Dust 514: Fitting

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Fitting your Dropsuit and Vehicles

Fitting Screen

Like Eve, the fitting screen is where you prepare your Dropsuit or Vehicles for combat. In the way that ships in Eve have CPU and Powergrid (PG) capacities so do Mercenary Dropsuits and the attack Vehicles they use. There is no capacitor to worry about.

Each one has High and Low Slots for modules which effect the abilities of the Dropsuit. There are also slots for weapons and equipment such as Repair Tools or Nano-hives.

In the above picture the suit being shown has two High Slots on the upper left and one Low Slot on the upper right.

Beneath the two High Slots there are two Weapon Slots, one Light and one Sidearm.

Underneath the knees are, on the left, a grenade slot and on the right knee an equipment slot.

Different suits offer other combo's of slot layout which allows for very precise customisation for the role on the battlefield you want to play. The higher tier Assault Dropsuits, for example, have four Highslots, three Low and two Equipment slots. With the right support skills, Merc's wearing this gear can be devastating on the battlefield.

But of course If you die in Dust you lose the gear you're wearing and you need another set of it for your next clone. A poor performance can get very expensive.

Weapons, Modules and Equipment

In contrast to Eve Online, it's important to note that Dropsuits in Dust 514 - other than ships in Eve Online - have standard modules built into them by default. It is not possible to use an empty Dropsuit, but it is possible to customize the different slots by replacing existing modules (marked by yellow brackets) with custom items bought on the market. Doing so is completely optional, but doing so usually improves the overall effectiveness of a suite for some added Isk costs.

Every piece of gear, be it for Dropsuits or Vehicles, in Dust has a CPU or Power Grid (PG) requirement to be fitted. These values represent the computational demand as well as energy needs and act as a built-in limit to keep players from massing specific modules. All Dropsuits provide a specific and basic amount of these, usually based on the suit's role as well as it's meta level. In a similar way, more complex and higher level equipment has higher requirements.

There are several Skill Books further influencing the available amounts of CPU and PG as well as reducing the costs on specific module groups. With the correct understanding of these support skills it is possible to create cheaper fittings, that can be as powerful (or even better) as other similar and more expensive approaches.

Fitting Skills

In Eve there are Base Skills, that while seemingly unimportant, can provide a fantastic foundation that allow cheaper fits be more effective in PvP and PvE.

In Dust 514 it's ALL PvP for the moment. Any edge you can give yourself at the outset of your Merc career is important and will save you Isk in the long term. These are skills that are considered essential to get to at least Level IV. Level V would still be considered a wise investment of Skill Points.

Fitting skills are important because they directly effect the base capabilities of your suit, giving you more PG, CPU, Armour and Shields. With the increase of the PG and CPU they also allow the fitting on your suit, the higher quality modules that require more of these two resources.

There are also skills for weapons and modules that reduce their CPU and PG requirements. These are also considered Fitting Skills.

Support Skills

The Fitting Skills provide a strong foundation for a Merc's career and for using the Militia Gear, lower tier modules and equipment will serve well enough.

But for when you want to specialise or start using the higher tier weaponry, modules and equipment Support skills are needed. These skill serve a variety purposes but can be generalised as making it possible to use higher tier product and using it more effectively. These generally are the 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x and 6x Training Cost Multiplier Skills. The higher the multiplier, the more specialised the skill is a good rule of thumb.

This is where you will also find the skills for Shield and Armour Tanking as well as the skills for Logistics.