Interracial Relations

[Shrugging Khan]

So I've been deepstriking a bit, and my fleet was in need of repairs. No problem, thought me, and prepared to unlock the MSD.

But then I remembered: The MSD has a very, very slow repair rate. So I unlocked mkIII engineers instead, only to notice that they uncloak (either on teleportation or while repairing, not sure).

Can anyone give me some general insight into the ideal use of these two unit types?

PS: Zenith Medic Frigates with Cloaker Starships are not an equivalent alternative

[onyhow]

Eh, the only Engineer I found to actually be useful and survivable on front line is the experimental one, since it doesn't suffer 4x damage on enemy planets...

Also you don't need Cloakers with Medic Frigate...that thing is tough enough to endure slugfest...

[chemical_art]

Engineer III decloak when they repair, but not with teleporting. Meaning if you clear out the tachyon guardians, you can deepstrike with them.

In general, I think that if you want to not only repair but also replace fleetships in deep-strikes, go with the MSD. If you want to repair but aid in building in your own empire, get engineer III's.

[Tridus]

Personally I only use mk III engineers if I run out of mk II's for some reason (aka: Fallen Spire game). mk III's are quite good, just not something I need that often.

The MSD seems like a better choice in this case even though the repair rate is slower, because it can also replace ships.

[Gudamor]

A full cap of MKIII engies can teleport in (from the edge of the system) and heal your ships en route from one Guard post to the next, and will often finish repairing and teleport back before any enemy projectiles even reach them.

[The Hunter]

MSDs are good for replacing fleet and youngling spam, but purely for repairs they don't worth it, unless you need to repair cloaked fleet or something. MK3 engis are great, especially with champions.
You don't need to worry about uncloaking much, if anything happens engies are pretty easy to rebuild and you can teleport them over the planet circle, where they are safe unless AI has mk3+ ion or something.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well, right now I'm playing with Golems - Hard, and I find that I do EVERYTHING with those monstrosities. This will be my last game with them, because as much fun as they are, I think they get a little too much of my attention. Still, right now I do have them, and I need a way to repair them in the field, possibly up to 10 hops away from my closest world.

Furthermore, the AI has Sentinel Frigates, making it hard to move cloaked units in from several planets over.

What would you gentlemen suggest in this particular situation?

[Tridus]

A mk V Spirecraft Jumpship loaded with engineers would do the trick, since it can just teleport across systems instantly.

The MSD is too slow for Golems, so you'll have to use engineers. mk III are the best engineers for that, but you may have a difficult time getting them where you need to go unless there's a path cleared of tachyon guardians. As for the Sentinel Frigates, Scout Starships provided counter sniper coverage and should protect engineers that stay close enough. Course in that case you'll need to group move them, so you could just use mk II engineers and a cloaker starship as an alternative to mk III.

(Yes, Sentinel Frigates apparently count as snipers. I learned that when I dropped a counter sniper turret one game and suddenly a huge wave of them was totally ineffective.)

[Shrugging Khan]

Spirecraft are poo. I never play with those suckers

Well.  I guess I'll just be a lazy bum, unlock nothing, drive my half-dozen Golems straight into AI territory till they're halfway re-broken, and retreat for repairs. Because if I actually have to micro the repairers no matter what, then that'd just distract me to the point of getting my Gollos killed after all x)

[The Hunter]

so you could just use mk II engineers and a cloaker starship as an alternative to mk III.

Or mk2 + champion(s) with maxed forcefield, don"t even need to worry about tachion.

Spirecraft are poo. I never play with those suckers

But but but, spirecraft are cool.

[Shrugging Khan]

But but but, spirecraft are cool.

Gimmicky, exploity, visually uninteresting ships that clutter my entire interface with the damned asteroids they require. Nah thanks, half the game is spire stuff already...

[chemical_art]

Nah thanks, half the game is spire stuff already...

Ha. Its no small part I wanted zevastors to counter spire lore wise.

(kudos to keith for continuing the tradition of z-name being bizarrly fun.)

[Tridus]

It's not the Spire's fault that they're awesome and the stars of the best expansion. <_<

[LaughingThesaurus]

The thing is the Spire are the least dead of all of the factions really. You can't cover too much lore of dead people, unless they're secretly alive and doing really well.

[LordSloth]

The least efficient, but easiest and laziest way to do this:

Regenerator golem with fleet.
ctrl-click build five mk3 engineers.
Before they're even finished building, give them a move order to wherever your golem warfleet is, hostile space or no. Odds are they'll make it. Either assign those engineers to control group zero, or just suicide em and send in another batch later.

...you think 'engineer' would be a job with more life expectancy than 'Martyr', but the latter does tend to survive longer.

If I don't have a regenerator golem constantly expending it's own health, then MSD is the simplest way to go with golem support. The lower repair rate is actually an advantage- you'll have time to realize you are tanking your economy, rather than just look up and realize you're at 0/0.