OKAY OKAY! Since you asked so nicely...this is what we're thinking.

Assault [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of light/sidearm weapons]
- Caldari Assault: +5% to reload speed of hybrid railgun light/sidearm weapons per level.
- Gallente Assault: 5% reduction to hybrid - blaster light/sidearm hip-fire dispersion and kick per level.
- Minmatar Assault: +5% to projectile light/sidearm and +1 to Minmatar explosive weaponry clip size per level.
- Amarr Assault: 5% reduction to laser weaponry heat build-up per level.

Logistics [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of equipment]
- Caldari Logistics: +10% to nanohive max. nanites and +5% to supply rate and repair amount per level.
- Gallente Logistics: +10% to active scanner visibility duration and +5% to active scanner precision per level.
- Minmatar Logistics: +10% to repair tool range and 5% to repair amount per level.
- Amarr Logistics: 10% reduction to drop uplink spawn time and +2 to max. spawn count per level.

Will copy + paste this in to the Feedback thread too.

The MD isn't just a Support logi weapon, its designated as short range breaching and area denial. Its designed to suppress the enemy, cause discord among the troops and ultimately lay down intense firepower, giving the MD more rounds a clip will allow the MD to keep up its barrage for longer, making it king of tight spaces, like it should be.

Thanks for the information Saberwing. This is the kind of thing DUST seriously needs more of; just flat out "this is our current idea on X thing." A little too often it seems as if the DUST community is left in the dark on important changes that seriously affect them. It seems that by doing so you have kinda derailed the "Welcome back, Kotter" bit of this thread though, to which I am not going to help get back on track (but seriously, glad to have you back!)

I understand not wanting to have any bit of buff that is going to reduce TTK any farther. I assume this is why the Rate of Fire proposal thing is going away. Time to Kill IS incredibly short in this game; my advanced Rail Rifle kills people almost as fast as my basic 80 gj Blaster so not including more ROF is probably a decent idea. However I, like many of my fellow Immortals, do have some criticisms about these bonuses.

First, the blanket Assault bit. It is a fairly minor change in PG/CPU. For the Caldari using both a Prototype Rail Rifle and Prototype Magsec SMG, it amounts to 21/15.5 CPU reduction and 4.25/2 PG reduction totaling 36.5 CPU and 6.25 PG. It doesn't seem to add that much overall other than being able to possibly use higher level modules. I am unsure how much this will help but it is just a blanket bonus so it doesn't need to be overly great. Of course, for weapons that are already easy to fit like if the person isn't running prototype, it is kinda worthless.

Now for the racial variants. First things first: I am glad that the bonuses are not overly large. Not using a Rail Rifle as a Caldari assault should be 95% effective rather than 100%. A bonus that is too important that effectively says "makes the weapon finally viable" is kinda lame as it means ONLY X race could ever use Y weapon. A Caldari with a Rail Rifle should be better than a Gallente period (death to to the Federation) but should only be just a little better with a Rail Rifle than the Gallente assault.

Caldari bonus: This seems rather lacking and is more definitely boring. Reload speed is almost impossible to notice. The Rail Rifle has a 3.2 second reload speed. Reducing it by 25% makes it 2.4. A blink of the eye, apparently, takes between 300 to 400 milliseconds. So blink twice. That is the reduced time for the Rail Rifle. It also does nothing in the moment of a fight unlike all the other bonuses.

Gallente bonus: It should give a bonus for killing unarmed civilians on Caldari Prime and make it easier by which to have carnal relations with their sisters. Speaking seriously, it will go a decent way in making the Assault Rifle (please consider changing the name...) better at close combat and at greater distances. I am actually wondering if it could be a detriment though for those that use Aim Assist. The biggest problem I see is that it only helps two weapons; the Assault Rifle (please change the name) and the Shotgun. Assaults rarely use the Shotgun so it seems to only be for the AR. It actively helps in a fight though.

Minmatar bonus: Having tried the Combat Rifle, ammo is definitely a problem. Having watched videos of the ACR burning through a clip in the time it takes for a good belch to finish, this is useful. This gives the weapons more staying power. One extra explosive round per level might, maybe, possibly, be a bit much. 8 Flaylock rounds and 10+ rounds for the Mass Driver is going to lead to a lot of "spam thy explosives." Will be interesting to see. Anyway, the bonus helps the Minmatar in a fight.

Amarr bonus: The bonus that the Amarr were all choked up about losing. It is a decent bonus and is easy to see how it helps. Being able to see how much the bonus helps is a quite attractive; having a smaller scan radius is hard to visualize/notice but seeing your run speed increase is nice, makes the SP invested seem powerful. Again, helps in a fight.

What I don't understand is that Commandos seems to now be the damage dealers. What is the role the Assault class is meant to fill?
Sentinel: Tank
Logistics: Support
Scout: Umm, Scouting/being sneaky.
Commando: Heavy damage dealing, strong defenses.
Assault: What is the design intent?

Obviously more shots as TTK is supposed to be lessened. I just envision two Minmatar Assaults blanketing an entire area with near continuous explosions with a nanohive or two. However, I wasn't taking a hard line stance on any of the bonuses other than the Caldari and that was mostly because of the imperceptibility of the reload difference and for the fact that it does nothing to help you when you are fighting someone. I have only used the Mass Driver once and that was back in beta. I just didn't like the weapon, way to specific of a scenario where it was effective; IE, being above someone or them against a wall so the splash is easier.

I just really don't like the Caldari one and I am really curious what the Dev Team would say is the role of the Assault compared to the other suits. I don't mean this as an insult or a "buff assaults!!!", I am just curious what their design decision for the suit is.

+1 to rate of fire increase on the Min Assault. but no to radius increase! The radius is good as is, and we don't need another you don't need to aim the MD discussion!

I don't want the MD to work just on logis. My concern is more towards the MD being a spam weapon again. Which would be bad!
With the bigger clip size, it will still be difficult to take down rifle users 1-1, since the Minmatar has low health and can't win sustained fights. So what will he do, obviously go back to the rooftops or other cover and spam the thing blindly towards the enemy! Is that what you guys want?
I don't.
Rate of fire would help, because it would give the Minmatar assault a possibility to have higher alpha damage with his prefferred (Racial weapon) I would still leave the Combat rifle bonus with clip size, since that's the biggest downside of the CR.

Edit: I think an increase of DIRECT Md damage for the min assault would go in the right direction, since it would reward skilled players instead of the spamming crowd!

Cheers
Mad

The Commando is not a problem, due to the lack of high slots and the resulting lack of damage mods!

I do not want a increase in SPLASH damage but a increase in DIRECT damage for the Assault Suit. This would reward the skilled non spam player without another noob toob discussion. Since the MD would be fine in the right hands. This DIRECT damage buff could be 3% per lv considering that it is relatively difficult to direct hit with a MD (compared to a rifle).

Increasing the clip size isn't helping the already weak alpha of the MD it just helps the spamming crowd!

Hey guys -

Brought some of this feedback up with Remnant. As mentioned, this is simply what we're thinking and still isn't final yet.

Here are some updates:

- There's a good chance that the Minmatar Assault bonus rounds to explosive weaponry will go away due to the buff to Mass Drivers.
- Caldari weapons generally suffer from a smaller clip size and long reload times, so the reload speed buff will impact them and their ability to dish out damage the most. Remnant thinks this'll probably actually be quite a nice change for them once it's implemented in the game and people are able to experience it for themselves.

I'll keep you updated if there's anything else, but we're still tweaking around. :)

Cheers