The idea is more of a "Do I want to try cloaks?" before having to throw points into it rather than "why go Scout if I can just use a frame?" Taking a 300k SP risk to see if you like cloak + scout is a pretty big risk. If you have near 30 million SP, no big deal. If you don't like it, you have lots of other stuff to do. If you have 5 million SP, 300k SP is a huge investment to try something.

Then again that argument could be made for creating a burner alt account with 500,000 sp to test a character. All you need is to transfer ISK to a character or build it up in academy.

Edit: Realistically, not many new players are going to understand and pick up on this aspect of alt creation right away in Dust.

No joke, people often ask me how I make a 2.0+ KDR (as useless as it is in my eyes) in a minmatar scout.

My answer: because I had the ever living **** beat out of me when I was starting.

It usually just confuses them.

The bonus should be a hard bonus applied to the suit, not a scaled bonus applied to the skill. See cloak fittings in EVE: a particular ship gets a 90% reduction to fitting a cloak, regardless of skill level, because that ship is made to work with cloaks. Should be the same with Scout suits. It's the only way to balance out both ability to fit cloaks and inability to fit anything and everything you want.

would this make it possible to fit cloak on mlt scouts.. thats what im interested in...

I certainly don't wish the baptism by fire that I got on new players but i see the importance of teaching them how to play the suit and then giving them the reward of an easier means of traversing the map. CCP's treatment of the cloak it isn't being cruel to new players it's saying "only when you don't need it can you have it".

hopefully with something like this ill be able to fit it on my mlt galente scout suit. im used to having little armor anyways..

Then why can Assaults use Light Weapons out of the gate rather than have to use their sidearms to learn "how to be an Assault" before getting their Rail Rifle? What if Heavies could not really fit a HMG or Forge Gun before they put 3 ranks in X Sentinel? Do you feel that people would be willing to accept that idea and others would be defending the implementation?

It is really the same thing. Scouts were altered to be "the guys that use cloaks easily" however that only happens when you have 3+ ranks in it; even more ranks if you don't have max CPU/PG skills. This is not as good of a design as it could be, at least in my opinion. Basically: "why is it okay for an important tool of a role to be behind such a high SP Gate when no other suit/role has such a problem?"

Thank you for all the replies. I also want to thank everyone for giving rational reasons or debate on their opinion.

heavy weapons have the highest SP requirement of any
the heavy suit has the highest SP requirement of any
logi's need multiple pieces of equipment
scouts need nearly maxed out suits
assault is the only suit without a "gate"

scouts have always had a gate. scout 5 profile dampening 3 was the magic skill set to passively push below ADV active scanners before you maxxed your suit and then some all scouts needed to run a damp which murdered their ehp. believe it or not the cloak actually lowered the gate substantially because having a cloak on reduced your profile by 75%.

http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Skills:Cloaking

An no, me and CCP Saberwing have no relation; his named is divered from a series of professional yo-yos

Mine's a name dating back to mechwarrior 2 lan tourney days.

As for my two cents.

I don't want to see cloaks becomming a must have for scouts. The higher sp skill is fine to deter this a bit. Scouts should be functional and currently are without the cloak.

I do have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion.

I am not talking about any possible balance issue with Cloak or the Scout itself. I am merely talking about the bonus and the incredible unfairness it has to people that want to try it out. Please do not devolve this thread into Scout balance discussion.

