Guide to Engineers in society

______________Halouk

*Last Update: 4th July 2004*

Much in the style of the brilliant "Guide to teaming with a doc" found in the doctors forums, here is the "Guide to getting Tradeskill Help." Traders are, of course, closely related to this however for the sake of simplicity, I have just written "Engineers"

WorkTable of Contents

1. Overview of Engineers
2. How to find an Eng
3. Asking for Help
4. Being Helped
5. After Being Helped
6. Pets
7. Beacon Warps
8. Richness
9. Ubahness
10. Materials
11. Mi Banco es su Banco
12. Ubahnezzzy Petties

--Second Post--

13. Lewt
14. Teh Meta-Physical Side of Things *NEW*
15. Your name, Sir? *NEW*

1. Overview of Engineers

An engineer is a profession in the huge MMORPG, Anarchy Online. The engineer is a commonly misunderstood profession - some of the greatest atrox minds in the galaxy still do not understand the workings of screwdrivers, unless impaled into the nearest heckler, thus earning experience. Engineers, however, are a higher life-form and spend their time doing tradeskills. Honestly. It's better than hecklers.

2. How to find an eng

There are many ways to find an eng. The most common one is to use the OOC channel for your faction. Normally a simple

"0mGz 1 n33d t3h 3ng1n33ah 2 m4k3 tH1s 1t3M 4 m3 pL34ze kthxbye"

is perfectly understandable by everyone and the hundreds of engineers who spend their Rubi-Kan days standing around doing nothing are happy to help. On rare occasions though, you may find that those engineers are busy helping others, in which case it is perfectly acceptable to flame to the world about just how much you hate greedy tradeskillers.
Another common procedure is to go into a city and take full advantage of the /list command. When you find an eng of high enough level, just go ahead and send him/her a tell. Don't worry, engineers have special items that allow them to fight through "tell hell" such as below:

'hi'
'can u help me please?'
'i lost my mommy'
'hi'
'hi'
'mt'
'whats ur me?'
'whats ur ee?'
'whats ur qft?'
'Hello there, I was wondering if you could help me for a second please?'
'hi'
'u found my mommy yet n00b?'

As I said, engineers can get through this, so if you don't get a reply within 5 seconds feel free to spam the engineer with more tells - keep at it and he will surely answer you soon.
On rare occasions, an engineer will find himself with no one to help and absolutly no reason to level, and so will declare himself free to help people at OA whompas or another easily accessible place. Please refer back to the "tell hell" section for guides on how to get an eng to reply quickest to you besides his other 20 requests.

3. Asking for help

Engineers are a very understanding profession that can totally sympathise with how busy you are and how fast you need to get to the shop to buy your new w34ap0n. So it is perfectly acceptable for you to be as intrusive and impatient as you like when asking for help. A common line is something like;

"dewd maek this 4 me plz n b qiuck cos i hav fingz 2 by"

Though of course feel free to add more insults and comments about our mothers to this sentence.

Occasionally, you will find an engineer that you need help from that is already helping someone. You can show the engineer that you are much more important by standing annoyingly in his face and repeatedly asking for help. He might be in the middle of typing a very long sentence to the first player, but he will press escape just for you so don't worry.
Should for any reason the engineer doesnt reply, call him a n00b and run off in search of another.

4. Being helped

Tradeskilling is a very fast process that only requires you to click once on an item, then hold shift and right click on another item. Even with many items, this shouldn't take more than 5 seconds - so you can go buy your new w34p0n. Just keep bugging the eng, each time you say something it is a sign to the eng to speed up (because a lot of engineers purposly go as slow as they can just to annoy you, honestly).

Tradeskilling is also a very enjoyable process. Engineers get a lovely warm fuzzy feeling inside from clicking around on a dozen items and getting a lot of spam in their chat screen, so feel free to move centimeters from your position very fast so your character looks like it's having a spasm - it won't annoy the eng at all. Also, engineers like nothing more than being /flipped in the face whilst concentrating on clicking, so keep them entertained.

5. After being helped

After you have recieved your bagpack full of items (that was a hell of a lot of fun to put together), the universally accepted way to say thanks is to turn 180 degrees, and run as fast as you can. This is not only a sign to the engineer that you appreciate his time, but also that you do not currently have the money to give him a tip (All engineers are greedy people who will flame you on the forums if you do not give them a tip if they believe you can).

