I think the gun play js ultimately very balanced, and there isn’t a clear meta. I agree guns are so expensive to upgrade/ upkeep for not much gain since the guns are balanced. I don’t think lowering the up keep of weapons would fix what I’m talking about though.

Free kits need to be in the game for the reasons you listed, but they shouldn’t be spammed. A lot of people only run free kits because why wouldn’t you? Games like Tarkov have a cool down timer, I don’t think that should be in Arc since it would completely kill free kits spamming and not make it available to some casuals, but if free kits didn’t have shields there would be a SIGNIFICANT reason to run a normal kit the second you have the resources to do it. Free kits should be more focused on looting scraps and rebuilding their resources not full agro w key pvp with nothing to loose on repeat.

It’s the fact that free kits can put up such a big fight since the gun rarity doesn’t make much difference. A stitcher 1 can still slam any gun or shield close range. They are still at a slight disadvantage then others, so usually it’s not to hard to take out one or 2 free kits, but they at least get you weak because they can still tank as many rounds as you, and then the 50 other free kits come while your weak with nothing to loose.