Team Fortress 2 began dropping golden wrenches to people who are crafting anything other than scrap and tokens, in order to signal the soon release of the engineer class update.

The golden wrench turns anyone you kill with it, into a solid gold statue of the pose they where in, rather than a ragdoll. Other than this, it does nothing different from the normal wrench.

Every 25 wrenches they announce a new piece of engineer equipment. right now they are at 45 dropped wrenches. The only currently announced item is the Frontier justice, A special shotgun that gets crits based on your sentry.

engineer has evolved into a frontier engineer. It rhymes, hah hah, aren't they clever.


Who here is excited about the engineer update, and what are you doing to prepare?
Me personally, I'm expecting to not like all the engie gear, so if I get something I don't like, I'm going to craft it into different engineer gear.

I have 2 class tokens, a primary, secondary, and melee token, a few scraps, and a deadringer that I hate with a passion.

Engineer item I don't like + class token = engineer token
Engineer token + specific slot token + scrap = engineer item for that slot.

From where I'm sitting, odds are good that the engineer is getting 1 primary, and 3 PDA's (sentry/dispencer/teleporter)... However it could be 1 primary, 2 PDA's and 1 (primary, 2ndary, or melee) I highly doubt it will happen in any other combination. Sniper got a primary, 2 2ndary's and no melee (until polycount) Spy had a pistol 2 PDA's and a hat, no 2ndary (sapper) or melee (knife). etc etc.

the spy couldn't lose his sapper, knife, or disguises, because they are there for primary use. the scout will always have a baseball bat, the demoman will always have explosives, the soldier will always have an RPG, the spy will always be a backstabbing sneaky ♥♥♥♥♥, and the engineer will always build things.


also, is there any speculation as to the final results of the engineer update?
I'm guessing either frontier justice, a new sentry, a new dispenser, and a dispenser/sentry replacement, that would be something else that takes that slot. Such as gee, A METAL MAN that is seen in BOTH the engineer update Teaser video, AND the engineer update page. (iron man helmet, arm blueprint, and the metal man doing that pose thing...)

I'm betting the sentry is gonna be a usable gattling gun emplacement.

The other possibility is 2 shotguns, and 2 buildables (sentry and dispencer)

Valve already said that they aren't getting rid of teleporters because they are too important, especially for capturepoint, CTF, and Payload maps. They also said that they can't find a balanced way to replace the dispenser, other than with a basic variant... I think a robo-medic, or a dispenser that can use an uber-charge would be awesome, but they also pointed out that they need dispensers for the metal for upgrades and repairs.


Personally though, I think a flare-gun-sentry would be awesome... Pop Pop Pop... flares in auto fire... faster RoF for each upgrade... that'd rock.


things you doubt they'd do? anyone?
I doubt they'd give the engineer a primary, 2ndary, melee, and a 2nd melee/secondary/primary, and give absolutely no PDA slot, since it's already known that the PDA slot is for spy *and* engineer.


so come on guys, Lets discuss... Or at least go spam-craft and try to get golden wrenches to speed up the update announcements. just remember Craft/smelt to Scrap/reclamed metal does NOT count towards the golden wrench unlock.


---edit
remote control for sentry added... thats unexpected.

Achievments named and pictured but not explained. I see one that appears to be "kill a cloaked spy with a crit from a sentry" (a sentry shooting a 'glowing' spy through the heart), a "100 teleports for a single teleporter", I think I figured out what half of them do....

and since noone seems to care... well...

Well, I think it's hilarious that these douchebags are acting like the entire game is based around gold wrenches that have no practical use. As for the unlocks, I'll probably use them, but I wish they would stop encouraging turtling...

As the style of the engineer is turtling the only way they could discourage it with the update would be to remove the class.

That said, the shotgun does a bit to coax the engineer out from behind his gun emplacement, the guaranteed crits could get him quite a few kills if his sentry is well placed.

Actually, offensive engineering would be pretty easy; the Morgan would be good for that, as would the O.R.B.S. set of buildings. But what does the Engineer get? A shotgun that's worthless UNLESS HE TURTLES to get the guaranteed crits, and an aiming module that is WORTHLESS without the sentry and removes his best weapon.

No, building one turret is not turtling. Turtling is sitting behind it and healing.
He would just need to put it in a spot where it can kill people, then run around in the front lines killing some other people.
If the shotgun instead restored health to the turret when he shot at it, that would encourage turtling. If it encourages him to get out from behind that gun and stop healing it, that is not turtling.

Yeah, what's turtling is building a sentry so that you can get kills with it (that you wouldn't get without a level-3 sentry that you were constantly healing, AKA TURTLING) and then using your shitty shotgun that is now magically shitty after an asshat blows it up. And you KNOW that the Wrangler is totally useless if you aren't turtling, because it removes your DPS from the equation. So yeah, they're encouraging turtling...

