Nice!

Pilot Suit = Regular Light Suit
+ Cybernetic Implants / Rig / Subsystem / Warlink slots

It would be really cool if the bonuses you got from the Pilot Modules gave out bonuses that you cannot get from regular vehicle modules.

With the Racial Pilot Skills giving out efficacy bonuses.

Suggestive Post INCOMING

(Dirty talk for HAV lovers)

I quite doubt it.

The hard part will be getting the modules to work for the vehicle when equipped on a pilot suit and making them not work for the other suits. I agree completely here but as stated previously, the bonuses. would not be a bad thing in general. I like your module idea and it would help the person wearing the pilot suit to stay in their vehicle.

The stats I suggested, take em or leave em.
The bonuses the other people have proposed, along with the module idea, seem to be very solid ideas. To solve the issue of someone just skilling to 5 and running a different suit, make all the mentioned bonuses/ideas work ONLY if you are in a PILOT suit.

Would the % go up by level of the pilot suit? Will the effects from the skill itself only be effective when wearing said suit? I like where this is going but what would stop other suits from using the link mods?

Also...

wouldn't link mods need to be their own skill?

I honestly hadn't thought of any of that...

Coming up with ways "it can work" or at least "what it can do" is easy enough. It has been done in this thread about making it reduce cooldowns on modules (there is a skill for that), make modules last longer (skill for that), give bonuses to repair (guess what? Skill exists), turret rotation (Yup), reduce the movement penalty from armor (it's a newer one, but yes), and shield recharge delay reduction (this one is actually not in game providing you mean recharge from damage and not depleted). But, yes, I am going to hold to the fact that all of this falls into Scenario 1 or 2. Either a balance problem or CCP saying "put more effort in to do what you are supposed to do."

Allow me to flip the scenario a little bit with AV. When most Vehicles were too powerful in early 1.7 (60/40 Hardeners and better Repairers) you didn't have AV guys screaming for a better suit in order to take out the Tanks. You had suggestions of either "nerf that" or "buff this." With Vehicles on the cusp of being slightly weak compared to AV, the Pilot Suit rears its head again as a suggestion. This is curious to me: rather than suggesting modifying the skills, the modules, or even to the Vehicles themselves that an entirely new system is to be designed. Yes, Pilot Suits were originally mentioned and even showed up in the Skill Tree but to an extent MTAC's also did. I don't know why MTAC's are seen as a joke of a thing that CCP never really thought through while Pilot Suits continue to be something that the playerbase want.

The simple argument is the one that I prefer less but it is the easiest to get through: "Why does Tank Man have to put points in 4 different Trees when AV Man only does 3? Also, why does my fourth Tree do absolutely nothing to help any other role I can do while only AV Man Trees mostly follow outside his Anti-Vehicle Role?"

Joseph Ridgeson seems to be one of the biggest anti-pilot suits person. Almost every pilot suit thread I have read, he is there saying why it wouldn't work or how it would unbalance the game. So, ignore the scrub...

Anyway...

Lost Apollo, True Adamance and Pokey Dravon, continue on. You guys are on to something here.

It would appear to me that most of us seem to be in agreeance. Using the pilot suits slots to fit link modules in definitely takes away from their combat viability, outside of their vehicles.. Sure they have a side arm and a grenade slot but what's that going to do when you only have 200 eHP? I think if we are going to give bonuses to link modules then they need to be based on the races themselves. I also like the link module PG/CPU reduction per level BUT I think if you want the prototype bonuses then you need to be wearing the prototype pilot suit. This would also solve the issue of people putting their skill up to 5 and just running a standard suit. Besides that, wearing the prototype suit means you can fit more link mods. I would probably go with the most basic grenade, above militia, and the same for the side arm. For me, if I were to ever used it, it would be more about stacking the link mods.

Personally disagree with you Mr Dravon on this one. Specifically as I see it the pilot suit should be role affirming, a restriction placed to the use of specialist vehicles it could provide simple direct bonuses to vehicles themselves, were talking incremental 1% per level increased to base stats like acceleration, turret tracking, handling etc.

I do however link modules are wonderful.

