Engineer "Repair" Abilities Useless in KSP 1.2.x?

[Srpadget]

Do the engineer special abilities to repair damaged landing legs and wheels actually mean anything any more?  I particularly mean in light of the revamp of wheels/legs in KSP 1.1 (which made them basically explosive) and the follow-on tweaking in 1.2 (which seems to have made them nigh-indestructible).  I haven't "damaged" a landing leg or wheel since 1.0.x, myself.  Are those parts no longer "damage-able" (and hence "repairable") the way they used to be, or have I just been particularly careful and/or lucky with these parts?

Traditionally, I've always made sure there was an engineer available on every space station in my orbital infrastructure and on every crewed rover, specifically to be available in the event of damaged legs and/or wheels.  I am beginning to think that their only use nowadays is to repack parachutes and speed up mining operations, and that I should probably have fewer of them in my crew roster.

[bewing]

I managed to damage a wheel without destroying it in my last playthrough. But I sent the engineer to repair it after the fact. I'd say one on-call level 3 engineer per SOI should be good enough.

And the devs understand that the pendulum between explosive and indestructible is silly and are trying to adjust the values to find a middle ground. So you may have to readjust your strategy next time around anyway.

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by bewing

[fourfa]

Yeah wheels are not indestructible at all, but the limits are much higher than they were.  I haven't flatted the toroidal rover wheel, but have with the ruggedized and minis in 1.2.2.  If you want to break them, just add more mass to your rover