Begineer/Novice

Here is a little info for all the grease monkeys of the world. Most of the links (including images) will open a new window, others will go to a target on the page.

Click on where you want to go.

Weapons

The spanner, Australian for wrench, is the weapon that replaces the axe in original TF, in TFC it replaces the crowbar. It looks like a wrench from the engineers view. You use it to build and repair stuff. If you hit a teammate with this, it will repair their armor. (Good way to test for spies) If you hit your sentry gun or dispenser it will bring up a menu . When a team mate yells for a medic, he probably needs armor and ammo.

-Rail gun

The most common weapon of attack by an engineer. The rail gun shoots a single nail at high speed, which will travel through multiple targets until it hits a wall. It is a great weapon to shoot at crowds from a distance. A fair amount of damage will be inflicted.

-Double Barrel Shotgun

This gun is usually ignored by most players, but by mastering this gun it will help you rack up frags. First try to seek up on an opponent, don't shoot him with a nail from the rail gun, instead shoot him with the shotgun. This will be hurt him, he will then most likely run, shoot him one more time. Now switch to the rail gun to finish him off.

-Grenade

These are the standard grenade which almost all classes carry.  It does damage to anyone standing around, including you! I will tell you how to bind this weapon in the Binding Keys section. A good engineer will throw these into crowed room (with enemies) or will throw them forward when being chased, when it goes off it should kill the person chasing you. This will work good with the EMP Grenade. When being chased prime the grenade and hold it for about 2.4 seconds (3 it blows up) then release. Usually you will hit the opponent 'dead' on.

Another tactic I use with these grenades is the 'bounce technique.' When an enemy is around a corner, try bouncing the grenade  off of the wall and hitting him with it.

-EMP Grenade

The EMP Grenade is a fascinating weapon. This grenade will blow up any ammo, this includes any ammo (except nails) being carried by people. hmmm.....maybe if you dropped everything you would not be hurt? How do you  use this? Look in the Bind Keys section. This is a great weapon to throw in the enemy's supply rooms, also if you are all out of regular grenades these work more or less the same way, use the same strategy. Try to discard all you rockets before use.

Building Materials

With the scrap metal you can either build or repair items. First you have to find metal. Metal comes in the form of 'cells' or extra armor you pick up. With this you can build a Dispenser, Sentry Gun, or repair your teammates armor. You can also build ammo for your teammates using the dropammo (in tf) or discard (in tfc) command. The dropammo will give you a choice of what to drop, TFC you don't have a choice. Also if you are playing with a lot of people are using up all the ammo leave ammo around in the room and build a dispenser there. You can hold up to 200 in metal. This is shown in the cells area or when the spanner is in use.

The Sentry Gun

This is probably the most important weapon for the engineer. Every time your gun kills a person you get a frag, its kind of like getting free kills. Click here to see the sentry's levels, it opens a new window so you can still read this.

You should be advised that the gun will not shoot people of the same team. So this means it will no shoot a spy if he is undercover. Also teammates, including and you, can be caught in the cross-fire and be killed. The gun will only shot at if it can 'see it' by this I mean, the 'eyes' are the front of the gun. Don't put it where an enemy can get behind it. One more for the newbie, don't fix your sentry from the front. If an enemy goes by your will shoot you. To build this you must type BUILD in the console. Another side note, the gun will point straight at you when you build it, so please keep this in mind when building it. You can rotate the gun, but building it right the first time will save you valuable time.

Now you ask: 'Great now where do I build it?' Well first you want to build it in a heavily traveled area, that has a dark corner and is somewhat protected. You want the gun to be out of sight, but where it can still shoot people (remember the 'eyes' have to see it). Just around a corner is a great idea, on higher ground is better yet if you can do it. The enemy will be running through and they will probably overlook the gun if it is in a shadow.

Now that you know where to build the gun, you have to maintain it; to do this, you have to have some spare metal. It is a good idea to build a Dispenser near by. You should try to upgrade it to a Level 3 gun. Your gun will start off as a Level 1 gun where it cannot do to much (holds 25-100 shells and has 150 health). Level 2 it shoots a little faster and holds more ammo (120 shells and 180 health), and the best, a Level 3 which you should try to get to as fast as possible can, holds 144 shells, 20 rocket (fired in 3 seconds intervals), and has 216 health. To see the status on the gun hit it with your spanner or look in your status bar (type sbar_on in console). I will go into more detail in the menu section. Another thing that should be noted is that you cannot move while building the gun (it takes about 5 seconds to build) and it takes about 130 metal to build and upgrade the gun.

The Dispenser

-The Dispenser

The Dispenser will make ammo and give it to anyone who uses it, yes the enemy can use it too. Think of the dispenser like an ATM machine, you want to build it somewhere safe so only your teammates can access it (like in a supply room, or near a respawn area), but you don't want it built where it can be 'robbed.' The Dispenser can be made with metal and is access via the BUILD command in console. I took time to get some statistics on the Dispenser.

When you just enter/respawn you don't have much but you still can build a Dispenser. All you need is at least 100 metal. When you build a Dispenser with full player (by this i mean it has all the ammo he can carry) he will lose 12 shells, 12 nails, 5 rockets, 125 cells, and 12 yellow armor. Don't worry, you then can just use your dispenser to get it all back, so go figure. Also you can get metal from this in the form of cells, so it is a good idea to have it near a Sentry Gun. Side note, it refills itself pretty quick so you don't have to refill it. If you choose to refill it, hit the bottom of the dispenser to see several options. Look in the menu section to see the options up close.

The Dispenser takes about 3 seconds to build and like the Sentry Gun you can't move or defend yourself.

