Good questions I have asked that myself countless times. Butt CCP hinted that they may refund your SP so you can respec.

Dev post

It's also worth noting that in EVE, weapons skills are only specialized racially. While the ships are race specific, the skill "Small Hybrid Turret" is race-neutral. You can use Caldari Railguns and Gallente Blasters equally well.

I would not be surprised to see the "Assault Rifle" skill work for everyone, but then have "Assault Rifle Specialization" separate into "Gallente AR Specialiation", "Caldari AR Specialization", etc.

there is no reasoning for a refund, the old rifle was not changed in any way and you can still use it.

The general hint about SPs and any new items is that instead of a full char wipe come retail release (rumoured oct '13) then the SPs you have now (minus the 500k and skills u have from your starter fits) will be set to zero and your current SPs set as unallocated allowing you to setup your char with the full range of skills come retail.

As was mentioned by Eterne the beta is a testing area and so its unfair to ask you to spend sps testing everything and then leaving you stuck with swarm launcher 3 when you dont want it come retail.

tbh i would say thats a pretty fair move and would be most logical idea. also your starter skills may vary slightly dependant on race (as in eve) so u may start with minmatar scout or gallente heavy depending on race and starter 'type'

There is going to be no more skill resets of any sorts including full refunding. Every scenario from here on out will be on a case by case basis and the developers would decide what is fair.

If you look to eve for example they deleted skills, and refunded the skill points they had.
They also racialed out destroyers and battlecrusiers, a mistake that should have been done in the very beginning when there was a generic skill but racial ships. So now when they split that skill apart they're going ot issue skill points to allow previous flying to be allowed still.

In our case if they add amarr assault, gallente assault and minmatar assault for example they're not going to give us the SP for prototype just because we had caldari assault V. Its likely they'll refund it and let you pick what race you wanted ultimately.

Post #2 in this thread provided a source stating that CCP might consider refunding spent SPs. Got a source to counter that one?

Just a note, we've said we won't reset skill points to 0 (without a HUGE GIANT CURRENTLY-UNFATHOMABLE reason). There might still conceivably be a time where we reset skill point allocation.

Edit: Edited to add in caveat.

There wont be any more full resets no but it was a post by Eterne stating that resetting just skills to zero and setting them all to unallocated so you can rebuild char was the favorable option.

So, we've all been seeing evidence of a possible (probable) upcoming Caldari Heavy suit.

there is no reasoning for a refund, the old rifle was not changed in any way and you can still use it.

What evidence?

Could someone explain please?

um the evidence would be ccp telling us that there will be a minmatar heavy, an ammar heavy, a caldari heavy, and a gallente heavy.

People really don't get what the beta tag is for, sigh.

And the multiple videos showing gloves that look like the ones on an Assault suit (Caldari) holding a Forge Gun, and the video announcement (now on the CCP YouTube as well as IGN) that there will be racial variants of each "frame size" (Small = Scout and three unknowns, Medium = Assault/Logi and two unknowns, Large = Heavy and three unknowns).

They'd better make a new model for it. If it's just the Assault Suit re-hashed stat-wise it's going to be really discouraging. I understand it takes a lot to develop a game but if you're going to do it, do it right.

Given that they need a "small frame" Caldari suit as well, and have to do the same to Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr, I can't really see them re-using the Heavy model as a small frame.

um the evidence would be ccp telling us that there will be a minmatar heavy, an ammar heavy, a caldari heavy, and a gallente heavy.

People really don't get what the beta tag is for, sigh.