A lot of good discussion on this topic, but I'd still prefer Racial bonuses to be tanking related and Assault variants to be ganking related. I also think they should all be passive bonuses as adding multipliers to modules gets too easily out of hand. For example:

Passive Racial bonuses - survival oriented:
- Amarr: shield & armour capacity increases
- Caldari: shield recharge rate increase
- Gallenti: armour repair rate increase
- Minmatar: time-to-start shield recharge reduction, time-to-start armour repair reduction, biotics increase

Passive Assault bonus - racial weapon specific:
- Amarr: overheat protection & larger clip sizes
- Caldari: faster ADS, weaker hip-fire, longer range
- Gallenti: better hip-fire, slower ADS, faster reload
- Minmatar: increased rate of fire

I'll leave the specific numbers up to the smart guys, but whatever balances out the game play without making every suit the same would be ideal and would promote diversity on the battlefield.

Caldari Weapons already have a reload skill, 1/2 a second faster reload than another suit using the same weapon is NOT a good enough reason to use the Caldari Assault 3.2 to 2.04 with max reload and max cal assault or 2.62 with just max reload skill

Seriously 2.04 v 2.62 ..... 2 Million extra SP for 0.58 faster reload ?? This is why it is such a terrible bonus

in fact I wouldn't even waste SP skilling the damn thing to Proto I'd just use the basic Caldari Assault suit .. that is how pointless a reload skill bonus is

Lol iron wolf saber lost all his credibility in this thread.
no idea how he became a cpm, no wonder this game is so broken.

Galente are active tankers. Complex repairer should be able to get to 10 armor rep a second or slightly over that after adding in skills. Caldari desperately need a regulator buff.

while medium suits are cruisers. with 1 slot no Caldari heavy will be able to rep like a drake which it should.
Caldari assault needs to be able to rep quickly.

Ideally we'd have mid slots also, more mods like shield/armor resistance mods and tracking mods to help turning speed on shotguns while ads.

suits need a 4 bonus system like eve, if you went tech 2 you'd get two bonuses for that ships role.

This is the thorax from eve:
Gallente Cruiser skill bonus per level:
5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage
7.5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret tracking speed

That's just the basic gallente cruiser, not even tech 2, I.e.
gallente medium, then you get two bonuses for going assault, or two bonuses for going logistics.

The op is fine for all races as the game currently is because ccps not giving enough bonuses and assault and logistics are basically acting as the tech two stand ins for medium standard frames being tech one with no role bonuses.

If iron wolf wants to give the assault suit combat bonuses and not tank bonuses, do this and give each assault suit a weapon bonus like eve would to encourage use of that weapon on the suit of the race it belongs to.

Yeah let's just copy everything over from EVE Online and expect it to translate perfectly well. I don't play EVE but as far as I know it's not a twitch-based skill shooter.

You can't just lob a bunch of offensive or defensive tank bonuses into passive skills and expect everybody to be pleased. As a first person shooter if you are better at the game than your opponent then it needs to show. Dust is supposed to be faster paced, and we're all ready seeing a low population thanks to the game requiring months of dedicated play to actually be competitive with skill investments.

Not only this but Dust 514 has insane competition when it comes to the genre. As an EVE Online player tell me what kinds of modern games do you have to play as alternatives? Dust needs to evolve beyond the "constraints" of EVE Online to appeal to a different audience. EVE Online should be used as a rough concept to take inspiration from, not be the base fundamentals upon which this game is built.

Also the idea of making "tracking" mods on any first person shooter is ridiculous. This was one of the prime issues of Heavies being broken UP before Uprising: the restriction of turning speed. In a game where fast-paced twitch based skill is key, a heavy was a waste of a suit, since they couldn't turn fast enough to hit anything. Which is why the restriction was removed. That means people with better aim in a FIRST PERSON SHOOTER will do better. The only "tracking" that needs to be in a console FPS is aim-assist to help with the general inaccuracies of using joysticks with our thumbs, and people ***** up a storm about even that. "Mandatory" aim-assist with increasing strengths ON MODS would make people furious because it eliminates the need for SKILL in a SKILL BASED GENRE. And before someone quotes me saying EVE Online requires skill.. yes... I know all video games require some level of skill. These aren't the same skills we're talking about. Different genres = different skills required. You can be the best EVE Online player in the world... and be terrible at Dust 514 and vice versa.

And semi-unrelated to this quote more directed at OP: I find Regulator bonus to be much more fitting to Caldari Assault, but I was never directly opposed to reload bonus either. Both bonuses support the same concept of hit & move gameplay I think supports the Assaults well.

Did you do the math based on your new proposed bonus?

Because with a bonus to Rechargers/Energizers I think a Caldari Assault with the same fit as you listed above would recharge it's shields in about the same time as it would with a Regulator bonus (remember that even without a bonus to Regulators the shield delay would be around 2.3 and 3.7).

So if you think a Regulator bonus is OP, then so would a Recharger/Energizer bonus.

I'd rather have a fast charge regulator Caldari than the brick tanking BS they do now.