Cal assaults are great when combined with a Rail rifle as it allows you to keep at range. When fitting a cal assault suit your best off with nothing but regulators in the low slots and a mix of extenders and enegisers/recharger in the highs . The trick to running any cal suit is keeping range and cover between you and your target as it will allow your shields to do their job

The shield regen style if played correctly is good, but

In a traditional one v one, both ppl just unload into each other, most of the time you will lose

Playing "True Caldari" styles means a lot of attention to movement and range, not just running at objectives

It's all in the timing

Lets say u have 4 secs till your shields recharge begin, at 50hp/sec, armour rep of 1/sec
The armor player has shield delay of 7 secs, 15 shield recharge, 10 armour rep

They are both wounded by 400hp, then stop taking damage

3 secs in
Caldari has 3hp regend
Armour has 30hp back

7sexs
Caldari has 157hp regend
Armour has 70hp back

10 secs
Caldari has 310 hp regend
Armour has 145 hp


So as u can see, if the Caldari gets the opportunity to recover he will be ready to fight much quicker than an armour player, BUT if either player gets hit AT ALL the shield delay timer resets, so it can be tricky

However the armour player will likely have more hp to begin, and can be repped by a logi, but caldari can use armour rep tool also

The choice is up to you, hope this helped

Personally I'd say go gallente then as cal suits arnt design to take sustained fire up close. Shields in dust are designed around ranged combat and the rr imo is the best rife for ranged combat. the true strengh in shielding is its ability to recharge verry quickly my cko assault has aprox 450 shields with a recharge dely of 1.69 seconds and a depleated dely of aprox 2 sec and a recharge rate of about 90 shields per second .

Pre much
4 extenders
1 energizer
1/2 regulators
1 kincat so you can always keep range between you and your targets
0/1 reactive plate
still get around 55 shield regen a second with either 3.1 or 2.1(?) recharge delay from 1 or 2 regulators

can also run
3 dmg mod
1 extender
1 energizer
same lows
but if you run ^ fit a militia sniper rifle (excluding skills) can 1 hit headshot you

Cal Assault is good, but it's not as good when it comes to rushing/holding the objective.

Cal sent, again is not as good for teamplay as armor based types.

Commando is good. But not as needed as minmando.

Shield based suits are just not as good as armor based when it comes to teamplay.
Cuz triage hives, reps etc, they keep your armor up all the time.

Sorry miss read your post if your using the aar then cal all the way as you still have a beastly range . thw calmando with its dammage bonus to rails is great for applying dps but its survivability on the front line is a bit on the low side .

The cal assault can be used for cqc but you better keep moving and utilise cover this will allow your regulators to their job.

Getting that recharge delay to a minimum is essential when running cal suits . it also wouldent hurt to get your biotics skill maxxed and get that passive speed and stamina bonus .