9 TO DIEEngineering
What is the Engineering role?
Engineering is one of 9 departments, with 125 health and Technical Debt as its starting skill. Its executive action is Ship It, on a 90-second cooldown. It has eight skills of its own, of which 1 can evolve. Its career tracks are Backend, Frontend, On-Call.
It worked in staging.
Ship It: Shipped!! Six build bots deploy around you for 12 seconds. One of them is the weak brick.
Which skills does it have?
These are the eight skills only Engineering can draw. They turn up on level-up cards more than twice as often as shared ones. Numbers are at rank 5 with no bonuses, and a skill with a partner listed can evolve once you own that passive at rank 5.
| Skill | Shape | Rank 5 dmg/s | Evolves with | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical Debt | Mine | 89.4 | The Knowledge Base → Rewrite From Scratch | Plant a charge that compounds 15% a second until something steps on it. |
| Hotfix | Nova | 159.3 | None | A small, fast blast around you. Untested. |
| Rollback | Zone | 16.2 | None | Everything in the zone walks back to where it was five seconds ago, taking damage on the way. |
| CI Bot | Turret | 32.4 | None | A build bot that plinks the nearest thing on every build. It builds constantly. |
| Merge Conflict | Chain | 89.6 | None | Two things that wanted the same space are pulled into it. Both lose. |
| Stack Trace | Line | 52.6 | None | A long line of frames. The bug is in the last one, so it hits hardest at the end. |
| Force Push | Cone | 49.9 | None | Shoves everything in front of you back a desk's length. |
| Works On My Machine | Aura | 72.5 | None | Nothing near your desk works properly. The damage is an environment issue. |
What are its career tracks?
Engineering has three tracks: Backend, Frontend, On-Call. Each holds ten talents, including three milestones that open at 10, 20 and 30 points in that track. You will earn up to 51 points in this department, so you can finish one track and get into a second.
Backend
| Row | Talent | Max | Opens at | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Throughput | 5 | 0 | Damage +4% per point. Requests per second, but for pain. |
| 1 | Long-Running Job | 5 | 0 | Duration +6% per point. Started Tuesday. |
| 2 | Rate Limiting (milestone) | 1 | 10 | Zones slow everything in them. 429, try later. |
| 2 | Horizontal Scaling | 5 | 5 | Area +4% per point. Add another one. |
| 3 | Caching | 5 | 10 | Cooldown -3% per point. Faster the second time. |
| 3 | Direct to Database | 3 | 10 | Pierce +1 per point. Nobody will know. |
| 4 | Message Queue (milestone) | 1 | 20 | Hits chain to a neighbour. Eventually consistent. |
| 4 | Batch Job | 4 | 15 | Damage +4% per point. Runs at 2 a.m. Hits all at once. |
| 5 | Redundancy | 5 | 20 | Max health +6% per point. Two of everything, including you. |
| 6 | Hot Path (milestone) | 1 | 30 | Trails burn. Optimised. |
Frontend
| Row | Talent | Max | Opens at | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fast Paint | 5 | 0 | Skill speed +4% per point. First meaningful damage. |
| 1 | Pixel Perfect | 5 | 0 | Crit chance +2% per point. Off by one. Nobody else sees it. |
| 2 | Component Library (milestone) | 1 | 10 | Every skill fires one more. Reusable. |
| 2 | Responsive | 5 | 5 | Area +4% per point. Fills whatever space it is given. |
| 3 | Hot Reload | 5 | 10 | Move speed +3% per point. No restart required. |
| 3 | Works in Dark Mode | 3 | 10 | Luck +6% per point. Somehow. |
| 4 | Infinite Scroll (milestone) | 1 | 20 | Orbiting things double. It never ends. |
| 4 | Lazy Loading | 4 | 15 | Skill speed +4% per point. Arrives when looked at. |
| 5 | Debounce | 5 | 20 | Cooldown -3% per point. Once, not forty times. |
| 6 | Full Width (milestone) | 1 | 30 | Beams are wider. The design said edge to edge. |
On-Call
| Row | Talent | Max | Opens at | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Runbook | 5 | 0 | Armour +1% per point. Step 1: do not panic. Step 2: panic. |
| 1 | Sleep Debt | 5 | 0 | Health per second +0.4 per point. Repaid in instalments. |
| 2 | Sev-1 Reflex (milestone) | 1 | 10 | Kills refund cooldown. The phone is already in your hand. |
| 2 | Caffeine Tolerance | 5 | 5 | Max health +6% per point. Built over years. |
| 3 | Rolled Back | 1 | 10 | Extra lives +1 per point. Once per run, it never happened. |
| 3 | Root Cause | 5 | 10 | Crit damage +10% per point. It was DNS. |
| 4 | Blast Radius (milestone) | 1 | 20 | Kills burst. Contained, mostly. |
| 4 | Automated Remediation | 4 | 15 | Cooldown -3% per point. The script woke up instead of you. |
| 5 | Postmortem | 5 | 20 | Damage +4% per point. Blameless. Pointed. |
| 6 | 3 a.m. Clarity (milestone) | 1 | 30 | Below 30% health, everything you do is brilliant and nobody is awake to see it. |
What gear does it have?
