April 2 constructing changes discussion

[immaspaceninja]

If we're talking about acid, how about we make it weaken walls instead of completely melting them? Let's say that after getting acided, walls could be slashed down, just like girders can be slashed by upgraded hunters and ravs, but at the same time, engies would bbe able to repair said walls with their welders.

[Katsukai]

I've never liked the idea of grilles being used in the marine arsenal. I'm much more a fan of the razor wire/cattle wire ideas, they make more sense for hindering the xenos anyway.

As for younger castes not being able to melt walls, that certainly has potential but I'd make it so that sentinels gain stronger acid when they hit elite (upgraded sentinels already get no love compared to spitters).

Cattle wires and razor wires working similarly as sticky resin and doing slight brute damage, would be neat.

[Katsukai]

If we're talking about acid, how about we make it weaken walls instead of completely melting them? Let's say that after getting acided, walls could be slashed down, just like girders can be slashed by upgraded hunters and ravs, but at the same time, engies would bbe able to repair said walls with their welders.

Not a bad idea, but it wouldn't give the engineer enough time to repair it while it's being slashed down. Unless it can be repaired before it is weakened by the acid?

[Swagile]

Not a bad idea, but it wouldn't give the engineer enough time to repair it while it's being slashed down. Unless it can be repaired before it is weakened by the acid?

Just shoot at the xeno trying to slash it down then repair when it runs off.

[Katsukai]

Just shoot at the xeno trying to slash it down then repair when it runs off.

Yeah, except most scenarios like in nexus or in sulaco, xenos are melting the wall inside a closed room that is at the other side of the wall, where marines cannot shoot at it or even get there to stop them due various circumstances.

[immaspaceninja]

Not a bad idea, but it wouldn't give the engineer enough time to repair it while it's being slashed down. Unless it can be repaired before it is weakened by the acid?

Maybe raising the amount of hits it takes to destroy weakened walls would help. Like, uh, give them 1,5 or 2 times more health or so.

[Swagile]

Changes still not reverted and this is literally just a fucking stealth nerf; we STILL have to use 7 steps to deconstruct walls that makes the Engineer job literally defunct without Req.

[Casany]

Changes still not reverted and this is literally just a fucking stealth nerf; we STILL have to use 7 steps to deconstruct walls that makes the Engineer job literally defunct without Req.

As long as I can make false walls and walls using 8 sheets of metal (used to be 6, but whatevs) I don't really care

Personally, I usually never take walls apart unless Ima survivor. Engineer can still make turrets, baricades and walls AND false walls based on what Rahl said, so saying it's totally defunct is a bit of a huge overstatement

[Swagile]

As long as I can make false walls and walls using 8 sheets of metal (used to be 6, but whatevs) I don't really care

Personally, I usually never take walls apart unless Ima survivor. Engineer can still make turrets, baricades and walls AND false walls based on what Rahl said, so saying it's totally defunct is a bit of a huge overstatement

I don't think you get it.

Sure you can make all of that, but you realize that you only have 100 metal (if you steal all of it), right?

You are going to run outta that shit QUICK if your a good Engineer and so now your stuck breaking down tables and racks for metal (which have shit gains) because taking down walls for the metal it drops + the girder you can now crowbar and drag around to make a fake wall with is now out the window due to long deconstruction times.

This slows down FOB making by a LARGE margin if there is no decent Req, and good Req is rare, so most of the time you'll be recycling. Hence why I said its a stealth nerf.

But I guess you either don't play Engineer a lot, or you play it during good Req times.

[Casany]

I don't think you get it.

Sure you can make all of that, but you realize that you only have 100 metal (if you steal all of it), right?

You are going to run outta that shit QUICK if your a good Engineer and so now your stuck breaking down tables and racks for metal (which have shit gains) because taking down walls for the metal it drops + the girder you can now crowbar and drag around to make a fake wall with is now out the window due to long deconstruction times.

This slows down FOB making by a LARGE margin if there is no decent Req, and good Req is rare, so most of the time you'll be recycling. Hence why I said its a stealth nerf.

But I guess you either don't play Engineer a lot, or you play it during good Req times.

400 metal sheets, 120 platesteel is what all the engineers have first drop. Or, all together anyway. Ya wanna know a great thing. If you tell the other engineers your plan for the FOB or, god forbid ask them for some of their materials when they aren't working, you can get a lotta stuff done. I dunno how you build your FOBs but it takes me 150 metal to build a good one, and 50 platesteel.

