Yeah, so not only does the Support class have absolutely nothing to do half the time, given the abundance of ammo, he has no clear function other than plinking at things with guns that are described as military relics. Unfortunately, it's much more "supportive" to go prone and hammer away with the T-21 than to use the class at all.

1. Weapons

While I haven't played much with the Bowcaster, my opinion of it is that there was a reason the Wookiees were subjugated by the Trandoshans. Frankly: it sucks. It has a low ROF, only a medium amount of damage, and is amazingly inaccurate for something that's apparently a crossbow with blaster energy on the bolts. How is this class supposed to "support" his team? It's like the Rebels found this giant box of modified bowcasters, smashed it open, and drew straws on who would get the shiny new CR-1s and who were left with the gimped Wookiee weapons. Then, an Imperial saboteur took a sledgehammer to the trigger assembly and bent the bolts sideways so they'd fly in exactly the direction you don't want them to. Except this is a mod, and that would be silly, it's probably controlled in some float (or double!) variable somewhere. Which really ought to be changed. Anyway, if you're not aiming for the BF2 'I HAVE A HUGE MACHINE GUN THAT FIRES EVERYWHERE' kind of support guy, that's cool, just don't throw broken crossbows at the guy with the ammo pack and expect him to fare successfully at either venture. A crossbow is a accurate, powerful weapon, similar to a sniper rifle, not a SAW. The former is fine, if you're going that direction, just make him good at one or the other.

The Imperial support weapon (forget it's name) is described as a sniper rifle that was replaced by the DLT-20a (which really isn't a sniper rifle anyway, but that's cool, who wants a A-280 clone?) in service. Again, the Imperials dump all the Army surplus weapons on the Support guys, give them a generator, and tell them "lol, go shoot things". While this gun is a massive improvement over the bowcaster, it's still not really a support weapon. It tries to be both a SAW and a sniper rifle, and fails utterly on both counts. Again, I'd rather be packing this than the E-11 carbine or something, but where is the support role of the weapon? It's ROF is rather high, but it's almost never used as a suppression fire gun, and I imagine this is not a failing of the players but a failing of the weapon to work as intended. It is the only support class weapon I would favor over a pistol, which is a good thing, I suppose, but I'm still not feeling the weapon's role, and even more puzzled over how it's supposed to be effective.

Don't even mention the DEMP. Since Endor crashes for me, and Mos Espa has most of the players running around ignoring the vehicles, I see it as a useless weapon unless you like electrocuting people to death, which actually might be kinda fun if you're sadistic. Unfortunately, you'd have to be a masochist as well, because while it seems to have a adequate amount of splash damage, the damage is so horribly low (even with the bump in 1.1) that makes it about as useful against infantry as it was in Jedi Knight (read: not so much). I'd rather use my pistol. Or a vibroknife, if I've got some stamina left. RIP AND TEAR, RIP AND TEAR THEIR GUTS! YOU ARE HUGE, THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS! RIP AND TEAR!

..ehem.

The trip mines are useful for defending CPs, but most squads will be on the move anyway.

The detpacks are a nice model (gj on making the JKA model look good!) but useless - how many times do you have a guy sitting in one place for 10 seconds that you don't want to kill with your knife for X-X-X-X-TRA BONUS REP ++ or simply with a headshot from your rifle?

2. Ammo

While the 'reloading is for jerks' system works well in FS (and is accurate to Almighty Lore), it's kind of spoiled by having people have a ungodly amount of ammo. I've ran out of ammo only a few times in the time I've played FS. As such, the Support class (and his droid assistant), have little to do. 100 shots may not sound like a lot, but it is, especially when it's relatively easy to die. There's no real reason to tote a Support guy around in your squad.

3. Overall role

What, then, is a Support class supposed to actually do in FS? I liked BF2's Support class because I had an extremely large, quickly firing machine gun I could carry around and fire at walls to keep people from popping out, and people actually ran out of ammo occasionally (especially grenades). I liked BF2142's Support class, even though the Ganz HMG sucked and it was more of a Heavy Assault guy with the ridiculous accuracy at prone that gets better..as you shoot. Negative recoil ftw. Anyway, that role seems to be relegated to Heavy Weapons, the guys with the huge repeaters and little else (and I like it that way!). So what is Support supposed to do?

I've already posted in another thread that I feel E-Webs should be given to Support. But this doesn't really solve the existential crisis. Okay, another class has a giant gun, except this one's stationary. However, it's not useful to fall into the Battlefront 2 mentality where the Heavy Weapons guys are all toting rocket launchers.

Solution?

If Support is going to be a traditional Support class ala BF2, either improve the ROF of the Crossbow or give the Rebel support player a rapid-fire weapon or a shotgun. Rethink and possibly rework the Imperial support weapon as well.

If, as Bandu stated, the Support class is focused on "defensive support" and "go[ing] around repairing , rearming and setting up defence.", serious thought needs to be given to actually making these things a priority. There's hardly anything to repair, nothing to rearm, and defense is put on the back burner as squads constantly push for CPs in open maps. In BF2, you'd have MEC actually defending the Hotel on Karkand because if they lost it they'd know they would get pushed back to the Square. In FS, you are open to attack at any point at any time, almost never forced into chokepoints. Fix it with level design or fix it with code, it really doesn't matter.

But until then, I'll stick with storming positions with Heavy Weapons and picking people off with the disruptor, because playing with Wookiee toys doesn't really help me or my team.

EDIT: I just realized the "old surplus sniper rifle" description might actually be the Medic second gun's, which I love like my wife and therefore take out to nightly candlelit dinners. However, I still stand by the fact that the Imperial support gun doesn't feel like a serious or effective weapon.