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In this walkthrough I will cover as much as I have experienced through hours and hours, you could even say days of solid gameplay. What then is the primary role of an engineer? His primary concern would be to get that communications array up and running and subdue (read, terminate with extreme prejudice) bosses and large swarms of Zulus/gargoyles. Laying satchels to detonate caves are to be considered a secondary concern.  Proficiencies of the Humble Yet Versatile Combat Engineer Crits, Red Delightful Numbers With that aside, I will go through the skills one would need to select when he/she plays as the Combat Engineer. First off is critical strikes. Do NOT, I repeat NOT take this skill. Your extremely valuable skill points should be placed elsewhere but definitely NOT here. If you follow my style of gameplay and like to see humongous red numbers appearing over your hero, please scrounge around for AP rounds. A lot of people tend to disagree with an engineer having criticals as their concern is that when a crit occurs, no splash will – thus not affecting the next zulu in line. To me however, a critical strike by having AP rounds in your inventory occurs very infrequently (20% chance) and our focus is not to kill mass creeps but to deal a massive amount of damage in the shortest amount of time – time it takes for 16 shotgun blasts to the face, that is. We shall leave the creep killing to the other classes that are better equipped for it, i.e. the Machine Gunner. Nanosteel Net The next skill set in your hero would be the Nanosteel net. As levels increase, so does the amount of time the target remains immobilized with six seconds at max level. An added bonus is the five armor reduction to the target for the duration of the net. Take note that the energy cost of Nanosteel net remains the same at the measly amount of 30 energy per use. Ideal situations would be the netting of Etaphreven, stalkers with 2-3k life, bosses and anything else that threatens to wipe your existence off the face of the earth. In anything, net first and ask questions later. You will come out the survivor, trust me. Mk-2 Nano Processor The third skill would be the Mk-2 (insert technical doodad here). This increases your mana regeneration and it's totally sweet to have. Nothing much to add here but a point or two here would be a must. The MK-2 Nano-Processor does not only increase mana regeneration for the Engineer but it is also useful for your teammates. When teammates are in dire need of mana and the Resident's energy generator has been used, that marine can right-click on the engineer (with at least level 1 MK-2 Nano-Processor learnt) and absorb some of the engineer's energy. This is not such good news for the Engineer but it could save lives out there. The Engineer may temporarily be phased out and verbose about his sudden loss in some of his mana but if equipped with an Energy Cell, he should be able to live with it. (submitted by Dott86) Engineering Skills And finally we arrive at the engineering skills – the mainstay of the engineer (accessible by hitting q) Lvl 1: Repair (repairs mechanical objects such as turret guns and helicopters) Lvl 2: Detonation Cord (cuts trees – click and then select a tree for removal) Lvl 3: Discharge (does a lot of damage to nearby creeps and slows them down for 2-3 seconds – around 1000 range) Lvl 4: Rapid Fire (does what it says, blam-blam x 350 avg damage = dead creeps) Lvl 5: Communications Array and Satchel Charge.  Com Array a.k.a. Maphack Ok, the communications array is a piece of hardware that will make life a lot simpler for your squad members and just a little harder for you (when com array is up, you have reduced intelligence and hence less mana). The com array grants shared vision of your team-mates. With shared sight, your marine has a greater damage output as you can easily shoot at what your other team-mates are shooting at. This will also increase your reaction time as bosses can be spotted earlier. Put simply, with shared vision, you will know where Hades dragged your pals to. Remember to assign your com array with a grouping (ctrl + #, # being a number). This will allow you to instantly select it and use it for scanning the map. This function of the com array is extremely valuable when you are blowing caves up especially the north-east and south-east caves where Zulus tend to accumulate like flies. During the USS Independence mission, you should be spamming this constantly. The only place that you are assured that your Communications Array is set up is either close to town or near the jutting peninsula marked in the map below. Other than these places, you will be notified of your failure to set it up and you will lose a whole chunk of energy for nothing. Satchel Charge i.e. explosive with team-killing capabilities. The satchel charge is an explosive that your mother definitely doesn’t want you messing around with. It does 20,000 damage with a huge radius so don’t get caught in the aftermath. It is used to seal caves or take a huge chunk out of bosses. You prime it before planting it by typing –prime # (# being the number of seconds before it detonates). Hence, Q-T and then place and RUN LIKE HELL! You Can't Sprint Away Now, I shall guide you through your paces. The cardinal rule of combat is never, ever tank creeps. What do I mean by tanking? Tanking means to take damage from creeps. When you get hit, there is a host of disasters waiting to happen. You can get poisoned, receive an open wound or even get bash-locked to death. The one thing you should pray never happen to