We play with my friend and have a little bet. Winning game with engineer is looks like imposible even on normal dificulty! Started from floor 10 with level 30 and still died at floor 20. I could maybe make it to floor 25 if i played good but nope not to floor 40. So even with this amasing boost (level 30 at floor 10) still failed.

What you do to win with engineer? Make a chest full of ammo and food?

At my best run i had everthing except armor. I was out of heal but got full hp, Plenty ammo and food and 1 medium bot and 1 gelly-sukcy monters was enough to kill me.

Well this is plain broken, I got to Floor 30 and used my resources perfectly , ammo,armor,food vs. everything finished at the same time. I guess only posible way to win as enginer is to fill the blue locker at level 5 or 10 with all ammo,food,weapon and special items and lots of deposited XP. Max inventory as possible and forget about scavengin and crafting. Just go down as fast as you can. Which is a broken way to win with engineer.

If you scavenge after level 20-25 all you are doing is wasting more to get less. It is funny this is just normal not even hard.

Back on vanilla SOTS: The Pit, I made it all the way to the last level with an engineer. Now, with Gold, it feels like the overall difficulty got ramped up, big time. I guess it needed to be to balance with the new locker system.

I agree. So one way would be to uninstall the extras, and play only with vanilla Pit.
I chose to try the locker system: Just started from level 5, Engineer is on level 10, and in inventory:
-6 medpacks
-a laser rifle, target and normal pistol, lots of grenages
-a huge pile of ammo for pistols, rifle, and for shotgun (if I find it)
-lots of rations, and a crazy pile of ingredients
-ez cooker and purifier
-some other bonus items like 6 antivenoms

would have made an ultimate case with the extra-carry belt but this will have to do for now :)

This is how i LOST with engineer.

500.000 xp at floor 20 and that engineer actualy officially failed.

Died to a 1 shot kill from FULL HP at floor 34 with a random teleport trap actived,tranfered to a room and a Von Neumann Probe in that room directly shot at me. That was plain broken i had no chance to do anything there. It was plain bad luck.

Luckly i had a random backup save and continue to play. Win the game afterwards. Still it was hard as hell for engineer.

Tips for who want to win with engineers.
-Do not waste time from starting floor 1. It is imposible for engineer to start from floor 1 and win the game.
-Forget psi and psionic powers. Even if you invest 100 brain and 100 Power your psi powers still suck as hell. Just use them for scout purpose and invest other skills even if they need +2.
-Always fight if there is someting to fight for in that room.
-You need a mecha-controller. Without it you can never clean a mecha room and gain more ammo then you waste. Recharge it when you need. Do not use a energy weapon as long as you dont have to. Use energy cells to replenish mecha-controler.
- Never walk around with less then half of your hp.
-Do not be greedy use things when you need to use but dont over do it.

yeah it's hard as hell with mr. engineer (just died of a silly mistake). I am thinking of building a level 20 engineer to floor 5.
Dammit, tired of losing :)
also a nice discovery to use CTRL+F to force fire.. for those nasty cloaked evil things...

The game crew has established (several times) that whether you use the locker system or not is inconsequential for the difficulty encountered; and that they have not "balanced" anything taking that system into account (you can play the game as if it didn't exist, they are not forcing you to use it). If something happens to you in a head-start game, it can happen as easily while starting from surface level. It isn't. Many of the powers have specific use, learning when and why to get them and use them is part of the experience. Manipulation, TK fist and Psi Shield are especially useful for otherwise non-psi inclined characters. Or close the door and forget about it if it's too costly to obtain, of course. Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a mecha-controller? After a few runs it's quite easy to know which items are more common and which are not, deciding what to use first when having several choices for the same objective is only a matter of common sense. In any case, if you got'em, use'em... it's a permadeath game, no point in saving anything if the situation is desperate.