In games like supreme commander engineers get a little bit useless when you are no longer building buildings or repairing things. In other RTS games this is not a problem because they are needed to collect resources, so they are not too bad. I think That having some way of putting them into a factory to refit them with guns and whatnot would be a good solution to the problem. All I know is that when I am playing forged alliance in the later game my main base is filled with old engineers, they get in the way of everything and they are too dumb to get out of the way (although that won't be a problem in PA).
Why didn't you reclaim them or use them for scouting, building backup bases, building obstacles for your enemies, assisting factories, picking your nose, and producing potato mash for the commander?
What? If engineers aren't doing something in SupCom then you are almost certainly misusing them. If they aren't out performing specific tasks they should be helping factories build or building more resources, and having the engineers gathering resources is a very important part of SupCom too, reclaiming the wrecks after a large battle is an excellent way to speed up production and rebuild for the next attack. I don't think I've ever felt like I had too many engineers, I always had plenty of things for them to do. You should check out some SupCom games from here, they are great for picking up tips on how to play, they helped me improve a lot: http://www.youtube.com/user/felixlighta/videos?view=0
While the op is doing it wrong for sure I am still hoping uber goes for the 'commander egg' idea to start with a module base that's modestly customizable. That would permit considerable more expensive, and therefore more powerful, engineers without needlessly extending the boring start game 'build order' stuff. Would slightly cut down on the metagame engineer juggling the op is talking about.
if anything there aren't enough idle engineers I've seen people fill half their unit cap with engies just about, and I'm thinking that's not an optimal situation in a game about fighting. Eco is important, but not half your unit cap important. engineers need to be individually more useful, in other words, the ratio of income to build power needs to be skewered toward fewer engineers required on the other hand this means an individual or small group of engineers could more easily tank the economy since they have more build power the exact ratio is a tricky beast
You have a lathe, it does some things, and it costs a certain amount of resources to get. It's pretty straight forward.
I never thought about engies like that bmb, "tanking the economy" makes sense though! All for a more powerful engi here to that costs a lot more then the standard fair...maybe one that could build at 1/3 to 1/2 commander speed..?
Tanking the economy in this game sounds like its going to be extremely difficult to do to yourself. In fact it sounds almost completely idiot proof. The commander, engineers (by type and teir) will all use a flat amount of metal and energy no matter what they are building. Gone are the days of two different commander upgrades, one costs -500 energy, the other -10,000 energy.
And in situations where you are out of banked resource and pulling more than you earn, the amount per engineer will be prorated to exactly match income. It does sound pretty idiot proof, but I bet it is going to take me a while to change building habits to take advantage of it. I'm far too ingrained to check I have enough storage before starting a big build :|
Honestly, this was the problem with supcom's system. It wasn't that projects used differing amounts of resources, but that they used exponentially differing amounts of resources. One thing cost 20, another cost 2000. Not even TA was that bad.
Anytime i had idle engineers, i set them to patrol the fabrication area and support my factories, or to assist my commander or subcommanders.
This would be a nice button. Tell every idle engineer within like 10 blocks of one of your nearby structures, to come and assist factorys in production. Also make it evenly distribute the engineers among the factories based on how much production is going on, like if a vehicle factory is making 50 units and a naval and kbot factory is making 20, give over half to the vehicle factory and divide the other half amongst the other factories. I wouldn't mind smart idle-engineer-assist orders.
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