So, one of the major issues in this game, when it comes to IBs and also the new player experience. Is how powerful proto suits are in comparison to miltia/standard gear right?

Now if you look at weapons in this game, you'll notice the damage increase is relatively small... its only ~10% increase tier to tier. Almost everything else is the same, with the exception of a few items which have higher clip counts or blast radius (looking at you godlock).

Anyways... one thing you can notice really fast is how much more powerful a prototype suit is. With the extra module slots a prototype suit can easily reach up to 3x the EHP of a standard suit. Three times!! That kind of power is undeniable, and the power shift turns many games into gear > skill... which CCP has said is a principle they are trying to avoid. Yes higher level gear is better, and more expensive, but should it be to the point that you can just overwhelm your opponents with shear dps and ehp... regardless of your skill vs. their skill?

So... what would be an easy way to help balance dropsuits so that proto suits are still the best but they aren't overwhelmingly more powerful?

Really I think the solution is quite simple.

Normalize the number of slots for every tier of a race/class dropsuit. This means, a standard cal logi suit could also have 5H/4L, same as the proto cal logi suit.

standard and advanced suits would still be limited by CPU/PG requirements, and proto suits will be able to fit more, easier.. as they are designed to. But you could get standard and advanced suits much closer in power to prototype suits, right away.

I really think this will help the NPE experience a lot, and youll probably find many protobears will be happy to drop down to adv gear to save some cash if they can fit a build that is relatively close in power but much cheaper to run. Over time, i suspect IB will begin to normalize to advanced gear on its own, without enforcing hard coded restrictions.

Yes some people will run standard or prototype gear anyways, but that is their freedom of choice, and they will suffer the consequences accordingly, lower suit power or high suit cost respectively.

Thoughts?

Remnant... have you ever considered going this route? It will help close the power disparity that high SP players have vs newer, lower SP players.

Exactly... high CPU/PG lets you fit more modules. You can use CPU/PG upgrades to get you close, but you will, of course never be as powerful as a proto.

You'll be much closer in power though, instead of essentially being fodder to protobears that are 2-3 times more powerful than you are in a standard suit.