But he was not speaking of a new suit like a T3 ship variant. he is speaking of the current suits we have.

It is, but I would probably go further.

• Have three basic fame types with hard boundaries on the variation of statistics they could have.
• Have the race benefits of whatever race a player chooses modify the starting characteristics.
• Have the levels of the core types (basic, advanced, prototype) give modest benefits to things like CPU / PG / Number of Slots
• Have militia suits give a starter set of good fits so people can hit the ground running and try everything out before they specialize or change their direction.
• Have Arum packages provide examples of possible advanced directions before people commit to them or just to give ideas
• Have skills enable customization, some suit bonuses and specialized modules.

And of course there has to be Arum packs to change suit paint jobs!

It's worth mentioning too that if we get to the point of being able to trade suits and equipment then players could get the skills necessary to fit a specialized suit and then sell it on the market.

Players could build a skill like "able to use specialized suits" and if they had that and the skills necessary to use all the weapons in a fit they could then buy it off the market without having to spend the SP to specialize the suit on their own.

I agree about the tiericide but I think having per-race specializations and components is an unnecessary complexity if the goals are to give players more control over tailoring suits and enabling a market (the addition I was suggesting).

Sorry this is a kind of long winded

I see a player skill tree like ...
* Drop suit command

* * Light / Medium / Heavy Dropsuits

* * * Light/Medium/Heavy Dropsuit Specialization (Enables use of specialized suits -- each level enables 20% of the suit's built-in bonuses)

* * * Drop Suit Mechanics (At level 1 can get to 80% of the class maximum, each additional level adds 5%)

* * * * PG Enhancement (At each level get 20% of the bonus allowed by Drop Suit Mechanics)
* * * * CPU Enhancement (At each level get 20% of the bonus allowed by Drop Suit Mechanics)
* * * * Add Additional High/Low/Heavy Weapon/Light Weapon/Sidearm/Grenade/Equipment slots (Each level enables addition of or removal of one slot from the basic suit type)
* * * * Add Armour/Shield/ ... bonus to suit (At each level get 20% of the bonus allowed by Drop Suit Mechanics)

So people who skill into Drop Suit Specialization could use specialized suits -- and buy them. They could fit them any way they wanted within their existing skills.

People that skill into Drop Suit Mechanics could build any suit -- and sell it.

The system above would not depend on equipment drops or outside materials -- so it isn't crafting it's strictly skill point based design.

Love the general idea. Probably it's the most elegant and fun solution to hard-set tiers that I've seen yet.
Balancing will be hard, but it's never going to be easy to balance Dust.

I think Mass Effect Multiplayer had a simplistic model to what the Op may want. You start with a base and as you improve you can add certain skills but there is always a tradeoff.

eg. You start with a base but if you want a heavy suit then you lose mobility as you add armour/strength; you add equipment capability but you lose the ability to add additional weaponry or stealth equipment. You forsake shielding to add offensive capability.

It is the same concept to what we have now but attacks in a way where predetermined slot count doesnt allow certain classes to fully cover another's intended area of expertise. You can build whatever you want and the degree of specialization is still down to the user.

just a thought.

Yeah I only meant their basis.

In our setup there wouldnt be a class per se - only skills to train to build your suit. The suit would need limiters so you cant build a superfast heavy (obviously).

Yes the current setup is supposedly designed to limit that but a simple high and low slot choice leaves way too much space for exploit.

Your idea would work but I am sure people would complain alot, especially if they can skill up electronics and engineering and also use mods to enhance those. The diminishing returns from stacking some modules should stop this but it also hinders the person using them as well and when a suit has many slots it doesnt even matter.

Maybe there needs to be a restriction like x race can use multiple modules in this slot whereas the other races can only use 1. That too may cause uproar.

I was only musing.

No. Tech 2 is the Tech 2 suits and vehicles, or the weapon/turret variants.

Implying that Dust's fitting system isn't complex enough yet?

Not entirely sure I agree.