Obscured amongst the rage and vitriol of Takahashi KashukenGÇÖs recent posts I found a concern that he expressed which I feel warrants further discussion.

CPM1 candidates, what is your experience with, or understanding of, vehicles and the issues which are important to the tankers and pilots of DUST 514?

Two part response to this, first is a more direct answer second part is (in my view) the more important one.


1st - My current impression is that the light suit excel at roles within eWar and/or mobility.
That can be scans/intel, that can be covert assassinations and disruption, objective harassment, infiltration (such as getting behind hostile lines to deploy links et al), flanking/skirmishing either to pick of stragglers or in support of a friendly push, etc.
Ideally I don't think that any role, regardless of frame type, should be only one thing on the battlefield, and in that sense I wouldn't say scouts should be only recon. To me such assessments are a bit of an oversimplification.

2nd - While I fully understand asking each candidate what their view on roles is I think there's some context that's important, that being who they (we) think defines the nature of a role. In my view I am not qualified as a single player to define the entirity of any role. Not the HAV a have a few mill into, not the scout I'm just coming back to, not the support Logi I have proto in every race. It is not the place for any single individual within the community, CPM or no, to define a role. Nor is it the place of a CPM to enforce their views on a role over that of the community.

As a CPM I would state my own point of view to CCP, because calling out my own bias and understanding matters, but I would not substitute my view for that of the community regardless of whether I agree with or understand the community view being presented. My job in such cases is to inform CCP about what the community voice is and to provide them with information about where they can look for a deeper description of that trend/stance. Any less than that, it seems to me, directly defeats the purpose of having a CPM in the first place.

0.02 ISK
Cross

Let me put more context on the question. Imagine you are sitting in a boardroom in Shanghai talking to CCP and the issue of vehicle balance and the role of HAVGÇÖs comes up. Who among the CPM 1 candidates would be able to give an quick explanation to their colleagues on the TankerGÇÖs perspective, to lay a foundation for further discussion.

An example of this type of situation happened recently in the Biomass Podcast (I think it was Episode 4) were they wanted to discuss Scouts, and Mossellia Delt, who was a guest that week, was able to give a clear explanation of the ScoutGÇÖs perspective, which layed the foundation for the rest of the discussion.

On outstanding issues you will have time to go consult with experts in the community, but not while in the middle of a conversations with CCP. If there is a role that is not represented on the CPM in some capacity, one of CCPGÇÖs bad ideas might gain too much traction before the folly in it is realized.

If we find that none of the leading CPM candidates have a solid familiarity with vehicles, then there is still time for someone to attempt to address that gap. I recently took on this challenge myself. I had long participated in vehicle balance discussions as the author of the Swarm Launcher guide, but I was not sure that I was striking the right balance only having experience with one half of the debate. So I created a HAV alt, and then also skilled my second main into HAVGÇÖs. I spent about a month learning and specializing in HAVGÇÖs (cost me 15 million ISK), and playing with other tanking specialist. Eventually wrote a guide on Rail Tanks. While I donGÇÖt understand the history of HAVGÇÖs in DUST as well as the long time Tankers, I at least can speak from first hand experience when it comes to current vehicle balance.