Engineer

Engineer
Basic Information
Icon
Type	Defensive
Health	125 (185 with overheal)
Speed	100%

How'd that plan turn out for ya, dummy?

The Engineer talking to a recently deceased corpse

The Engineer is a defensive class, whose specialization is in constructing powerful and potent buildings that change the flow of a game. He has 125 health, 100% speed, and 200 metal, which is a currency earned from ammo sources and spent to construct and upgrade buildings. His Sentry Gun is a major threat to any enemy in its sight, capable of shredding any threat in seconds. His Dispenser acts as a constant source of health and ammo, shoring up his teammates and sustaining a forward position. His Teleporter can send his entire team to the front lines, dramatically increasing their response time. And, optionally, his Jump Pads are a more mobile movement option that opens up innovative means of travel. He is subpar in direct combat, but the power, durability, and immediate effect of his buildings means that he dictates the flow of the game around him, acting as the single biggest obstacle to a successful enemy push. By no means is he completely useless in a straight fight, as a Shotgun is still a Shotgun, but that is not what he typically brings to a fight. When successfully set up and maintained, an Engineer encampment can single-handedly win the game.

His weaknesses are his fragility, extremely slow setup time, predictability when using Level 3s, and punishing deaths. The Engineer is a weak class in direct combat, and though his Shotgun deals large amounts of damage, his low health and high kill priority means he will not survive a direct encounter. His buildings take a lot of time to set up, even when given optimal metal, and proactive enemies can spam out known encampment positions to impede the Engineer's progress. Since there are only a few viable Sentry spots for fully upgraded Sentries per map, meaning a defensive Engineer has little flexibility to change his tactics, meaning he is stuck defending his encampment in the same position each game. Since it's rarely viable to move an entire encampment to a different position, mobile scenarios are not his strong suit, including most offensive situations. He is usually stuck hauling a single upgraded building and destroying the other ones. And since the Engineer is the only class that can upgrade and repair his buildings, unless there are other friendly Engineers, a single death can lead to the rapid dismantlement of all his hard work, and with it, the chance of victory.

But that is not the only way to Engineer a victory. Fully upgrading Buildings is not a requirement, meaning a particularly bloodthirsty Engineer (usually called a Battle Engineer) can build a Level 1 Sentry near an objective and start spilling blood himself with his primary weapon, or leading enemies into his Sentry Gun. This flips a lot of the Engineer's weaknesses on it's head, but some stay. Instead of being restricted to a few viable Sentry spots and being stuck babysitting his Buildings, he is much more flexible and is free to help take names and objectives. This also allows Engineers to focus on supportive Buildings such as Jump Pads and Dispensers rather than just his Sentry. Level 1 Sentries still function as good area denial tools and because it can be moved much faster than a Level 3 and can be replaced much more easily, this allows an Engineer to be much more aggressive and creative with his Sentry spots. Make no mistake, a Level 3 Sentry will always deal out more damage than a Level 1, but a Level 1 is much more mobile and flexible. The Engineer is still very fragile however, sharing the lowest base health in the game and lacking tools such as speed, long range or invisibility as other light classes, and his Shotgun doesn't offer the same damage as other primaries. Desite that, a good Battle Engineer can be a deadly threat the enemy team, denying valuable flank routes and killing off stragglers, and just when they kill the Sentry, whoops, theres another.

Despite haing many weaknesses, both obvious and not, the capacity of an Engineer to warp the entire game around his encampments makes him the most powerful defensive class in the game. His buildings are priority targets for any enemy to destroy, and the game simply cannot go on if there is a Sentry Gun defending an objective, and even Level 1 Buildings still offer incredibly support to teammates and annoyances for enemies. On offense using upgraded Buildings is generally not a good idea, unless there is a specific spot that the attacking team has difficulty pushing through, in which case he can set up shop there. Or alternatively he can follow his team with Level 1 Sentries and help take out enemies. On defense, he is impossible for a solo player to deal with when properly positioned, and requires a coordinated team effort to destroy entirely. While he is difficult to play optimally, and requires a lot of management of his buildings, the archetypal building spots are easy to pick up as a new player, and does not require sophisticated knowledge of the game's mechanics to be effective. This makes him appealing across a wide variety of skill levels, especially for those who don't mind building an empire, seeing it turn to rubble, and starting all over again.