One of my best offensive classes is the engineer. His shotgun is very powerful in close combat and a level one sentry can hold an entire point if correctly supported and well placed.

If sitting behind a dispenser and wacking away at your sentry is the only tactic you can think to use you really should find another class to play as, because you're doing it wrong. The dispenser is made to support the team as they attack, it's not there to give you metal.

Point is, Lambda, that this update so far is encouraging turtling. That shotgun? Just got rid of one of your weapons; I mostly use the pistol, so yeah, I might use the Frontier Justice. But it's totally USELESS unless your sentry manages to get a shitload of kills. Which it won't if you're being an offensive engineer. And if you use the WRANGLER?! That's in NO WAY useful to an offensive engineer. You lose your best weapon (Pistol) to be able to control a sentry, losing your DPS and lowering your sentry's DPS if you miss.

The Wrangler makes your sentry fire faster. You can have another engineer working on your sentry and covering you while you use it to fire at the other side. The game has the word team in it for a reason.

As for the turtling, the Engineer is under "Defense" for a reason. We'll just have to see what the third update brings.

Those categories are way off. The Demoman is a mainly offensive class, as is the Heavy nowadays. And the updates are supposed to support new playstyles (Offensive Engineering, ala Morgan) and not just aid the old ones.

How does a shotgun that makes you kill more people not encourage offensive engineering.
Just build a level one turret somewhere, let it shoot at some people giving you free crits, then they kill it giving you more free crits.
That's offensive engineering.

No, you only get the crits if that level one sentry gets any kills; what, it gets one kill, you get 2 crits, you kill one person and get raped the ♥♥♥♥ up.

Frontier justice only gets better when your sentry explodes. if you demolish it, you get crits...

Build sentry somewhere that some idiot will walk through, Go elsewhere and wait for it to get a kill. either wait for more kills, or just demolish it. you now have X number of crits. Go throw down a new sentry, and run&gun till your out of crits. That's not turtling.

Wrangler lets you SPY CHECK. you have controll of the turret which means you could constantly fire it. you could spy check anyone and everyone, and even hit cloaked spys. There is an achievement for this. it does NOT promote turtling as you could run forward, build a lv 1 sentry, and immediately control it. LV 1 sentry is basically natasha, which means engie + wrangler = natasha heavy. LV 2 > regular minigun, LV 3 > multiple players. if you run forward and put it near a metal supply, or you collect your kills' ammo, you can use that metal to upgrade, rather than just turtling...

Build --> control --> kill --> loot -->upgrade -->control --> kill -->...

Then if it gets destroyed, you'll have a pile of kills, for switching to your FJ and totally RAEG-RAEP everyone near by. This is quite far from turtling, and makes the engineer VERY offensive.

This is like a medic healing a sniper, bloating up his score with kill-assists, untill his ubercharge is full, and then grabbing a near-by heavy.



Also, now that this has replies... 95 GW's, update is today, Next update is Polycount. Are there any polycount weapons your excited about? (if they make it)


edit
New class organization

Skill/twitch tier - Spy, Sniper, Scout
Spray & Pray Tier - Heavy, Soldier, Pyro
Camping Tier - Demo Man, Engineer, Medic

Sniper is not in camping tier because of huntsman/jarate/SMG

also, Camping is a perfectly valid strategy. in real life, you can hide in a corner somewhere, wait a week, and kill someone, and then hide.

Spawn-camping on the other hand is NOT a valid strategy because PEOPLE DON'T SPAWN. furthermore, if its military, I guess you could say an army base is a spawn-point, but camping & attacking a base isn't spawn-camping, its a god damned SIEGE. you attack, kill your targets, and then fall back. and that's not spawn camping.

I only bring this up because y'all brought up turtling, which is retarded, that's just another word for camping. would you call a medic and a heavy standing next to a dispenser, healing and firing forever, to be turtling? that's a perfectly legitimate defense strategy. Next time you play a Payload or CP map and your on the defense, go ahead and get your team to go 'engineer = kick'.

You're assuming that you and your remote-control, level-1 sentry will rack up kills. Which it won't. Because you're right, while using it, you're like a Heavy with his minigun. A non-moving Heavy with 125 health. Because you don't have to kill the sentry; take out that Engineer, and his sentry goes down for 3 seconds before being automated, ample time to destroy. So this is how the scenario you played out goes: place level 1 sentry, remote control, get about 1 kill, and then some guy kills you. Your sentry, inoperable, is destroyed before you respawn. And instead, say they destroy the SENTRY instead of you because they're dumbasses. The n boom, you have 2 WHOLE CRITS! And again, you kill one person and then proceed to die some more.

Well you can always just use the defaut shotgun if you perfer that one.