I love everything here except HMGs with equipment. Active Scanners with a HMG or even Rep Hives with a HMG will greatly effect the Heavy vs Med balancing. Heavy vs Light will still be situational but with HMGs needling other HMGs things are gonna get crazy.

That's a fair point, I'm not entirely set on the whole Heavy + Equipment concept, though I do have to insist on the 2 equipment for Mediums.

Yeah i actually like Med frames with 2 equipment slots. This change will give players the chance to do light logi work as you said.

One thing I'd like to ask you is do you intend for Basic Frames to be a stepping stone to the specialized suits OR are they gonna be on equal ground as the specialized suits just not geared towards a certain task. If that makes any sense. The way it is now the med frames are split between assaults and logis and the basic frames are garbage. With a Basic frame buff they can actually be viewed as separate viable suits which would kinda fit in with how Dust treats weapons already.

Lets pretend the AR and its variants are all balanced and stuff.

The AR (basic frame) is good but sometimes a breach (assault suit) would be better for what your trying to do. Sometimes a Tac AR (logi) is better for your current situation but all three guns are "good".

Or is the basic frame really meant to be a learning suit that is eventually abandoned for a specialized suit.

Dreams of basic suits with two equipment slots acting as a mock logistics some time ago, then sees this.

Yes.

However i'd have basic heavy frames act as commandos and have two light weapon slots, and commandos all need a long overdue eHP decrease.

Also, I'd decrease the SP amount for the basic skills by 10% or so.

Commando need a decrease in HP?

Nopenopenopenopenopenopenopenope

Don't Caldari and Amarr Logistics suits both have only two equipment slots at the basic level? So specializing in this case will cause a decrease in health and speed, and possibly fitting capabilities(Amarr and Caldari Logistics have reduced PG and CPU respectively). The only thing Logistics suits would have that is better is scanning precision, and in that case you might as well use Light frames.

Heavy Frames with equipment would probably be okay, because sentinel suits still provide the incentive of extra hitpoints and resistances.

The light frame bonuses are nice, because I've never cared at all about the cloak, and the bonuses help with the reduced CPU of Light frames compared to Scout suits.

Overall, this is nice, and I would consider maxing out basic suits.

Tiericide frames.

Make the advantage of frames be cheap cost for lots of fitting slots.

There's no skill effects to cross check

The point is more so that you can't really try out the Logistics role properly with a single equipment. New players need at least 2 so they can get a taste for that role. And besides, All Proto Logistics have 3-4 equipment slots anyways, so it's still more than the frames.

i dont understand what youre talking about.

do you mean standard tech 1 frames? opposed to specialized tech 2 roles like assault and logi?

in eve the standards are supposed to have 2 bonuses, where the special stuff has 4+
(more coming into play as role bonuses, see heavy assault cruisers with the mwd bonus as example)

so i agree provided its done properly like how it would be in eve with regards to how the bonses are distributed among the skill levels pertaining to the suit.

I.e. 2 unique bonuses built into the standard suit that scale off the level of the standard suit operation.
then the assault suit specialization above it has 4 unique bonuses built into the suit where the first 2 scale based on the level of the suit operation and then the last 2 scale with the level of the assault suit operation skill.
and bonuses are tied into the suits like they are to ships in eve.

One fix I'd suggest for your proposal Pokey would be to not give basic frames a equipment reduction bonus but still give them a second equipment slot. That way new players can experiment with being a logi but without a fitting reduction they cant really run the good stuff. They'll NEED to skill logi to be able to do that. It also fixes (kinda) the problem of basic frames having the same amount of equipment slots as Amarr/Caldari logis because logis get a fitting reduction and equipment bonuses, basic frames wont. It'll also tone down a couple "slayer logi" fits that WILL be made.

Just as a fyi tho.
Proto Minmatar would have
5 highs 2 lows 2 WEAPONS 1 grenade 2 equipment and innate reps again.
I think that suit with any meaningful fitting reduction is gonna be disgusting as will the other racial basic frames.