Thread: Idea for new unlockable wrench

Originally Posted by Whiskey_dod

I want a mech suit bitches!!!!!

Dont we all, dont we all
but wouldn't that take over the heavy? How would it work anyway, if a good idea about it was made and it wasn't overpowered then i'd support it....
(lol i know you were joking)

I like em all. It makes the class a lot different then it used to be. A new way to play, perhaps.
Although, lvl 1's are not really worth building. I always get sentrys to lvl 2 then leave them, and go do other things.

That was some thought you put into that gunney. It would be great to see some of those ideas put into action. I especially like the idea about the port pad.

level 2's are the best way anyway. Level 3's don't exactly do anything and aren't entirely worth it.

There's a huge thread on improvements for sentry guns without actually using unlocks. It's on the Steam forums. I'll try to find it when I get home.

Regardless, the wrench is a perfectly fine melee weapon and I see no reason to replace it. The average engineer almost never gets into melee combat because he lacks both the speed and the health to survive long there. You might bludgeon a spy every now and then, but even then I feel the shotgun is more consistent and less of a facestab risk. At any rate, what I'd like to see for the Engineer unlocks:

Electro-Magnetic Mobile Construction Kit: Replaces the pistol. Use of the magnet allows the engineer to disable carry his buildings with him with a small metal cost (~30 for pickup, another ~20 for placement.) Picking up a building takes 3 seconds, and placing a building takes 2 seconds. While being carried, packed up, and placed, the building does not function. While carrying the building, the building behaves as per normal (i.e. it will take normal damage) which allows a building to be used as an impromptu shield if necessary. Buildings cannot be repaired while being carried, even by another engineer. The idea of the unlock is to allow engineers to move their buildings (especially sentry guns) around at a much lower time and resource cost than it takes to destroy and rebuild them. Predictability is one of the engineer's biggest weaknesses. Trading in the pistol means you lose the ability to plink people at range and gain the ability to move your stuff around, albeit somewhat ungainly.

Hyper-Elastic Spring Pads: Replaces the Teleporter Entrance and Teleporter Exit buildings. Springpads automatically launch both friendly and enemy targets into the air when walked onto (or fallen onto), allowing the engineer to help less-mobile classes reach areas they might otherwise find inaccessible (imagine hiding a Pyro or Heavy on the roof of B on gravelpit until the perfect moment...) and also allowing the engineer to place the springpads to vault enemies into the air, leaving them vulnerable and nearly defenseless (as well as impeding their ability to move forward or retreat effectively.) Springpads would have a charge-up timer shorter than a teleporter's charge-up time (down to about 1.5 seconds for a level 3) and you may place two at any time. Springpads will automatically launch affected units in the direction specified by the arrow at their base (engineers: you need to finally fucking learn proper building facing!) which will allow some subtle manipulations of the physics system to achieve different velocities and angles. Springpads produce a small, faint beeping noise to alert enemies to their presence, similar to a sentry gun.

Electro-Shock Charge Plates: Replaces Pistol. These are items with a short (~10 seconds?) cooldown which, when attached to a friendly building, provide the building with a low-grade electrical defense array, preventing application of Electro-Sappers and shocking Spies attempting to place sappers (the Spy will be shocked for a somewhat small amount of health, ~20-35, and will be briefly revealed if cloaked.) The defense array deactivates three seconds after deflecting a sap attempt, and draws power from the building to power itself, reducing the effectiveness of the building - sentries fire slower, dispensers heal slower and restock slower, and teleporters charge slower. Gives engineers some limited protection against sapper-spamming spies - ideally, long enough to allow the engineer to call for help and for help to arrive. The cooldown on the defenses prevents the engineer from getting into a spam-fight with a spy (the spy will win), and the reduced effectiveness of buildings with defenses on them discourages keeping them placed on your buildings at all times. Defenses can be removed much in the same way as sappers (by whacking the building with your wrench if it's undamaged) and cost 45 metal to place. The defenses are visible on buildings they're protecting, and look like electro-sappers, but instead cover the buildings in a soft team-colored glow.

My Little Fortress Sentry Gun Kit: Replaces standard Sentry Gun. Fortress guns have more health and receive limited protection from explosive damage (rockets, pills, stickies, etc), but build slower (20 seconds base, 10 seconds with engineer whacking it), and cannot be moved with the electromagnet. Additionally, the level 3 version of the sentry does not receive rocketpacks and has less impact force (i.e. knockback), but instead does extra damage with its miniguns. All three levels of the fortress gun are significantly larger and beefier than the regular sentry gun (allowing teammates to more easily hide behind it as well as making it an easier target for enemies.) The idea is to give engineers the option of choosing a sentry gun that's harder to kill and can be used as a sort of wall for their team at the cost of the usual things defensive sentries are used for - knockback (fortress guns will not be able to do that silly "pin that poor bastard against the skybox" trick) and damage (even with increased minigun damage, the fortress gun will still do less damage than the guns+rockets of the conventional level 3 gun) without making it "okay, you're defending so use the fortress gun." The idea is to have the choice of sentry gun be similar to a medic's choice between medigun and kritzkrieg - the regular sentry gun builds fast and does a lot of damage, but it can't take the hits the fortress gun can and doesn't provide a sort of mobile wall for teammates to hide behind (again, the fortress gun would be large, especially at level 3 - at least as large as a Heavy.)

The shotgun does not need an upgrade, because the shotgun is a perfectly balanced and useful weapon just the way it is.

Shotgun: Airblast rifle. Like the pyro's airblast but with with twice the range but half the firing speed. 10 shots. Cannot be replenished at a dispenser you have to pick up ammo off the map. Can do everything a regular airblast can.

Pistol: Ammo crate. (the 200+ metal ones on the map) You can drop it on the ground and pick it up for full metal. Recharges like the Bonk drink. Teammates can pick it up for ammo if they so wish.

Wrench: Guitar. It takes 3 hits to get rid of sappers, and upgrades at +15 per hit. (not +25 as usual) However when you taunt with it ( 4-5 second animation) you dispenser recharges at 400% faster. You are a standing target when taunting.


I'm not giving up on the guitar idea, EVER.