Engineer Build, By Yuki Nagato
If you’re playing an Engineer and looked for advice for your space and ground skills on the internet, you’ve most likely seen people saying, “Use the tactical build.” Personally, I think that’s a mistake (but hey, you do you). For me, if I wanted to play a tactical character, I would have created a tactical character. Engineers are the miracle workers who hold a ship together with their bare hands… when the bulkheads are screaming and the warp core’s going critical, they look to their ensigns and say “Here, hold me Scotch!”
Engineers kind of have a bad rep, since we’re not at the tops of the DPS charts, but we more than make up for that in survivability. I’ve been in plenty of TFOs where every other player has been killed at least once, but I kept on chugging along like the little Engineer that could. Dranuur Gauntlet is a prime example… I’ve always kept whichever satellite I’m defending up while killing multiple dreadnoughts and support ships, even if I’m doing it alone, even when the other satellites fall. A well-played and well-built engineer can keep their ship going when the glass cannon tactical vessels are blowing up around them. Sure, our damage output may be a wee bit less, lassie, but nobody can take as much damage as an Engineer with a good build. Scottish accent optional.
Special Note: This build works REALLY well with an Aux2Bat build (see the guide I wrote for that). Neither is required for the other, but like chocolate and peanut butter, they're two great tastes that go great together!
Space Skills
Lieutenant:
Hull Restoration, Improved Hull Restoration, Advanced Hull Restoration (Engineering) – Buy all three of these first. This will increase all hull heals by 50%
Hull Capacity, Improved Hull Capacity, Advanced Hull Capacity (Engineering) – Buy all three of these, too. This will increase your total hull by 30%.
Energy Weapon Training, Improved Energy Weapon Training, Advanced Energy Weapon Training (Tactical) – Yeah, buy all three of these. I know I said we’re not tactical officers, but you still want to do as much damage as possible. This will increase the damage of your beam attacks by 50%.
Lt. Commander:
Electro-Plasma System Flow, Improved EPS Flow (Engineering) – These two skills improve the speed you can move power from one system to another by 100%.
Full Impulse Energy Shunt (Engineering) – This skill will preserve a bit more power for your other systems while at full impulse and increase the power to your engines.
Impulse Expertise, Improved Impulse Expertise (Engineering) – Increases your speed and turn rate by 34%.
Control Expertise (Science) – Increases your control effectiveness by 30% (which you won’t really be using much) and increases your resistance rating to control effect by +60 (which you will be using a lot).
Drain Expertise (Science) – Increases your drain effectiveness by 30% (which you won’t really be using much) and increases your resistance rating to drains by +60 (which you will be using a lot).
Commander:
Hull Plating, Energized Hull Plating, Ablative Hull Plating (Engineering) – These skills will improve your resistance rating, +25 to resist Energy, Kinetic, and Physical Damage.
Damage Control, Improved Damage Control (Engineering) – Every starship has a base regeneration rate, but with an Engineer in command, that’ll be even faster. These skills will increase that by 17% in combat, and 85% when not in combat.
Weapon Amplification (Tactical) – Increases weapon critical severity by +20%.
Weapon Specialization, Improved Weapon Specialization, Advanced Weapon Specialization (Tactical) – Increases your critical chance by 4%.
Captain:
Defensive Subsystem Tuning, Shield Subsystem Performance (Engineering) – These two skills will increase your shield power by 8 and your auxiliary power by 4.8.
Offensive Subsystem Tuning, Weapon Subsystem Performance, Engine Subsystem Performance (Engineering) – These three skills will improve your weapon and engine power by 8 each.
Long-Range Targeting Sensors, Improved Long-Range Targeting Sensors, Advanced Long-Range Targeting Sensors (Science) – By default, damage drops once a target is over 2 km from your ship up to 50% at 10 km. These three skills decrease that to 20%, making you more effective at long range.
Hull Penetration, Improved Hull Penetration, Advanced Hull Penetration (Tactical) – Ignores up to 10 points of the target’s damage resistance rating.
Shield Penetration (Tactical) – Allows an additional 2.5% of your damage to bleedthrough the enemy’s shields.