Another common way is to show an emote to the engineer. We know how difficult typing is, so feel free to /moon us, we know you really meant to type /bow.

6. Pets

Like all pet professions, engineers have full 100% control of their pets, including the ability to move their slayerdroid a few millimeters so that it isn't blocking your beautiful vision of the enforcer in front of you's behind. We, of course, put it there just to annoy you.
Also, sometimes you may notice the engineers pet running around in circles, not doing much to the mob currently attacking you. This is completly the engineers fault - as usual insults normally work well. At this point the engineer should type the secret command that fixes pet pathing, and the pets should not only come along and attack, but also magically take the aggro straight away.

7. Beacon Warps

One lovely thing engineers have been blessed with is the ability to Beacon Warp their fellow team-mates. This is a very useful way of bringing a deceased member of a team back to a mission. Though it is a 1 min cast nano, the engineer has plently of nanopool and patience for you to say "oh wait a sec" at the last moment, so he can recast in a minute.
Engineers have also been blessed with a secret skill that tells you when team-mates have gotten all their items from the reclaim terminal, so there is no need to tell us when we should warp you.

8. Richness

All engineers are incredibly rich because we can tradeskill, so feel free to run up to one of us and ask for some creds. BUT DON'T do it politly! Politeness when asking will often result in the engineer petitioning you because it is not common practise in Rubi-ka and may get you banned. A simple mis-spelt 2 word request normally works. And don't forgot to not say please.

9. Ubahness

No matter the level engineers can tradeskill any items - it is really easy for us. Tradeskills, even when you train all but one of them to nearly 1k, have cost us very little IP, which we wouldn't have used elsewhere anyway. Therefore it is common practise to ask a level 120 eng to help you make your VTE. Be shocked if he has to even ask for buffs to help him, maybe you will even have to wait a few minutes for him to find a trader! Should the situation leave this stage, reclaim your items and go find another engineer that isn't such an obvious noob.

10. Materials

Engineers have every tradeskill component at every possible QL and we carry them around with us at all times. It is carried in The Engineer Bag of Infinite Space, which is startup equipment for engineers. Mean and hateful engineers who want to diss you will occasionally ask if you have the materials for the item you want, but only to annoy you. Important things to remember about materials are as follows:

Engineers have access to a magic engineer kiosk where we just type in a QL and an item, and it appears. Along with that, the magic engineer kiosk gives away all components for free. So you are absolutely right to /rude us for suggesting you provide the materials or pay us the cost.

The magic kiosk and every QL of carbon rock are within a 10 second run of wherever the engineer is standing, so if you are told that fetching any item will be a few minutes, you are obviously being tricked. Plus, the Engineer Bag of Infinite Space should have every one of your needed items and listed with your name and grouped appropriately to ensure speedy service.

Tradeskill gear is cheap. Don't let some sad-sack engineer tell you that they paid a lot for anything they use to make your stuff. Number one, who thinks 500k for a QL40 device is a lot? And number two, so what if that gear cost money? It's not as important as whatever you need made, so tell that whining engineer to shut their cake-hole.

"Materials" section provided by Patrick187.

11. Mi Banco es su Banco

You were in the process of handing an engineer four of the seven things needed to do the job plus some other stuff just to be funny when two pigeons finally decide to let nature take its course on the precious neighbourhood telephone relay just as the phone company's technician's wife has gone into labour, effectively knocking you out of the game for a good twenty-four hours or more. What, you wonder, will happen to your precious goods in the meantime? Just as in matters of tradeskilling, weaponsmithing and implant assembly, your friendly local engineer has you covered.

Offline message from "Engineer": "Don't worry I'll bank your stuff and you can pick it up when you get back online."

To [Engineer]: ok thx
[Engineer]: hi, I have your stuff, can we meet?
To [Engineer]: sure
To [Engineer]: who are you again?
[Engineer]: I'm the engineer you wanted to improve your weapons
To [Engineer]: oh, hey
To [Engineer]: I don't need them right now, could you hang onto them for me?
[Engineer]: ok, I know you can't see this, but right now I'm making the Daffy Duck "thpppppp" face after getting shot by Elmer Fudd for the eighth time in that one short, you know the one I'm talking about?

