Engineer

[Animalman]

So I have been I have never built an engineer bomb lol. But I always play the engineer in hope I will find the ingredients to build a bomb. Anyway I been experimenting a lot with engineer builds, and one trait I found to be particularly useful for the engineer is Handy. Considering it had the +1 maintenance and +1 carpentry it helps compensate for the difficulty of using the engineers bonus, since it for me is quite rare to actually find all the stuff for a bomb when you pick engineer you are not getting any value until you make those bombs and so until you make those bombs you need to have a backup and what I’m saying is that the perfect back up route for an engineer build is the handyman and skill stacking.

You can squeeze all of the sight, cats eyes eagle and the keen hearing, with athletic and underweight and then take handy, pay it off use hemaphobia slam it into a nice athletic build and then even without his bombs he still plays nicely.

If you find the stuff to make the bombs the bombs are a bonus

[PowerofWill]

every game i play i find one box of sparkles. i have enough hairspray.
never build the bomb tho. gonna give it a try today

[Animalman]

You’ll need a piece of aluminium I think. I find sparklers aswell but 4 cans of hairspray lol

[DivineEvil]

Sparklers are the bottleneck, since hairsprays are common bathroom find and aluminium can be salvaged from TVs and perhaps some other electronics.

Pipe bombs are another alternative which is easier to craft as long as you don't mind sacrificing some of the firearm ammunition for Gunpowder.

Both traps are devastating against the hordes which you'd otherwise have to spend half-a-day of risk clearing up. Engineer profession is the only one with those unique recipes, which is the only reason I sometimes prefer it over Mechanic.

[Animalman]

Sparklers appear to be able to show up anywhere from the kitchen cupboard to the bathroom sink, and even in garages. I think ive even had them in a vehicle before

[Animalman]

When you compare value for value what you get for the engineer, vs what you get for the burglar, you get value from the burglar thats going to save your life on multiple occasions on your playthrough. Engineer on the other hand does not start with anything that you can get immediate value from due to the variety of items he needs to find in addition to standard items he needs to survive.

Other professions can get away with, for example electrician has immediate value in the form he can literally spawn with a car and then put a generator on his passenger seat. The builder of course has his short blunt skill. but the Engineer makes more work for himself in the form of looting, and is pay off with his unique bombs.

Engineer has the hardest starter curve, and is most disadvantaged of all profressions. You may never reach carpentry level 6 with the builder, but you will land one hit kills with a short blunt much sooner than the engineer.

[DivineEvil]

Well its just not about the immediate value. All professions/traits/skill mods can be seen on the pros/cons they give you short-term or long-term. If you're trying for a long-time survival, then you're better off with things, that benefit you way into the late-game.

For example, its very easy to start with a massive bonus to a weapon or crafting skill, but the moment you've maxed it out, your benefit is now nullified.

I no longer have much issue with a Engineer's starting curve on Apocalypse, so its not much of a problem. Inconspicuous trait is the only thing I really need to be able to secure a safehouse in any of the starting cities with no initial weapons skills, and once I'm settled somewhere, I can choose to level up literally any weapon class I want.

Same goes for skills - Engineer gives you initial Carpentry and Electricity, which is more than enough to fortify and improve upon the safehouse, and once you have it, Skill Books allow you to steadily improve any skill with no need for additional multipliers. Just a single point of Carpentry is enough to have it maxed out before the end of the first month. Picking any other profession simply makes it too easy for me at the beginning.

Anyone can spawn with a car. Anyone can put a generator on the passenger's seat.

[Animalman]

The burglar would be providing value all up u til the point you skill up into hotwiring. Then his value ends but the advantage is so powerful that every car in the game has a chance to be viable from the instance you start the game. Unique engineer bomb will last the whole game for as long as the items required to make them exist. I would say first aid is the best trait you can start with considering it’s the only skill that requires you to have an injury to skill up. Injury you don’t want or can’t risk.

The speed and loot time in which an electrician can cut down on moving and operating a generator means if you just quickly want to dump a generator off at a gas station on day 1 and then drink bleach and start a character to ride that generator it can be done pretty quickly. Same with burglar. Once he hot wires all the cars anyone can drive them