Engineer Fabricator
Laura Jardinero
Build Overview and Focus
When I first made my Engineer, I built her in the direction the most available and prevalent Engineering kit modules lead you: turrets, mines, mortars, and drones. That loadout is still useful and powerful, especially on static defense scenarios like Colony Invasion. However, with the advent of more universal kit modules (in particular Anchor of Gre'thor), I've built an alternate loadout for her that still has a decent number of summons but leans heavier into offensive kit modules. However, if you like your Engineer the more traditional route with lots of stuff you beam in (mines, mortars, turrets), this is the build for you.
I fully acknowledge that this (nor any of my ground builds, really) are not the optimal choices. They're still hitting around top 100 in BHE, but I'll provide some recommendations about what's more optimal. If you're chasing absolute peak DPS, this site probably isn't the best for ground. My builds are very Elite-capable of handling any map, but they're not ruthlessly optimized. I'd prefer more variety and flavor over peak DPS.
Character Info and Thematic Choices
This character is my Temporal Recruit. I'm sure many others have such a character. Temporal Recruits are fairly limited in species selections, so I made another Human. Head-canon is that she's a great-aunt of my main and is now a Temporal agent. She's also my Exotic-build character in space so having a more offensive ground loadout fit her theme overall.
Thematic Choices
Romulan Plasma Minigun because it looked / sounded cool. There are better weapons. Paired with Romulan Imperial Navy set.
Shotgun as secondary weapon. Wrecks Borg, nod to the Engineer in Team Fortress 2.
I don't like re-using Kit Modules across characters. There are lots of good kit modules, so if I pigeon-hole myself into the 10 best, I don't get to learn about some of the others. The only thing in common with her Hybrid loadout is Anchor of Gre'thor
Mortars aren't great in a world where Crystal Prisms and Ba'ul Obelisks do more damage faster, but I've kept it for now as part of the traditional Engineer bunker build
Meta Analysis
BHE: 1.97K. As of posting, this was within the top 100 of BHE records in SCM.
Budget Analysis
This build is fairly cheap. If the cost seems expensive, don't worry. Lower-budget alternatives are provided below
1 Lockbox kit module
4 Lockbox ground traits
1 Mudd's Store device
3 non-standard doffs
Change History
July 2023: Posted build
Build Breakdown
Heavy focus on kit / fabrication damage. Some survivability concepts included, a little bit of theme
Skills
Skill Unlocks
Notes
The meta skill layout would be to skip Shield Capacity, Endurance, and Armor in favor of Improved Weapon Damage, Weapon Criticals, and Weapon Penetration. I just think ground on higher difficulties requires a bit more survivability than that and haven't felt the need to change it.
Build
Personal Equipment
Notes
A Romulan Plasma Wide Beam or Split Beam Rifle is probably the better Romulan Plasma weapon. Doesn't look as cool IMO.
Replacing the Romulan Imperial Navy Kit with a Risian Kit would be the meta (and better) choice. Will probably do that at some point since the Romulan Imperial Navy 3-piece is not worth much.
Budget Notes:
Replace the Elachi Combat Walker with literally anything. It doesn't do much.
Paradox Corrector can easily be replaced.
Everything else is fairly cheap.
Kit Modules
Notes:
Anchor of Gre'thor is the single most powerful Engineering kit ability
Pahvo Crystal Prisms are just straight-up better than the Mortar. Kept it for now.
I'm not sure if adding more mines would be helpful or not. I try to keep this build a little more flexible and it's hard to use mines on some maps.
The meta kit modules are probably picking from this pool:
Universal: Ball Lightning, Ba'ul Obelisk Network, Gravity Containment Unit, Mudd's Time Device, Chain Conduit Capacitor, Kuumarke Drones, V'ger Probes,
Tac: Trajectory Bending, Graviton Spike, Motivation, Chroniton Micro-Torpedo Spread, Battle Strategies
Eng: Anchor of Gre'thor, Explosive Drone, Chroniton Mines
Sci: Cold Fusion Flash, Exothermic Induction Field, Andorian Summer
If you want to do that on every character, be my guest.
Set Bonuses
Traits
Personal Traits
Meta-Focused Tweaks:
Probably dropping Soldier for Terran Vision, maybe fitting in Space Explorer is a Great Gig on an Alien
Budget Tweaks:
Assault Drone Fabrication is the easy one to drop for Rifle/Assault Training depending on what weapon you're using
Drop Serenity for Peak Health IMO
Honestly ground traits aren't super expensive on the exchange. Prioritize Upgraded Gear and Orbital Devastation
Reputation Traits
Active Reputation
Duty Officers
Meta-Focused Tweaks:
You'd probably also want to devote all 6 ground doff slots to ground, but that's not how I roll, and I struggle to see what other doffs would make a significant impact there.
Budget Tweaks:
If low budget, skip the Assault Squad Officers that boosts CrtH/CrtD for Diagnostic Engineers that have a chance for flank attacks to deploy an Exocomp. There's not much else that has a real impact. The Biochemist could be replaced with the EMH Nurse.
Miscellaneous
Ground Stats
Parse Breakdown
Numbers from record Bug Hunt Elite (BHE).
Chroniton Mine Barrier: 558
Anchor of Gre'thor: 558
Minigun: 326
Ambush Turret: 193
Orbital Strike: 105
Neutronic Mortar: 83
Danube Runabout: 56
Piezo-Electric Perimeter Snare: 30
Support Drone: 13
Elachi Walker: 12
Imminent Decay: 12
Temporal Rebuke: 1