All Im gonna say is theres no such thing as a Civilian dropsuit lol.

A civilian is a regular person living out their lives. A merc is a genetically modified / engineered warrior of death. If you put a civilian in a dropsuit I'm pretty sure they would die.

Also

Hi :) Don't mind my general bitterness, it's a flaw in my DNA

I'm trying to look up some of the old lore and stuff on this but can't seem to find it, I just could have sworn that Mercs had some serious modifications going on and were much less human than clone.

"The first generation of 'dropsuits' where at best crude adoptions of already existing gear given to the most elite of Special Forces. With the knowledge that the clones lives are so disposable, the technology began to take a turn towards the idea of using methods that would kill or severely shorten any mortal soldiers lifespan significantly. Radiation of shields and the portable reactors which would normally burn most regular humans and cancer ridden them for the remainder of lives was of no concern to the immortal soldiers."


Found here, though not an official source.

Also yes, I realize that I'm splitting hairs here lol. I was being pedantic.

Fair enough, but why would mercs be using such low end equipment for combat purposes? I know the burden of past decisions really isn't on you but all mercs were given warbarges, yet are running around in the Janitors Iron Man cosplay? I'm curious if there will be any lore in New Eden reflecting what happened to DUST.

I know there are far bigger fish to fry lol, just me resisting change o7

"So I have to play a class I don't like to unlock something for my preferred suit, well I'll just go AFK"

This means the progression shouldn't be time based system

It feels pretty weak to make people play classes they dislike just to fill out their equipment and modules.

But if you want to flesh out your role....you need full access to modules....to have diversity of fits....to deal with a diversity of issues....thus making the moment to moment gameplay more interesting and deep....

Before if I wanted to try out a shield module on my heavy I just store up some SP, and try it out. Now I have to push down the assault tree that I can't stand just to try it? Sure, I could settle for an inferior or limited fits, but at some point I'll have to play another class just to get access to more fits. It's creating an illusion of depth and diversity by forcing the players down paths that might not interest them in order to give them more things to unlock and "do". It's going to lead to players AFKing or not really caring about matches they have to grind through in suits they dislike just to try out a build that interests them.

If you're a dedicated Logi you're going to be better than an FOTM chaser at what you do, always. Also, how exactly does one make a dedicated Logi obsolete by cherry picking skills and modules? Other than simply being a more dedicated player who's spent more time with their build, which still doesn't actually lead to any inate in game disadvantage.

One option for avoiding playing classes you don't like to gain equipment you do could be to do missions for specific corporations or factions that have unique variations of the suit class you like with the specific equipment type you want equipped already...nothing says that all suits of a given faction and race need have the same equipment baked in.

For instance, to use the Manufacturer System and a star-ship analogy
Heavy Assault Cruisers are produced by both Khanid Innovations and Viziam. Let's assume for a minute for the sake of argument that they both produce a Vanguard Suit in the same way.

Khanid Innovations merges Caldari Weapon an Electronics Systems with Amarr Engineering and Metalurgy. A Khanid Vanguard may come equipped with a Rail Rifle or Scrambler Rifle with breach Action and an ECM Burst Generator, Armor Hardeners (simplifying for the sake of illustration), and Reactive Plates.

Viziam on the other hand favors traditional Amarrian Weapons philosophy, but general gears more towards precision, so may have a Scrambler Rifle with Tactical Action, a Damage Modifier, a heat sink, an Armor Repairer, and a Nanohive.

@CCP Rattati:

Ok,so to over-simplify here for me to get my head around something that I can relate to, dropsuits are going to be a generic nebulous thing, that we as players will then apply a software design to so that when "built on-the-fly," we can tweak the physical build of the suit to support whatever role we are looking to provide. If anything, it's the firmware patches that we earn/purchase/whatever that defines the suit being BUILT in our little player suitcase (or whatever we call it) that we take to the field.

I take that to mean the original design of a suit is some generic universal template, where race isn't even a factor anymore. Do I assume all races are using the same generic molding blank? I mean as far as lore goes? So each race will then have a "car" template. Basic 4 wheels, sedan, 6-cyl engine. Everyone in the universe has access to this due to some universal socialist-type agreement that this is everyone's base standard; or over some long time-frame that allowed all suit tech to distill itself down to the most basic common version? Instead of evolving the suit, the suit devolved until reaching that most comment default universal state, while custom firmware evolved instead?

Everyone buys a ps3, but with each software update, your ps3 goes to the next gen capability without really changing the ps3 case. Well, I guess in this example, you have a 3d printer at home just building a slightly modified version of the ps3 with each upgrade, but essentially the ps3 is the base model.

Who designed the default suit? How did enemy races get access to that design?

Please correct me where I am wrong. I am only trying to connect the dots. If I am understanding you right, this is *very* different than what we understand dropsuits to be based on our experience with DUST. That is not necessarily a complaint as it is just pointing out why it is so difficult for us out-of-the-know to grasp. We are trying, but all we really have to to relate to is coming from DUST experience. I think it would help greatly to preface everything with "this is not DUST... strap in, because this is going to be tricky to explain! Forget everything you know because it's no longer relatable." ;) I'm over here trying to conceptually patch your A to my understanding of what A used to be and it's no longer a one-to-one relationship. At least something like that would help break us from the ideas we have already built so many fantasies on since NOVA's announcement ;)

I mean that with respect and love btw.

I think I'm getting closer to getting what is going on. Assuming my post is anywhere near point. Thanks for the check-ins.