I'm on board with this, though I think there should be 1 or 2 armor hp/s on the Cal- while they shouldn't have much armor, I see no reason to give them zero regen on it, as any shield tanker will inevitably end up dipping slightly into their armor HP.

I see no other way to give Assaults a real role without the addition of new content, i.e. jetpacks, which best-case are many months away.

Seems a bit high on my end, but I like your idea on regeneration. Regeneration in my opinion plays a key role in assaulting.

Would it be best to push the Rep threshold up to Amarr 15hp/s and Gallente 20hp/s or bring it down to Amarr 10hp/s and Gallente 15hp/s?

I fear that if we do not tread lightly we will see the manifestation of the triple Rep Madrugar in Gallente Assault users. I'm inclined to bring it down then, what about this:



4 Complex Armor Repairers on a Assault gk.0 using this suggestion would take its Armor repair rate to; 25 (6.25 x 4 modules) + 15 base making it 40 armor reps a second. Would this be overpowered?

I agree with your buff to regeneration as a whole, but regen needs to more focused on regaining your tank after the confrontation, rather than using your regen during a battle to win it. This becomes a problem with armour reps.

See I don't know about that. Instinctively I would run two complex reppers and two basic plates. With passives, my reps per second would be 27.25 (I think) and considerable tank.

I think these numbers are high, but I really like the idea of a frontal assault specialist that can keep the pressure on. My take on the numbers:

• Caldari: shield recharge rate 60HP/s (up from 30HP/s)
• Minmatar: shield recharge rate 50HP/s (up from 25HP/s)
• Amarr: increase armor HP to 270HP (up from 180HP)
• Gallente: innate armor repair 5HP/s (up from 2HP/s)

Make the changes listed above, gather data, make adjustments as needed.

I opted not to give Amarr innate armor repair because I still think that needs to be a Gallente tanking style. The Amarr should continue to be armor bricks. The Gallente's innate armor repair gives them a free PRO armor repper.

Well, I want to make sure that if a suit matches those numbers, they would be gimped compared to an assault.

Just like an assault with EWAR is gimped comapred to a scout.

Create a design goal ("allow assault dropsuits able to provide pressure during combat without having to stop for eHP recovery as much as other dropsuits"), incrementally make changes to meet that goal, gather data along the way, if the changes aren't enough then tweak the stats up again.

It's like getting weighed at the doctor's office. Does the nurse wildly fling the slide back and forth across the bar until she/he happens to hit your weight? No, she gets fairly close to weight, then taps the slide until the scale balances.

Also, while we're all here; Lets discuss Assault's module layout.

First off read Kagehoshi's Suggestion here and leave him a comment and a like if you agree with him. The summary of his suggestion is as follows;

assault & logi
Give the Cal logistics 3 equip slots at STD. Also 4 equip at PRO (reduce mod slot from 9 to 8 in exchange).
Give all assaults the same number of mod slots.
Equalize the mod slot layouts for assaults & logis of the same race & tier:

Assault & logi STD (high/low)
Am: 2/4
Ga: 2/4
Ca: 4/2 (+1 equip for logi)
Min: 3/3

Assault & logi ADV
Am: 2/5
Ga: 3/4
Ca: 5/2
Min: 4/3

Assault & logi PRO
Am: 3/5
Ga: 3/5
Ca: 5/3 (+1 equip for logi)
Min: 4/4

I have two suggestions I'd like to open up for discussion

1. Symmetry between opposing races similar to Sentinel Layout
First off I propose swapping the layouts of the Minmatar and the Caldari and from there creating a symmetry between opposing races' suits.

At Prototype Level Assault Suit:
Amarr 3/4
Minmatar 4/3
Gallente 2/5
Caldari 5/2

2. Slot layout similar to Scouts

Amarr 3/4
Minmatar 5/2
Gallente 3/4
Caldari 4/3

I'm liking number 1 a lot more but giving the Gallente 5 low slouts could(?) make it OP? I'm not sure. what do ya'll think

So you suggest we keep the slot layouts as they are currently? My problem with that is currently the Amarr have one less slot layout compared to the others due to a minuscule increase in base stats, something that the Amarr Scout and Sentinel both share yet they retain the same total slots as the other races.

