As I have skilled further into the heavy suit I have noticed something that seems off to me, namely that armor plates either do not provide enough of a penalty to the other classes, or they provide too much penalty to fatties.

A player with field mechanics level 5 will have a standard scout suit with 125 base armor, so a complex armor plate adds more than 9-% armor for a ten percent movement penalty.

That same player in a standard heavy suit will have base armor of 812. The complex plate add less than 20% total armor, but still carries the same movement penalty.

How is this reasonable?

My suggestion would be to make armor modules that can only be fitted to heavy suits that either have reduced movement penalties or increased HP, to bring them more in line with the armor plates on the other suits.

armor plate boost is tacked on AFTER the passive boost, i tested that, because for that much armor, the movement is not usually worth it for scouts, since they end up moving fast as Lgoistics.

besides, you're already got a crazy amount of armor, and move slow, why not boost something that gives more renewable?

I wasn't referring to if it was a good idea for scouts, merely using them as the opposite end of the spectrum with regards to HP gained and movement penalty compared to the heavy.

As for why run armor plates, there are a couple of reasons. First is to outlast other heavies. Second is to reduce CPU consumption to enable better guns with more damage mods. Third is because logis can repair armor under fire. Fourth is that ARs do 110% to shields, but 90% to armor.

Finally, that crazy armor only seems that way until you see a proto logi running two or three complex plates and a pair of shield extenders. Then you realize the heavy gets boned, hard at the top tier.

i've not seen a Logi running those kinds of heavy armor mods. though i have seen proto heavy running around as an untouchable behemoth.

i understand the idea on damage mitigation against soem things, but i think the main issue is because of the major lack of PG/CPU on the heavy suits compared to the rest, since at proto all but heavy have effectively doubled those, where heavy only gets 50% more.

i really do see your point, since heavies are supposed to be tough.... just not invincible, and done properly i've seen heavies take about 1k damage to drop.

yes heavies could use some love on suit stuff, but if you get specilized tools, so will all other classes of suits, and you might find more nova knife scouts sneaking up behind you and rendering those useless anyway