Space docks / engineers

[Pumpkin]

I realized the way I setup my production line was just a way, not the way.

I always use only one space dock and one starship constructor on my home world (the ones given at start) and cram all the MkII engineers on them, and loop on all my available ships to rebuild them as soon as they're destroyed.

But I read on the wiki that engineers are less efficient after 3 per dock. Is that still true? Is it interesting to have many space docks / starship constructors and don't unlock Mk+ engineers? Also the page on the wiki stated that engineers are good on the battlefield. I only used MkIII teleport ability to reach remote worlds and power-build just-captured golems or spire cities, but now I can see a different usage of such ability on the battlefield. Does someone use them this way? Is this efficient?

[RabidDonkey]

I just use 1-2 constructors as well. 2 starship constructors if I hit the queue maximum with just one. The teleport ability of mark III engineers seem too useful not to get so I always reserve some knowledge for it.

You can include some engineers with your attack fleet and they'll automatically repair damaged ships if they're close enough. Not a bad way to dump your spare mark I and IIs. But usually, I designate a control group of mark IIIs or experimentals for combat so I can instantly set up beachheads or offensive heavy beams. I can also pop them in and heal my fleet blob in seconds. The mark III and experimental engineers have a much larger range compared to mark I and IIs meaning you can keep them pretty safe while your fleet is fighting. Even if the engineers get wiped (say on a ion cannon heavy world), it takes seconds to get another control group up and running to the frontlines and I'd much rather lose a couple dozen engineers than my starship fleet.

[Mal]

I believe the diminishing returns of engineers does still work the way it is listed on the wiki, as you said pumpkin.

But with large numbers of engineers, your construction rate and expenditure of metal is so fast that you usually don't notice it too much. However, I have seen that you can be faster with more than one dock and engi's split between them.

[WeaponMaster]

One of the problems of inefficiency with your method is that at a certain speed of construction you hit a limit on how fast you can produce ships. What I mean is you will get all the metal you need for a ship in one frame, and then it spawns the ship in the second frame, or maybe the game does it all in one frame. Either way, your ship building will be capped at that rate no matter the amount of engineers, so its best to have maybe 3 around if you're using a full cap of Mk2 engineers.

[Traveller]

I like building one space dock per unlocked fleet ship.  In theory this would let me pause individual ones without reordering my queue, but mostly I don't do that.  I guess each dock is like a free engineer in terms of production though, and it does mean I hit my cap a lot faster with my cheap disposable ships, the ones that I sacrifice all the time anyway, so that's useful.

Engineers are okay for repairing your ships, but in your own territory it's a lot faster to just have a mini-fortress sitting around.  Unless you want to take a LOT of them with you everywhere, they're pretty slow to repair stuff on the field, and usually something with engine damage is about to die anyway so you don't always want to send engineers after it.  MkIII change the math there I suppose...but if you want battlefield healing, you're probably better served with assault transports, or with a beachhead, and yeah, engineers ARE useful for beachheads.

Load a transport with one mobile constructor and like twenty engineers, and build a minifortress just on the hostile side of a wormhole.  With a bunch of engineers it'll go up real fast, and now you have super fast healing on the planet, and you can start backing it up with a shield, or a huge gob of spider turrets, or anti-sniper/missile turrets.  IMO that's the best use of engineers offensively.  Just keep in mind that they will get chewed up by ion cannons (that doesn't mean don't use them, it just means bring more so you get the job done before they all die).

[Kahuna]

If I really want to build stuff really fast I build a new dock then the construction time is 1. Because it seems like 1 second is the minimum construction time. Can't build faster than that.

[Toranth]

If I really want to build stuff really fast I build a new dock then the construction time is 1. Because it seems like 1 second is the minimum construction time. Can't build faster than that.

I think there used to be a limit where each constructor could only build 1 unit per frame, but Keith fixed that back when I was playing around with Railpods.  I don't think there is any practical upper limit, except how long it takes the game to recognize one build is complete and move on to the next.

You can slap a bunch of engineers on a Doom Shroom cannon, and see this demonstrated.

[kasnavada]

If I really want to build stuff really fast I build a new dock then the construction time is 1. Because it seems like 1 second is the minimum construction time. Can't build faster than that.

I managed to build more than 1 unit / sec but yes, there was an upper limit there. Just did the test, homeworld 8, 150 engi building some kind of neinzul, set to V to somewhere else.

Whether I have 150 engineer or 75 does not change the building speed (the "distance" between 2 neinzul is constant). Actually that in itself is a clue since I queued level 1, 2 and 3 neinzuls. I should have "1 - 2 - 3" distances.
Setting 10 space dock multiplies building speed accordingly, I use that to spam / conquer / clean some worlds on "auto-pilot" while my main non-neinzul fleet takes other targets.