Admiral:
Warp Core Potential, Improved Warp Core Potential, Warp Core Efficiency (Engineering) – These three skills add +5 to the power levels of all your subsystems. Furthermore, if a subsystem is below 75 it will give a bonus to that subsystem of up to +10 when the subsystem is set to 15 (meaning your power levels will always be set to at least 25)
Engineering Readiness, Improved Engineering Readiness, Advanced Engineering Readiness (Engineering) – Improves the recharge rate of all your Engineering Bridge Officers by 20%.
Coordination Protocols, Defensive Coordination, Offensive Coordination (Tactical) – These skills give a +20% Hull Capacity, Shield Capacity, Defense, All Damage Resistance Rating, Accuracy, and Base Damage buff to all your hanger pets (this only applies to your hanger pets). For your allies, this gives a +5% bonus to all these traits, but if everyone has these skills, it will stack up to +20%.
Purchases:
Engineering:
Hangar Health
Maximum Hull Capacity
Shield Subsystem Power
Weapon Subsystem Power
Weakening Corruption
Explosive Corruption
Ablative Corruption
Science:
Sector Space Travel Speed
Tactical:
Hangar Weaponry
Projectile Critical Chance
Ground Skills
What you pick here is really going to depend on what you’re looking to build. There are a lot of great ground sets that can cover any of the 4 areas, so what I typically do is get all the Weapon skills (the 6 skills in the top left corner) and all the Kit skills (the 4 skills in the bottom right). My armor, shields, weapon, kit frame, and traits are chosen to provide improved health, regen, and shield hardness.
This is going to increase the damage of ground weapons and kit modules and increase how often you can use your kit modules.
Purchases
Turret Fabrication III
Willpower
Shield Recharge III
Improved Aim
Medical Generator Fabrication III
Fatal Fists
Cover Shield III
Improved Flank Damage
Support Drone Fabrication II
Offensive Mastery
Traits
Whew, there are a lot of traits. These are recommendations only, and some of these may be expensive. You can always use some of the free ones if you don’t have these.
Personal Ground Traits:
Assault Drone Fabrication (Lockbox/Exchange) – Support Drones you create now have a wide beam secondary firing mode.
Bombardier (Lockbox/Exchange) – You now do +10% kinetic damage and knockback is 2X for non-weapon effects (Bombs, Mines, Mortars).
Serenity (Lockbox/Exchange) – Increases your health regen by +15% and kit performance by +15.
Hive Defenses (Lockbox/Exchange) – when hit, you have a 15% chance to summon a Hur’q Attendant for 45 seconds (max once per 3 seconds). You can have up to 3 of them out at any one time.
Coalition Squad Tactics (Lockbox/Exchange) – Gives yourself and other players a buff. For Engineers, that is a bonus to shield regeneration. Science types give a bonus to healing and tactical types increase speed and dodge. Each bonus can stack up to 5 times. You do get the bonus for yourself if you’re solo.
Creative (Free) – Gives +30 kit performance.
Orbital Devastation (Lockbox/Exchange) – Your orbital strike will now chase down enemies.
Regenerative Tissue (Lockbox/Exchange) – You have a +25 All Damage Resistance Rating vs DoTs, receive +25% from healing, and have a +0.1 Health Regeneration.
Vicious (Lockbox/Exchange) – For ever 6 second in combat, you get +1.5% to All Damage and +6% Critical Severity, stacking up to 5 times. They’re lost when you leave combat.
Telekinetic (Free for Aliens) – Knocks back foes +30 m and does strong Physical Damage to them.
Personal Space Traits:
EPS Overload (Engineering) – Adds an effect to your weapons based on which subsystem is highest.
Nadion Bypass (Lockbox/Exchange) – Buff to Energy Weapons
Fleet Coordinator (Free) - +2% Bonus to all damage for every member of your team, up to +10% if everyone has it.
Bulkhead Technician (Free) – Adds +10% maximum hull hit points.
Ablative Shell (Lockbox/Exchange) – Gives a good self-heal and All Damage Resistance after receiving 10,000 damage.
Context is for Kings (Lockbox/Exchange) – If you didn’t take damage in the last second, you get a +1% boost to all damage for 10 seconds (stacking). If you did take damage in the last second, you get +3 to all damage resistance rating for 10 seconds (stacking).
Hive Defenses (Lockbox/Exchange) – when hit, you have a 15% chance to summon 3 Hur’q swarmers for 45 seconds (max once per 5 seconds). You can have up to 9 of them out at any one time.
