Engineer (Tiberian Dawn)

The Engineer is a support soldier used by both GDI and Nod in.

Background
Combat engineers were soldiers trained for the express purpose of carrying all sorts of construction and repair duties on the modern battlefield, as well as taking control of enemy buildings and turning them over to a friendly side.

Game unit
Although slow, expensive and unarmed, engineers are powerful, even essential units. A single engineer can instantly take control of any enemy building that is not a defensive emplacement.

Engineers are removed from the game afterwards. As such, they represent an investment that must be used with a good deal of planning in order to not be wasted.

It should also be noted that in addition to capturing enemy buildings, some units can be captured:


 * In campaign missions, engineers can be used to capture parked Chinooks, providing air transportation for infantry. In most instances it is necessary to do this to proceed with the mission (the Covert Ops mission Deceit being an example).
 * If a captured Tiberium refinery has a Harvester docked with it, the Harvester will be captured as well.
 * Orca and Apache aircraft parked on a Helipad can be captured if the Helipad is captured. This is an objective in the Nod mission Orca Heist.

General tactics
A transport full of engineers is theoretically capable of capturing a base on its own, but the soldiers are unlikely to survive without some form of backup due to their low speed, health, and lack of weapons. Ideally, friendly units clear a path to the target building(s) for the engineers, so that they can safely turn over control to the player.

The most powerful combination is, of course, an armored personnel carrier with five engineers - or failing that, a Chinook transport helicopter. The former can crush infantry and withstand enemy fire for a time, before safely depositing engineers at the target building. Combined with a meat shield or two (such as a tank or even a buggy/Humvee), they can be used to knock-out a construction yard early on.

Trivia

 * In Command & Conquer: Remastered, the engineer in the cameo bears a striking resemblance to the late RTS commentator John "TotalBiscuit" Bain, who was a fan of the Command & Conquer franchise.