Is there really any point in equipping armor?

[Griever]

Snipers to me are just not adaptable enough, yes they are better for long range firefights but they are practically useless at closer ranges when they don't have the time or the space to setup. Snipers are like artillery they are big, bulky, slow, and only really useful out in the open. I wish it wasn't so because my general tactic is to engage the enemy at long range, but you can't do that everywhere and I like to have my team be extremely adaptable.

Snipers without armor have enought TU to move around, kneel and take an aimed shot.
True, same for assaults without armor, but they need more than 1 shot anyway. 2 bursts take about 24 TU as well... But assaults indeed ARE better in close combat... as it should be.

But who needs mobility when you can just shoot through walls

[debalde]

One other thing that you should be aware of is the target priority of the aliens.

When the enemy has a choice of targets the AI decides which target to shoot at based on the probability of killing the target. Soldiers who are more likely to die from being hit are more likely to be shot at. This includes not only the soldier health totals and the % chance to hit, but also the effect of armor on damage done. This hit me pretty hard in my game because I was consistently replacing the newest guy on the squad. All the aliens shot at him, sometimes even ignoring soldiers who were closer and wounded.

Not completely sure about that this is the only factor that prioritizes target election. In a recent mission I had one wounded soldier with medium armor in front and a highly proficient assault soldier with heavy armour and perfectly healthy in the back (the wounded soldier was in fact acting as a human shield for my beloved high rank soldier). A combat hornevet appeared and past through the wounded soldier to shot my best soldier... of course it didn't kill my heavily armored soldier but it should have for sure killed my wounded soldier. So at least in some cases there are other factors that highly prioritizes target election.

In another battle a combat hornevet tried to killed a highly proficient sniper with medium armour that was really far away instead of other closer targets with similar armors (and lower health points= easier to kill)... in fact I am being tempted to place in my next mission this sniper in a visible corner and ambush the aliens that come to kill him ;-)

By the way, I made always use of the best armor than my soldiers can carry even sacrificing some other equipment as to my experience in that way my soldiers last longer and get much better attributes that are really needed in the last missions that I am playing now. I rarely use scouts as they have a really high tendency to get killed, instead of that I always advance in small teams that can be mutually covered.

[EnemyKnown]

I re-played the game with 2.5, and thought I'd give increased mobility troops by sacrificing armour a try.
I expected it to work if at all till the apperance of Combat Hovernets. I'm in late-game now, Ortnoks in armour appear - and my troops still wear no armour. It is difficult, because getting hit now is most times a death sentence. But the bonus is that the whole team can be quickly deployed, and keep enough TUs to effectivley cover each other with reaction fire. I use 8-10 assault troops as they are the ones that can effectivly reaction fire - except for a few maps that favor long range fire (The one with the dam e. g.).
I do replay missions, but it does not happen often, and most of the times it is my poor judgment on "easy" missions, like shot down scouts, fighters that kills my troops.

On missions where you and many aliens are in the open, the amount of fire my team can put out is usually enough to kill most visible aliens in the first turn and still have reaction fire TUs.
2.5 is for me the best vesion of this game I played, balancing is very good (number and types uf UFOs/enemys/enemy weapons and when they appear, just feels logical and smooth)  - and most important: The rate your troops gain exp makes you really feel like you lead the spearhead of humanity into battle, not some loosers that even after ten missions can be beat by Joe Superrecruit appearing next month. And not needing the smoke grenades in next to every mission for cover is a welcome change, too.

[Eegxeta]

Sorry, I repectfully disagree. The bolter and coilguns are game changers, simply down to thier wall/ground penetration. Hell, you can fight off entrie alien base assault teams by shooting through the roof into them with either gun. AM rounds can take even heavy armour ortnoks down in one hit if the random number god is on your side.

Well I quite frequently start new games, so I haven't used the coil gun or AM rounds yet. I replaced my sniper with a grenade launcher which so far has been one of the most effective weapons I have used. I particularly like using it for area denial and indirect fire. Pulling trick shots off with it is fun too. So far my guys using grenade launchers have always racked up more kills than anyone else and my snipers the least. I have also found that my assaults have been able to out snipe the snipers.

[Soandso]

Of course you should only take snipers on maps with great distance and only with the EM Rifle.  The spread of the original sniper rifle is too high.  But you'll still get hit sometimes at any distance.

[Eegxeta]

Yeah I used the EM rifle and the assults could still out snipe the sniper. I have just not encounters wide open maps with enough frequency to merit use of a sniper and that is why I stopped using them.

[Telok]

Yeah I used the EM rifle and the assults could still out snipe the sniper. I have just not encounters wide open maps with enough frequency to merit use of a sniper and that is why I stopped using them.

I don't like the EM gun. It's too heavy, too slow, and has too little ammo. It's only benefits over the stock sniper rifle are a little more damage and a little less spread, neither of which are really amazing.

