less utility and wastes your M56 (which is made totally useless by the fact that the aliens can waddle to another side almost as fast as you could rotate your gun).

There's a couple situations where I could see this being a decent design -- either if sentries got a massive buff, or perhaps built in front of LZ1 on Big Red. In the latter case, you could actually use fewer materials than conventional cades-- and if you back it up with cades at the actual entrance to the LZ, the xenos wouldn't have the luxury of just walking around the pillbox and taking the actual objective.

The big problem with the spacious LZ1 cades on big red is that it's so demanding on the defenders -- you either require a lot of marines, or great coordination amongst a few marines... And in either case, simple attrition will cause your line to fall once marine casualties hit a critical level. A pillbox design would be good for consolidating defenses, and reducing the manpower required.

... although even if you use that design, you'd still be screwed by a tcomms or cave acid flank. There is no way to apply a pillbox to that situation.

[RunAwayScientist]

Places where the Pillbox works:

(LV) 1. Between Hydro and T-Fort on LV, protecting the evac line. Worth it for <50 metal and two marines to defend.

(LV) 2. NE roadway, in place of barricades surrounding road. Very effective position for it.

(LV) 3. W of TFORT guarding W flank. Cannot extend large line of cades, this would fit the bill to pull pressure off TFort and buffer boiler attacks from West.

(Red) 4. SW and SE edges of Big Bread LZ1 FoB.

(Red) 5. NE or N edge of LZ2 FoB.

(Red) 6.SE edge of LZ2 FoB, where the cave entry is and the alleyway to Eta Labs.

(Red) 7. Protecting the rear of Bar or Lambda FOB from harassers. (Cades can be extended here to block entire roadways and alleyways, but if materials are tight...)

(Ice) 8. NW corner of TCOMMs, Ice. SE edge of engineering, Ice. NW edge of bar, Ice, E of Research entry.



I cannot see this being tactically effective on Prison. No sandbags, besides.

There is a time quotient to this that is also a downside, I.E., that it takes a single front-line engineer away for approximately ten/fifteen minutes. The trade-off in flank security must be worth it.


In LV, Red, and Ice cases it is. These Pillboxes are *NOT* ideal for front-line defense, but can replace an entire squad in defending a flank. That's the strength of this. Plus it's a boiler and Queen screech buffer if any attack happens from a flank. They'll go for the pillbox first and the Alpha marines inside it.


Next chance I get I will try dropping these boxes in the above mentioned locations. I expect decent results, until a huge beno flank overtakes them. Do the same Reno, post your results here. Screenshots preferred.

[Slduggy]

Yes creative engineering is dead. Which is why I tend to play a more combat focused engineer (Combat Technician) where I spend my points on AP mags, C4 and Claymores rather than materials materials, blowing open flanks and setting minefields. The optimal FOB layouts are known to anyone who has played a round or two and there isn't much variation to be had.

[Maxim Inc]

I used to play engie a lot but I slowly quit playing it because I got tired of the synth or another engie tearing up my FOB and telling me what I built was god awful. Yes creative engineering is dead in that sense that people don't want to see if anything new works for the fear that if that causes a loss they will be constantly be blamed for it a absurd amount of time.