This is diversity just for the sake of needless diversity. Not every race needs a 'sniper rifle', nor does it fit every racial doctrine.

The only 'true' parity I feel races should have among infantry is [pistol], [smg], [rifle], [light av], [heavy ai], [heavy av].

Beyond that I certainly feel that every race should have a [long range] weapon, but not every [long range] weapon needs to be a sniper rifle. Just like I feel every race should have a [short range] weapon, not every [short range] weapon needs to be a shotgun. To give every single race a shotgun or a sniper rifle or a knife, etc presents a horrible misinterpreted caricature of what the races are it is at best boring and reused and at worst hideously contrived (especially with some of the designs that are brought up, involving pepperbox railguns/lasers). Each race should have their own unique weapons that fill various niches, for example swarm launcher, plasma cannon, and mass drivers are all classified as 'launcher' weapons (as confirmed by ccp) but they all do different things and have different niches.

And really, taking the sniper away from caldari? go fist yourself.

The only thing I'd agree to is a 'renaming' of the sniper rifles - With the charge being the 'standard' variant, the tactical being renamed to the 'assault', and the current 'standard' variant being renamed to the 'tactical'.

I just want the TacSnip to have no initial sway and a reticule for hipfire.

Why wouldn't a race try to create weaponry suited for every occasion with their own flare and available technology?

Well there's two things to that. Nova knives were made because of the martial traditions of the Raata empire (that later became the caldari state) and minmatar use them for a few reasons 1) there's parallels within their own tribal societies. 2) minmatar are outside the box thinkers that will do almost anything if their hand is forced. 3) Minmatar favor reliable, conventionally low-tech solutions to problems. 4) The Ishukone corporation (which are caldari liberals) have an incredibly strong relationship with the minmatar - having previously given extremely large quantities of insorum for free to the minmatar republic, insorum is the cure to the previously thought 'uncurable' vitoc 'poison/mutagen' used by the amarr to control minmatar slaves. Ishukone make nova knives and SMG's for the minmatar at extremely low costs because of that relationship and the forward looking mentality of the liberals.



Caldari racial doctrine is 'siege warfare' this is what their gang links and command ships get bonuses to in eve. This is represented in dust best by nanohives, injectors and incredibly long range weaponry - the caldari take a position, fortify it and bombard you with long range weapons until you submit, when they advance someone covers them. Snipers fit this as it's a very patient and stationary playstyle that fits the caldari methodology. Hell in space caldari fleets tend to drop out of warp at 200km, the admiral lights his cigar and then missiles and rails start firing at everything - if something gets close the caldari either warp off & back in or activate micro jump drives and move 100km away.

Gallente racial doctrine is 'information warfare' this is what their gang links and command ships get bonuses to in eve. This is represented relatively well in dust by their scanners and scouts - they see you, you don't see them. They then use this information to pick off high value targets and move in with their preferred short range blasters to brawl at short range. Snipers tentatively fit information warfare in theory, but with the gallente's heavy preference for short range engagements of high armor / mobility superiority it's unfeasible.

Amarr racial doctrine is 'armored warfare' this is what their gang links and command ships get bonuses to in eve. It's hard to say this is particularly well represented in dust simply due to lack of amarr content, but in general amarr engage at medium to long range with suits that just don't ****ing die. They're not afraid of getting up close and should any individual actually drop they can immediately come back due to the short reinforcement lines provided by drop uplinks. Furthermore war to the Amarr is incredibly psychological, they have a high preference for visibility and visibly breaking their opponents will either through the belief of 'IT WILL NOT DIE" presented in their sentinels or weapons that you go "Oh god, that thing just killed four people with one sweep of his laser". In fact the laser rifle is incredibly psychological everyone knows what pre-heated lasers do to any suit and they'll frantically scramble to find cover if a laser is trained on them. The Amarr want you to know what killed you and where it was.

Minmatar racial doctrine is 'skirmish warfare' this is what their gang links and command ships get bonuses to in eve. Plain and simple, Minmatar are a blitzkrieg on legs. They come in lightning fast with explosions, walls of bullets, loud noises and before you know it it's all over everyone is dead from knives, bullets, grenades or other explosions. They're relatively versatile and pragmatic in their loadouts, but the patience and immobility a sniper requires in no way fits the minmatar doctrine as they operate entirely on shock and awe.

In short the sniper rifle is a specialty weapon that only really fits the long range & patient style of the caldari, other races would have entirely unique 'long range' specialist weapons. Variant weapons are created largely to go 'This is what this weapon would be if x race designed it' which is why I'd be okay with renaming a few sniper rifles but not okay with just doing an oprah "EVERYONE GETS A SNIPER/SHOTGUN/KNIFE!".

Lets add racial unique tech to the races that don't create that tech. effectivly removing the diffrences between each of the races. emm NO, leave the caldari tech to the caldari where it belongs

Always trying to keep the Caldari man down

that is idiotic.

Adding parity by re-purposing existing weapons doesnt appeal to me very much.

Also the Cal Commando is already useless at anything besides redline sniping, so Im not sure why you would want to take away the only thing that makes them worth it. Its easily the worst suit in the game, it doesnt need to get screwed out of yet another role it can do, I mean they already got screwed out of the swarm launcher, which is a caldari weapon, and they are screwed out of any kind of fighting that doesnt involve being behind cover 70-80 meters away from the enemy because their regen, health, slot layout, stamina, and speed, which are all crap, combined with the rail rifle nerf which disproportionately ****** over the Cal Commando's short range capabilities.

I guess what Im saying is: buff cal commando (and all commandos, but cal commando is particularly bad)

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What's your opinion on this? In case you have completely new takes on sniper rifles for other races, please feel free to post away, Iam very eager to read those...

And the swarm launcher thing isnt a huge deal, mostly because the biggest bonus commandos get to it is the reload speed, not the 10% damage bonus.

Yes the Min commando gets a 10% bonus from the swarm launcher, I was posting from the Cal Commando perspective (though I have both of them anyway). From the cal's perspective, the 10% damage loss on the swarm launcher isnt a super big deal, thats the point.

Min Comm (probably the best commando) is alot less crappy than the Cal Comm, but still I think its not nearly as good as assault/scout/heavy/logi. I dont have direct experience with the gal comm/amarr comm, but I think, compared to Cal Comm, are much more competitive in close quarters (but its worth noting the Amarr Comm's damage bonus is completely 100% outclassed by the Amar Assault's bonus, Amarr Assault bonus provides more dps increase due to the heat mechanics affect on dps).