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Is sniper still useless? [2.5]

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Latino210:
I am trying the 2.5 dev version, is the sniper rifle/ electromagnetic rifle still as useless as before? I have fond memories of my sniper in UFO Afterlight breaking bones at several screens range, I miss that!

H-Hour:
Sniper rifles are more accurate in 2.5 than in 2.4, and the electromagnetic rifle is the most accurate of the sniper rifles. It also has the highest TU cost of all sniper rifles.

Jon_dArc:
I found them pretty powerful in 2.4, so we're clearly coming at this from different perspectives.

IMO the Sniper Rifle has been weakened (TU costs increased, snap shot accuracy greatly decreased, snap shot no longer benefits from crouching, and the crouch bonus to aimed shots has been reduced so despite being more accurate while standing it's actually less accurate while crouched)—though now that I look it's also had a bump to damage, meaning that against Tamans with less than Medium Armor one-hit kills should be substantially more common, so it could be a wash in the early game with the weapon becoming more decisively obsolete about the time Shevaar come onto the scene.

The EMR is now a legitimate sniper rifle—I thought it was powerful in 2.4, but it was basically an assault weapon for shooting enemies through walls. Good damage, good damage type (normal_heavy), and although the TU cost is insane, the throughwall means you'll be able to take a shot without adjusting your position more often than you'd think. It's especially good when you're using a Herakles, as you don't need to spend a turn getting out of the transport before opening fire.

I'm not sure what the devs are thinking with some of the crouch adjustments, though. No improvement on the snap shots? Machine guns are /less/ accurate when crouched? Ah well, plenty of good changes to go along with them.

~J

H-Hour:

--- Quote from: Jon_dArc on May 09, 2012, 04:47:30 pm ---I'm not sure what the devs are thinking with some of the crouch adjustments, though. No improvement on the snap shots? Machine guns are /less/ accurate when crouched? Ah well, plenty of good changes to go along with them.

--- End quote ---

These are good questions.

1. If the crouch bonus to aimed shots for sniper weapons was reduced, it was only because before it was very, very big before. It's still larger for sniper weapons than any other weapon except the RPG. I think I just wanted to make sure they were still effective long-range weapons when standing without being too accurate when crouched.

2. Snap shot accuracy for sniper rifles was reduced because they are big, heavy, unweildy weapons that can not be easily aimed quickly. Think of this not as a measure of the weapon's accuracy, but of the capability of a soldier to accurately deploy the weapon with the given firemode.

3. Machine guns were made less accurate when crouched because the strong recoil makes the position less stable than a standing position. Try going to a kneeling position (our new models will be in a kneeling position) with your right leg down. Your back leg (right) is not as capable of pushing back against heavy recoil (driving into your shoulder) as it is if you are standing. You must rely more on your back muscles. Rapid fire of a heavy machine gun requires strength to keep the fire on target, and this is why standing is a more stable and accurate position. (We don't have support for bipods or resting the gun on something, which can make a crouched/kneeling position more stable.)

queue:

--- Quote from: H-Hour on May 09, 2012, 10:04:45 pm ---These are good questions.

1. If the crouch bonus to aimed shots for sniper weapons was reduced, it was only because before it was very, very big before. It's still larger for sniper weapons than any other weapon except the RPG. I think I just wanted to make sure they were still effective long-range weapons when standing without being too accurate when crouched.

2. Snap shot accuracy for sniper rifles was reduced because they are big, heavy, unweildy weapons that can not be easily aimed quickly. Think of this not as a measure of the weapon's accuracy, but of the capability of a soldier to accurately deploy the weapon with the given firemode.

3. Machine guns were made less accurate when crouched because the strong recoil makes the position less stable than a standing position. Try going to a kneeling position (our new models will be in a kneeling position) with your right leg down. Your back leg (right) is not as capable of pushing back against heavy recoil (driving into your shoulder) as it is if you are standing. You must rely more on your back muscles. Rapid fire of a heavy machine gun requires strength to keep the fire on target, and this is why standing is a more stable and accurate position. (We don't have support for bipods or resting the gun on something, which can make a crouched/kneeling position more stable.)

--- End quote ---
Sounds good, but asks for more questions:
Sniper rifles are big, heavy, unweildy weapons that can not be easily aimed quickly, right. That's, why they are most commonly used layed down. Same with Machine guns, it's usually used with a bipod layed down. Why would Phalanx not use these weapons the way, they are meant to be used?
Until now I thought about crouching a little more abscract as "take the most effective firing position". In fact, i saw crouching with a sniper rifle or machine gun as laying down.
It seems strange for Phalanx to deploy weapons to the battlescape and use them improperly. Why would the best way to use a machine gun be "John Rambo memorial style"? That makes only sense in very heavy, inflexible armor, like in jin Roh.

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