Engineers in Mann versus machine

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
Although looking at the bigrock decompile you might see most of this information i think its easier to explain how it works using a simple guide.

Engineers have 2 ways of working. They can walk in and teleport in. Both use the same hint indicators for building. However, on misplacing them they might not spawn in.

Although the func_tfbot_hint shows an engineer option you can simply ignore it. It isnt used at all. Instead they use the following 3 entities:

bot_hint_sentrygun
Hints to recommended sentry spots. You are allowed to set more per nest, the engy will build on the spot that he thinks works best.

bot_hint_teleporter_exit
Hints to recommended teleporter exit spots. Although not all engies use it you cant realy be sure which engy will reach it. Just have 1 per nest.

bot_hint_engineer_nest
Indicates where to spawn when teleporting in (when lacking, they never teleport in). Just have 1 per nest as the teleporting is decided by the population file instead.

Each nest of multiple entities must have the same name. This way the engy knows which building locations match and will focus on using those.

Allways make sure that these entities touch the ground or are very close to it. The origin on bigrock is mostly only 8 HU (can vary on displacements hence it cant tell what its limit is).
Never overlap building locations. For example if you want 2 nests having the same teleporter spot, still make sure that both teleporters can be in at the same time without bugging the bots. That 2 teleporters are only 64HU away from each other at least will not give problems.
 

vulduv

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 12, 2016
167
48
so is engineers a mission with special properties? or just a wavespawn?
 

DerpzSpycrab

L1: Registered
Jun 9, 2015
9
4
If you put it in a WaveSpawn, you would want to give it Attributes IgnoreFlag so it doesn't pick up the bomb on accident and camp with it.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
If you put it in a WaveSpawn, you would want to give it Attributes IgnoreFlag so it doesn't pick up the bomb on accident and camp with it.
Engineers will always go into engy mode, sure they could accidentaly pick up the flag. But they are generaly not aimed at doing that, and even valve hasnt taken the effort to avoid this.

The general cases in which you should put them in a wavespawn:
- You want only a few of them (ie in mannhattan they have a few teleporting in which are just a wavespawn - although with attribute 'Support Limited' to prevent them from being permanent support)
- You can delay their spawning
- You can make a squad of them (they have a medic)
- You want them to attack regularly at first. when they are a squad member and not the leader they will not go into engy mode until they get detached from the squad (which simply means that he is the only one left of the squad)

But a notice: when they have a limit, the wave will continue to spawn them until they are all dead. Even if they are a support!. Hence in most cases you place like 1 of them in support and have the remainder as 'support 1' so the wave can end without problems.
If none of the above 4 cases are relevant, always put them as mission.