A new player's first experience playing Dust 514 should be with the starter fittings. The 'Frontline' fitting is meant to offer a view of a race's tanking style and weapon choices. For half of these dropsuits, this is true. For the other half... not so much.
Current starter fitting scenarios in a handy Google doc...Special thanks to One Eyed King, Edgar Reinhart, and Joseph Ridgeson for getting me the 'Medic' fittings while I was trapped at work.Updated docu with a new tab: 'Recon' starter fitting for light dropsuits.
The Minmatar frontline starter fitting currently features three high slots, zero low slots; two shield extenders and one shield recharger. Minmatar in Dust 514 use a hybrid tanking style coupled with their innate walk/sprint speed advantages and hellish stamina regeneration.
Frontline A has the extender and recharger suggesting the shield tanking preference of the Minmatar. None of the modules reduce the speed of the dropsuit which is paramount on Minmatar fittings. The armor repairer allows the Minmatar to disengage from a fire fight, repair to 100% armor, then re-engage the enemy quicker.
In Frontline B, replacing the repairer with the reactive plate will allow for a tiny bit more eHP while still leaving the walk/sprint speed untouched. Since there is no militia version of this module, I'm not certain it can be placed in a starter fitting or not.
Rattati is currently experimenting with strafe speed penalties being added to HP modules (extenders and armor plates). Removing one of the extenders will lessen the blow to this dropsuit's strafe speed if that change goes live.
Amarr tanking style favors massive amounts of armor HP coupled with resistances. For some ungodly reason, the Amarr frontline fitting features two high slots and zero lows; two shield extenders... the polar opposite of what you would expect from a slow, brick armor tanking dropsuit. The Amarr frontline fitting is missing a slot as well.
Frontline A emphasizes the Amarr armor tanking doctrine. High slots are removed altogether, as literally every other Amarr dropsuit features more lows than highs.
The Frontline B allows the new player to retain walk/sprint speed. The removal of the armor repairer keeps this dropsuit from infringing on the Gallente's tanking style. Again, since ferroscale plates are not available in a militia form, this may not be possible.
The Minmatar 'Medic' fitting features the 3H/0L design; shield extender, shield recharger, and... this can't be right... can it? A myofibril stimulant. Yes, because when I think of a medic I imagine someone punching a hostile in the face /s
In Support A the extender sticks around to add HP and the armor repairer is added for the same reasons detailed above. The precision enhancer may allow a new player to spot hostile threats before needling a downed ally.
Support B is similar, but swaps the armor repairer for a reactive plate. The extra armor HP could be the different between surviving a run across enemy fire to needle an ally or not.
Finally, exchange the plasma rifle with the militia assault combat rifle.
I support both the removal of the 'Sniper' starter fitting as well as the renaming of 'Medic' to 'Support'.
Thank you for reading and I welcome any feedback. I personally do not fit Minmatar dropsuits so suggestions in fitting their starter fitting would be appreciated.
Please keep in mind that these fittings are intended to teach a new player how a race should fit their dropsuit, not the current metagame.