Hey there, fellow mercs. Your friendly neighborhood commando here with some thoughts on how scouts can be adjusted to work as intended, as well as keeping them versatile and fun to play. Sorry if this has been suggested before, I just haven't caught anybody bringing it up recently.

The Minmatar Scout is being adjusted to get a bonus to codebreaker module fitting (I'm not positive if they will be removing the skill bonus set, however). This made me think; why not make all of the scout suit skill bonuses apply to modules rather than making them passives. Ideally the Caldari suits would get a bonus to Precision Enhancers (to counter scouts), Amarr to Range Amplifiers (to set up combat positions), Gallente to Profile Dampeners (to infiltrate and get into cqc with ease), and Minmatar to Codebreakers (assuming they're moved to high slots, of course.)

This would give those fitting a scout the option to properly enhance their E-warfare specialty, or brick tank their suits for fast paced combat situations, but not both at the same time. I would even give them a secondary bonus as well (such as the Amarr getting a bonus to Armor Plating seeing as it's meant to be the most combat intensive variant) that way scouts have to option to specialize highly in one skill or the other, an even mix of both, or none whatsoever.

I don't want to limit options in anyway, just incentivize meaningful decision making. Right now, there aren't many reasons not to brick tank a scout suit (with the exception of dedicated specialist masters). But if the module skill bonus percentage were such, that it matched or even beat their current passive bonus combined with modules, I believe that is when scouts can finally work as originally intended. I don't think there is anything wrong with making a slayer fit out of one particular suit or another, and players should never be disincentive to customizing a suit however they desire, but when these options are stacked with powerful passive bonuses, that's when things get hairy and hard balance around.

Of course, all of this is merely conjecture, and I highly encourage everyone to share their opinions on the subject. If you agree or disagree and if you have different ideas for what skill bonuses could be applied to each suit. Thanks again for listening.