Hpw to snipe?

[Tonicboy]

Hi all,

 

This is my first post here. I bought a version of the game that doesn't come with a manual, so please excuse me if this is a stupid question, but I've read through all the posts and found nothing that helps. Anyway, I've seen references to being able to "snipe" wherein you can aim over several rounds, increasing accuracy. Can someone please explain how to do this?

 

Thanks,

Tonicboy

[Krabjuice]

You need a sniper rifle. Equip it, then click on the fire mode. THere will be a glass circle thing. Use that. Just make sure the target is in perfect view.

[Cookie]

Just want to expand on what Krabjuice said -

 

Any character can snipe as long as they have a sniper rifle (any rifle equipped with a scope), but Snipers have a much better ability at sniping.

 

A character's sniping skill is the amount of APs they can spend sniping - the more points spent sniping, the better chance of a hit.

 

Eventually as you increase in skill, you'll have a higher snipe skill than your current AP, which will allow you to aim over multiple turns.

 

Also, when you snipe, be sure and press [Numpad 8] while you select your target. This will decrease your chance of hitting, but will give you a headshot (usually) when you hit.

 

Also remember to practice - after you complete a mission, spend a few turns sniping at dead enemies to increase your snipe skill.

[brandeburg]

Sniper shooting

 

A sniper rifle with optical sights is needed for this firing mode. Efficiency of sniper shooting very much depends on the appropriate skill; the highest level is achieved by professional snipers. Sniper shooting is only possible at targets visible to sniper (any other shots can be made by ear or at the targets visible by other members of the squad or your allies); if you fire a sniper shot at a target detected by ear, the accuracy will be the same as with a snap shot. Sniper shooting requires taking careful aim which can take longer than one turn but ensures very high probability of hitting the target, including hitting a specific body part. This allows to disable the target with a single shot. The main drawback is the need for both the sniper and the target to remain stationary, which is difficult to ensure in close combat.

 

Sniper shooting has a number of specific features. First, the shot is not fired immediately but after taking aim: when you click on the target, you issue command to start taking aim which involves a certain AP cost. Second, unlike with other firing modes the actual AP costs for taking aim can significantly vary. Third, in many cases you can

[Cookie]

Great tutorial Brandeburg, that pretty much covers it.

 

One more thing to remember though! If your character has Snipe mode selected while he is moving, his ability to Spot enemies is affected. His field of vision is reduced from 180 degrees to about 90 degrees (45 degrees to each side), however his spotting range is increased dlightly within his field of vision.

 

This is something to be aware of, otherwise you could be right on top of an enemy without realizing it, until they nail you. But, if used incorrectly, it allows to spot (and shoot) enemies long before they can spot you.

[Sorbicol]

Great tutorial Brandeburg, that pretty much covers it.

 

One more thing to remember though! If your character has Snipe mode selected while he is moving, his ability to Spot enemies is affected. His field of vision is reduced from 180 degrees to about 90 degrees (45 degrees to each side), however his spotting range is increased dlightly within his field of vision.

 

This is something to be aware of, otherwise you could be right on top of an enemy without realizing it, until they nail you. But, if used incorrectly, it allows to spot (and shoot) enemies long before they can spot you.

 

I believe (although I'm 100% sure) that this ability was only introduced in Sentinels. I don't think you see further when in sniping mode in S2, although enemies outside your restricted field of view certainly turn red with a question mark over them when you enter the sniping mode.

 

Can anyone confirm this??

[Gungadin]

I believe (although I'm 100% sure) that this ability was only introduced in Sentinels. I don't think you see further when in sniping mode in S2, although enemies outside your restricted field of view certainly turn red with a question mark over them when you enter the sniping mode.

 

Can anyone confirm this??

 

You DO see further when sniping. I know this for a fact.

 

My question: Why do sniper headshots seem to do more damage than regular headshots with the same rifle? Does it have something to do with sniper skill being added to the critical table or something?

[Sanjiro]

I believe (although I'm 100% sure) that this ability was only introduced in Sentinels. I don't think you see further when in sniping mode in S2, although enemies outside your restricted field of view certainly turn red with a question mark over them when you enter the sniping mode.

 

Can anyone confirm this??

Yeah in my Sentinels manual there is stated that this is new in sentinels.

[Tonicboy]

Thanks for all the info, everybody. I have decided that Snipe is an interesting skill but not really practical. First of all, it is completely useless while your Sniper level is below your current AP, since in that scenario an Aimed Shot is always better and only takes one turn. And, developing your Sniper skill with target practice takes an extraordinary amount of time and you're better of spending that time practicing normal shooting. The only way to get a decent Sniper skill is to leave a character at base until later at the game, while the auto-levelling feature (bug, if you ask me) increases their Sniper skill dramatically. However, you lose control of choosing their class skills which is very important for Snipers.

[Cookie]

I have decided that Snipe is an interesting skill but not really practical.

