AR's do more damage to shields. SMG'S do more damage to Armor.

I believe balancing shield and armor does not lie in the widening of 'anti armor' and 'anti shield' as most of the already existing weaponry is anti armor or hybrid.
What we need to do is change speed penalty on dropsuit plates to stamina penalty, and give us plasma explosives. But as for the weaponry, since ar is a rifle spewing cans of plasma, and not just simple bullets or bolts of light, then it needs to be placed properly under galente weaponry and have poor range. And then i might allow a dps buff. But as it is right now, ar is cream of the crop, ultimate range, ultimate diversity (cqc rifle with sniping abilities or a rapid fire sniper) and ultimate versatlity ( out damagesshotgun, out ranges scrambler rifle, and out damages hmg)

As we all know by now, every weapon falls under a specific weapon class, Rail Guns, Plasma, Laser, Ballistic, and Explosive, each one gets bonus/reduced damage to shields and armor, so using an AR, (which is a plasma weapon) against a Caldari Assault should be unwise, but it isn't. As the game stands right now, the damage reductions from weapons aren't really noticeable, snipers still do tremendous damage to shield heavies, ARs can drop them just as easily, and SMGs can drop a Caldari as quickly as an AR, (which is odd).

Now I think part of the problem is that there is a lack of punishment for using the wrong weapon on the wrong enemy, I can drop a anything short of a heavy with my Adv assault SMG,in one clip (unless they are really quick with there feet). So, my suggestion is to raise the WDP penalty on all weapons , including vehicle weapons, by at least 10%, I believe this will make the diference between guns more obvious, and will make players want to diversify there arsenal with something other than the AR, since it would seem to be the best weapon so far.

This will also help with the whole "Shields>Armor" issue, the new armor mods didn't really help with that, which is a shame.

What do you guys think?

You suggesting explosions need to do more damage to armour because if you say you can't notice the difference.... I'm really beginning to question your sanity.....

Staying off topic for a quick bit: damage mods in my opinion shouldn't have either a) as high a boosting factor(3,5,10)or b) have a more harsh stacking penalty: when i first started, i thought stacking penalties were applied by .50's
So a 5% damage mod stacked 2x would give 7.5% damage, and a 3rd would give around 8.25%, wrong. Its actually either .75 or .87, but regardless this lets 2 basic mods become more than an enhanced, and 2 enhanced become like 9.2. I believe this is where the problem lies. If we were to increase stacking penalty to 50%, then double enhanced damage mods would not just be a psuedo complex. And 2 complex becomes 18.7, which is absurd. 3 complexes goes up to ~25% which no mod but resistances should go to. /rant over/
Back to topic, changing thr game mechanic of a perfectly fine weapon, aka making md a slowmo sniper until a certain range, is going to ruin the md. The reason people use it is because it is something OTHER than a modified Ar. People want variety, not just 35 variants of ar. Laser rifle? Brilliance: i still use it. Mass driver and flaylock? Unbalanced maybe, but brilliant. Flaylock needs to have it's old direct damage back, and instead of nerfing thr splash range/damage, shouldve just been damage. Mass driver needs to get resistances applied to splash, along with a tradeoff of splash damage/radius. I'm shooting grenades, not acid filled water balloons. Furthermore, widening the gap between shield/armor damages will just lead more people to ar and other hybrid weapons. Why use a mass driver when an ar has consistent damage across shield/armor? Why use laser rifles *AT ALL* if they do 10% damage to armor, although it's now a sprayable flux? All a caldari would have todo to live through anything is just sacrifice a shiel extender or damage mod for a plate, and now they're immune to anti shield weaponry, requiring a team to take thrm down. Which btw is what a HEAVY should br, super ressed so it takes a dedicated shield and a dedicated armor guy, along with a decoy or 2. Not just a superooberduper slowermoober callogi- minus the logi.