Disclaimer:
- This isn’t really a guide. Its more like very subjective and highly detailed description of My engineer.
- Don’t think this is going to be easy, cheap, and fast to do. Any attempt to repeat this at home may cause serious damage both to your computer and yourself.
- For all those that said this is impossible
Multi-purpose Engineer – what this is all about
There are a lot of urban myths regarding engineer profession. The Prime Myth , father of all other myths, says that we just don’t have enough IP points to perform good enough in our 3 primary areas of interest : tradeskilling, top PVM damage and PVP. Because of this, most engineers tend to specialize, often simply rolling other characters if they want to do something new. But, since my engineer is only toon I really play, I simply refuse to make other toon for this, another toon for that… I wanted everything on my beloved engie
So… Multi-Purpose Engineer project includes:
- Top PVM damage with double pistols (OFAB Peregrine Mk6+ ql 199 Kyr’ozch Pistol)
Goals: capped specials, weapons as easy to swap as possible, enough inits to get pistols 1/1 on 75% agg-def bar , and to instacast Sotos on 100% agg-def bar. Enough pm/si skill to do 4h comps.
- Ability to make all combines and tradeskills that bring reliable profit – including ql300 Alien Armor from Mutated, Arul Sabas, ql 300 Alien Weapons, etc.
Goals: Everything except ql 300 Alien Armor can be made without using city HQ. Ability to swap NCUs (meaning >1500 CL without reperks)
- PVP setup with maxed aimed shot and all evasive skills.
Goals: maxed run speed , first aid skill >1001, maxed pvp weapon skill if possible
- All 3 setups need to be swappable on demand – meaning no perk resets, and also no outside buffs if possible.
Spock's voice To boldly go where no man has gone before:
(at least on forums )
Please Note:
-All numbers are for 220 Solitus Engineer.
- 95% of this stuff isn’t only “on paper” – I am using ingame almost the same setups as those here - but they are tweaked for my personal preferences of course. What I wanted to achieve here are "reference" setups.
- I wanted to include as many LE stuff as i could, but since i started working on this quite a while ago, there is 100% chance i missed something.
- I tried to be reasonable with amount of perk resets, grind and points farming needed. Because of this I am using only 3 LE research lines maxed , AI 25 and ql 250 symbiants. ( but it’s not like you are going to get there soon anyway)
1. IP distribution
Please Note:
- Numbers I’ll post in this section, won’t be 100% accurate. Reason for this is that while i have a Nanomage engineer, Solitus is so much better for this kind of setup that I decided to base this guide on Solitus. All calculations are made with AO Skill Emulator v. 2.16. From what I checked, any differences shouldn’t be higher then ~5%. Luckily every breed has more then enough IP for this project to work so this shouldn’t be much of an issue.
- trickledown is counted with q300 HQ and CompAttribiutes
- nanoskills are calculated with q300 Mining Operations
- Abilities
- all maxed
- Body
- Body Development maxed
- Melee
-- Misc Weapons
-- Ranged
-max pistol
-max burst
-max aimed shot
-pvp weapon of your choice (just get enough points to self equip it). Myself I choosed Superior Sapphistic Bow
Bow (maximum needed 834)
199(base)+45(trickledown)+180(equip)+20(buffs)+22( towers) = 465. 369 Points from IP needed.
Fling Shot (maximum needed 1320 - recharge cap on Ofab Peregrine Mk 6 )
199+51+296+20+22=589. 731 points from IP needed.
Multi Ranged (maximum needed 993 - req on Kyr’ozch Pistol Type 1 )
199+53+387+20+22=684. 285 points from IP needed.
- Speed
-max run speed
-max nano resist
-max duck explosives
-max evade clsc
-max dodge ranged
Range Init (maximum needed: 250 - to get pistols 1/1 with agg-def bar on 75%)
199+51+(-203 from equip)+114(buffs)=161. 89 points from IP needed.
Nano Init (maximum needed: 1290 - to instacast Shield of the Obedient Servant with agg-def bar on 100%.