Engineer Menu

-Menus

Every thing that the engineer can make is from either the BUILD, DISCARD, or DROPAMMO commands. I will do my best to explain both. First the Build command. When you type it in it will bring up this menu:

In these next one I will show the menu for Sentry Gun:

Here is the dispenser's two menus, the top image is a picture when you just touch the dispensers.

Making Ammo

-Dropammo (discard in TFC)

This should be in the menu section but I have made this an independent section. To make ammo for you teammates or yourself type DROPAMMO in the console. This will prompt this menu:

Binding Keys

-Binding Keys

This is very important, so listen up. You can preset the bind keys in a .cfg file or you can bind them in the game. I am going to tell you how to bind a key in a game. Binds  for TF are in blue, TFC binds are in red, common binds are in white. I'm going to stick both binds together in one string. Take the either only the blue and white, or the red and white to make your config. The basic syntax it this:

bind x "command"

x is where the key you want and command is the command you want, then hit enter. The " " are needed.

Here is what I like to use

bind x "build"
bind x "build;wait;impulse 1" This will build a Dispenser.
bind x "+detdispener;echo Dispenser Blown" This will detonate your dispenser.
bind x "build;wait;impulse 2" This will build a Sentry Gun.
bind x "+detsentry" This will detonate your Sentry.

This will add ammo to the sentry:
bind x ""tf_weapon_spanner;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;menuselect 1;echo Adding Ammo"
bind x "impulse 1;wait;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;impulse 1;echo Adding Ammo"

This will upgrade the sentry:
bind x "tf_weapon_spanner;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;menuselect 2;echo Upgrading Sentry..."
bind x "impulse 1;wait;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;impulse 2;echo Upgrading Sentry..."

This will repair the sentry:
bind x "tf_weapon_spanner;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;menuselect 3;echo Repairing Sentry..."
bind x "impulse 1;wait;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;impulse 3;echo Repairing Sentry..."

Dismantling the sentry:
bind x "tf_weapon_spanner;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;menuselect 4"
bind x "impulse 1;wait;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;impulse 4"

Rotating the gun:
bind x "tf_weapon_spanner;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;menuselect 6"
bind x "impulse 1;wait;+attack;wait;-attack;wait;impulse 6"

Here are some odds and ends you should bind.

bind x "reload" This will reload your shotgun.
bind x "ID" This will ID the player. It will show his name, his armor, and if he is friend or foe.
bind x "saveme" This will yell for a medic or an engineer.
bind n "inv" This will tell your inventory of grenades and EMP grenades.
bind x "+gren1" This will prime a grenade and throw it for you. If you hold the key down, the longer you hold the grenade. Remember the grenade goes off in 3 seconds.
bind x "+gren2" This will prime a EMP grenades and throw it when you release the button
bind x "discard" This will drop stuff you don't need. This includes rockets, so be careful!
bind x "dropammo" This will bring up the drop ammo menu.

You could get fancy with the dropammo but I don't do it. You could do this:

bind x "dropammo;wait;impulse 1" This will drop/make shells.
bind x "dropammo;wait;impulse 2" This will drop/make nails.
bind x "dropammo;wait;impulse 3" This will drop/make rockets.

I think that is it for the binding keys. Please play around with them, replace the keys and see what you like and don't like. You don't have to use all the binds here, use whatever you like.

Using the Engineer

The engineer is probably the best at defending the base. Even the snipe who is almost equally good can not always find a 'sniper tower.' When you are the engineer the first thing is build a Dispenser, you should build it near a respawn area or in a heavily used supply room. The next thing you should look for, is a place to build a Sentry Gun. Remember to point the barrel away from the wall so it can 'see.'

Try to upgrade your gun fast as possible because you will be building your gun in a heavily traveled area. (remember to try to put it in the shadow or above ground).

Now you have a choice of sticking around in your base taking care of your teammates and you gun, or you can attack. I would recommend to the novice player to stick around base since the only weapons the engineer has is the Rail gun and Double-Barrel shotgun . He also has a grenades and the EMP grenades at his disposal, but  he is not much of an offense person.

Let's say you decide to attack, first off all you should take the out-of-the-way-path. The engineer's health and armor is not to high so he cannot take to much damage. Once in the enemy's base you can build a Sentry Gun in it. (which will be hard to keep alive but will slow down anyone who passes by it) This will surprise the enemy and will usually get you killed fast.

I would recommend jumping from shadow to shadow. (Most players don't use the "Id" command so don't shoot at the enemy right away they may over look you.) Next try to make it to a supply room where you can throw an EMP grenade in, the enemy is the only one that can open the supply room doors, so this requires good timing and remember you can throw the EMP so you don't have to be right next to the door. Side note, use the grenades when being chased and remember to hold for about 2.3 seconds.

Now this is about all the Engineer can do on offense, that will leave him alive. There are some things that you can do for your teammates that will leave you dead, but it will help your teammates:

• Start shooting the enemy in the sniper tower and cause them to chase you (this will let your teammates not to get shot by the snipers.
• Try to bring the key out of the key room and closer to the exits so other teammates will get to it easier.
• Distract the enemy so teammates can go by.
• One person can maintain all the sentries, then the rest of the engineers can attack.

Try to keep the sniper's supplied with shells and armor. Repair a gun. Check teammates armor, your dispenser, YOUR gun, check the other guns. BTW up keeping your gun active is your #1 priority on the Engineers list.

Using the weapons

Use the rail gun when the enemy is far away then switch to the shotgun.

The shotgun should be used when first shooting the enemy up close. Then finish them off with the rail gun for the kill. When enemy makes it down to your flag there is usually only one way in and out so let him run down then throw some grenades in when he tries to get out he will be killed from the blasts.

I think I cover everything, if you see something I missed please e-mail me.

Killing the Engineer

What?!?! You think I am going to you how to kill the greatest class? He has low health and 50 yellow armor two well placed rocket and instant gibs =)