Engineering has 54 gear pieces: one for each of 9 slots at each of 6 rarities. Everything above Standard Issue belongs to a set, so wearing pieces of the same rarity builds a set bonus. Its five sets are On-Call Rotation, Shadow IT, Remote Warrior, Legacy Maintainer, Return-to-Office Loyalist.
| Slot | Standard Issue | Approved | Expensed | Executive | Grandfathered | Legacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laptop | Imaging Laptop (Still Imaging) Damage +3% | The Loaner Damage +4.8% | The One With the Good Keyboard Damage +7.2%, Cooldown -2.9% | The Thin One Damage +10.2%, Cooldown -4.1% | Running the Old Build Damage +13.8%, Cooldown -5.5%, Crit chance +2.8% | The Machine It Only Runs On Damage +18%, Cooldown -7.2%, Crit chance +3.6% |
| Headset | Wired Headset (One Ear) Cooldown -2% | The Approved Headset Cooldown -3.2% | Noise-Cancelling (Expensed) Cooldown -4.8%, Area +4.3% | Executive Earpiece Cooldown -6.8%, Area +6.1% | The Headset From 2014 Cooldown -9.2%, Area +8.3%, Duration +7.4% | The Switchboard Cooldown -12%, Area +10.8%, Duration +9.6% |
| Lanyard | Temporary Badge Holder Luck +4% | Approved Lanyard Luck +6.4% | Conference Lanyard (Expensed) Luck +9.6%, Pickup range +8.6% | Executive Floor Access Luck +13.6%, Pickup range +12.2% | Lanyard With the Old Logo Luck +18.4%, Pickup range +16.6%, XP gained +5.5% | The Pen Pocket Luck +24%, Pickup range +21.6%, XP gained +7.2% |
| Mug | Foam Cup Health per second +0.25 | The Approved Mug Health per second +0.4 | Branded Mug (Expensed) Health per second +0.6, Max health +5.8% | Executive Espresso Cup Health per second +0.85, Max health +8.2% | The Mug Nobody Washes Health per second +1.15, Max health +11%, Duration +7.4% | The Mug That Was Here Before You Health per second +1.5, Max health +14.4%, Duration +9.6% |
| Chair | Folding Chair Max health +4% | The Approved Chair Max health +6.4% | Gaming Chair (Expensed as Ergonomic) Max health +9.6%, Armour +1.4% | Executive Leather Max health +13.6%, Armour +2% | The Grandfathered Chair Max health +18.4%, Armour +2.8%, Health per second +0.46 | The Chair of the Person Who Left Max health +24%, Armour +3.6%, Health per second +0.6 |
| Bag | Tote From the Conference Pickup range +6% | Approved Laptop Bag Pickup range +9.6% | The Expensed Backpack Pickup range +14.4%, PTO gained +5.8% | Executive Briefcase Pickup range +20.4%, PTO gained +8.2% | Briefcase With the Old Logo Pickup range +27.6%, PTO gained +11%, Luck +7.4% | The Cardboard Box Pickup range +36%, PTO gained +14.4%, Luck +9.6% |
| Shoes | Interview Shoes Move speed +2% | Approved Flats Move speed +3.2% | Expensed Trainers Move speed +4.8%, Skill speed +4.3% | Executive Loafers Move speed +6.8%, Skill speed +6.1% | The Shoes Under the Desk Move speed +9.2%, Skill speed +8.3%, Cooldown -3.7% | Slippers (Remote, Grandfathered) Move speed +12%, Skill speed +10.8%, Cooldown -4.8% |
| Monitor | The One Monitor Area +3% | Second Monitor (Approved) Area +4.8% | The Ultrawide (Expensed) Area +7.2%, Crit chance +2.2% | Executive 4K Area +10.2%, Crit chance +3.1% | The CRT in the Corner Area +13.8%, Crit chance +4.1%, Damage +5.5% | The Monitor That Shows the Deck Area +18%, Crit chance +5.4%, Damage +7.2% |
| Suit | Business Casual Armour +1% | The Approved Blazer Armour +1.6% | The Expensed Suit Armour +2.4%, Crit damage +8.6% | Executive Tailoring Armour +3.4%, Crit damage +12.2% | The Suit From the Old Company Armour +4.6%, Crit damage +16.6%, Max health +7.4% | The Lanyard Is the Suit Armour +6%, Crit damage +21.6%, Max health +9.6% |