The fact that you're comparing an FPS to a submarine simulator presents some problems because you don't have as many variables to work with in DUST so the design philosophies had to kind of be retuned for the game.

Admittedly, when I came from Eve Online to play Dust months ago, I had preconceived notions of the four races' philosophies. In Eve-O, the Amarr are stalwart armor tankers, generally possessing the most low slots for their armor tanks, The Caldari have the highest amount of midslots (highslots in Dust) for their shield tanked ship fleet, the Gallente are known for their speed and love of armor but generally have less lowslots than the live-or-die-by-armor Amarr. Lastly, the Minmatar are speed demons that don't prefer armor or shield, and their slot layouts are mixed, as some of their ships are armor tanked and some are shield tanked.

Now, skip over to Dust, and those same races' philosophies are apparently scrapped. You have Gallente THE armor tankers in Dust, having suits with the highest low slot count and most base armor amounts, Amarr are some shield/armor hybrids with a balanced slot layout, Minmatar holding the prize for the most high slots and best shield tanking setups and Caldari being able to mount a mixed shield/armor tank on their higher end suits but generally preferring shield with their higher base shield amounts.

So what gives? How did the racial philosophies get so out-of-whack to their same races in the same New Eden universe? Other than Amarr typically being slower, nothing else matches, and I'm very confused why reinvent the wheel when it was already invented and fleshed out.

It should have been:
Armor Shield
Amarr > Gallente > Minmatar > Caldari

But it's not. So, can anyone explain what I'm missing here? Does the Caldari ck.0 suit get a better shield tank with a 4/3 slot layout than a Minmatar mk.0 suit does with 5/2? Does Amarr have a better armor tanking setup with their 3/3 over the similar Gallente gk.0 with 3/4?

It feels like I'm missing something....some piece of the puzzle, so if anyone can shed some light on this for me, please do!

It should have been:
Armor Shield
Amarr > Gallente > Minmatar > Caldari

But it's not. So, can anyone explain what I'm missing here? Does the Caldari ck.0 suit get a better shield tank with a 4/3 slot layout than a Minmatar mk.0 suit does with 5/2? Does Amarr have a better armor tanking setup with their 3/3 over the similar Gallente gk.0 with 3/4?

It feels like I'm missing something....some piece of the puzzle, so if anyone can shed some light on this for me, please do!

If you're a minmatar, you're a slave. That's all anyone needs to know.

Gallente (close range, heavy hitting, slow, high ehp slow regen w/o logistics:

More lowslots than amarr in general, potentially slower with higher armor buffer and hybrid weapon bonus means potential for the highest DPS assaults/heavies with competitive eHP combination compared to other races. Weakness is speed and lack of shield/shield regen. Weapon profile (plasma) is meant for close range engagement (<40m) with the best weapon for point-blank engagements (shotgun). Much more remote logistics-rep oriented with higher armor HP levels. Best at defending objectives with the ability to take cover and recover from explosives bombardment. Having mostly armor HP allows them to utilize anti-shield splash tactics to their advantage.

Caldari (mid-long range oriented, heavy shield buffer, quick)

Rail weapons + high buffer will mean that Caldari can maintain aggressive attacks at some of the longest ranges while taking little threatening damage. Their shield tanks also allow them to utilize some dangerous explosive weapons at closer ranges than others. Quickly covering the distance with their speed, but lower stamina to hack an objective after eliminating the enemy, and then moving back into a defensive position would be their 'rail-oriented' tactic. Their logisics are likely less 'repair' oriented, and instead can focus on tactical utility (uplinks, hives, mines, scanners) on the battlefield, supporting the squad with its mobility and high buffer as well.

See, these are wrong. Gallente is supposed to have a medium buffer, and a high regen, and medium speed. Caldari is supposed to be slow, long range, and high shield buffer. That's why it gets ****** up in terms of balance between Gallente and Caldari.

I'm confused about this, too. Out of curiosity, do you think you could tell us about the weapons that the races use, too?

I'm confused about this, too. Out of curiosity, do you think you could tell us about the weapons that the races use, too?

Ben Hur (:P) has been doing a good job in this thread, but CCP has already sort of revealed the weapon strategy to us with Assault, Breach, Burst and Tactical. Assault is about higher rate of fire, higher damage close range. Breach is going to be a slower round but high damage at long range. Burst is going to be high accuracy, extremely high burst rof, and tactical will be high single damage shots and medium to medium-long ranges.

We can already see these strategies reflected if we take the AR and its 4 variants together. The "regular" Assault Rifle is high damage, good rof at close-to-medium ranges, while the Burst variant fires a quick three-shots to one spot. The Tactical AR is great at delivering a high damage single round at medium to medium-long range and the Breach variant fires slower rof but higher damage individual rounds.