you is the short-circuit. Every hit you take has an inherent chance of being a short. Consider it as your power armor rebooting itself after a sudden surge. Hence, your movement speed (ms) will suddenly be zero and then slowly increase over a space of three seconds back to your normal ms. Your mana will be drained too. Therein lies your death as you get surrounded by those slow moving creeps as you cant sprint away (Z-T) and then get pummeled to death by chordatae (small fatties). A trick that you should master is jump. (Z-Q) You can jump from higher ground to lower ground but never vice versa. Practice jumping over the fences. This can effectively fool ground creeps if done correctly. Suffice to say jumping like a mad hare won’t help matters much as you will drain your energy supply fast. The rest should be common sense from now. Another bane to Marines is the rising probability of sustaining a fracture due to being hit by any Zulu. Fractures can only be removed by Navy Corpsmen (mend, e) or by officers (2Lt and above) with Purge (x, g). Note that fractures cannot be healed by mini corpsmen as they do not have the required skills. When you get a fracture, use some common sense. Even if it’s uncommon nowadays, common sense dictates that you would not want to sprint when you have a fracture. If you do sprint, beware. After the sprint has ended, your movement speed will be drastically reduced. Consecutive sprints will reduce you to a hobble, snail-like pace. The tip here would be to move smart, don't run into creeps and hope that you get the fracture removed by an officer or a doc. When you have fracture, you will take a considerable amount of damage plus a 1.5 second slow when you jump. So, don’t be a Bunny if your leg’s broken. I Need EVERYTHING? Nope, You Just Need a Medical Kit to Get the Party Started Potentially the only equipment you should always have in your inventory should be a Field Light (by default), a pack of Fibrin Bandages or (not and) med kits and antivenoms when you can get it. The rest is all optional and most likely deadweight. By the chance you stumble across a Dao Striker or the neighborhood predator/recon found it, thank your deity/self/lucky stars and use it. Optional but sometimes necessary (In descending order of priority as in if you don’t have space) stuff you find would be SMAWs, Satchels (give to recon/pred to plant at caves^^), M320 Grenade Launcher, Claymores, chain explosives and ammunition (use ammo boxes at your risk; the more ammo you use the slower you will be i.e. 20 is ok) Don't hog unnecessary items and sometimes it's better just to have a fully-loaded M320, your Field Light and a stack of Chain Explosives.  Walkthrough On with the walkthrough. At the start of the game, select the marine you wish from helicopter. Obviously in this case it would be your engineer. Now head to the north-east spawn location pronto; it’s the cave located by itself on an island. Ping its location on the map before hand and state that you want to be there to avoid experience leeching from other people. There if you are lucky, you should be able to get to level two. For now, level up your last skill; engineering skills. Then head back immediately to town, on the way picking up anything you may find. Take note of a prominent jutting out peninsula just to the immediate south-east of the island cave. Remember that location as it is one of the tried and tested locations to plant a communications array without Zulus stumbling over and destroying it. Another alternative would be to head towards the south-west cave as Zulus now spawn randomly across the map and may even take you by surprise. Do not rush headlong into forests and the like but utilize the attack-move to its maximum. Zulus have an annoying habit of lurking around, hidden in the fog of war and they have the element of surprise. Be wary of your movement path and don’t sprint for the sake of speed. As you sprint, you are not able to perform a 180 fast enough to avoid Zulus from hitting you. Move slowly and warily, be vigilant. Flirting With the Civilians = A Definite No-No Once back in town, start cutting down trees using (q, e) detonation cord to improve line of sight and fire. The more trees cut the better your field of vision. Continue leveling your engineering skills until level four. If you are playing in a small game (four people and below), you will level up faster and I would suggest that you take the level five engineering skill and then proceed to blow the west and the southwest cave with caution. Kill the Zulus that spawn there and the ghouls first before proceeding to lay your satchel charge. Return and then use the mana regenerator on Residence 41. Your next skill then should be nanosteel net in preparing for Etaphreven during the convoy mission immediately afterwards. On the other hand, if you happen to be playing in a large /full house game, at the most you will be level four or even three when the convoy mission triggers, so when you reach level five (or four), take a level of Nanosteel net instead. At the convoy mission when you level up, take the last level of engineering skill. Eta? Eta who? Eta… AAH KILL that STALKER with the HEALTH BAR! During the convoy mission, remain alert of your position at all times. Ask any real estate agent and they will repeat the same word to you; positioning, positioning and positioning. As always, hold Alt down during the convoy mission. When you see a rapidly moving stalker with a life bar, that’s Etaphreven the mini boss and he’s out to get you. When he is attacking the a.i. marines, cast discharge. Be careful to do this only when he is at the main convoy and not by your lonesome. Then make sure you have at least 12-16 rounds in your shotgun before unloading on him via burst fire. Once you see discharge beginning to wear off, net him and continue handing out the punishment. Beware of surrounding creeps and do not tank gargoyles especially. Do NOT tank Eta! Two hits from him will leave you in the red. Note that the cool down for discharge is approximately one minute or so, so use it wisely. Do not discharge when creeps are hitting you but estimate when the creeps will arrive at your position and then discharge. There is a spell-casting delay of 1.5 seconds and if you ended up using it at the wrong time, your mistake would most likely be fatal.  