As said in THIS thread, I am going to talk a bit on my ideas for armor.

First off, let me say that I think elements of the pre-CU and the CU got it right. Just that the overall execution was botched. So I will briefly identify only what I liked about both systems, before rambling on about how I think both of those "likes" can be incorporated into one super-fandango "love".

Pre-CU:
-Two main damage types, lots of other secondary damages.
Why? It was simple!
-Percentages used for resistance. No arbitrary numbers that were really just re-converted to percentages anyway. Again, simplicity! wee!

CU:
-Armors were broken into different classes, and from there different effectiveness vs. encumbrance levels. Allowed for feasible diversity without a viable potential to min/max

My Hopes and Dreams:

Damage types
Armor Categories
Crafting Armor
Crafting Weapons

DAMAGE TYPES:
There are two primary damage types: Kinetic and Energy. There are secondary damage types to include: cold, heat, acid, blast, electricity, stun, lightsabre. All weapons do either kinetic or energy damage. Most weapons do a small to moderate amount of additional secondary damage. A few weapons do very little primary damage and a lot of secondary damage (Flamethrowers doing massive heat damage. Cryo-grenades doing massive cold damage. Lightsabres... ok, do I really have to say it?)

ARMOR CATEGORIES:
All armors are broken into four categories:

low resistance, low encumbrance
moderate resistance, moderate encumbrance
high resistance, high encumbrance
low resistance, high secondary resistance, moderate encumbrance

Notice that last category. High Secondary resistance. Useful mostly for PvE'ers hunting mobs that do specific secondary damage types (like acid-spitting nunas) and BHs hunting Jedi. But expensive, as will be explained below.

CRAFTING ARMOR:
Armor crafting is done in two stages. The suit, and the cores. All suits will be distributed evenly into the different categories and given base-line defense percentages accordingly. For example, Ubese may be qualified as a moderate resistance armor, and so will receive moderate defenses against energy and kinetic damage (all armors except high secondary resist armors will receive low resists against secondary damage). A suit can be assembled without cores, resulting in a cheaper generic armor (useful for grinding). The base stats will be affected by the skill modifiers of the armor smiths, as well as experimentation.

the pieces in suits of armor will have caps to their effective defense. That is, all things being perfect, they will only be able to attain a certain amount of % defense against incoming damage. Hitting these caps will be exceedingly rare, as conditions should essentially never be perfect. Perfect armor should be a fluke.

Low-Resist: 40% Primary, 5% Secondary
Moderate Resist: 50%, 8% Secondary
High Resist: 60%, 10% Secondary
Special Resist: 30% Primary, 50% Secondary

The cores are what will add diversity to armors, and create uniqueness amongst the armor-toting beings of the galaxy. Each piece of armor will have slots for cores. The below suggestions for slot allotment are only suggestions and will need to be tested.

Hands, Feet - 1 slot
forearms, biceps - 2
legs, head - 3
chest - 4

Cores can be crafted to add extra resistance against a specific damage type. Which damage type will determine the number and type of resources required, but no matter what, they will be expensive additions to the crafting process.

Any percentage increase to defense of a damage type given to the core will be directly applied to the armor piece it is built in to. So if you construct a core that gives a 5% increase to defense against energy, and then add it to a chest piece that would have had a 35% defense against energy, it now has 40% resistance to energy-based attacks.

Cores do not add encumbrance, but do suffer from diminishing returns, so stacking several of one type of core into an armor will see each successive core be less effective than the last.

Cores allow a piece of armor to exceed its maximum defensive percentage. However, due to diminishing returns, it will not be able to approach the 90% comp armors seen in pre-CU.

A note about Special Resist armors - these are going to be prohibitively expensive to build. Additionally, they will have one less core per piece than their counterparts. Their purpose is specific and limited, and the potential to make a super armor out of them should be limited as well.

Special Note: Personal Shield Generators. PSGs will operate much like they did pre-CU. That is, they stopped a finite amount of all incoming damage before shutting off and making the wearer vulnerable until the shield is fully charged and able to be reactivated. armor smiths would be able to experiment on the hit points of the shields, the shield recharge rate, and encumbrance.

CRAFTING WEAPONS:

First, there will be no looted useable weapons. All looted weapons can be reverse engineered (much like with Shipwrights) and limited use schematics created from them. Additionally, schematics can be looted which have more uses available in them than schematics created by reverse engineering, however the schematics may not produce weapons which are as powerful (legendary weapons can only be created via reverse-engineered schematics, for example).

During the crafting process, weapons can be given layers, much like in the live version of the game. These layers will affect base damage, speed and HAM costs. However, some layers can also slightly improve a weapon's secondary damage (if applicable).

The weapon can also be experimented on (again, like the live version). Speed, min damage, max damage, and HAM costs can all be experimented upon, as well as secondary damage. However, except in special circumstances (like the Flamethrower, Lightsabre, and other "Secondary is the primary" damage weapons), no amount of experimenting or layers can make the secondary damage exceed more than 30% of the unexperimented minimum damage of the weapon.

DISCLAIMER: All values in this post are subject to change in order to balance the system. They are placeholders to provide clarification of the points and ideas presented :P

i'm assuming in your post that your taking away Jedi's "unique" damage type by making it defendible against (ie your able to make armor with Lightsaber damage resistance) yes?

Assuming this is the case, this particular damage type may need its own individual scaling (depending on the effect of jedi on the server, if they're strong..than a higher scaling would be needed and so forth).

the Weapons reverse engineering idea would take a bit of work on the dev's side, but all in all should be do-able. my question is this

you mention legendary weapons...are the higher tier weapons a low % drop chance weapon schematic specifically? or is it infact a low % chance apon creation of a weapon whilst using a reverse engineering schematic.

is it going to be a fact of farming Nightsisters for that ONE schematic with a one use? or do i farm Storm troopers for T21's schematics which ill then keep making using RE'ed schematics untill i get a legendary Build?

the diminishing returns idea on armor, one final question. Alot of people dont want to see the comp clones.

from what im reading, your taking the exsisting armors and breaking them down into four sub catergories

Armor A, Armor B, Armor C and Armor D. and eveningly distributing them yes?

ie.
Low-resist: Armor A
moderate Resist: Armor B
High Resist: Armor C
Special Resist: Armor D

which is good. but would you be open to the idea similiar to the nge's? (shudder...i feel dirty now) perhaps to increase overall diversity from armors.

what i mean is instead of evenly distributing the exsisting armors through the 4 types. we make the 4 types and allocate each of the armors to all of them.

IE
Low-Resist: ubese
moderate resist: ubese
high Resist: ubese

et etc that way the actual armor model and textures are just purely aesthetic. whilst keeping the whole soul of your idea alive.

all in all though a sound idea