Maps where snipers are useful... The solar power plant (IR goggle and shoot through the ground), the dam (crossfire on the aliens advancing across the dam), the large mansion (through-wall shots and that balcony on the roof), the subway station (down through-floor shots to clear the main open area), that beach with the boardwalk going down the cliffs because you're thirty squares away across flat terrain with no cover, some RNG farms with huge open fields and no cover, harvesters and corruptors so you don't have to storm the stairwells into a face full of plasma/PB, the little Italy map with the bridges over the river has good sniping, the non-RNG dockyard with it's long open spaces, the alien base unless you go totally close-combat with plasma blades, the drug lord map where you can snipe from cover or cross two single file bridges without any cover, the military convoy map so you don't have to cross half the map to get the hovernet sniping at you.

It's not that you absolutely need snipers, with enough smoke and ammo spraying you can get through the game, but there are a great many maps where they are useful. You may also want to check your soldier stats, a sniper with 22 accuracy and 21 weapon skill is a total putz who can be out-shot by a grunt with a shotgun. Your good snipers will start with a 27+ accuracy and a 26+ skill (I also prefer a 35+ strength) and the difference in accuracy at 10+ squares is noticeable. The last thing to know is that the snap shot on the sniper rifle has horrible accuracy and should only be used at close combat ranges if you don't have the TUs for an aimed shot. Never use the snap shot on something that isn't close, use it to blaze away through walls at aliens that are within five squares.

[Soandso]

I didn't know you could shoot through walls.

[MonkeyHead]

I didn't know you could shoot through walls.

Seriously, it will change how you play the game when you get the hang of using the IR goggles to spot enemies, and the bolter or coilgun to plug them from total saftey.

[Grunty McOrtnok]

Yeah man, armor just looks cool. Plus, it helps keep your more experienced troops alive in bad situations.

[Eegxeta]

It's not that you absolutely need snipers, with enough smoke and ammo spraying you can get through the game,

Ammo spray? When I got lasers my Assaults pretty much couldn't miss.

You may also want to check your soldier stats, a sniper with 22 accuracy and 21 weapon skill is a total putz who can be out-shot by a grunt with a shotgun. Your good snipers will start with a 27+ accuracy and a 26+ skill

I recently changed what I go after in a soldier I started going for physical stats over skills and my first team is composed of the people with the highest speed and accuracy combination. My last sniper I had preformed well and was worth having on the team till I got plasma weapons and everyone else could out snipe him easily then I got the EM rifle, but it was far too late and the sniper had fallen so far behind that he wasn't worth using anymore because the missions were getting too dangerous to has a soldier that was all but useless most of the time.

[vuser]

If you use smoke grenades a lot, wearing a full-body armor (armor with closed helmet, so any armor except the one you can buy at the beginning) prevents suffocation.

[cevaralien]

If you use smoke grenades a lot, wearing a full-body armor (armor with closed helmet, so any armor except the one you can buy at the beginning) prevents suffocation.

Ehm, no one of my troopers suffocate because the smoke of these grenades. I belive you talk about the alien gas grenade.

[TBeholder]

It's not that you absolutely need snipers, with enough smoke and ammo spraying you can get through the game, but there are a great many maps where they are useful. 

On almost any map that got open places at all. If there are civilians close enough to aliens to be in danger, we need to remove the threat on the same turn, if at all possible, thus at long range. And if it's too far for smoke grenades, the only option is plain killing.
Rocket launcher got very long range, but not very precise and deals splash damage.
Of course, a long burst from MG is fine too, but it takes more TU - a sniper have time to move a little, crouch and pop the target, while MG is limited to short burst after move, so at long range it will be just 1-2 hits tops, not lethal enough. Even worse vs. armor. And again, when you need to kill at long range, you need accuracy to avoid hitting civilians. So...
I take 2 snipers early on. Sniper rifle deals much more damage than AR, one shot usually kills unarmored aliens.
Laser rifle got betteer range and precision, and even if it's weaker than sniper weapons, still more damage than AR - but it needs to be developed first.

You may also want to check your soldier stats, a sniper with 22 accuracy and 21 weapon skill is a total putz who can be out-shot by a grunt with a shotgun. Your good snipers will start with a 27+ accuracy and a 26+ skill (I also prefer a 35+ strength)

Strength matters only when there are EM rifles. With starting sniper rifle it means ability to carry a medikit and an extra smoke, not that it wasn't a nice bonus.
Now, whether a sniper should wear armor... yes: it allows to use them on medium range where reaction fire from a plasma pistol still gets them occasionally.

[vuser]

Ehm, no one of my troopers suffocate because the smoke of these grenades. I belive you talk about the alien gas grenade.

They do, at least in 2.6.
Moving through smoke, or ending your turn in smoke will incur a small amount of stun damage, if you don't wear a face-concealing armor.
The amount is very small, but can accumulate if you spend way too much time in smoke.