Sentries With Long Technical Names. Sounds Fun? Once the convoy mission is over, you can either choose to help your teammates kill the flesh composites that spawn during the sentry mission or if they have sufficient firepower, you should be setting up the com array now. Your mana should be at its maximum here. Volunteer to set the sentries at the airfield. In order to get there, do not run headlong into Zulus; make sure you know where you are heading. A single bash from a Flesh Composite is enough to kill you as the duration of the bash is usually 1.5 seconds and the big fatty wont hesitate to slap you a few more times. In order to set a sentry, head to the red ping on the mini-map. Once there, hit z, s and select a location to plant the sentry, preferably in the center of the ping. Then head immediately for the island cave and blow away the Zulus and ghouls that spawn there. Type –prime 10 to ensure that you have enough time to walk away. Then q, t to plant your satchel charge. When you are done, head immediately to the peninsula adjacent to the ramp of the island cave. Set up your communications array on the edge of it and set a ctrl grouping for it. Now head to the airfield tower and use the energy generator there and now head back to Ravenholm. With your mana supply now you can blow another two caves with a rather longish wait for the second one. Be fast and efficient about it. Keep spamming your com array to help search for items as well. Once the time allocated for the sentries is up, rest assured that Immortals will now start spawning at the caves. Immortals need two shots to kill and they have a fast movespeed with high damage. They keep resurrecting and when you plant your satchel; that would be the most vulnerable time as they can easily get you to red health in no time. Head back to town and back your squad members up. Now you should be distributing points equally between the Mk-2 Nano Processor and Nanosteel net. a: Who's Your DADDY? For the citizen evacuation mission, there will be either Moirae or Hades (or Diablo – a bigger version of Hades) that will spawn as a boss. If its Moirae, call for someone to designate her and then head out of the base if you want to try pro-deting her ass. Refer to Yukie’s guide for further details (http://www.notd-aftermath.com/hq/viewtopic.php?t=557). If its Hades and you just got grabbed (teleported to wherever he might be), move slightly away and cast net followed by a discharge. Rapid fire is recommended for Hades as nading/SMAWing/Hellfire rocketing/mono-ing him is highly dangerous and may result in you killing your teammate who just got pulled. Again, keep spamming your com array in search of his elusive Highness. He should be a piece of cake with good team-support as in mates that come to help shoot and NOT nade. Once Hades/Moirae is dispatched off, proceed to blow one cave up before heading back to the town to refill mana. Now head to the ping where the USS Independence mission will start when there are civilian survivors. If not, rally your teammates to head for the airfield pronto as Loki (a big black gargoyle boss) will spawn during the wave and will head in your direction. There with the rest of your team, you will have a wider field of vision and can proceed to lay the smack-down on Loki’s sexy arse. If however there are civilians, make sure to keep two with you (don’t let them enter the boat). The purpose of this civilian being left out in the cold is to tank Loki’s attacks. Select the civilian (preferably the woman as she cant attack) and then right-click your hero. This will ensure that the civilian will always follow you, hence remaining in your rear. Protect the civilian from normal creeps as he will buy you a second or so of time when Loki attacks. Dont Panic, Boys.. Be ready to use discharge at a chokepoint near the middle cave where the Zulus come at you from right, left and center. Carry some smokes in anticipation of this and liberally smoke the left and front but not the path of the ship. Now would be the time to spam com array’s ability again. In teams that have the predator MQ-3, this task is made easier as you scan the pings after the predator scans for class A hostiles. Just after the middle cave there is a crossroads when your path heads north. Large stalkers ganking you can end your life in less time than you can utter a curse. When Loki appears, do not panic but run to the ship. When she is flying over to you, it is not a good time to net. You will end up netting her right next to you and even though netted she can still attack. Let the civilian tank. When she is busy attacking someone else or otherwise not moving, net or discharge – net if near, discharge at a safe distance but make sure that she will get the effect. Rapid fire and nade to finish her off. BEWARE: two hits from Loki will KILL YOU. Once you have finished her off, follow the ship and stay close. Once you reach a place where you can head into the airfield, be careful as there will be invisible stalkers spawning nearby.  