Similarly, the Scrambler Rifle (Tactical theme for Amarr base) fires high damage, relatively accurate rounds at medium to medium long ranges, with of course there being the very-high-damage charged round. The Assault SCR is accurate and fully auto, mimicking the AR but firing at longer ranges. If you haven't had a chance to check this weapon out, you should. It feels very futuristic and awesome.

Ben Hur (:P) has been doing a good job in this thread, but CCP has already sort of revealed the weapon strategy to us with Assault, Breach, Burst and Tactical. Assault is about higher rate of fire, higher damage close range. Breach is going to be a slower round but high damage at long range. Burst is going to be high accuracy, extremely high burst rof, and tactical will be high single damage shots and medium to medium-long ranges.

We can already see these strategies reflected if we take the AR and its 4 variants together. The "regular" Assault Rifle is high damage, good rof at close-to-medium ranges, while the Burst variant fires a quick three-shots to one spot. The Tactical AR is great at delivering a high damage single round at medium to medium-long range and the Breach variant fires slower rof but higher damage individual rounds.

Similarly, the Scrambler Rifle (Tactical theme for Amarr base) fires high damage, relatively accurate rounds at medium to medium long ranges, with of course there being the very-high-damage charged round. The Assault SCR is accurate and fully auto, mimicking the AR but firing at longer ranges. If you haven't had a chance to check this weapon out, you should. It feels very futuristic and awesome.

Duvolle-TAR: 65 optimal, 100 max range.
Imperial-Scr: 50 optimal, 87 max range.

You gave the blaster trying to mimic the superior technology/gun-type a 30% range advantage on optimal and 15% range advantage on max.

People have said that the assault will be the primary gallente weapon, and tactical is effectively the scrambler rifle model, but really I'm not honestly sure if the racial ones fit that mold. I am just roughtly going off of what I know from the weapons devblog, and the little bit I know from Eve weapon systems. Minmatar short range weapons are flexible in how far out they can hit, but they don't hit the hardest at close ranges. Gallente weapons are probably the hardest hitting. Amarr has some of the hardest hitting longer range weapons with some of the better 'damage application'. Caldari weapons also hit hard at medium to long ranges.

The comparison is broken in various places as per their stated intent.

The "Plasma Blaster Rifle" version of the Tactical rifle (the TAR) has longer range than the Scrambler Rifle (the default Tactical version of the Pulse laser), which is a longer range tech. So, they SAY the techs/variants will work a certain way, and then they make the shortest range tech (blaster) have a longer range version of the long-range rifle than the people that came up with the rifle and using a tech with superior range.

I was rather surprised to hear that Gallente were the "up close and personal" type in Eve, since they are the sluggish armour tankers in Dust. (Although perhaps those low slots were intended for sprint mods).

The Amarr certainly still are the max HP ppl, and the idea behind the Minmatar seems to be that they sacrifice overall survivability in favour of a being in the right place at the right time.

You just can't expect things to work exactly like Eve. To have an armor tank that can sustain incoming fire at close range would be rather overpowered. Even shield tanks have to get out after taking heavy fire, but their regen rate lets them get into battle quickly. I think its fair that to get the same kind of regen on its armor as shield tanks get is to either have deployed reps, or rely on logistics, which ends up providing an even better repping speed. After all the gallente logistics is arguably the better logi-hull.

Oh, I don't. I expected some variation. I was moreso explaining racial philosophies in Eve, because there's many factors that go into how armor tanking vs shield tanking works for spaceships, but some posters here may not be aware of them. I was asking questions like "Well if Amarr are tanky and slow, how do we put damage on their target??"

I just didn't expect that racial philosophies with respect to their innate qualities or "flavors" would go away. Honestly, the idea that Amarr are the best balanced shield/armor race made me do a double take. Caldari suddenly being fleet-footed had me scratching my head. Minmatar I think represent the best overall of their reflection of their Eve counterparts with their speed, but the inherent weakness that comes with it is questionable--but certainly understandable given that they'll avoid a lot of damage with speed--also questionable is their 5 shield prototype suits.

I'm sure when the racial variants on weapons/suits are fleshed out, the total picture will begin to make more sense. Reading what you wrote about the racial qualities currently in Dust with relation to stamina, fittings, etc. cleared the picture up somewhat. Don't get me wrong: it's nice to approach Dust and learn "new" racial philosophies....it's just if you tell me Amarr are some shield loving, land lovers, then I'll call you a liar every time. :P