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I'm more concerned about them changing the minmatar explosive weapon bonus. The reload bonus sounds alright, cuts down on the extra sp sink in RR for each weapon.

Bonuses should not cover a weapons weakness, that leads to homogenization. The bonuses should emphasize weapon strength.
For Caldari it should be either range, spool reduction, or kick reduction.
For Gallente it should be a very minor damage boost.
For Minmatar it should be blast radius on explosives and ammo capacity, not clip size.
For Amarr it should be charge up reduction and damage ramp-up increase.

The last thing, weapons and tanks shouldn't be as closely linked. For instance Caldari and Gallente should get their respective bonus to all hybrid weapons. This way if you are focused on shields you can still go any hybrid weapon but they'll perform differently than a Gallente suit using a hybrid.

Explosives are viable on either armor or shields as Minmatar traditionally can go with either.
In the current state you are restricted to weapons based on what tank you want or vice versa and that's a shame as it's not the case in eve and it's one of the huge draws of fittings in Eve.

Increasing viable build variety is important for enjoyable gameplay and the current bonuses do the opposite.

My issue with it is that it still does not give any real benefit to using an assault over a logi in frontline combat unless they are changing up the pg/cpu costs of the weapons as well.

Honestly, they should lower the baseline dps of the light weapons and then have assault suits have a bonus to their racial weapons. This means that a logi could equip the same weapon but would not be as effective with it.


In EVE, ships get a damage bonus for their racial weapon type. I would hope that Dust goes this route as well as they release more weapons for each race. That would allow for an expansion of suit types based on the bonuses that they give.

If you give the suits the bonus, it expands variability. You could have a min assault with a bonus to projectile weapons and one with a bonus to explosive.

I am afraid that for the caldari rail rifle and magsec to be better harmonized with an assault suit skill worthy for the assault would be to significantly raise their charge times to the point it becomes an inconvenience to most operators; make it a very uncomfortable weapon to use in cqc, or even in its extended range but not make it too high of a charge that one cannot get the first shot out before he dies to a threat he prepared against first.

DPS is not just a measure of the damage per round but a measure of how much damage you can sustain over time. Being able to reload quickly and reapply damage increases the DPS in a more subtle but often winning way. I've personally lost count how many times I've gone one on one with another assault or logi, with both of us firing at each at the same time, and I've won the encounter, purely because I've reloaded my clip and firing at them before they've even pulled their old clip out.

While I think too many partons have undersold the value of the rapid reload (which is excessively powerful bonus and thousands of more dps per minute but thats just a terrible scenario) far too many have made the argument on how lame the bonus was without any clear intentions of either providing a better bonus nor clearly defining the issue at hand that the rail rifle itself among one of four weapons to potentially benefit is what one would call a 'perfect' weapon.

Thus appropriately any % x bonus to the rail rifle would and should be meet with nearly equal amounts of wtf or lame.

I am afraid that for the caldari rail rifle and magsec to be better harmonized with an assault suit skill worthy for the assault would be to significantly raise their charge times to the point it becomes an inconvenience to most operators; make it a very uncomfortable weapon to use in cqc, or even in its extended range but not make it too high of a charge that one cannot get the first shot out before he dies to a threat he prepared against first.

Gallente bonus is another bag of beams I am afraid.

I would say that that those that claim that reload means nothing should reevaluate their playstyle with that suit as find a another that suits their style better. Your not playing to the strengths of the suit, you want the suit to play to yours. And when too many are doing that, then balancing become almost impossible.

So, to your point of playing with the strengths of the suit - how does the reload bonus play to the strengths of the Caldari Assault?

You already answered that. The Caldari are a long/range hit and fade playstyle. Play to that playstyle, staying at range, kiting the enemy from there then rapid reload becomes very important. It enables a constant level of DPS from range.

If your rushing into cqc using a rail gun, when it's designed to be best used at range then that is not playing to it playing style and part of the reason the RR is considered OP at the moment. Because it can work well at both range and cqc is why it's replaced the AR as the go to light weapon choice.

The hip fire and dispersion bonus for the Gallante Assault is perfect for how the AR should operate, short to midrange, within the cities. Rapid reload is perfect for the longer range RR as it minimises the time an enemy has to rush you so they can bring their weapons to its optimal range. Particularly when the rail weapons have smaller ammo clips to burn through.