So if we want to try the Regeneration for Assaults I suggest to add a lowslot for the Amarr making it inline with the Gallente (3 highs and 4 lows)

Suggestion 1 works off of the fact that Amarr Assaults are missing a slot for no good reason and by swapping the Min and Cal layouts we are then able to achieve symmetry in opposing races and thus turning the layouts to

Amarr 3/4
Minmatar 4/3
Gallente 2/5
Caldari 5/2

If we don't want too much change then just give the Amarr their missing lowslot

Amarr 3/4
Minmatar 5/2
Gallente 3/4
Caldari 4/3

Pretty much agree in every way here, except I think the numbers are a little too high. Even something like half those numbers would be better than what we have.

IMO, Scouts have speed, Logis have utility, Sentinels have defense, Commandos have versatility, give Assaults regeneration. Make them the best at going in and out of battle quickly and effectively. Right now Assaults have way more downtime than Scouts do and yet they aren't really rocking much more HP than Scouts.

Thinking about numbers doesn't equate to putting them into practice. I can think about numbers very carefully as well. It doesn't mean it's right.

Some of the ones like Gallente don't need that much Shield Regen, for example. The armor makes sense. The Caldari is probably a bit too intense as well. I think, if anything, Minmatarr should be like 40 and Caldari 60. That would still be really damn good.

Another thing to note is that these shouldn't strictly be the only numbers changed. You have to think about the bigger picture. The other things that Assaults really need is some buffs to their CPU/PG capacity and a better base Assault bonus. It makes no sense why Assaults instead of Commandos got the one they did. Commandos are fitting 2x Light Weapons which take up way more CPU/PG than Light/Sidearm would and so would be much more useful.

The bonuses altogether I think should be scrapped and redone. The ScR and LR on the other hand should just be rebalanced to reduce heat build-up to allow any suit to use them effectively. I know the Amarr Assaults love their bonus but it honestly would be a buff to the Amarr to reduce Laser weapons heat build-up overall to make it so any any Amarr suit could make use of them just as effectively. This would also pave the way for making these weapons more viable to other races as well. The Amarr Scout is still Amarr and would theoretically use Laser weaponry so I see no reason why they'd be any less effective with them than an Assault, Logi, Commando, etc as far as heat goes.

The Amarr and Minmatarr need more definitive defensive / offensive role bonuses as well as stat bonuses. To me these two races sit in these weird place where they're not really getting much in terms of stats and bonuses for the sacrifices they make in other departments.

Overall, though, the design philosophy behind suit bonuses needs to be equalized. I've said this many times before but it's not fair that Scouts and Sentintels get bonuses that don't require any module/equipment use. Commandos have bonuses that at least are calculable in terms of battle effectiveness: I do x% more damage to my targets using these weapons. It'd be cool if Assaults maybe got a complementary offensive / defensive bonus like current Scouts and Sentintels do with theirs.

For example,

Caldari Assault: +5% to shield recharge rate per level and +3% to damage to shields with hybrid - rail weaponry per level.
Gallente Assault: +1 HP/s armor repair rate per level and +3% to damage to armor with hybrid - plasma weaponry per level.
Minmatarr Assault: -10% to shield recharge delays per level and +3% to damage to shields with projectile weaponry per level.
Amarr Assault: -10% to armor plate speed penalty per level and +3% to damage to armor with laser weaponry per level.

No way, I think that would make assaults way too OP. Now, this is coming from a Minmatar suit user so everything feels slightly OP to me, but I have to admit that seems a bit overkill.

Personally, I think Commandos were given bonuses the assaults should have received. I'd like to see the Commando damage bonuses to racial weaponry transferred to assault suits. The assault suits would also all receive the Minmatar bonus to clip size of racial weaponry.

The commandos would retain their reload bonus and receive a bonus to max ammo (say 30-40%) for equipped racial weaponry.

Thoughts?

The repper madrugar works because it can repair faster than incoming damage.
Literally any weapon in Dust can put out 10x the damage required to break even a quad-rep Gallassault with this - and a quad-rep Galassault wouldn't have any buffer.