100 and 30 is what one starts with, and there is 90 metal and 20 platesteel planetside upon first landing. I don't tend to waste materials, so unless you waste time or materials on useless projects you should never need anymore supplies. The only exception is for maintenance and repair, and since there is still 300 metal and 90 platesteel with the other engineers, if you coordinate it should be no problem at all

[Swagile]

400 metal sheets, 120 platesteel is what all the engineers have first drop. Or, all together anyway. Ya wanna know a great thing. If you tell the other engineers your plan for the FOB or, god forbid ask them for some of their materials when they aren't working, you can get a lotta stuff done. I dunno how you build your FOBs but it takes me 150 metal to build a good one, and 50 platesteel.

100 and 30 is what one starts with, and there is 90 metal and 20 platesteel planetside upon first landing. I don't tend to waste materials, so unless you waste time or materials on useless projects you should never need anymore supplies. The only exception is for maintenance and repair, and since there is still 300 metal and 90 platesteel with the other engineers, if you coordinate it should be no problem at all

This is the BEST case scenario.

In reality, most of the time (on LV anyway) you have FOUR FOB's, with a MINIMUM of TWO no matter what. That is, rated in importance (in Engineers minds anyway), is:

Nexus > LZ1 > Hydro > Tablefort

Nexus almost always has people making a FOB there with copious amounts of barricades. LZ1 is the next best since its the resupply / reinforcements / retreat point. Hydro is where the River battle goes, and Tablefort is the staging point for attacking the caves.

Now, even in a bad round, there will always be a Nexus and LZ1 FOB. Thats half of the Engineers supplies going to each FOB.

The next thing you have to take into account is SSD Engineers, Engineers that got nabbed while building alone, Engineers that refuse to share and do their own thing, and incompetent Engineers who don't communicate / are just bad in general. These are factors coming off the top of my head that are most prominent and happen frequently.

Now for supplies on the planet? If its not grabbed by Survivors for their megafort of survival, then sure I count that metal. Most survivors die early or get hugger combat'd so usually the metal stays there for Marines to loot.

[KingKire]

Alot of thoughts, but its late in the night and ill keep it short:

Engineers do indeed cut out the walls around doors instead of hack them. Hacking a door takes about the same time/effort as welding it down. (long time engineer player, and it is indeed a problem)

Solution:
-Make airlocks more effective to hack/weld through compared to walls. Allowing welders to cut through door bolts would solve this problem. Many times engineers will go through walls instead of doors because unlocking a fallen door bolt takes *alot* of time if you dont know the wiring codes ahead of time.

-Remove the ability to weld through multiple walls at once. I would be mighty sad, but if you are looking the nerf wall slicing, dont add extra steps or time, just get rid of this feature. (way more preferable instead of giving a clunky step by step welding)

-Upgrade door hacking to be more efficient from a UI perspective.


False walls are being abused and look out of place:

Solution:
-False walls can be pried open by aliens, same speed as an airlock. (false walls are now used primarily as deception and a back up escape instead of a doorway)

-Increase support for airlocks: (making it easier to drop the doorbolts from the outside without needing to hack into it)

Making engineers more useful:
- Welding backpacks can refuel flamer canisters (Small irk, but would be great)

- Welders have a *much* easier time to destroy resin structures of all types. Weed sacs, sticky resin, and resin walls.

- Engineer Vendor is equipped with several camera assemblies. (Would *really* help command be less of a boring job, as well as give the engineer some good things to do)

- Engineers can repair helmets. Uses 1-2 steel plates, gives the helmet its previous durability, and reduces vision by 1-2 tiles. (Acts as a getto welding mask, without the
welding part. Gives engineers a reason to be at the front lines, plus several other good points that i dont want to write down)

- Access to sandbags: available in vendors or cargo, cant be built, can be stacked up, As strong as a steel table, takes time to set up, Destroyed sandbags are turned back into empty sandbags unless acid'd.

- Access to razerwire: Available in vendors, can be built/stacked, as strong as a steel table, but doesnt block hits. acts as sticky resin and deals a small amount of damage as well.

- Hacking is a more fleshed out system.

- Adjust autolathe costs: System is heavily abusable and needs its costs to be readjusted (lower metal returns for most guns, heavily lowered metal returns on ammunition, increase in costs for objects) To put it bluntly, metal should primarily come from cargo orders or salvaging, and be balanced around those two areas.

