I'm not sure where/if this was publicly posted - the conversation only took place yesterday in a CPM meeting with the Design team. :)

Fair enough, but how about going half and half racially, collecting data and seeing which scout type "wins" (by various metrics)?

I don't know if this thread is genuine or not but if the sidearms are removed form scouts I think it's a good thing.

Logi's have no sidearms because it benefits the logo's in equipment and the odd case who does sacrifices other slots.
The same should therefore also apply to scouts, they want speed and manoeuvrability so removing the sidearm or light weapon make a great deal of sense.

Remove a weapons from scouts.

I still think there should be a Covert Ops class (current scout) and Scout class (single weapon, more Intel-based, 1 light weapon, 2 equipments).

This way everybody's happy.

I agree. why not make the current light frame single weapon 2 equipment slots as the basic intel/scout suit and change the current scout into covert ops with cloaking bonus.

The CPM held a discussion with both Remnant and Wolfman yesterday -- there's still a lot of discussion around this point so nothing's confirmed at all. The CPM in fact argued against removing sidearms from scouts - as they believe with the introduction of cloaking - it would be a healthy complement to be able to equip both Nova Knives and another weapon.

I'm not sure where/if this was publicly posted - the conversation only took place yesterday in a CPM meeting with the Design team. :)

No, because current Scouts now still need that extra equipment. Scouts have needed it since May.

Scouts need to get the extra equipment, and then need to be carefully buffed and balanced around whatever everything else gets done in 1.8, without relying on the cloak to do it.

@ Joel, Killar, John, Auris
Kindly consider that we Scouts are too few in number and the Devs' time is in too short supply to warrant 8+ variations of Scout. We have waited since Uprising 1.0 for the Devs to rebalance two (2) variants. Imagine how long we'd have to wait if a fix were ordered for 8! Sometimes, adding complexity to a problem only makes a problem more complex.

:: Turns to Scout ::
This man has a question for you. Would you prefer to have one decent suit or two watered down suits?

:: Turns to McReady ::
There's your reason. I'm sorry that you got stabbed.

Why can't the extra equipment slot only hold a cloak an nothing else just like a grenade slot?
Why would we have to lose anything if it worked this way the only benifits we would get not running a cloak would be more CPU and pg.

Does anyone have a problem with this if it means keeping our gun and grenade?

With this drastic of a change a full respec is in order, gun sp, grenade sp all of it, it would change our whole place style , suits weapons an drop suit mods that would have to change with this type of remodeling to our characters it would dramatically change
What we have skilled into

Everyone wants two equipments to run a cloak and something else so they wouldn't have to sacrifice anything but CPU and PG to have fun with their new toy. That's what's broken, in my opinion.

I don't think that the above thinking is broken at all.
A quick recap ...

Scouts were guilty of bullet weaving (taking advantage of bad hit detection) in Chrome.
For this sin, we paid steep price. Every aspect of our suit was nerfed. Seriously. Every aspect.

The left side of the equation was addressed:
Hit detection's fixed. Aim assist is on. Bullet weaving is gone. Speed tanking is dead.

The right side of the equation -- however -- remains unaddressed:
So Scouts have waited 8 builds for nerf reversal / reduction (a.k.a. Dev Hugs) which has yet to come.

Dev Hugs could've been another Hi Slot for Gallente or Lo Slot for Minmatar.
Dev Hugs could've been a huge boost to mobility, speed and stamina.
Dev Hugs could've been any number or combination of things.
But the Devs chose to Hug us with Cloak. It has been decided.

The Devs could've built cloak into the Scout Suit; Hugs delivered, equation solved, no debate.
The Devs chose against this option. We now have two crowds:

The pre-nerf crowd says the Scout should have to trade something valuable for their upcoming Hug.
The no-nerf crowd -- which includes Scouts -- says no quid pro quo. You would too in our shoes:

How exactly does CCP expect me to return the hugs if they cut off one of my arms in the process of said hugs.
- J0LLY R0G3R (Scout Registry, Page 353, Post 7043)

I don't think that the above thinking is broken at all.
A quick recap ...

Scouts were guilty of bullet weaving (taking advantage of bad hit detection) in Chrome.
For this sin, we paid steep price. Every aspect of our suit was nerfed. Seriously. Every aspect.

The left side of the equation was addressed:
Hit detection's fixed. Aim assist is on. Bullet weaving is gone. Speed tanking is dead.

