(I meant to put this in the suggestions->balance subforum, if a moderator can move it that would be sweet, thanks.)
Any values or percentages I use are less than approximate they are a “guesstimation” on my part.
My hypothetical idea:
All Empire Engineers heal nearby ships for 75 hull / 50 shield per sec. within 2500m
All Federation Engineers heal nearby ships for 55 hull / 70 shields per sec. within 2500m
Passive, no requirement from ship or player, all engineer frigates heal on a small scale by default.
Nanodrone cloud and mass shield generator are replaced with a module*** that boosts this passive heal by 150%/170%/190%. 80 energy per second.
All Empire Command ships give nearby ships 12 hull / 8 shield res 3000m
All Jericho Command ships give nearby ships 8 hull / 12 shield res 3000m
Passive, no requirement from ship or player, all command ships buff a small amount by default.
“Aegis” System and Coating Polarizer are replaced with a module that boosts this passive buff by 80/100/120%. 42 energy per second.
These modules could be cooldown based, toggle/energy based or both. I prefer toggled based.
Base values could be lower and “boosts” raised, to increase effectiveness of disabling modules.
I came up with this idea for Engineer, not Command, I put Command in there because it happens to “fit”.
Why?
The short version:
I think engineer’s need more variety to their load out, so with one less ‘required’ passive mod and additional “support structures” as modules, this I believe would certainly help to improve things.
All engineers are expected to repair, they could all have minor repair capabilities with the ability to use one module, instead of two, to boost them to the current (or a little more) standard of repairs instead of the way they currently behave. It also makes Fed/Empire engineers unique from one another, Fed is better with shields, Empire is better with hull repairs.
The way I picture the “cookie cutter” frigate active module loadout is: 1)SupportStructureMod, 2)RemoteMod, 3)RegenBoosterMod***, 4)FREEDOM.
Not as short but more info:
A couple of reasons.
Inspiration for this idea came from engineer’s unwritten duty of always carrying a nanodrone and mass shield and on top of that, in most cases, a warpgate. This leaves you with 1 slot to play with in T3 and 0 in T2.
Engineer’s are the primary source of hull/shield regen, regardless of the pilots preference, as a result if you do not bring nanodrones/mass shields it’s likely you’re not benefiting your team as much as you should be. That’s cool, there’s nothing wrong with that, engineer is the “healer class” and should heal!
The thing is, from what I gather, engineer is also supposed to be considered a support role, not just “a healer” and lay down support structures that fulfil supportive roles.
Using the above ideas we can give engineers a weak passive hull/shield regen aura that can be boosted using one module to achieve the same level of regen at present, rather than two.
I do think that there should be more of these support structures and I believe more are due to arrive with patches, however these two pseudo-mandatory modules do limit us to how we can spec out.
Here are the setups I expect to see engineers using in the current version.
Warpgate, nanodrone, mass shield, energy regen
Warpgate, nanodrone, mass shield, remote hull
Warpgate, nanodrone, mass shield, remote shields
(Or maybe they’ll drop gate and regret it after a few games.)
Ideas for support structures
Since I’m not the kinda guy to suggest “add more support structures” without offering an example, here goes:
The Turret
Fairly straight forward, shoots projectiles at baddies. Could be placed in open space with a blind spot, could be mounted against surfaces, could be both, one having an advantage over the other. A fair amount of hull, say 12000 with no res. Much easier to shoot at than a drone, size on par with turrets found in PVE.
Prioritizes enemies targeting the Engineer. Should only be capable of small proximity engagements unless it is shooting at a priority target, to prevent stacking turrets getting too out of control.
Remote Repair Station
For the Engineer on the go, leave behind a Remote Repair Station that is capable of rudimentary repairs. It repairs nearby ships by 100hull/shield per second but is only capable of healing ships to 40/45/55/60% of their maximum hull/shields. Can be destroyed, has 10000hull.
Does not stack with nanodrone/mass shields.
The Carwash (my fave)
The engineer deploys two extending poles that create a field in-between the two which friendly players can fly through to remove debuffs. 1 debuff per pass(?).
Could do something adverse to enemies who try and use/accidentally fly into the opposing teams carwash, like damage them, cause them to collide or pass the debuffs on to them.
I made an illustration for this one…
Spydrones are just an example.
Let’s face it, something like this is long overdue considering the current state of spydrones!
Of course it goes without saying, constructive criticism/discussion/ideas yada yada are welcome. 
Peace, until I see you in the battlefield!
