I think Dust might be better served by a suit/role/skill bonus somewhat more similar to EVE, and this is relevant to the current suit bonus discussion. This also ties in with making the basic suits useful, and I think
KAGEHOSHI's thread about adjusting the stats on those suits is also quite relevant there.
Basically, the idea is removing the passive bonuses from the suit skills and adding them to the items themselves (suit types/classes). This allows for an easier introduction of special suits, pirate suits, and more flexible use of bonuses. This is the same as it works with standard vs. tier-2 ships in EVE. In short, you have a basic ship (i.e. - racial frigate in EVE, basic racial medium in Dust) and your basic ship has some sort of bonus that is modified by that skill. You also have specialist ships (i.e. - assault frigate in EVE, assault suit in Dust) and that ship has bonuses that are modified by both the basic and specialist skills.
This is also discussed directly in
KAGEHOSHI's threadnought as well, but I figured it bore repeating as we go into feedback on suits-mode. Also, I wanted to emphasize the distinction of merely having a skill bonus on the basic suit skill (status quo), vs. bonuses on the suit that are modified.
So, examples... take these skills:
Amarr Medium
Amarr Logistics
Amarr Assault
Rather than a bonus on the skill, the skills modify the suit bonus. Basic suits receive no "role" bonuses, but have medium bonuses. Role-specific suits receive both the basic bonus and role bonus, but not necessarily the same bonuses per skill level. The only part that's iffy in my opinion as that there's some vacillation in terms of build for the races dev-side (e.g. - Amarr being "dual-tanked" apparently vs. armor tanking... vs. armor repping?). Examples (with bonuses just made up):
Amarr Basic Suits:3% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 3% bonus to armor plate hp
per rank of
Amarr MediumAmarr Assault Suits:5% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 5% bonus to armor plate hp
per rank of
Amarr Medium&
1% bonus to light weapon damage and 5% bonus to stamina
per rank of
Amarr AssaultAmarr Logistics Suits:3% bonus to armor repper efficacy and 3% bonus to armor plate hp
per rank of
Amarr Medium&
5% bonus to PG/CPU fitting of equipment and -10% bonus to spawn time of Drop Uplinks
per rank of
Amarr LogisticsTaken in tandem with the suit adjustments that
Kagehoshi suggests, we have basic skills and suits that are actually useful.
With skill bonuses on suits, we could transition easily to having special suits as tournament rewards, pirate suits, etc:
Amarr Tournament Champion Suit:7% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 5% bonus to armor plate hp
per rank of
Amarr Medium&
3% bonus to shield resistance vs. blaster and 3% bonus to armor resistance vs. projectile
per rank of
Amarr LogisticsorAssault.
and/or
Sansha Assault suit (requires Caldari AND Amarr skills):6% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 2% bonus to laser weapon damage
per rank of
Amarr Assault&
5% bonus to shield extender efficacy and 2% shield resistance
per rank of
Caldari AssaultNeither special suit requires making new skills, and the items scale off and provide variety in bonuses off existing skills. This makes for much more interesting special suit options because rather than the excitement of "slightly more shields or fitting... woo" (the Master Recruiter suit is an example of this) on some putative event reward, you can have something with a meaningful effect that's interesting... but wouldn't imbalance the game if handed out at a rate of 3-5 suits for a set of tournament winners.