really the only thing about passives that is even semi reliable is the second ring, which for cal scouts its about 22 and logis is 18. A 5% increase isn't going to mean much, they might as well just combine them with prec mods.

They definitely went overboard when nerfing passive scan, especially range amps. They also need to swap the range stats for logis and scouts. Who thought it would be a good idea to give suits dedicated to scanning worse scan range stats than a suit designed to carry equipment?

I don't want to see them get buffed too much. The 80m Caldari Scout passives were absolutely ridiculous. I understand that this is nowhere near the 45% they once were, but it is still a fair yet significant increase. 20% would allow A CalScout to achieve just over 60m with 2 Range Amps, and I feel like that is a fairly good place to have it. 25% is where I would probably draw the line, as that pushes the CalScout to over 65m, which covers the effective ranges of many weapons.

Again, the second ring is literally the only ring even remotely worth anything. A non modded third ring will not even pick up a non modded assault.

The difference between an unaided cal scout and an unaided cal assault in picking up another assault suit on tacnet would be 7 meters, which is a little less than shotgun range. This happens on the second ring for both suits. So at their base their effectiveness is rather similar.

Now, what if I said that 65 m is useless range value?

In city maps, 30 is sufficient to give one a heads up and advantage where your normal awareness is obscured by obstacles, where 65 (even with a non impotent third ring) wouldn't add a whole lot more for the trade off for complete vulnerability to others passive scans and scanners and less ehp. With open spaces / trenches, killing is very common in the range of 70-90 m with all the power creeping, which makes that 65 m pointless in that scenario, the old values were powerful because its distance out ranged rifles. In short its kind of like dampening, if the enemy has a prec of 30, having a db score of 31 or 51 doesn't really matter, you still get picked off, and you are relying on good old fashion awareness like any player should.

That being said, I'm not saying increase it to make it surpass rifle ranges. I'm just pointing out that your % buff is a pointless and useless buff. No cal scout or anyone for that matter would run 2 range amps even with the proposed buff.

Which is why I think to just merge prec and range into a single high mod slot or just leave it as is and just pretend range amps don't exist. long range scanning in cities is nice but not needed for what you trade off, the next bump in utility is only achieved past rifle ranges. To keep range amps from being useful in the open, we can't fix range amps without having to make the cal scout bonus completely irrelevant, and you can't make range amps useful without surpassing that threshold of outside/open usefulness on cal scouts.

Even if we just changed the cal scout bonus, the biggest tell sign though is that scouts don't even find the range amps useful for trying to expand that second ring, meaning they don't value ewar past dampening for scanners, as the second ring has its one small niche already and with the third ring useless, range amps don't really have a purpose. Scanners are just safer and easier to field without having to dedicate all your slots to one function.

A well thought out post filled with legitimate and logical arguments.

Another solution would be to give fixed bonuses like HP mods, that would make amps useful for suits with a poor scan range without making Cal scouts and logis too good.
You could have for example +10 meters to total range per mod, with stacking penalties to prevent excessive scan ranges.
That could be +10, +8, +5, +2,.... which means +25 meters if you really want to stack, while having only one is still worthy on any suit.

Here's what I would do.



Basic - +10% Range, -5% Precision

ADV - +15% Range, -10% Precision

PRO - + 25% Range, -15% Precision.

EDIT: For stacking penalties, the positive stats would suffer penalties similar to damage mods, while the included Precision penalty would be stacked completely.




Numbers are debatable, but my basic idea is range amps will work much better, but that increased range comes at the cost of precision. Meaning you'd have to combine them to make them very effective, just like shield extenders.

+% Range, -% Precision

Numbers are debatable, but my basic idea is range amps will work much better, but that increased range comes at the cost of precision. Meaning you'd have to combine them to make them very effective, just like shield extenders.

No, not unless the penalties are as small as Shield Extender penalties.

Here's what I would do.



Basic - +10% Range, -5% Precision

ADV - +15% Range, -10% Precision

PRO - + 25% Range, -15% Precision.

EDIT: For stacking penalties, the positive stats would suffer penalties similar to damage mods, while the included Precision penalty would be stacked completely.




Numbers are debatable, but my basic idea is range amps will work much better, but that increased range comes at the cost of precision. Meaning you'd have to combine them to make them very effective, just like shield extenders.