Engineers and lighting:
- Plasteel barricades have a small armor light ( would give a nice addition)
- Deployable floodlight: available in vendors/cargo, same light as a rail light, can be folded back into a backpack slot. Possibly can be built (Maybe machine frame, hi-cap battery, several wires, and power chip to create one.)
- Stronger/better colony floodlights: Reduce time to repair, as well give possible durability/radius upgrades.

with these changes, engineers should be in a healthy state to assist on the offense as well as the defense, in exchange for having less *extreme* defensive focus. We want engineers to focus more on utility instead of fortification prowess.

[KingKire]

also, in reguards to metal use:
Nexus takes about 2.5 stacks of metal to fortify to a *basic* level.
Fortifying the LZ adds on another 1-2 stacks of metal.
Every dome fortified takes about 1-2 stacks of metal.
Every decent foward position takes about 1 stack of metal.

Aliens can very quickly destroy 20-30 metal sheets per attack.

[TheMaskedMan2]

I have a lot of things in mind I want to say but it's 3 am so I'll just say this for now.

7 steps to remove a wall is way tooooo much. Now I like the general purpose behind it, it is a huge metal wall, shouldn't be easy, but 7 is kinda silly, it's almost an R wall at that rate, maybe just make it 3 or 4. Not easy to take down but not an hour of deconstructing either.

Also it was reverted but i'm gonna say 30 seconds to make a wall is to much. I'll word this better tommorrow.

[EXOTICISME]

If you need to make 30 seconds to build one wall then you'll be dead before you even finish it since you are an easy target for hunters/boilers. 10-15 seconds is okay, it encourage all engineers to work together instead of letting one people to build the whole FOB.
Just dont take engineers power to create a fortress, they are like drones for the marines, they create a safe place for marines when they are busy shooting the xenos.

[Rahlzel]

Alot of thoughts, but its late in the night and ill keep it short:

Engineers do indeed cut out the walls around doors instead of hack them. Hacking a door takes about the same time/effort as welding it down. (long time engineer player, and it is indeed a problem)

Solution:
-Make airlocks more effective to hack/weld through compared to walls. Allowing welders to cut through door bolts would solve this problem. Many times engineers will go through walls instead of doors because unlocking a fallen door bolt takes *alot* of time if you dont know the wiring codes ahead of time.

-Remove the ability to weld through multiple walls at once. I would be mighty sad, but if you are looking the nerf wall slicing, dont add extra steps or time, just get rid of this feature. (way more preferable instead of giving a clunky step by step welding)

-Upgrade door hacking to be more efficient from a UI perspective.


False walls are being abused and look out of place:

Solution:
-False walls can be pried open by aliens, same speed as an airlock. (false walls are now used primarily as deception and a back up escape instead of a doorway)

-Increase support for airlocks: (making it easier to drop the doorbolts from the outside without needing to hack into it)

Making engineers more useful:
- Welding backpacks can refuel flamer canisters (Small irk, but would be great)

- Welders have a *much* easier time to destroy resin structures of all types. Weed sacs, sticky resin, and resin walls.

- Engineer Vendor is equipped with several camera assemblies. (Would *really* help command be less of a boring job, as well as give the engineer some good things to do)

- Engineers can repair helmets. Uses 1-2 steel plates, gives the helmet its previous durability, and reduces vision by 1-2 tiles. (Acts as a getto welding mask, without the
welding part. Gives engineers a reason to be at the front lines, plus several other good points that i dont want to write down)

- Access to sandbags: available in vendors or cargo, cant be built, can be stacked up, As strong as a steel table, takes time to set up, Destroyed sandbags are turned back into empty sandbags unless acid'd.

- Access to razerwire: Available in vendors, can be built/stacked, as strong as a steel table, but doesnt block hits. acts as sticky resin and deals a small amount of damage as well.

- Hacking is a more fleshed out system.

- Adjust autolathe costs: System is heavily abusable and needs its costs to be readjusted (lower metal returns for most guns, heavily lowered metal returns on ammunition, increase in costs for objects) To put it bluntly, metal should primarily come from cargo orders or salvaging, and be balanced around those two areas.

