I just stuck 4 complex plates and 1 complex sheild extender on my gal scout, 756HP Armor 160HP sheild.A total of 916HP, sprint speed for superior to my GK.0 Assault when tanked, movement was fine, lower scan profile,better passive scans.
In 1.8 I will be able to do this but with a cloak.
So..my thoughts:
People will try defend the ability to fit a suit how you want, bringing personalization and diversity to the game. Great, if that was true. Reality is the game is falling into all classes running the same role and same set-ups. Out of all the classes medium assault will feel the hurt from this the most considering a scout, a heavy, a logi and a commando can all play the assault role better. This is called inbalance.
Longer TTK will only push people to boost survivabilty with max HP over trying new directions of playstyle(Stealth, speed,melee).
Assaults need help already,1.8 really does not help them either, that is a different discussion though.
Scout need to have some of the scout taken out of them, if they chose to play an assault role. A scouuts main set of traits are speed, agility and stealth.
Speed: Choosing an armor plate on a scout should have a worse penalty than other classes. A penalty to plates based on frame size could address this; (gunna post some example penalties here, don't take them as THE FIX, just the idea)
Complex plate penaltiesLight frame (light/scout/pilot)
-5% to sprint, strafe and base movement speed
Medium Frame(medium/assault and logistics)
-3% to sprint, strafe and base movement speed
Heavy Frame (Heavy/sentinel/commando)
-1% to sprint, strafe and base movement speed
The idea here is that the larger the body is the better it will deal with the extra load from adding armor plates. As for shields, until the change their stats to be realistically balanced(STD 30, ADV 50, PRO 70) they should not get any more penalty.
Agility: An armor plate should fatigue scouts due to weight. Don't need example numbers for this. A reduction to total stamina and stamina regen per plate(a penalty that should seem insignificant to the mediums and heavies).
Stealth: The use of plates could also be penalized by attacking the scouts scan profile.
Armor: Use of armor makes you heavier, meaning your footsteps are louder. A % penalty per stack to Scan Profile db. This number should lower as the frame size increaseas the can better hold the weight.
Shield Shields should emit electronic frequencies that effect the suits scan profile, once again a
% penalty per stack to scan profile db.
Cloaks could also be affected by the weight of a plated scout. Maybe triggering a shimmer if an enemy is close to you when you are walking, more plates further the distance in which the shimmer can be triggered.
I am not saying that all these should be applied, just pointing out how we can allow players to run what ever, but make the act of being a HP monkey degrade as you move away from being a true HP monkey(heavy frame).