does engineer use resources ?

[goobie]

hi, I'm new here.

I was wondering if the engineer drones use any resources when they try to fix damages to ships or buildings?

[Lancefighter]

yes - it will take approximately 1/4 the total cost to repair a unit from 1 hp to full, at a rate depending on the engineer's repair speed (higher is less time)

[Winter Born]

When your engineers are repairing or assisting go to the "STATS"/"Resource Flow" tab.
Engineers working will show up in the table.

[Ktoff]

yes - it will take approximately 1/4 the total cost to repair a unit from 1 hp to full, at a rate depending on the engineer's repair speed (higher is less time)

Actually (unless the repair mechanics have changed) the drain on the resources is independent of the engineers speed (i.e., a constant X resource/s). This means that repairing ships with higher level engineers is cheaper (because it is faster).

[goobie]

I see, but, does it mean that if i have multiple engineers to fix one unit it would become super cheap then??

[x4000]

Ktoff is right. Using many many engineers to repair something would make it a lot cheaper, actually, come to think of it.

[Mánagarmr]

Err, that makes...no sense really. But then again, if you'd use lots of engineers it would probably tank your economy otherwise. Hmm, is this really the intended behaviour?

[x4000]

Actually, thinking about this more, I was wrong. Having 1 engineer or 100 would be the same repair cost. Dab one would shave off 10% or whatever of the cost they incur but in aggregate that's the same. Don't know what I was thinking. Higher-level engineers lead to greater savings, though. So using 1 mark iii engineer versus on mark I engineer will save you quite a bit. But, using 1 or 100 mark iii engineers gives the same result.

[vk0]

What about production boosting?

Does it cost more to produce something with engineers boosting vs. without?
(I know it costs more per second to produce with engineers boosting, but what about the final cost?)

[Collic]

What about production boosting?

Does it cost more to produce something with engineers boosting vs. without?
(I know it costs more per second to produce with engineers boosting, but what about the final cost?)

I believe the cost is the same, the flow, as in the resources used per second by the queue just jumps up and so reduces build time. Its not always a great idea to boost production if you don't have the resources to cover the cost though, since it will stop and start as it runs out of materials.

Perhaps someone can comment whether its better to boost production past your income, or just to let it produce at normal speed if you can't cover the cost. My feeling is you're better off having several space docks producing without boosting than to pile loads of engineers on just one for example.

[x4000]

Regarding construction, the cost is always exactly the same (unlike repairs), no matter what you do with or without engineers.  Collic is right.

In terms of whether or not it is ideal to have more engineers on one dock, or multiple docks, that's been debated in the past but the math has changed a lot now that both docks and engineers costs so much less energy (energy was the big question mark in the past, usually, which led to more engineers on one dock being the ideal in the past).

When you have a bunch of engineers on one dock, there's a big limiting factor there: ships can't be produced faster than about 1-2 per second, max.  So if a ship already takes 3 seconds normally, and then you put two engineers on that, your incremental benefit from putting on more engineers is extremely marginal after a certain point.  With more time-consuming ships, like starships for example, of course it's way longer before the marginal benefit falls; it would take an insane number of engineers to make those produce at more than 1 per second, and I don't think any economy could handle it.   But with fleet ships it's common, so having multiple docks is probably ideal in those situations for production speed -- though others may disagree based on energy efficiency.

[Mánagarmr]

Alright, that made more sense. Thank you

[x4000]

You bet!