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..

I just don't like this.
On Appia I have Gallente Assault Operation lvl 1 and Amarr and Caldari Assault Operation at level 3 I've played a lot of PC and I enjoy Faction Warfare so I also have skill-reduced suits from salvage or purchase one tier higher.
I have a toxin AR (blaster) with 0 SP invested, lvl 3 laser rifle (laser), proto scrambler pistol (laser), scrambler rifle (laser), shotgun (blaster), rail rifle (railgun), and sniper rifle (railgun). and nova knives, smg, flaylock, mass driver, and swarms but no bonus to those from skills.

right now, if these changes were implemented without an SP refunded, I'd have to say that the Caldari the most useless and the biggest nerf to the suit. Rail Rifle or Sniper Rifle I am using it from far away to pick people off outside their optimal range. When someone does close in on me, I run away to where they need to engage me in CQC. Now aside from the fact that the Rail Rifle has no downside to being in close quarters especially if you know the guy is coming at you from a particular direction I can always switch to the Scrambler Pistol which is far more effective. I can also plan it out to tear away the shields with the pistol and finish him off with the RR. When running a Rail Rifle I have time to plan out how to fight someone because I kite them out to where I want to fight. I don't "chase kills" in this suit.
So on this suit and this build, I am gaining CPU and PG from my weapons but am losing 6% shield HP and 6% shield recharge speed and gaining 15% reload speed on a weapon I rarely in dire need to reload faster. I am also only going to benefit the reload of my light weapon and not my sidearm because I like to mix and match full auto with semi auto and shield damage with armor damage. I think this bonus would be most effective if I ran my scrambler rifle or laser rifle with a Magsec SMG.

My Gallente Suit is getting what I think to be the most overpowered improvement. I'm armor tanking, I don't care for shields and shield recharge. My highs are occupied by damage mods. No loss there. Then I get to keep my fitting bonus I already had... well except I don't get that bonus to Sniper Rifle and Rail Rifle anymore . Running around with my 0SP AR I now have the equivalent to sharpshooter level 1 without having to pay for it. So if I haven't skilled into Assault Rifle or Shotguns this seems pretty nice. However, the sharpshooter skill already exists. Sharpshooter 5 already has this weapon firing with hardly any bullet dispersion. While the shotgun's shotgun operation skill also decrease that weapon's dispersion. At some point the weapons' skills and the Gallente Assault Operation skill adds up to the point of being redundant and adding no net benefit. Testing with other alts I've personally found an Assault Rifle or Combat Rifle at level 1 operations and level 5 sharpshooter to be far more effective in combat that a Duvolle or Boundless without Sharpshooter.

The Minmatar Assault bonus is something that I do not have on Appia. I do have it with a combat rifle and SMG on another character however. I kind of like this one. It is expanding on what the bonus already was and including light weapons with it as well. It may be more effective on an assault combat rifle than on a regular variant but it'll be nice. The loss of the shield bonus is going to hit a little bit hard but on a suit with such an unfortunate slot layout the little reduction to weapon fitting cost will be nice.

The Amarr Assault will be getting 4 PG back on the Viziam Scrambler RIfle and 19-23 CPU back on it depending on what level Light Weapon Operations is at. So that is pretty nice. The shield bonus being absent will hurt it more than the Gallente but less than the Minmatar and Caldari. The racial bonus is not changing at all for them... I don't know. It's nice that it effects the Scrambler Rifle and Laser Rifle but it doesn't do anything for the Scrambler Pistol. Maybe if an Amarr themed SMG is released that will have a heat build up and it will help it out.

In Eve the ship you use gives you a bonus to Hybrid, Laser, Projectiles, or Explosives and it varies from ship to ship how much or what the bonus is but it is based off the spaceship command skill related to that ship. I can see how CCP is trying to carry over that onto their Assault and Heavy Frame suits, but I think the skill bonuses should be something to enhance a playstyle rather than a weapon type. I think the bonuses now are restrictive. I agree with some that giving bonus to make all the weapon equal rather than emphasizing their strong-points would be a better direction to take it,

I really think the bonuses should emphasize a playstyle associated with the suit rather than a bonus to racial weapons.