199+50+887=1136. 154 points from IP needed.
- Trade & Repair
I used Maximum Tradeskills Needed - revised and 1.5 a year of personal experience as a reference what is needed and profitable.
Tutoring devices are used only for WS and EE , to avoid delaying some combines(Alien Weapons mostly) because of time lock on Tutoring skill. I assumed alien armor will be done in org city, so i am throwing in HQ bonus. I also used 2 tutoring devices (for psychology and chemistry part), i figured since you already need to travel to city HQ, 2 minutes wont make a lot of difference.
Mechanical Engineering (maximum needed 1800):
199(base )+55(trickledown)+983 (equip)+ 145(buffs) =1307. 418 points from IP needed.
Electrical Engineering (maximum needed 1800)
199 (Base) +52(trickledown)+951 (equip)+145(buffs)+50(Tutoring Device)=1322. 403 points from IP needed.
Quantum FT (maximum needed 1375)
199+58+906+145=1233. 67 points from IP needed.
Weapon Smithing (maximum needed 1800)
198+39+1005+145+50 (Tutoring Device)=1362. 363 points from IP needed.
Comp Literacy (maximum needed 1500)
199+62+520+20+59(Grid House)=860. 640 points from IP needed.
Pharma Tech (maximum needed 1800)
199+60+ 841+207+160(city HQ)= 1392. 333 points from IP needed.
Nano Programming (maximum needed 1800)
199+62+1044+20+160 (city HQ)= 1410. 315 points from IP needed.
Psychology (maximum needed 1800)
199+56+688+20+160+50 (Tutoring Device)=1173. 627 points from IP needed.
Chemistry (maximum needed 2100)
199+50+851+82+160+50(Tutoring Device)= 1317. 708 points from IP needed.
Tutoring (maximum needed 1000)
199+59+343+20=621. 379 points from IP needed.
- Nano&Aiding
-max matter creation
-max time & space
-max matter metamorphosies
-max treatment
Bio Metamorphosis (maximum needed: 761 to use A Maker's Touch
199+55+380+20+40 (org city)=694. 67 points from IP needed.
Psychological Modifications (maximum needed : 985 to use 4 hours Composites)
199+53+410+20+40=722. 286 points from IP needed (23 more than you get from 985-722, because you dont yet have 20 from buff and 3 from trickledown)
Sensory Improvement (maximum needed 984 to use 4 hours Composites)
199+48+383+20+40=690. 317 points from IP needed. (again 23 more for the reasons stated above)
First Aid (maximum needed 1001)
199+52+253 (equip)=504. 497 points from IP needed.
- Spying
Break&Entry (maximum needed 951)
199+52+352+52=655. 291 points from IP needed.- Navigation
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After all this, you still should have~1m of free IP points. And its actually quite a lot. For example it should(should - because it gets really tight here) be enough to get 1.4k Break&Entry , pump tradeskills high enough to get rid of those NCUs from your tradeskills setup, and still have ~100k for some little corrections here and there. If you are more into pvp, you can f.e. max another weapon skill (preferably grenade). There are plenty of choices.
1.1. Help - i need more IP!
It would be of course best if IP points were infinite. Yet they dont , and there are so many interesting skills you need , and i never included them for some reason. So here are some suggestions where to get those missing points.
Duck Explosives
We dont really need this so hard , is it pvp or pvm. Even some classes having evades as only defensive skill, dont max duck, and for good reasons. To be honest i dont have it myself , and only included it in this setup, to prove its actually possible to have ALL evades. It should be pretty much safe not raising this skill at all. You can save ~1m IP points here.
Sensory Improvement and Psychological Modifications
"Equip" numbers to reach maximum needed (and i assumed its 984SI/985 PM) were taken from pvm setup you can see below. However if you use arithmetic armor (and you will have to use it anyway to cast your bots), why not cast 4h composites while you are wearing it. You will end up with ~910 base SI/PM skill, only needing very few IP points.