Engineers and lighting:
- Plasteel barricades have a small armor light ( would give a nice addition)
- Deployable floodlight: available in vendors/cargo, same light as a rail light, can be folded back into a backpack slot. Possibly can be built (Maybe machine frame, hi-cap battery, several wires, and power chip to create one.)
- Stronger/better colony floodlights: Reduce time to repair, as well give possible durability/radius upgrades.

with these changes, engineers should be in a healthy state to assist on the offense as well as the defense, in exchange for having less *extreme* defensive focus. We want engineers to focus more on utility instead of fortification prowess.

Lots of great ideas in here. I'd like to know if any other engineers also agree with the above so I can get a better idea which ones would be the most effective and useful.

I have a lot of things in mind I want to say but it's 3 am so I'll just say this for now.

7 steps to remove a wall is way tooooo much. Now I like the general purpose behind it, it is a huge metal wall, shouldn't be easy, but 7 is kinda silly, it's almost an R wall at that rate, maybe just make it 3 or 4. Not easy to take down but not an hour of deconstructing either.

Also it was reverted but i'm gonna say 30 seconds to make a wall is to much. I'll word this better tommorrow.

I may reduce the time needed for each step or reduce the steps to 5-ish. I'd like to see some more feedback first.

If you need to make 30 seconds to build one wall then you'll be dead before you even finish it since you are an easy target for hunters/boilers. 10-15 seconds is okay, it encourage all engineers to work together instead of letting one people to build the whole FOB.
Just dont take engineers power to create a fortress, they are like drones for the marines, they create a safe place for marines when they are busy shooting the xenos.

In my humble opinion, it's unrealistic and powergamey to expect a wall to "poof" into existence after a few seconds in the midst of a battle or in an emergency situation. It's a solid wall. Walls should be slow but deliberate - a planned construction - while other devices such as barricades and traps can be thrown down in an emergency to deter attackers. But I do agree that until we have some better aforementioned devices, walls will suffice for now.

[Karmac]

I'm interested in the changes KingKire posted, but if devs are opposed to marines making 'forts' when all they need to be making are 'holdouts' I'd suggest allowing engineers the option of choosing either the Sentry gun or the deployable Smartgun turret along with these wall changes.

[Crab_Spider]

I'm interested in the changes KingKire posted, but if devs are opposed to marines making 'forts' when all they need to be making are 'holdouts' I'd suggest allowing engineers the option of choosing either the Sentry gun or the deployable Smartgun turret along with these wall changes.

I uh.... please don't bring that smartgun turret back.

[Katsukai]

I uh.... please don't bring that smartgun turret back.

Imagine the devastation of having just one smartgun turret at the river.

[coroneljones]

A possible counter to acid could involve a buff to the nowadays rarely used anti acid spray from research, allowing it to be applied to walls, resulting in crushers being the only method to break them, or even the boilers strong acid.

[Crab_Spider]

A possible counter to acid could involve a buff to the nowadays rarely used anti acid spray from research, allowing it to be applied to walls, resulting in crushers being the only method to break them, or even the boilers strong acid.

There's a certain way to destroy a wall, but I'm not dispelling that method.

[coroneljones]

There's a certain way to destroy a wall, but I'm not dispelling that method.

The old spittaroo spamaroo is also effective

[ZDashe]

-Make airlocks more effective to hack/weld through compared to walls. Allowing welders to cut through door bolts would solve this problem. Many times engineers will go through walls instead of doors because unlocking a fallen door bolt takes *alot* of time if you dont know the wiring codes ahead of time.

If it's a powered door, a competent engineer can locate both the bolt and power wire within 5 seconds, unbolt and crowbar the airlock open within another 5s, and takes at most 2s to bolt it back down (if you wanna keep it open) for the very first attempt. Thereafter any bolted doors take about 7s to hack open and provide access, which is still faster than currently welding through a wall. My guess is that most engineers either are untrained in hacking or are just too lazy to do so cause it takes more clicks and item swapping is involved. Unpowered doors are what I imagine most people struggle with because you need to know the bolt wire beforehand or get really lucky not to botch it up because if you pulse the wrong wire, it's bolted for good until you repower the door. Not sure how to make it "more effective to hack" without dumbing it down into labeling or prefixing the bolt wire.

