# Influence Crew Market - Engineering

This is the ninth in a series stepping through the crew market for [Influence](https://www.influenceth.io/), hoping to find some small nuggests of alpha to help you to make informed decisions when it comes to secondary purchases. For those not familiar, please reference the [Crew Member Jobs list on the official wiki here](https://wiki.influenceth.io/en/gameplay/crew-members). Check out other installments in this series [here.](https://hackmd.io/@Coldsnap)

Usual caveat: figures and ETH prices in the article were accurate only at the time of writing, but likely to be rapidly outdated as the market moves and new crew are minted.

### Numbers

Ah, Engineering, the right and proper department for real Engineers. With stated bonuses to both refining and manufacturing efficiency, I can see this being a core disipline, very much in-demand for crews focussing on primary/secondary industry. The confusing bit is that, at least to me, the job titles Reactor and Propulsion Engineer seem to imply ship-based activity, but it does not seem that way with the bonuses currently. I guess it would work in the context of a mixed crew. We'll see! (skip to the end of the article for my thoughts there)

Engineering is interesting in that every tier is the same - only Scientists, Engineers and Pilots are available. Never Miners or Merchants.

Tier distribution:

|Tier| Job |Total | Specialists|Citizens|
| ----------- | ----------- | -- | -- | -- |
| T1 | Reactor Engineer|25|3|22
T2 | Propulsion Engineer|60|15|45
T3 | Life Support Engineer|108|30|78
T4 | Structural Engineer|224|23|201

### T1 - Reactor Engineer

|Tier | Class| Job | Total | Specialists|Citizens|Floor
| ----------- | ----------- | -- | -- | -- |--|--|
| T1 |Miner| ||||
T1 |Engineer |Reactor Engineer|19|2|17|2
T1 |Merchant |||||
T1 |Scientist | Reactor Engineer|3||3|na
T1 |Pilot |Reactor Engineer|3|1|2|na

Reactor Engineer is the seventh rarest job title in the game (out of 52) so are fairly difficult to get a hold of at the best of times. Indeed, there are only three on the market right now at a minimum price of 2 ETH. All of them are Engineers - no Scientists or Pilots to be had. I wouldn't say that is a bargain, but the price seems fair.

The Scientists and Pilots are super-scare - only three of each (and no Specialists in the case of the Scientists). I'd be surprised if these came up for sale any time soon.

Reactor Engineers are surely going to be the captains of epic build crews in Influence.

### T2 - Propulsion Engineer

|Tier |Class| Job | Total | Specialists|Citizens| Floor|
| ----------- | ----------- | -- | -- | -- | -- |--|
| T2 | Miner| ||||
T2 |Engineer |Propulsion Engineer|47|11|36|0.33
T2 |Merchant |||||
T2 |Scientist |Propulsion Engineer|7|3|4|0.75|
T2 |Pilot |Propulsion Engineer|6|1|5|na|

Looking at these prices, I think Propulsion Engineers are quite good value given how rare the T1 role is. Yes, Engineer / Propulsion Engineers are more numerous, but the T2 prices are not that much higher than Life Support Engineers at T3 right now.

Pilots still the standout here, but everyone wants Pilots and there aren't as many of them so no surprises again.

### T3 - Life Support Engineer

|Tier | Class| Job | Total | Specialists|Citizens|Floor|
| ----------- | ----------- | -- | -- | -- |--|--|
| T3 | Miner| ||||
T3 |Engineer | Life Support Engineer|79|25|54|0.19
T3 |Merchant | ||||
T3 |Scientist |Life Support Engineer|9|2|7|0.49
T3 | Pilot |Life Support Engineer|20|3|17|0.45

Across both T3 and T4 there are good numbers of these crew available, so shouldn't be too difficult to come by.

There are an unusually large proportion of Specialists here at T3.

### T4 - Structural Engineer

|Tier |Class| Job | Total | Specialists|Citizens|Floor|
| ----------- | ----------- | -- | -- | -- |--|--|
| T4 | Miner|||||
T4 |Engineer|Structural Engineer|171|18|153|0.09
T4 |Merchant|||||
T4 |Scientist |Structural Engineer|21|1|20|0.15
T4 |Pilot |Structural Engineer|32|4|28|0.35

See T3!

### Summary

As stated, the bonuses around refining and manufacturing stand to be pretty useful, so it is clearly going to be beneficial to have these in your crew if you are refining/manufacturing. Sounds also like the type of bonus that would be handy to stack as its going to make making things cheaper/faster.

Based on what we know, I could see players opting to create a team specific to just building things... so deploying dedicated teams of Miners on your rocks, with a separate team initiating builds travelling between them. This way you can stack your Miners and not waste slots on Engineers. Or, several mining teams on a single rock, with one build team. Dunno if this will actually turn out to be viable, but let's theorycraft anyway:

- 1x Pilot
- 3x Engineers / Engineering
- 1x Scientist / Education (skill up faster - I am assuming this is what Education will do)

On a refining team which is primarily stationary you could drop the Pilot and take a Logistics Engineer, but there aren't many of those about.

On the choice of Pilot... Navigation, Medicine and Management Pilots all sound in play for this slot, but the best choice might actually be Pilot / Engineering. You gain access to the Pilot skill tree, but also gain the Engineering bonuses to refining and manufacting. A good example of a non-standard class/job combo having strategy-specific synergy.

One thing to consider for manufacturing is that inputs from other class skill trees may be required in order to build certain things. Eg can't build specific buildings/ships if you don't have the tech/blueprints. You'll need to consider whether you can source these from your own teams or purchase from others.