Once a weapon is unlocked its free to be used on any suit according to Z. How the weapons are unlocked will be different.

In the example jpg in the OP, the mass driver is unlocked after skilling a little into the logistics role. But the SP and time requirement to do so will be less than is now and there aren't 5 levels of Mass Driver skill to get to proto as standard and advanced variants are being ditched.

The real sp sink will be specialisation and racial specialisation of that logi role.

The choice here is really very simple. And people are over analysing it.

Some are saying its the responsibility of the NPE to teach players the about the tree. Fair enough. However creating an NPE that teaches the tree AND teach them the basics of gameplay is just a waste of Dev resources if the tree itself can be configured in a way to teach the new player as they progress. The saved Dev time can then go to creating a PvE system that introduces basic combat skills. (Which is already the case with the salvage and rogue drones concept that JC introduced at the key note).

The main problem with just slavishly copying the Eve system however is that it was designed for a subscriber based game style. Speed is not the essence in Eve when it comes to skill training. Which is why its a passive based system that allows you explore a vast ammount of things that one can do in that game with no way that you can hugely influence the speed of skill gain.

This is not the case for a twitch based, free to play FPS. The more you play, the faster you advance. And the current skill tree is not fit for that purpose.

Why?

I hate to break this to you, but the reason that Dust hasn't gained the player base that was hoped isn't just because a lot of feature haven't made it or lack of quality in the game, it's because it's so bloody hard to understand for those that are used to the Halo's and COD's of the FPS world. We keep the tree 'as is' and the player base will never grow beyond 5K. Ever.

Making the progression system more accessible isn't 'dumbing down' if it means the potential size of the player base increases 5 fold. Increased player base leads to greater revenue for CCP which leads to continued support for the game and expansion of it. Yes, it's vulgar to mention the money but without it the game dies.

Continuing to use a subscription based model in a FTP game is financial suicide for CCP. Changes will have to be made if the game is to compete with The World of Tanks and Planetside 2's of the PC based FTP genre.

We need a system more welcoming, more forgiving and less prone to wasting SP like the current system is. None of the other FTP games use a 5 level system quite like ours, and they have A: larger player bases than Dust and B: Make more money.

We have to be prepared to come out of our comfort zone. The game is finally going to have all the features we were promised 5 years ago. But all that work is really going to be for nothing if we can't more people into the game. The system that Z has designed will do that for us. It needs a few tweaks, I agree with that. But sticking to what we have now simply because its 'Eve' is just not an option anymore.

It's limiting player growth and that's the last thing we need right now.