You make a strong argument Canari Elphus. There are a few details I might dispute, but the overall argument is solid. So were you thinking a 2% per level damage bonus for Assault suits?

I like the flavour of the current racial assault suit bonuses, but I agree they are probably not significant enough for someone to pick an Assault suit over a logi suit. I mean when Minmitar Assault had the bonus to sidearm clip size there were some of us using SMG as primary weapon on those suits, but most did not bother. It added flavour, but was not an important enough bonus to make you feel like you had to take advantage of it. These bonuses feel the same way.

But your suggested damage bonus for Assault suits is different. People who want to do max damage will go for the assault suit. Normally I donGÇÖt like straight damage bonuses, but in this case, to define Assault as GÇ£the Damage classGÇ¥, I think the simple and obvious approach might be best. I think 2% per level, essentially a built in Complex Damage mod at max level, would be the way to go.

Even if they kept all the currently proposed bonuses and just added a second class bonus of 1% damage per level, that might be enough. It would only be the equivalent of an Enhanced Damage mod, but without a stacking penalty.

Of course Weapon damage would have to be reduced as you say, and the effect this would have on Scout suits would have to be looked at as well.

Again...the reload time reduction is significant but I can get the exact same stats plus damage buff with the CalCommando.

Suit bonuses are a trivial issue. Everyone who thinks balance and all these minor things matter are kidding themselves. All that matters is actual MMO content being added tot he game. PVE mode, player market, all the things talked about before turning DUST into a simple lobby shooter.

Better be careful with talking while intoxicated. It did not go well for certain former members of the CSM.

Can you think of a bonus that could be applied to Rail weapons that would be equivalent to the other bonuses other than reload speed? I mean without changed all the bonuses to something completely different?

Good question...i've seen several possible solutions and here are a few:
1) decreased spool time for rail tech weapons. Roughly, I think CCP will probably increase spool time by X % and my proposal would be to have rail tech (light and sidearm) have a reduction of spool time per level so that it's roughly, perhaps a sliver more, than it is now.

This is very much inline with the Amarr and Minmatar bonuses that are proposed and spool reduction is the only weapon drawback i'm aware of that currently doesn't have an SP sink to offset it somewhere.