Do they mean anything? Just hit the second tier of empire frigs, picking between hyda 2 and acid hydra, one is support and one is engineer. have same slotting, the only diff being the “engineer” has 1000 less hull and a dot sniper secondary effect (vs. damage to energy over time on the support.) They have access to the same mods, “engineer” frig can access the support mods, and vice versa for the “support” frig accessing the engineering mods (just warp gate).
Is there anything out there that can lay out what all the differences are?
Roles were implemented ingame just a few weeks ago. Remember that we are testing a beta version. Roles will be improved in future! Many announced features are incoming soon too. For example galaxy map, corporation content, dreadnoughts etc.
Will be no wipes after or before release - it is an official information. Don’t worry.
Next time you look at the stats, hold SHIFT. At the bottom of the window, you will see info that tells you what the roles mean. Command class ships typically reduce energy consumption for command modules, Support Frigates give bonuses to the modules that repair and so on. There are also other bonuses, such as +10% damage bonus or 33% less plasma spread, etc.