Bio

Location of Origin: Bee Cave, Texas, USA

Job: Area Denial

Motto: "I like to make things".

This amiable, soft-spoken good ol' boy from tiny Bee Cave, Texas loves barbeque, guns, and higher education. Natural curiosity, ten years as a roughneck in the west Texas oilfields, and eleven hard science PhDs have trained him to design, build and repair a variety of deadly contraptions.

Weapons

Primary

Weapon	Kill icon
Shotgun

Secondary

Weapon	Kill icon
Pistol
Coilgun

Melee

Weapon	Kill icon
Wrench

PDA

Weapon
Construction PDA
Destruction PDA

Tips

Main article: Basic Engineer Strategy

As an Engineer…

• …you need metal to build, repair, and upgrade your buildings. Collect fallen weapons to get more metal.
• …you can do more than just maintain your buildings. Use your shotgun and your pistol to assist in fights and to defend your buildings.
• …your pistol has a lot of reserve ammo. Use it to lead enemies towards you and your sentry gun, or go for a more offensive approach.
• …keep an eye out for enemy Spies attaching sappers to your buildings. Use your wrench to remove sappers.
• …you are able to defuse the Dynamite Pack by hitting it with a wrench.
• …use the construction PDA to place sentry guns and other supportive buildings.
• …hit your sentrygun^(sic) with your wrench to upgrade it with metal. Each level adds more health and firepower.
• …sentryguns aren't restricted to just defensive measures. Deploy them quickly in hidden locations in order to aid in an offensive push.
• …build dispensers to provide your teammates with health and ammo. They also generate metal for you to use.
• …build teleporters to help your team reach the front line faster.
• …remember to upgrade your buildings. Level 3 teleporters recharge much faster, allowing your team to keep the pressure on.
• …hit either the entrance or the exit of your teleporter with your wrench in order to repair and upgrade both sides.
• …hit MOUSE2 to rotate building blueprints before you hit MOUSE1 to build. Use this in order to orient teleporters away from walls.
• …fully charged shots from your Coilgun can ricochet off walls and deal more damage.
• …the Coilgun will cause an explosion if you overcharge it. Use it to reach previously inaccessible areas.
• …you can swap out your teleporter in favor of jump pads. Jump pads allow you and your team to reach high places.
• …your jump pads allow your teammates to jump forward with a lot of momentum. Deploy them in places that allow for quick rollouts.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Bulgarian	Инженер	Engineer
Spanish	Engineer	-
English	Engineer	-
French	Engineer	-
German	Engineer	-
Hungarian	Mérnök	Engineer
Italian	Ingegnere	Engineer
Polish	Inżynier	Engineer
Brazilian Portuguese	Engineer	-
Romanian	Engineer	-
Russian	Инженер	Engineer
Turkish	Engineer	-
Ukrainian	Інженер	Engineer

Update history

2.0.0

• Added the Engineers^(sic) pelvis hitbox.
• Fixed Engineers being able to haul sapped buildings.
• Fixed Engineers being to build out of bounds and building inside nobuilds
• Added "Clip Out" sounds on the Engineer's and Scout's reloads.

2.1.0

• New Engineer voicelines by Gianni Matragrano
• Engineers with active buildings and Spies currently sapping are now less likely to get autobalanced

Trivia

• The Engineer was added to the original Team Fortress mod to appeal to players who lacked skills required to perform well in first-person shooters.
  • He was also added due to the developers of Team Fortress being inspired by the construction mechanics of the real-time strategy game Command & Conquer.
• He wears his hard hat backwards; however, this is not an uncommon practice among construction personnel.
• His favorite equation is, in fact, part of the equation that governs character lighting in-game, known as “Phong” on the Valve Developer Community.
• In Team Fortress 2 Classic, the Engineer gets another line for his “Battle Cry” voice command where he says “Remember the Alamo!”, this voice line was lifted from Prerelease versions of Team Fortress 2 and is a reference to a real-life battle cry used during the Texas Revolution.