Are you tired of being a stationary machine-procuring southern man? Would you rather be a moving machine-procuring southern man? Do you feel the urge to slap the opposite team with a robotic hand? Then this guide is for you!

This guide covers the most offensive of the offensive engineer playstyles. Instead of remaining in one area and protecting your buildings, we're adopting an almost scout-like playstyle, roaming to our heart's content.

As with most gimmicky classes, you'll hate playing against him, but love playing as him. Dust off your cowboy hat, it's engineering time.

The Frontier Justice. Once your sentry dies, this shotgun gives you one guaranteed crit for every sentry assist, and two for every kill your sentry gets. This is insanely powerful and will be how you'll make most sentry-independent kills.

This gun shoots ten pellets, which do between 3 and 9 damage based on range. A crit, assuming all pellets hit their target, does 180 damage. This means you can kill a heavy with two shots if you play your cards right.

The biggest downside to using this is losing half of your clip size. You'll only be able to load three slugs versus the standard shotgun's six, so you'd better make them count. However, as a plan B, there's always your secondary.

The stock pistol. Considering the damage of your primary is negligible at long-range, having a reliable secondary weapon is extremely important. The ammo pool of your pistol is so massive, you'll effectively never run out of ammunition. In addition, as your primary is only able to hold three rounds at a time, you can easily switch to your pistol to finish off low-health classes or to get that bit of extra damage in when someone's running away from you.

Depending on how far away you are, your pistol does anywhere between 22 and 8 damage. This means that it's a good idea to use your pistol if you're pestering someone at medium-long range and you don't have any crits loaded in your Frontier Justice.

The Gunslinger. There is no real alternative for combat engineers. This melee weapon allows you to build mini-sentries that build faster and cost less metal, but more on that later.

This baby gives you a health bonus of +25, increasing your health to a total of 150. That puts you on equal footing with a medic and above the 125 that the scout, sniper and spy have.

In addition, when you start punching, the third hit in a row always crits. That means that, after two hits (dealing 65 damage each) and a crit (195 damage), you'll put out 325 damage if you land your shots. That, again, is enough to take out a heavy.

What if you always had a scout helping you out, shooting at whatever came close with his pistol? That's basically what this thing does, without the maneuverability a scout has.

This tiny friend costs 100 metal to build, and can only be built using the gunslinger. It fires about four 16-damage shots per second. That's 64 damage per second, which means that it can finish off a lone light class with relative ease.

But that's not how you best use it. What if you had another gun firing at the same enemy? How about yourself?

You put the mini-sentry down as an area-denial tool. This means that, provided your enemy is within range of this metal midget, you'll be able to take them down with ease - boosting the overall damage output with your own shotgun or pistol.

Don't bother repairing it, just throw another one down. It's cheaper than a standard sentry (costing 100 metal) and it builds faster, allowing you to neglect your metal child. Every enemy drops a medium ammo box on death, which is all you need for rebuilding.

Put it somewhere. Anywhere. This too only costs you 100 metal, and any dispenser is better than no dispenser - even if it's a level one.

Using mini-sentries, you will not have a strong sentry defending your dispenser. Don't run back to it to repair it. Don't bother upgrading it. Just put down a new one if it breaks.

Make sure it's in a place that's out of sight but accessible for your team.

Put the exit in a place where you don't expect the enemy team to find it. You personally benefit from roaming and flanking as a combat engineer, and your teleporter is invaluable to your team. However, you don't want to be spending your time rebuilding your teleporter over and over.

Upgrade it if you have the time and are confident the exit won't be found anytime soon. If not, run along, and leave the upgrading to one of your fellow engineers.

Don't sit next to your mini-sentry.
Give your enemies more targets to aim at. This makes you more difficult to kill. Most players go for the sentry first. If you see that your sentry goes down, you'll have time to move away and put down a new one!

Use your crits.
They're not saved on death. If you have crits stored up in your Frontier Justice, use them when you get the chance. Don't save them for that "perfect play" you've got in your head, because chances are you'll be dead by then.

Think about where you put your sentry...
Avoid sniper sightlines. Your sentry is vulnerable at long-range. Don't put it down in the same spot over and over, because the enemy team will catch on.

... but not too long.
You don't need your sentry to be in a perfect location, because it'll be destroyed soon enough. All it needs is some cover from long-range attacks.

Did their heavy see you? Run.
He's your biggest counter and a class you don't want to go toe-to-toe with. His health pool is bigger and his DPS outnumbers yours at any range, even if you're fully stocked on crits. If you want to beat him, you'll have to get the drop on him. Try to get the first Frontier Justice crit in unseen or punch him to death. If he's preoccupied with your team, that'll make it easier.

There are two custom binds that improve your speed, as they'll enable you to build and destroy your sentry without having to switch to your construction PDA.

You can bind the following commands to specific keys by using the "bind" command in the developers console.

This destroys your sentry and immediately puts a new one in your hands, to place down wherever you'd like. If you have no sentry currently built, it'll just grab a new one and skip the 'destroy' part.

If you bind this command to a key, you can press that key to instantly destroy your sentry without switching from your weapon to your construction PDA. This means that you can press a key to gain crits if you have your Frontier Justice out (provided your sentry has at least an assist).

Conclusion
Don't babysit your buildings. Use your crits. If you'd like to play engineer differently, give this a shot. You'll be surprised at how much fun it is.

Comments and contributors
If you feel there's something in particular that I need to include, please do leave a comment below. If it's insightful (not "haha, wrench is stinky"), I'll likely incorporate it in the guide and add you as a contributor.

Changelog
03/05/2020
Uploaded the first version of this guide.
Updated localisation files.