-Remove the ability to weld through multiple walls at once. I would be mighty sad, but if you are looking the nerf wall slicing, dont add extra steps or time, just get rid of this feature. (way more preferable instead of giving a clunky step by step welding)

This sounds reasonable, but bear in mind that Xenos can erect a wall in about a second, and if we nerf engineers' (de)construction speed further, the defences/FOB will probably never be finished before Xenos are already building their forward hive right outside your doorstep. Would probably be fine for high-pop, but lowpop marines will suffer and have to make do with a mobile FOB instead. If you're thinking of applying this to fixing generators, all the squad engineers would probably riot, cause it would take about 10 minutes to fix 8 generators by yourself while your entire squad taps their feet impatiently waiting for you to finish...

-False walls can be pried open by aliens, same speed as an airlock. (false walls are now used primarily as deception and a back up escape instead of a doorway)

Fair enough, but if false walls can be pried open, i'll probably rethink my defences and shy away from using false walls at all. Alternatively, if I got time, i'll construct a glass airlock instead. (Please give engineer glass so I don't need to salvage them from the colony.)

- Welding backpacks can refuel flamer canisters (Small irk, but would be great)

I would never carry a welding backpack as an engineer and give up 7 storage space, but that's just me. However, I would greatly appreciate it if they were made available to squad engi prep as an option. Also, please increase the normal welder capacity. 20 is just too little to get anything done FOB wise, which is why access to a welding backpack would make sense. Or just give engineers industrial welders instead.

- Welders have a *much* easier time to destroy resin structures of all types. Weed sacs, sticky resin, and resin walls.

I would like to see resin structures be sliced through much faster than 5 seconds, but the real problem is still the availability of fuel, which is why I don't use it for clearing weeds/sacs even though it can be effective.

- Engineer Vendor is equipped with several camera assemblies. (Would *really* help command be less of a boring job, as well as give the engineer some good things to do)

+1 Please add. I hate having to hack into lower engineering like a criminal just so I can install cameras for the marines cause RO is preoccupied with handing out attachments. Not saying that I do this, but I can imagine it happening because when engineers used to have access, that's where I go to get camera assemblies for the FOB. Now that's no longer possible without access.

- Engineers can repair helmets. Uses 1-2 steel plates, gives the helmet its previous durability, and reduces vision by 1-2 tiles. (Acts as a getto welding mask, without the
welding part. Gives engineers a reason to be at the front lines, plus several other good points that i dont want to write down)

Probably not. It would make resin paste obsolete. Then again... almost nobody makes resin paste given the other more favorable alternatives...

- Access to sandbags: available in vendors or cargo, cant be built, can be stacked up, As strong as a steel table, takes time to set up, Destroyed sandbags are turned back into empty sandbags unless acid'd.

IMO, just give engineers more plasteel to make barricades with. I hate to have 1 more item slot taken up by sandbags when it serves the same purpose as barricades. Also, please give 2 even stacks of plasteel so both engineers can share.

- Access to razerwire: Available in vendors, can be built/stacked, as strong as a steel table, but doesnt block hits. acts as sticky resin and deals a small amount of damage as well.

Sounds like a marine nerf... Pray i'm not playing as medic when marines get shoved into razerwires either by accident or by Xenos. We know how often marines zap themselves on e-grilles, which is why nowadays most engineers kinda stopped make them anymore cause you can't shoot past them anyway.

- Adjust autolathe costs: System is heavily abusable and needs its costs to be readjusted (lower metal returns for most guns, heavily lowered metal returns on ammunition, increase in costs for objects) To put it bluntly, metal should primarily come from cargo orders or salvaging, and be balanced around those two areas.

Sounds fair.

Engineers and lighting:
- Plasteel barricades have a small armor light ( would give a nice addition)
- Deployable floodlight: available in vendors/cargo, same light as a rail light, can be folded back into a backpack slot. Possibly can be built (Maybe machine frame, hi-cap battery, several wires, and power chip to create one.)
- Stronger/better colony floodlights: Reduce time to repair, as well give possible durability/radius upgrades.

I love this idea of being able to build light sources without relying on the availability of colony power. Would love to insert a battery to power floodlights selectively and be able to move them around. One of the reason why i'm a fan of the tablefort floodlights on LV-624 cause it has much more utility and mobility. Slashed floodlights do take a frustratingly long time to repair and it's demoralizing when Xenos can slash it effortlessly in much less.

[MrJJJ]

I uh.... please don't bring that smartgun turret back.

Just make the boiler gas it, then have a runner run in, interrupt the gunner and boom, problem solved

[Crab_Spider]

Just make the boiler gas it, then have a runner run in, interrupt the gunner and boom, problem solved

Imagine the FF