b: Dark Clouds (Alternate mission), DAMN NVGs DON'T WORK! There will be a message on the screen saying that dark clouds are forming and that would be a precursor to this very scary and tremendously enjoyable mission. Your vision is reduced tremendously. Nvgs rely on reflected light from the moon to function and as there is no ambient light, it won't work. During this mission, you have a tremendous advantage as you come prepared with a flashlight already in your inventory. The flashlight will provide you with a small radius of light around you. According to azazeL_, the possibility of Dark Clouds occurring in normal mode is 33% while in nightmare, it's 50%. Dark Clouds is currently the most exciting and tense mission ever (IMHO). The best place for you to fortify with your team-mates would be the town of Ravenholm. Utilize chain explosives/claymores (For claymores do not select either option but similar with a chain explosive, use a grenade to set them off. The reason for doing this is to prevent team-kills and there is a 1.5 second period before the mines detonate) to their max. Lay them in a stack or spread out in a chain at the probable pathways that creeps utilize to reach you. It would be prudent of course to not lay explosives at your escape route which is most probably the south but this decision is negated as you might want to kill off stalkers that are hot on your tail when you flee the crime scene. During this mission, the equipment that are most handy are flares (slows zulus for a while and provides needed illumination to see hostiles and search for bosses) and roadies (the flame icon thingy which I forgot the name) that illuminate a location for a few minutes. During this mission, you will be ambushed by first Diablo/Hades and a whole bunch of immortals (plus curious gargoyles) and secondly, you will face Minos, a huge black bug. Be warned, the tables can be turned against you in an instant; marines that run all over the place when immortals pay you a visit and the worst, Diablo has an attack with a considerable amount of splash. Do NOT tank Diablo. He is to be taken seriously, just keep netting and firing. Use flares and smokes in his pathway to slow him down and provide a modicum of time. Try to net Diablo as far away from the team as you can as that would be vital to yours and your teammates survival. Discharge only when you see net wearing off. Your discharge should kill two birds with one stone, mainly Diablo himself and the immortal rush. Do not rapid fire. You need mana to keep netting him for the rest of your teammates to take him out. This is where your planted chain explosives/clays come in. Hopefully you do know how to utilize a M320 grenade launcher effectively by now (there is a radius indicator and it does AOE damage of 1000). Use it to trigger the explosives directly under Diablo and his bunch of lackeys. If you do not dispatch Diablo in time, you may be forced to deal with Minos together with Diablo/Hades and that is a situation too difficult for words. Minos spawns a few scant minutes after Diablo and he may prove to be your undoing. If you do have a predator in your game, you can more or less keep him away from the main firepower in your group as you can keep spamming flares in order to spot him for some netting action. Your main task here would be to net and rapid fire Minos. Again, do not assume that he is a piece of ass ready to be punished. The element of surprise here is reduced but he can prove to be a serious threat to a team that has expended mana points and ammo just to take Diablo/Hades down. As always, ensure that he is as far away from your team as possible when you net him. Do NOT sacrifice yourself. Although commendable, it’s foolhardy and may result in your team's chances of survival being reduced as you are the key component of your team. After you successfully complete this mission, the possibility of the next chapter being Revelation is very high as a reward for your effort. Onwards to Chapter 2 Give yourself a pat on the back, you will now proceed to the second chapter: Delta or Revelation. From then on, I will leave it to you to discover what perils and hidden dangers lie in wait for you. A word of advice, beware gargoyles, blinks and wraiths. Just a single wraith (invisible gargoyles with bash) can leave you in a whole world of pain. Flying Zulus are every marine’s bane so be wise in how you deal with them. In chapter 2 & 3, a new boss will come into play. His moniker would be Atlas. He is not affected by any skills such as Discharge but you should utilize the Nanosteel net fully and bring him down with concentrated fire. This ends my walkthrough in using the Combat Engineer. A tad rather long but I am sure that the advice that I have given is particularly relevant to players using the Combat Engineer for their first time. Terrain Map  The rectangular boxes denote the town, two outlying houses and the airport whereas the small circles represent the location of the six caves. The spray-painted dot with an arrow pointing towards it would be the IDEAL location to set up a communications array. The large X at the south of the river is where the USS Independence mission will begin. The preceding small x-es would be to denote the areas where ganks will occur. p.s. I dedicate my first walkthrough to Yukie. Your guides ROCK! and a word of thanks here to EastDeath who helped me by spotting my careless errors. Owe YA! |
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