The fact is, more engineers than not are actually frustrated bankers, and we're secretly pathetically grateful for opportunities like this. Sure, traders wheel and deal all the time, but the sorting and management of tiny screws actually gets closer to the heart of accounting than cold, hard credits. Most engineers would in fact be kind enough to pay interest on your deposits with us, but we've never figured out exactly what 0.03% is of a QL 30 Tango Dirk, a Robot Instruction Disc (Improve Crushing Weapons) a Clans Multi-Form and a half-eaten Jandawit Cleanup Cluster.

"Mi Banco es su Banco" section provided by Saraghina.

12. Ubahnezzzy petties

What is really important to understand about your extremely high level engineers is that once we break through the 200 barrier and delve deep into the shadowlands our desires change!

No longer does the engineer want or need a big, huge, tanking slayerdroid! Nononono, that would be for those ubah gimpy people who have never made it into the promised lands of sunbathing where you can ride dragons and play with battletoads! What we have found out in our research of the lands is that the best thing to do is rather than utterly destroy mobs piece by piece is that style is much more en vogue!

Because making 5 gem arul saba bracers is a laughing matter once you are lvl 201 our goal at this point is to just look damn cool. Unfortunately, while engineering the best looking creation on the face of Rubi-Ka we had to use a corrosive black spray paint on the original Slayerdroid causing it to diminish in size and weakening it claws in such a way that one doesn't have electrical nodes anymore thus eliminating our energy damage while the other has grown soft and only tickles the hecklers with melee slaps.

So don't put up with your local engi trying to go for style by using that spray paint, demand that he make his ql200 bot because obviously the lower level one is and should be better. Be sure the stylish engi is punished severly by asking him questions like

"Doesn't that spray paint make the bot stronger?"

"Pfft, I don't believe that you can do less damage with a higher slayer".

The real way to show you love your engi buddies is to say

"OMG, j00r b0t l00k5 5oooooo c00li0 d3wD! c00d j00 g0 to anutta t3am n0w cuz 1 d0n wanna G3T pwnz0red by j00!"

"Ubahnezzzy Petties" section provided by Rusty.

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Go to part 2. It's down the page a lil'

Ishamaell

Infusion99

Can you post this in every forum. THis is great stuff. Laughed my ass off at work

*me bows to Halouk*

______________Halouk

Part 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

13. Lewt

Engineers find it incredibly easy to recieve rare items used for tradeskilling such as PPPE's, MMR's and Screwdrivers signed by Halouk. Any level 20+ engineer you find without the ability to create manex armour should be immediately thrown into a pit of Phillip Ross' bodyguards with a sign around his neck saying "I love clan."
Any rare item's you find, such as a PPPE should be sold to an engineer at an insanely high price - because after all, the only reason they want it is to help other players right? Of course you want to make them even more penniless then they already are. Keeping engineers poor keeps them charging high prices - so everyone wins in the end.
Never lend an item to an engineer. All engineers are in fact, dangerous theives. I would build on this but an engineer is currently trying to steal my keyboa

[SIZE=0.5]Got it back now

[/SIZE]

14. Teh Meta-Physical Side of Things
Engineers, like all professions rely 100% on the abundance of another profession - the Meta-physicist, commonly refered to as the MP. There was a time when the MP was a rare breed, however it seems that having floating testes around them has paid off and now they have spread over the world. But they promise us, they aren't planning on taking over. Yet.

The MP's will take over! This is a warning to everyone with the superb eyesight to be able to read this, or the brains to copy and paste it somewhere else. I am making a device to take out the MP's. I call it nerfing. My good friend, FunCom has hacked the grid and "nerfed" them. But remain vigilant. They will always be there... ready to take over.

15. Your name, Sir?

Everything needs a nickname. Please contact me with everything that you (an engineer) have been called and I shall add it to the "Halouk's Acceptable List of Insults to Call Engineers", or HALICE for short. No, I don't have lice.

> Eng
> Spanner-monkey
> Screwy
> Bot-boy
> Nuts
> Oi-you-get-your-ass-over-here-and-make-this-for-me-please
> noob

Remember, this list is still open for additions. Please add your names below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: 06/02/04 - Added "overview of an eng" and "Lewt".

Edit: 14/02/04 - Sorry for the long wait Added "Mi Banco es su Banco section from Saraghina, and added some nicer colours to the text. If you wish to submit a section, please PM it to me.

Edit: 22/03/04 - Added "Ubahnezzzy Petties" section from Rusty.

