Was thinking recently of what could be done to diversify suit upgrades, just like how Light Assaults get Adrenaline Pump. Stuff like Stealth Armor for Infiltrators. And I'd like to have some discussion on what unique suit upgrades would fit a Heavy. Maybe not only a Heavy, but primarily. Here's a suggestion: Example Hardened Carapace Armor / Servo-Assisted Armor Redirects your suits capacitors to assisting servo engines to facilitate unhindered movement, and installs additional plating. Reduces your Shield, but reduces damage taken and slowing effects suffered. Effects I project at level 5: -45% Shield -20% Small Arms Damage Taken -20% Slowdown I'm not sure how the leveling would best be. Start at full penalty and just barely improve the advantages? Or start at -25%, -10%, and go up with -5%, -2.5% steps? Or shuffle the benefits into larger steps? I'm leaning towards the second option. What would be the effect? Basically, I'm aiming to bring a Heavy with this upgrade a bit closer to a MAX, without changing overall power. The real power of this upgrade heavily depends on the use of shield. At the projected Max Level, the user would have 775 hitpoints, as opposed to 1125 with level 5 Nanoweave. In turn, he/she would take 20% less damage (resulting in an effective base health of 967), and be more mobile when activating shields. Sounds awful? With NMG activated in time, which I'll calculate as 650hp here, the effective hitpoints of a Carpace Armor user would be (1425/0.8=) 1781.75, as opposed to 1775 with Nanoweave. With resist shield(-45% dmg taken), which is known to stack additively, the effective hitpoints would be (775/0.35=) 2214, as opposed to 2045. Now, this sounds like it would be an upgrade tailored towards resist shields, what with the movement bonus being especially useful with a shield to be activated proactively (only 30% penalty) and the damage resistance stacking additively. However, it isn't necessarily: A basic NMG would be slightly less durable than with Nanoweave, but notable more mobile in Infantry vs. Infantry fights. Adrenaline Users that regularly rake in kills would have only benefits, as past the first kill, the damage resistance is multiplicative with the extra shield you get. A Resist shield user would get large benefits, taking only 35% small arms damage, but past the breakpoint, like with most sniper rifles, the reduction would be only 20%, in which case he effectively has less armor than with Nanoweave. The resistance against explosives would be standard resist shield level, at a notably lower base life. A resist shield user would still have no Nanoweave nor Flakarmor to deal with those problems. To make some Comparions: NMG with Nanoweave/Flak/Carapace: Small Arms: 1775 / 1650 / 1782 Explosives: 1775 / 3300 / 1425 Snipers : 1775 / 1650 / 1782 Resist with Nanoweave/Flak/Caarpace: Small Arms: 2045 / 1818 / 2214 Explosives: 2045 / 10000 / 1292 Snipers : 1125 / 1000 / 968 The result being Resist Shield/Carapace being a terrific Indoor tank, but horribly weak against snipers and tanks. In all cases, the Upgrade will improve movespeed while the Shield is activated, or maybe even while aiming, and grant a slight resistance against concussion grenades, but present a weakness once the overshield is down. Please note I wrote this within an hour; My original plan was a suit upgrade that replaced shield with more health, making the class tougher, but less sustainable unless a medic is around, but I have no idea how that'd be solved UI wise, unless you remove ALL the shield on the first level. I totally forgot about resist shield until writing this, so I'm surprised it holds up so well. In fact, it might end up being a bit weak. I'd have instead suggested a linear damage reduction, to be applied before resist shield, but most players ingame don't know the numbers, so saying "reduces damage by X before secondary mitigation effects" will leave them rather clueless. Not that it would stand out in this game.^^ An Interesting option would be adding a damage mitigation effect that only hits above X damage . So, this example aside, what would you like to see in suit upgrades. Aside maybe a level 3 Ammo Belt.