Fluidic Cocoon (Lockbox/Exchange) – When taking kinetic damage, you have a 20% chance to gain +5% bonus energy damage for 20 seconds (stacks up to 3 times).
Grace Under Fire (Free) – If you take more that 20% of your hit points in 5 seconds, the cooldown of Miraculous Repairs is reset (once per 90 seconds).
Alien Characters only: Repair Crews (Lockbox/Exchange) – Gain 1 stack while in combat every 5 seconds (5 stacks max). Each stack gives +5 All Damage Resistance Rating and +5% Hull Repair Rate.
Starship Traits:
Emergency Weapon Cycle (Arbiter): Emergency Power to Weapons will give you a -50% weapon power cost and 20% Energy Weapon Firing Cycle Haste for 30 seconds.
Invincible (Zahl Cruiser) – When reduced below 5% hull, you become unkillable for 8 seconds. You get a bonus 50% to all heals (Hull and Shields). Has a 2-minute cooldown.
Honored Dead (Lockbox/Exchange) – After receiving 10,000 cumulative damage, you get a stack of Honored Dead. That adds +10 All Damage Resistance Rating and +1% Health Regeneration (max 20 stacks, infinite duration). After reaching 20 stacks, every 10,000 damage you receive will grant you 10,000 temporary hit points for 40 seconds. This only lasts in combat; out of combat you will lose one stack every two seconds.
History Will Remember (Support Cruiser) – For each foe that damages you, you will gain 1 stack of History Will Remember, up to a max of 30 stacks. Each stack gives you +1% to All Damage, +1% to Hull Regen, +1% to Maximum Hull, +10% Threat Generation (if Threatening Stance is active). This bonus lasts until you leave the map. Particularly great for battlezones.
Redirecting Arrays (Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser) – While Fire-At-Will is active, any damage will increase the duration by +0.33 seconds to a maximum of 15 seconds.
Space Reputation:
Fortified Hull (Rank 2)
Active Hull Hardening (Rank 2)
Energy Refrequencer (Rank 2)
Advanced Engines (Rank 2)
Tyler’s Duality (Rank 2)
Ground Reputation:
Lethality (Rank 2)
Deadly Aim (Rank 2)
Armor Penetration (Rank 2)
Active Armor Hardening (Rank 2)
Energized Nanites (Rank 2)
Active Reputation: If you’re going to be doing a colony invasion, switch these to all ground abilities. Otherwise, here’s what I leave them at.
Bio-Molecular Shied Generator (Rank 2) – Space
Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity (Rank 2) – Space
Medical Nanite Cloud (Rank 2) – Ground
One Little Ship (Rank 2) – Ground
Defiance (Rank 2) – Ground
Specializations:
Miracle Worker (Primary) – Synergizes well with what Engineers already do and will give you lots of healing and resistance buffs
Command (Secondary) – Increases your hull capacity and some good buffs for you and your allies.
Final words:
If you’ve followed this guide, the hull of any ship you’re piloting will be about 1.5X the base just by having you on board. This will continue to go up as combat goes on thanks to several of your traits and abilities. The Stamets-Tilly Field Modification set from the Discovery Legends Reputation is great for Engineers – not only does it dramatically increase your Hull Regen, it will do damage based on your maximum hull and has a damaging ability that will increase your hull +3% every time you use it, up to 60% (and that’s only lost when you leave the map).
You’ll be awesome flying a Flight Deck Carrier, since you have skills that will buff your hanger pets. You’re incredibly robust, with lots of built in heals and resistances. Sure, you’re going to get hit a lot, but you can take a lot of hits. As a matter of fact, the more hits you take, the more dangerous you’ll become. You’ll be a welcome addition to any TFO, since your presence will buff your allies and give enemies a nice target to focus on while the glass cannons are blowing them up, the sciency space wizards can focus on healing one target (you), and all the enemies that are just buzzing about, well, it would really be nice if they would all just be quiet because I. AM. TALKING!
You’ve probably noticed that I’ve avoided skills and abilities that increase Auxiliary Power… that’s because Engineers are great at doing an Aux to Batt build (I'll write up a guide for that at some point). Exotic Damage really isn’t going to be your thing, so leave that to the science types. Since you’re going to be dumping your Aux power to the battery on a regular basis, there’s no point in increasing it.
Hope this is helpful for anyone thinking about playing an Engineer. As always with these guides, feel free to change the way you implement this to suit your play style.
