About a month ago Hollon and I did some testing of how much XP engineers are getting just by deploying a link sent and defense sentinels, while not shooting, linking, or taking any other actions. We found that engineers could earn more than 4000 XP a match under those circumstances, just by having a person man the turret.

What it's created is a situation where the link sent is not only the most effective sentinel for keeping a base running, but it's also the best choice for XP. It's also a bad deal for people shooting in turrets. We found that the base builder would get MORE XP than the shooter while sitting AFK the whole match, not even directly linking a turret. The XP for the engineer is even higher if he's linking.

I've made a few configuration changes to the RPG file to make it somewhat less effective, but to really fix the XP issue, it will require a new RPG build. For the time being I'm increasing the point value of the link sent (allowing 1 link + 1 def sent) and decreasing its health and healing rate to make it riskier to use.

Additionally I've increased the damage on offensive sentinels a bit, and to test their effectiveness, allowing two energy walls. And to strengthen the other Engineer subclass, I increased the amount of blocks Mechs can summon to 7, as well as allow the two other turrets and add tanks as a vehicle option. FYI, the Mech class does full weapon damage. Compare that to the Base Builder's 50% or standard Engineer's 75%.

I also recently gave the General class access to resupply and adrenaline on their defense sentinels. Keep in mind that if you play the General class as an engineer, it's far less effective than a standard engineer. The general on the other hand gets full weapon damage and shield blast, making it quite effective to "run and gun" and use its base as a fallback for later waves.