Engineer Boat
Builds and repairs from the water: anything standing within reach of the shore, which on a naval map is the ore. Longer arms than an Engineer, no gun.
Stats
- Tier
- Tier 1
- Cost
- 140 metal
- Build time
- 10 s
- Hit points
- 260
- Armor
- Ship
- Speed
- 2.3 tiles/s
- Unit cap
- 1
- Vision
- 7 tiles
- Power
- −1
- Build rate
- 30 HP/s
- Weapons
- Unarmed
Production and tech
Counters
The Engineer Boat is the Engineer that works from the water. It builds and mends the same buildings, but only what stands within reach of its hull — and its arms are longer than an Engineer's, because the hull stops at the shoreline and the site stands on the beach beyond it. One tile of beach between the two is fine; a deposit inland is not.
On a naval map that is the ore. Two thirds of Saltbone Reach's deposits sit on islets no Engineer can drive to; a boat from the yard reaches every one that touches the water. It has no gun, and it counts as a builder for staying in the match: a faction down to a boat can still raise a headquarters on a shore.
How to use
Build it from any Naval Yard and send it round the coast to the deposits with water beside them — an extractor placed from the water is founded from the water, and the boat raises it without ever landing. It also puts down a second yard on a far shore, and mends coastal turrets between raids. Keep it out of the way of enemy gunboats: it is cheap, unarmed, and its work stops the moment it sinks.
The AI uses it the same way. On an island map it buys one once its yard stands and there is ore across the water, and takes the deposits its sea washes — which is what lets a computer opponent expand past its own island.
Anecdotes
Every harbour has one: the boat nobody photographs, that put in the moorings the photographed ones tie up to.