This.
All weapons need a militia version.
Also, starter fits need to be more race oriented. Caldari and Amarr starter fits should have militia Scrambler rifles and pistols. Gallente and Minmatar starter fits should have Assault rifles and SMGs. As more racial variants come out, the more race-specific the starter fits could be. I would suggest Plasma cannons to Gallente/Minmatar anti-armor starter fits, but not until they're viable.

CCP is having a really having a hard time getting the weapons right from jump. Internal testing says it's fine. Then the masses gethold of it then CCP nerfs the bleep out of it WTF.

All the weapons need to be tweaked and viable so we can see more weapon diversity. I don't think CCP knows how to balance weapons TBH.

We are screwed everyone uses the safe bet approach.

I love CCP for Eve but dust is a lol game. What was the purpose of the beta?

Which brings up the question: how is the Plasma cannon so terrible? Maybe the "pre-nerf" theory was correct. It's no joke when we say people were crying "OP" before it was even released.

Right now, this is AR 514- that wouldn't be so bad if we would see more than 1 kind of AR.

I know ARs are meant to be generalist weapons, but they shouldn't be as optimal as they are now- players should be encouraged to branch out into different weapons and variants, instead of staying with the easy-mode, do-it-all vanilla AR.

Personally, I believe specialists should have much more of an advantage over generalists than they do now. There's no good reason to use a breach over a vanilla AR, and no good reason to use an assault over a normal MD.
Right now, vanilla ARs are great in all situations- breach ARs aren't pounding them in CQC, burst ARs aren't dominating mid-range, and tactical ARs still only barely surpass them at mid-long range.

Things that should be done:

1. Make side variants more accessible- all of them should be available at level one. Ofc, I mean all tier 1 weapons of that type at level one. (You would be surprised how many people need this spelled out for them)
2. Improve specializations with a slight nerf to vanilla variants, and a slight buff to side variants. For example, a slight damage reduction on vanilla ARs and slight direct damage reduction on mass drivers; with this, a damage increase on burst ARs and RoF increase on breach mass drivers.
3. Lower the price on side variants to equal that of vanilla weapons. Simple enough, as long as specialist flaylocks get a change in their downside- the only difference between them and vanilla flaylocks is price.

I'm tired of seeing nothing but GEKs and Duvolles on the killfeed.