Gameplay: Separate Mechanic from Engineer

[Kail]

I had made a similar post in the beta forums ages ago, but I figured I'd drop it here after now that those forums are gone for posterity.

I would really love to see the mechanic separated from the Engineer class - or in otherwords opening up the ability to repair to every class. The primary reason is that any vehicle driver is compelled to be an Engineer, regardless of whether they actually want to play that class or not. And I know I would definitely consider giving up something on another class to slot a repair tool somehow.

Make the Engineer be about deployables and explosives. Let anyone who wants to wield some duct tape and hammer do so.

If the ability for any class to repair anything, even by giving up something else is too hard to balance, I also thought it might be interesting to specialize repairing. Much like how the HA can either choose dumbfire, AA, or AV rockets a person could be able to choose a Vehicle or Structure tool (for being able to repair ground / air vehicles, or structures such as generators and turrets).

With the current system I'm not sure its feasible to accomplish such a thing, but I'd still like to see it. A larger goal that I think would improve gameplay is to make classes a bit more modular so that they are primarily about picking the class ability you want (for example, want an HA with a medical applicator? Sure thing... at the cost of your rocket launcher). To be clear I'm not advocating the inventory system from PS1; I'd just like to see a bit more choice in loadouts than currently available

[SGOniell]

I'm not too keen on the idea. Engineers have always been about doing both the building and the demolition. Pretty sure there's precedent for that in most game too...Also, in actual militaries around the world combat engineers do the same. They're the guys who set up bridges, bunkers, roads and such like that. At the same time when deployed as infantry in combat they focus on destroying pretty much anything necessary.

[monkjunk]

I think this would break the game. It nullifies the point of having classes. Besides, what is the point in having an engineer if it can't repair vehicles? It's a game balancing thing.