Sort of like Implants for our pilots that enhance one skill/ attribute of the HAV by X% based on a combination of your dropsuit (aka Proto Pilots fit better links than non pilots) and your Link Skill itself.

Every time I read one of your posts I kick myself and think I should have put your name first on my CPM voting list rather than 4th.

I want vehicle dampeners and cloaks... Oh and I want the Gallente Pilot suit to have better dampening and cloaks! ^_^

Before you go Mindlinks bear in mind that Auto Canon Turrets traditionally have fantastically good tracking, while Alpha God Arty has moderate speeds, Too much tracking bonus would make Arty the go to turret for everything and significantly unbalance it.

My input:

- No tiers, always PRO. Costs ~5000 Isk. Orange, Brown, or White color scheme.
- More HP than light frame (almost Logistics levels). Why? So that LAVs work, and a chance at winning a duel.
- Same speed as existing Light frames. Same jump/sprint/stamina. Why? To run away.
- Terrible scan precision, but good innate dampening (slightly more than light frame). Once again, to facilitate escape.
- Skill requires Racial Light Frame trained to 1. "Racial Pilot Dropsuit" skill costs half the SP of other Specializations.
- Enough fitting at max core/fitting skills (except Amarr) to either fit at least a PRO sidearm and a piece of STD equipment or vice versa and one Complex module (except Minmatar, lol).

Pilot Suit Bonus: -2% vehicle module recharge delay per level, automatic RDV priority.

Amarr: 1 high, 1 low, 1 S, 1 equipment. Bonus: +4% Base vehicle armor HP/level, 2% vehicle weapon damage/level
Caldari: 2 high, 0 low, 1 S, 1 equipment. Bonus: +4% Base vehicle shield HP/level, 2% vehicle weapon reload/level
Gallente: 0 high, 2 low, 1 S, 1 equipment. Bonus: +4% Vehicle armor repair module repair rate, 2% vehicle top speed/level
Minmatar: 1 high, 1 low, 1 S, 1 equipment. Bonus: -4% Base vehicle shield recharge delay, 2% vehicle acceleration/level

Simple and effective. No need to over-complicate things. Maybe some different combos.

Why should this suit not be combat-viable? I think it should at least be able to fight one aggressor.

Will this really even affect balance? I think the biggest factor in vehicle balance has been resistances, so these suits would have no such bonuses. I wish my LAV was covered up...hopefully they are part of the equation here...

Also, why is the word "dropsuit" misspelled on this forum?

No however I feel like a pilot suit should act as some kind of visual affirmation of role. No restricted to but benefiting the role in a very generalist manner with very small, cautious, non racially specific bonuses.

There is not reason ever that a player should be able to pilot a vehicle in a Sentinel Suit and simply drop out combat ready to keep fighting when the wish to escape.

We don't necessarily need racially aligned bonuses for anything other than say.....

1% per level to racially aligned turret

- Fitting reduction
- Tracking Speed
- Reload Speed

Hell I'd almost certainly fork out ISK for those 1-2% increases in efficiency.

Looking at those bonuses (some adding up to 10%)...... I am borderline considering boycotting pilot suits entirely.....

Fine I simply do not see why pilot suits do not enhance an aspect of a racial stereotype not define them. Reason I suggested general bonuses is so that they do not benefit one type of vehicle more than any other.

As I have said each suit grants

X% to either fitting capacity for racial turrets or, ammunition capacity, tracking speeds, zoom levels, for racially appropriate turrets per level..... or generic mobility bonuses like acceleration, hull tracking, top speed, reduction of mass penalties, etc.


Very small things the improve vehicle functionality for all of that races vehicles not specific racial groups attributes.

The tricky bit arises where you begin to realise that LAV don't need the turret tracking bonuses an HAV might and and ADS simply repositions itself to fire form its gun, not track to enemy positions. But every vehicle benefits from small acceleration and top speed bonuses, reload rates, fitting reductions, and perhaps zoom.

REDACTED

The pilot suit tab is still sitting there in the market, tauntingly empty... :(

Just like the Heavy is the only Suit to be allowed to use a Heavy Weapons so should Pilot Suits be the only ones allowed to Pilot a Tank, and/or Dropship.