So Cloaks and Scout changes are out. Cloaks are obviously meant to be used by Scouts. The incredibly high CPU/PG requirements are offset by the 15% reduction in fitting per level of Scout. Per level of Scout you save:

Basic Cloak: 24 CPU, 5.25 PG
Advanced Cloak: 34.65, 6.9 PG
Prototype Cloak: 49.5 CPU, 10.5 PG

Going with my love of the Caldari:
Basic: 174 / 33
Advanced: 224 / 46
Prototype: 348 / 66

So a level 1 Caldari Scout with a Basic Cloak burns 147.9 / 28.05. This means that a base Caldari Scout only has 26.1 / 4.95 free space. That is hardly enough to fit a basic weapon, let alone anything else. At level 5 Caldari Scout, the basic suit would have 130.25 / 24.75 free. It becomes way too prohibitive to try out a Cloak with a fit to see if you actually want to throw points into it to do it well. No other suit basically states "you must be this tall to ride the roller-coaster." If I have a Commando at rank 1, it still works like a Commando at rank 5 just not as well as a rank 5 Commando. In the case of a Scout, it means that you can actually fit it with modules. Not higher level modules, mind you; just to not have stuff be utterly empty.

My suggestion is to change the blanket Scout bonus: "10%% reduction in Cloak CPU/PG fitting cost" but set a Role Bonus for Scouts and Light Frames to add 25% to that reduction. This means instead of 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 reduction it would be 35, 45, 55, 65, 75. This will let people test the waters far easier if they want to be a Scout before throwing in points.

At the moment, it costs 223,880 SP to get X Light Frame to 3 and then X Scout to 1. This is the lowest level to be able to test a Scout + Cloak combo. AUR doesn't help because the fitting requirements of the Cloak. If a 25% base was added to Light Frames and Scouts, you could at least try it before investing nearly a week's worth of SP. It also means that you can help the lower SP Scouts to be able to be a Scout without making the higher SP Scouts more powerful.

Comments and thoughts in regards to the suggestion? If you like the thread, leave a reply of some kind. If you disagree, leave a reply so I can try to see the flaw in my logic.

Edit - From the EVE Dev Blog:
"Currently drones are a very skill-intensive weapon system, thanks to the legacy of the original drone implementation years ago. The Drone Interfacing skill currently provides a 20% increase in drone damage per level, which makes it one of the most powerful skills in the game but also means that to be competitive with drones it is usually necessary to train this rank-5 skill all the way to level 5. The result is that drones have earned a reputation as a weapon system that is not suitable for new players.

We will be minimizing this problem by reducing the bonus from the Drone Interfacing skill to 10% per level, and building the extra damage into the base stats of the drones. That means that on average, all drones will be gaining about 33% more base damage and a character with Drone Interfacing trained to level 5 will see their damage remain constant (ignoring for a moment all the other drone changes being made in this release). We believe that 10% per level is still a very suitable bonus for a rank 5 skill, and the Drone Interfacing skill will remain very desirable. Level 5 Drone Interfacing should, however, cease to be the absolute necessity that it is today."

I am suggesting something similar for cloaks.

Want to be a super-awesome sneaky Scout? Then invest super-awesome amounts of SP.
The long road makes for better long-term progression, and teaches good habits along the way.
Shortcuts bypass the "lessons learned" of early Scouting; front-loading encourages FoTM chasing.

I would like to add that light frames do not get a cloak bonus which really kills the 'new player' point.

Also there is a desire for more high end skills; cloaks are by far the first amongst the things to train for after you 'max out' your suit similar to how people train up proficiencies with their gun after they 'max' that out too.

My suggestion is to change the blanket Scout bonus: "10%% reduction in Cloak CPU/PG fitting cost" but set a Role Bonus for Scouts and Light Frames to add 25% to that reduction.

I thought about it but decided against the suggestion as it allows some more progression this way while still working at Scout 1. I can see the point (and to an extent agree) with a flat role bonus but I figured such a huge change from the "DUST mentality" to the "EVE mentality" would go over as well as a cottage cheese boat.

I would like to add that light frames do not get a cloak bonus which really kills the 'new player' point.

Also there is a desire for more high end skills; cloaks are by far the first amongst the things to train for after you 'max out' your suit similar to how people train up proficiencies with their gun after they 'max' that out too.

Just like everything else, you gotta earn it, no freebies just cuz the cool kids have it, buy a booster

And another bump on this because it's still one of the better ideas out there.