Edit: 04/07/04 - Wow, has it sure been a long time? In Oz on holiday at the moment so I had time to screw around a bit. And update this (hehehehehe... Ok that sucked.). Added "Your name, Sir?", "Teh Meta-Physical Side of Things", Work-table of Contents, and edited the odd lil' bit here and there. Split the whole thing into two posts because it's getting too long.

Would just like to point out that 95% of players are nice people that I, and most other engineers, are happy to tradeskill for. w3 lubz j0o

Istrikeit

Excellent post. =D

Centrine

lol that owns, sad thing is that it's true...

______________Halouk

Just a shameless self bump

Sweede

damn fun reading, thanks for making my day Halouk

Logain

sticky this lol

Saraghina

A tip of the screwdriver to Halouk

High_orbit

I'll root it if you promise to keep it up to date

Effie

Will you sign my screwdriver?

Right to the point, me likes it.

patrick187

Seriously funny.

Halouk, that post is worthy of having FC put "Halouk Signature Series Screwdrivers" into the db. Hell, I would buy one. Not to say your post was lacking, but something about supplies should probably find it's way into that list. Here is a feeble contribution for you, edit as needed...

Materials
Engineers have every tradeskill component at every possible QL and we carry them around with us at all times. It is carried in The Engineer Bag of Infinite Space, which is startup equipment for engineers. Mean and hateful engineers who want to diss you will occasionally ask if you have the materials for the item you want, but only to annoy you. Important things to remember about materials are as follows:

- Engineers have access to a magic engineer kiosk where we just type in a QL and an item, and it appears. Along with that, the magic engineer kiosk gives away all components for free. So you are absolutely right to /rude us for suggesting you provide the materials or pay us the cost. The nerve!!

- Engineers absolutely delight in searching for carbon rich rocks. Any engineer who says otherwise is lying. The absolute best part of making nanos is the search for rocks in places where you can be killed. It's our little scavenger hunt and we love it.

- The magic kiosk and every QL of carbon rock are within a 10 second run of wherever the engineer is standing, so if you are told that fetching any item will be a few minutes, you are obviously being tricked. Plus, the Engineer Bag of Infinite Space should have every one of your needed items and listed with your name and grouped appropriately to ensure speedy service.

- Tradeskill gear is cheap. Don't let some sad-sack engineer tell you that they paid a lot for anything they use to make your stuff. Number one, who thinks 500k for a QL40 device is a lot? And number two, so what if that gear cost money? It's not as important as whatever you need made, so tell that whining engineer to shut their cake-hole.

Seriously, I do fetch carbon rocks for free if I happen to be out of a particular QL and the customer is nice. I once got a 100k tip for providing the rock, on top of the 150k tip I was already offered.

Aiseiviu

Very Nice post...and above all so realistic!

Sign on my screwdriver too!

bryoni

ha ha ha

i would be really funny if it wasn't so true

<--- shakes head

an excellent thread much better than my trader experiences on those forums

Did you miss 'its easy for engis to trade skill as the have double the amount of skill for free when making things'

and 'engis are unkillable in PvP'

Quizz

I don't think this thread can truly be complete without mentioning the rare drop tools that people assume we have, e.g.

"Improve these tango dirks."

"Sorry, I don't have the tool."

/spit on the ground
turns 180 degrees and runs off

Not to mention the pure rudeness of every engineer not saving up X millions of creds to purchase both PPPE tools for others convenience

______________Halouk

Patrick187: I just stuck your section into there with your name on it

I thought it was quite good so its in there

Highorbit: Yes I promise to keep this updated

Quizz: Yeah definatly - I forgot about the rare drops. I'll write a section on that later

____________Alphaquz

Bravo! I loved this.

Would be great to see it expand into more things also, like PvP (Engineers have more defensive nanos then you can shake a stick at, so dont bother attacking them directly. Its a not-so-well-known engi secret that if you kill the engineers bot, you insta-kill the engineer!) and some sort of play on our contrabution to team missions/hunting..

______________Halouk

Added "Overview of an eng" (near the top - it seemed the right place) and "Lewt". I will do a thing on Engy PvP soon Alpha

____________Alphaquz

Now that I have your keyboard Halouk, I can... wait, this isn't of any use to me. You can have it back, if you give me one of those signed screwdrivers.