Buildings

• 

  Sentry Gun

• 

  Dispenser

• 

  Combat Mini-Sentry Gun

• 

  Teleporter

“

...designed by me, built by me, and you'd best hope....not pointed at you. — The Engineer

”

Buildings are machines that can be constructed by the Engineer using his Build Tool. The five available buildings are are:

• Sentry Gun
• Combat Mini-Sentry Gun
• Dispenser
• Teleporter Entrance
• Teleporter Exit

Buildings

Engineers require Metal to create, upgrade and repair buildings.

Like players, buildings have health, and are destroyed when their health is reduced to zero (see Destruction below). Critical hits do not cause extra damage to buildings. Weapons also do not suffer from damage drop off on buildings; regardless of distance, every hit does the same amount of damage (excluding splash). Damaged buildings will emit smoke and sparks. The Spy can disable and slowly damage buildings over time using his Electro Sapper. The Demolish Tool cannot be used to destroy buildings that are in the process of being sapped.

Buildings are erected automatically after being deployed, but can be built twice as fast by hitting it repeatedly with the Engineer's Wrench during construction. Having more than one Engineer hitting a building under construction stacks the effect. A building can be deliberately destroyed by using the Destroy Menu. This is useful for recollecting metal, as a building will explode into broken metal pieces upon destruction.

All buildings are able to be walked through by an Engineer's teammates, however, they will appear solid towards the Engineer himself, allowing him to stand on top of his own buildings. Buildings also perform in this way towards enemies including Spies. In water, buildings function normally; however, a Sentry Gun that is fully immersed in water cannot shoot targets that are on dry land, and vice versa.

Specifications

Building Type		Build Time (First spawn)	Build Time (First spawn + Melee attack)	Build Time (Moved)	Build Time (Moved + Melee attack)	Cost in Metal		Health Points			Scrap Metal when destroyed
Sentry Gun	Regular	10	5	5	2.5	130	200 to upgrade	150	180	216	60
	Combat Mini	5	2.5	1.5	1	100		100			28
Dispenser		20	10	10	5	100	200 to upgrade	150	180	216	50
Teleporter		20	10	10	5	125	200 to upgrade	150	180	216	60

Note: All build time is in seconds. Levels 2 and 3 Sentry Gun build times are longer because upgrade animations cannot be skipped or hastened.

HUD

The building HUD is located in top-left corner of the screen.

Main article: Head-up display

The Building HUD provides at-a-glance information on the Engineer's buildings and the Spy's Electro Sapper. The status of different aspects of the building are indicated by an icon.

Icon	Description
	A number indicating the number of kills a sentry has followed by the number of assists in brackets (Sentry Guns only).
	An indicator bar representing the percentage left of ammunition or metal reserves.
	An indicator bar representing the percentage of the building upgrade progress (Levels 1 and 2 only).
	An indicator bar representing the percentage left of rocket reserves (Level 3 Sentry only).
	A number indicating the number of teleports a Teleporter entrance has provided. Transforms to a recharge progress bar after a teleport.

Hauling

An Engineer carrying a building.

As of the July 8, 2010 Patch, buildings can be packed up and moved by their owners by pressing the right mouse button while looking at and standing next to them. The operation is istantaneous, and the Engineer will appear carrying the building's toolbox on his shoulder to all players, while from his first-person perspective he will still carry the toolbox as a normal building construction. Damaged buildings can be packed up, but not those under the Electro Sapper's effect.

It's possible to haul one building at a time, and doing so will sensibly reduce the Engineer speed to 75% (225v), slightly slower than a Heavy, regardless of type and/or level of the building. Additionally, the Engineer won't be able to switch to any weapon or item until the building is redeployed. It's still possible to use his own Teleporters (unless he is hauling the entrance or exit to his own Teleporters) and those of friendly Engineers.

While hauling a building if the Engineer is killed the building is destroyed along with him. A special kill icon representing a toolbox will be shown along the Engineer's one.

Redeploying a building won't differ from a normal construction, except that the building will construct itself at twice the normal rate, and the Engineer can still speed up the process. Higher level buildings will have to cycle through all their upgrade animations before becoming operative, and cannot be packed up again until ready. Damaged buildings retain their health at the moment they were packed, and also cannot be repaired until operative again.

All the three phases -packing, hauling and redeploying- are accompanied by specific responses.

This mechanics allows for redeployment without having to completely reconstruct the hardware, thus saving metal and time, and also preserving any score tallies a building may have.

Destruction

A building can be by destroyed by his owner using the Demolish Tool or by an enemy using any weapon, including the Electro Sapper. A destruction is worth one point to the destructee and is recorded on the player's scoreboard. A destruction cannot be assisted, unless the building has been sapped previously by a Spy; the Spy will then be awarded the assist point.

Destruction points cannot be awarded to Engineers who destroy their own buildings. Furthermore, destructions will not count for buildings that are still proceeding through the setup phase. However the destruction still occurs in game, and any associated effects, such as Frontier Justice's Revenge Crits, are triggered.

When a building is destroyed, the Engineer responds with one of three responses, alerting his nearby teammates.

Trivia

• Taunting in front of your building and immediately picking it up gave you the ability to walk around with what appeared to be an invisible toolbox over your shoulders, which gave you an effect not unlike the "Spycrab", as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt9qcoE-Ylo
  • You could also attack with whatever Melee slot weapon you had equipped while under the effect of this glitch.
    • This allowed the engineer to build multiple sentries, using the console command "build 2 0".
      • This was later fixed in the 18th October 2010 patch.

Gallery

Related images: Building images

• 

  Sentry Gun (Level 1)

• 

  Sentry Gun (Level 2)

• 

  Sentry Gun (Level 3)

• 

  Combat Mini-Sentry Gun

• 

  Dispenser (Level 1)

• 

  Dispenser (Level 2)

• 

  Dispenser (Level 3)

• 

  Teleporter

• 

  Hauling a building