Most of the time this is done through fitting and gains, the gains from meta 4 to 5 is not as strong as 1 to 2 as well. Fitting will be more important under this model of tetricide I purposed (there are many other ways to do this, mine's slightly more complicated) so overall to go full proto requires a bit of dedication to make it all work out. A player in advanced gear would not feel entirely outclassed as much by a full proto but the full proto is paying a lot in time, isk, and risks for that slight edge he needs for whatever grudge match he's in and its not something he can casually use anymore.

IWS, link the Dust 2.0 project post. Then people can love you even more

I sure hope you've brought this to CCP. I wish modules were tiered more like they are in EVE to add more variety without making T2 ridiculously better than standard. At the same time the biggest limiting factor is that the whole module and weapon tier system we have now are intertwined with the suit tiering. The extra slots are great but the PG and CPU increase is important because it's still difficult to fit complex modules on a standard suit even with maxed fitting skills.

Like I said earlier I think the main problem is that this could cut into the games bottom line, because the gear itself outweighs the bonuses 95 percent of the time. As it stands weapon tiering is probably the most balanced because the passive skills and modules do far more than the actual stat increases for most weapons (excluding ranges) and the higher ISK, CPU, and PG costs balance it a bit.

But I think they should scrub the tier systems all together while this game is young. Every skill should contributes to a stat.

To continue monotizing all they'd need would have an open market, aur gear, and SP boosters. Boosters still remain important, but now aur versions of gear have less to do with getting ahead, but avoiding grind. Aur could just allow you to access a specialized suit and weapons with no skill, still being balanced because the skills make the suit. If you have the skill you can avoid the grind. Buy gear with Aur, sell it for ISK, avoid unnecessary grind. Now those who never stop playing can make enough in game to buy boosters with ISK, those with $ can sell aurum bought stuff for ISK to avoid grind.

If a bonus SP rollover system is implemented (which we need it's one of the few reasons why I hate active boosters, I can't take a break) I'd buy a booster that turned bonus SP into passive SP.

I don't want to see the suits go sky high though and overall it would be just estimates. Until I have a fuller picture on my end (this is taken from another project of mine) I cannot give anything accurate

I say 150-250k tops for a 'proto' suit with no offshot weapons

70-150k for your cost effective builds

20-50k for a tech 1 bare bones suit.

SoGǪ how will this apply to modules and weapons?

IWS, link the Dust 2.0 project post. Then people can love you even more

Doo eet

Since people can't read.

Before Teiricide

With Captions

After Teiricide

(and yes I realized I need to find an image hosting service without annoying advertisements)
Edit : Yes I noticed the link slot on the pre teiricide being a typo sorry; and no the slots are theorycrafting from flipping the minmatar suit over...)

As you can see this gets rid of climbing up the tree overall but now breaks out into branching the tree out to more interesting branches. Militia -> Basic Tech 1 -> Advanced Tech 2 as you can notice is losing slots as it goes up but it trades it for additional specialized bonuses.

Suits start off with meager fittings when you train their suit command to 1, but as you train up command skills for the specific suits that need it to operate you will be then getting more fitting, and more bonuses thus allows you to develop and specialize the suit further.

Also under Teiricide 'type 2 and type 3s' return and are a part of the logical progression where type 2 and 3s are not better just different dice rolled for the same class.

Tech 1s get tech 2 previews of the suits as you can notice one class is suited to being a pilot, one a scout, and one a spec ops by slot layouts alone.

Milita (not shown) post teiricide has 'fixed bonuses' and does not gain anything per level and fitting overall is pretty low despite having the highest number of slots verses its tech 1 cousin. While powerful for a rookie at the start once the rookie starts investing into the skill of the amarr light around lvl 2 and 3 the tech 1 suits start to outperform the militia suit in terms of fitting then bonuses.

Despite this none of the suits get obsoleted by skill training as the captioned pre teiricide cuts out clearly. A maxed out amarr light operator can still effectively use the tech 1 suits to a great advantage and would currently achieve the 'going cheaper' motif the current specialist advanced suits enjoy. While tech 2 is for going 'pro'. The only reason not to use a certain suit on any of these post teiricide trees is the simple fact its not your play style, some people like their sidearms some don't care to lose it for a second equipment slot.

And yes the three tech 1 suits will have different models under the new teiricide when art allows for it.

For those of you wondering this was taken from my Dust 2.0 project, part of the 'tech tree' while rather mostly incomplete you can see how things progress through the tech tree. I wont have time to answer everything though as 1 the tree is incomplete and two the answers are going to require another document the inventory which has full descriptors.

This is mostly for my own self reference.

References:
Tech Tree (Work in Progress)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqHgiF-KXQZXdDdKYjRQT193VDlfbFM5b0FwdlB5Ymc&usp=drive_web#gid=3

Dust 2.0 Project
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=126376

Not as much, I feel the whole progress of modules is far more fitting for an FPS environment and honestly something ccp should have done at the start with eve.

You will still have tech 1 base adv and proto then tech 2 modules (if any) with a smattering of officers, army, and pirate factions gear at top of the trees.

As requested added references. Don't ask about stuff on the trees in here ask about it in the other thread.

It just makes sense.

In all honestly though, what is the realistic probability that CCP will ever adopt this approach?

but we still need to keep our officer weapons though

I could live with this, it make specialized roles more relevant to the game and may even kill that damn virus known as "Flavour of the Month"