First Aid
After higher shadowlevels, when you get 2 sec nano & heal delta, this skill becomes pretty much meaningless. Unless you are into very serious pvp, you wil do fine not rasing this skill at all.
2. Implant&Symbiants
As mentioned I’m using mostly 250 symbs with an exception of 270 Ear.
Eye symbiant is only ql 240 so it is possible to equip AS eye implant whenever it is needed.
You can watch reference symbiant setup here
2. Perks
-Pistol Mastery 8
-Mechanic 10
-Bio Shielding 10
-The Unknown Factor 8
-Champion of Nano Combat 4
-Champion of Light Artillery 10
-Alien Technology Expertise Level 3
-Practical Application 10
-Mechanical Assistance 10
-Military Hardware 10
Taken together this setup looks like this
As you can see 12 SL perks are still free. This leaves the space to show how (relatively ) fast you can go from full pvp pimped setup ( i.e. Enhanced Health7+ Kung-Fu Master) to uber pvm DD ( i.e. Shotgun Mastery 10+ Power Up 2)
Why this setup:
- Unknown Factor is almost godlike when it comes to IP saving. At level 8 it boosts all our most IP-expensive tradeskills by huge 160 factor. Also Chaotic Assumption is a great and easy to land perk attack.
- CoNC and Mechanic for soloing and more convenience with casting pets.
Don’t think I need to explain other perks
2. PVM Damage setup
My reference DD setup looks like this It includes 6x ql 300 Combined Sharpshooter armor, dchest, ql 300 Ofab Peregrine Mk 6 in main hand and ql 199 Kyr’ozch Pistol Type 1 in off hand.
Both fling and burst are capped.
Off hand pistols is selfable.
To equip main hand pistol you’ll need very easy accessible soldier buffs (Riot Control and Pistol Mastery), I also assumed ql 150 Ransacking tower, which can be replaced with CSS chest.
Reasons I decided on CSS instead of CC:
- its better for balance, and this is supposed to be all-around setup
- easier to swap
- range init (IP saver)
Final numbers of DD setup
Attack Rating : 2284
Pistol: 2109
Burst: 1541 (recharge capped)
Fling 1320 (recharge capped)
Multi Ranged: 969
Duck explosives: 1618
Dodge ranged: 1451
Evade close: 1291
Add All Def: 394
Nano init: 1290
Range init: 250
Projectile damage modifier: 356
With this numbers, all you need to equip main hand pistol is pair of MTI SW500 Geyser and a friendly soldier with pistol mastery and riot control buffs. To equip offhand pistols, you need only +21 ring .
3 . Tradeskill setup
Please Note:
-remember this is intended to be swapped with PVM and PVP setups. For convenience some of tradeskill buffing items (i.e. HUD3 Helper) aren’t included. For the same reason I didn’t include any of the buffing weapons – I figured while equipping q300 Peregrine will be easy, it certainly isn’t any fun to do this again and again after every serious combine.
Reference tradeskill setup looks like this. After 17.3 patch it should also include Ancient Skills Library in utils 3 slot. You should be able to make everything on site, with exception of q300 Alien Armor. For calculations of Computer Literacy and Nano Programming i used Omni-Tek Award - Exemplar instead of All-Match Augmented Bow Tie
I decided to drop Break& Entry skill, as this isnt really a tradeskill. Hacking is a fixer's job. From my experience, 90% of customers come to me with gun already hacked. Also profit-wise it doesnt really matter if you can hack q200 Perenium or not , since in the end they always need to come to you to finish the gun. Nevertheless, i managed to get B&E high enough to hack into most implants.
Final numbers of tradeskill setup
Mechanical Engineering: 1800
Electrical Engineering: 1800
Quantum FT: 1375
Weapon Smithing: 1800
Comp Literacy: 1500
Pharma Tech: 1800
Nano Programming: 1800
Chemistry:2100
Tutoring: 1000
Psychology :1800
Break&Entry: 951