I'm playing through the game for the first time, and my engineer, "Doug", seems pretty useless. He's pretty decent when it comes to combat and it's pretty fun tossing dynomite at enemies to blow them up, but when actual engineering skills are needed he's pretty worthless. I even tagged the more engineering type traits hoping it'd help him out, but it hasn't.

I've used up all my lockpicks trying to open doors and crates, and at this point I just burst the door down. The one mission that he's detected traps he couldn't disarm most of them. I just ended up tossing a grenade into the house and watched it blow.

Making traps and laying mines seems useless, because most missions are on the offensive. About the only use I can see for them is to lay a bunch around a building, toss a grenade and see if the building tumbles.

Another thing I find silly is that the wire cutters require a ridiculously high engineering skill. This seems like it should be a fairly straight forward item. Apparently proper use of high explosives is much easier to learn than wire cutters.

So, I guess what i'm wondering is if there's really any point in taking an engineer along. It seems to me a second sniper, scout, or soldier would be much more valuable than my engineer.

Oh, and OT, I realize throwing knives work well for stealth. But, is there much point in these once you get a silenced SMG? I have yet to be detected for bursting someone with a silenced SMG, even on the off chance it takes more than one burst. In fact, it seems the better route because by the time I'm within throwing range, a short burst is usually acurate enough to kill 'em.

Engineers only come into their own later in the game, TBH. Lockpicking is quite simply, a bugger.

Mining and boobytrapping are almost useless early on, because the enemy can spot them easily (still good for explosive entry, though). Later on, they become more useful. I quite like trapping doors and places like stairways (conventional ingress/egress routes that are difficult to pass through without getting shot up), then going in through the walls/ceiling/floor.

True enough, you don't have to take an engineer along.

I take both silenced SMG and throwing knives. I use the throwing knives when I'm taking my time (kill enemy, recover knives, kill next enemy, etc) and the silenced SMG when I'm in a rush or I get discovered. I have terrible luck with burst accuracy with SMGs, though.

There's the always annoying skill improvement bug, of course. I recommend using a mod to reduce engineering/medical skill requirements.