The right side of the equation -- however -- remains unaddressed:
So Scouts have waited 8 builds for nerf reversal / reduction (a.k.a. Dev Hugs) which has yet to come.

Dev Hugs could've been another Hi Slot for Gallente or Lo Slot for Minmatar.
Dev Hugs could've been a huge boost to mobility, speed and stamina.
Dev Hugs could've been any number or combination of things.
But the Devs chose to Hug us with Cloak. It has been decided.

The Devs could've built cloak into the Scout Suit; Hugs delivered, equation solved, no debate.
The Devs chose against this option. We now have two crowds:

The pre-nerf crowd says the Scout should have to trade something valuable for their upcoming Hug.
The no-nerf crowd -- which includes Scouts -- says no quid pro quo. You would too in our shoes:

How exactly does CCP expect me to return the hugs if they cut off one of my arms in the process of said hugs.
- J0LLY R0G3R (Scout Registry, Page 353, Post 7043)

I still think there should be a Covert Ops class (current scout) and Scout class (single weapon, more Intel-based, 1 light weapon, 2 equipments).

This way everybody's happy.

Yes, but all scouts who did fine in their suits never found anything wrong with the current layouts. They always said "HTFU and GG". Yes, we got nerfed into oblivion and back, but I don't think giving another equipment is the right choice of dev hugging, as you put it.

Think about it. What are the scouts' strengths supposed to be? Speed and stealth for assassinations. Yes, you can cloak. Yes, you can place uplinks. Yes, you can run Nanos. But you don't necessarily need to become a quick, weaker version of the logistics.

Scouts need their speed back. Maybe not all of it, yet. Since the game is improving, I think more speed would suffice and be able to compete with hit detection. We shouldn't have to rely on cloaks to get kills (even though it'll be a great equipment).

Again, all of this is my opinion, and that's why I think there should be two class specifications (you know, like every other frame?).

Edit: I'm a scout, too. Or well, used to be. These new Rifles kicked my ass too many times for me to work my play style. Trying to hang in there

The point is two equipment slots will help to perform exactly that task, currently I am limited I would like to run uplinks and scanners to find safe spots or RE's and Proxies to lay traps for HAV's. I really don't cre that much for the cloaks sure I will test it and see how usefull it is compared to my current5 RE build.

Regarding beeing fine most well known scouts said there were problems with the suit. Sure in pubs you can compete to some degree even against rifle users but in PC there is simply not that much space for scouts. Most benefits get nullified by active scanners and nearly anything scouts can do, medium frames can do better or at least close to the performance of a scout with more health and slots....

Hardly, why gimp an already underperforming suit. The speed advantage is not a glorious one (and should the minni Assault lose the siedarm as well? He is also faster) the only advantages a scout currently have are mobility (not speed as i said the difference is not very high) and the lower profile (which is countered by active scanners ).

For these two advantages he gives lots HP, CPU, Slots compared to the other frames...

Exactly my point.

Don't give scouts something they wouldn't need if they actually performed well in their respective areas.

Buff speed and stealth instead of giving another equipment.

Seriously how does it gimp the suit? Logistics suit's (Amarr exception) Have been THE slayer suits for 8 months... and they have only ever had one weapon slot.

It doesn't ruin your killing potential in anyway. Having the extra equipment slot will improve the utility of a scout which is much more valuable then a secondary weapon incase of an emergency... Being able to run multiple equipment is a FAR FAR better choice for scouts then having an emergency backup weapon.

Even fitting the sidearms on already fitting challenged suits can be extremely hard let alone with cloaks coming out... freeing up this extra fitting requirements that are used somewhat rarely compared to main hand weapons would also be good for the class.

IMO, All scouts should have built in nova knifes but the whole Nova knife concept in DUST, is just done.... weird.

Seriously how does it gimp the suit? Logistics suit's (Amarr exception) Have been THE slayer suits for 8 months... and they have only ever had one weapon slot.

It doesn't ruin your killing potential in anyway. Having the extra equipment slot will improve the utility of a scout which is much more valuable then a secondary weapon incase of an emergency... Being able to run multiple equipment is a FAR FAR better choice for scouts then having an emergency backup weapon.

Even fitting the sidearms on already fitting challenged suits can be extremely hard let alone with cloaks coming out... freeing up this extra fitting requirements that are used somewhat rarely compared to main hand weapons would also be good for the class.

IMO, All scouts should have built in nova knifes but the whole Nova knife concept in DUST, is just done.... weird.