Alright, listen. You don't like me, and well, I'm neutral. But I have to agree changing the bonuses to the cal and Amarrican! suits will kill them. Don't touch the cal, unless giving it a 1% per level buff. The gallente assault suit has always been handicapped, which is a shame, because if it had that little extra PG it would be awesome, and the hobo suit, meh, I couldn't care less about that.

My issue with it is that it still does not give any real benefit to using an assault over a logi in frontline combat unless they are changing up the pg/cpu costs of the weapons as well.

Honestly, they should lower the baseline dps of the light weapons and then have assault suits have a bonus to their racial weapons. This means that a logi could equip the same weapon but would not be as effective with it.

In EVE, ships get a damage bonus for their racial weapon type. I would hope that Dust goes this route as well as they release more weapons for each race. That would allow for an expansion of suit types based on the bonuses that they give.

If you give the suits the bonus, it expands variability. You could have a min assault with a bonus to projectile weapons and one with a bonus to explosive.

With a longer TTK the Shield suit play style of ducking behind cover for a moment to allow your shields to regenerate will be a lot more viable, and the bonus will also allow you to reload every time you do so without as much fear of getting caught out in the middle of a reload cycle by an enemy flanking you.

You need to look at all the changes together.

Essentially a Caldari Assault suit with a Rail Rifle, played the way the Caldari Assault suit was designed to be played, will always have ammo in the magazine.

With Caldari Assault to 5 and Reload to 5:

The Bolt Pistol will reload in 1.35 seconds. That is only about 3 times the normal delay between shots (ROF is 0.4) Damage per shot ranges from 135 to 148.5.

Not to mention what it will do to the Tactical Sniper Rifle.

The Magsec SMG will reload in 1.6 seconds, which is not half bad either.

Stuff

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

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.

Minmatar Bonus - 2% bonus to dropsuit sprint speed
Caldari Bonus - 5% bonus to shield recharge delay
Gallente Bonus - 2% bonus to armor plating
Amarr Bonus - 5% bonus to laser weapon heat build up

Having two racial bonuses is not a good idea at the moment and once again I think that wishing is father of the thought.

Having a role bonus common to all suits in a role plus 1 racial bonus is easier to understand and more importantly to balance. And with the TTK problems we have, the last thing we need right now is a DPS increase across a whole role.

Beside having two racial bonuses is likely to the purview of the pirate faction suits when they arrive.

I think a mixed bonus would be appropriate for assaults. One for the role and one for the racial.

These are a couple spitball ideas:

Minmitar:
Assault Suit Bonus - 1% damage to projectile and explosive weapons
Minmatar Bonus - 2% bonus to dropsuit sprint speed

Caldari:
Assault Suit Bonus - 1% damage to hybrid weapons (EVE bonus can be used for blasters and rails)
Caldari Bonus - 5% bonus to shield recharge delay

Gallente:
Assault Suit Bonus - 1% damage to hybrid weapons
Gallente Bonus - 2% bonus to armor plating

Amarr:
Assault Suit Bonus - 1% damage to laser weapons
Amarr Bonus - 5% bonus to laser weapon heat build up

I agree that scouts will need to have their bonuses looked at but the total 5% damage bonus is not enough to make them useless. Their new cloaking ability will allow them to get the drop on other suits which could more than make up for the damage advantage of assaults.
This is why I wish we had access to private test servers to test these adjustments.

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?

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.

True, though I still feel we should answer the question if asked. As CCP will expect the CPM to know about these things.

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

True dat. I was there.

The problem with the bonus system, and if any Dev's or CPM members could confirm this, is that I understand that the unreal engine has some real problems with it and CCP are having to do some tricks to get it do what they want.

We've had in the past several instances where bonuses were not being applied because it was clashing with other bonuses, etc etc. so while its nice to bandy about ideas for bonuses, we have to take into account the technical difficulties of pulling it off.

I suspect it's the reason we have a role bonus and racial bonus. It might be all that the engine is capable of at the moment.

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.

I like this solution, if the charge time on the Rail Rifle is increased slightly. The bonus would make it so that Caldari Assault could use the Rail Rifle effectively in CQC, but other suits would have to pair it with a CQC sidearm. I assume this bonus would effect the Charged Sniper Rifle as well.