 

No, not true. A Sniper is easily the deadliest class in S2/S3. Yes, early game they aren't as useful as say a Soldier with an SMG, or a Grenadier with a bunch of grenades, but as you progress, they quickly surpass all other classes, IMO.

 

Plus when you consider the Soldier, Scout, and Grenadier all do better with close range fighting, the Sniper has much less chance of getting blown away than your other characters.

 

Finally, as your Sniper gains levels, he'll actually have way more Sniping points than he needs. There's no reason to spend all your points, when just a few will give you 100% accuracy, and unlike Snap, Careful, and Aimed shots, you can control exactly how many APs you spend, PLUS if you don't have enough APs to make a shot, you can spend your few reaming APs to Aim this round, and fire next round.

 

By, the time semi-auto sniper rifles appear, your sniper should have no problem bagging 2 (and sometimes 3) enemies per turn.

 

Yes, it takes a little work to train a Sniper, but no more so than training any other class, and the payoff is HUGE.

[Tonicboy]

No, not true. A Sniper is easily the deadliest class in S2/S3.

That's not what I said at all. I have three snipers in my team, including my main character. So, yes, I agree they are easily the deadliest class in the game. My point is that the Sniper skill is not really worth developing. First of all, Sniping is pointless as long as your Sniper skill is less than your total AP. True, you can "pick" how many points you put into a shot but really, who cares? Second of all, it wastes an entire turn aiming. Third of all, in order to get your Sniper skill higher than your AP, you need to spend lots of time with target practice. Not only does it take A LOT of time to develop to that point, that time is better spent developing normal Shooting skill. Consequently, it will only become useful later in the game, at which time your normal Aimed Shot should be pretty much perfect. For instance, my Lvl.14 snipers have Shooting of 130 and there's nothing within rifle range that they can't hit at 100% with Aimed Shot. In fact, within 20 feet (or meters, who knows, they never mention distance units), most targets are 90-100% with Snap Shot. And I don't think theer's a player here would take a Sniper shot over a 100% Aimed shot. If I had spent all that time practicing Sniper, they would be much worse Shooters.

[Cookie]

You're missing 1 very important fact - when you do a Snipe shot, your Shooting skill AND your Snipe skill improves (Just like Burst firing improves Shooting AND Burst skill). So your whole argument about not improving your Shooting skill when you Snipe simply isn't true. It takes the exact same amount of time to train a sniper as it does any other shooter.

 

Picking the amount of points you put into a shot is incredibly useful since you can balance exactly how many APs you spend, instead of with a Snap, Aimed or Careful Shot which make you spend a fixed amount.

 

Example - say you need to hit a target, but still get behind cover to avoid fire from his buddies. Well, that eliminates using a Careful shot, but an Aimed shot won't work either, because you'd have too many left over points, and the Shot wouldn't be accurate enough. But with a Snipe shot, you can spend exactly enough points to make the shot as accurate as possible, but still get behind cover.

 

Example 2 - You want to make 2 shots that turn. Obviously, a Careful Shot is not an option, but you don't have enough AP to make 2 Aimed shots. That means 1 Snap, and 1 Aimed Shot. Which means 1 shot that is guaranteed to hit, and 1 with a so-so chance. Instead, you can do 2 Snipe Shots with exactly the same AP, which means 2 shots with a very good chance of hitting, which statistically improves your chances of causing damage.

 

And sense you can see exactly how accurate your shot is going to be at any given time, there's no need to over-spend APs. Just add a few points, check accuracy, and BANG!

 

Sniping gives you one thing that regular shooting doesn't - flexibility.

 

On top of that - Snipers are simply more accurate with Snipe shots than with regular shooting. Just like Burst skill improves accuracy with Bursts, Sniping skill improves accuracy when Sniping. So, even though a sniper might be able to spend 80AP on aiming, he only needs a small fraction of that to guarantee a hit. And he needs to spend less APs Sniping, than he would with a regular shot to get the same results in accuracy. The only time a Snipe shot isn't the better option is when you can't see the target.

 

So it's not entirely accurate that sniping with less than your AP is ineffective, a better argument would be that "sniping while your Snipe skill is less than your AP is ineffective". But, by about Lvl 4-5 a well-trained Sniper should will have surpassed any other class in terms of effectiveness, and that's not exactly "late in the game". As I said in my previous post a Sniper starts a little slow, but quickly makes up for it.

 

Last but not least - 299 point headshots. How is that not fun?

[Tonicboy]

You're missing 1 very important fact - when you do a Snipe shot, your Shooting skill AND your Snipe skill improves (Just like Burst firing improves Shooting AND Burst skill). So your whole argument about not improving your Shooting skill when you Snipe simply isn't true. It takes the exact same amount of time to train a sniper as it does any other shooter.

Not quite true. From a pure time-and-motion point of view, there are at least twice as many button presses to take a Sniper shot than a regular shot. You have to click once to set up the Snipe and then once to fire. On top of that, it's messy to train people Sniping along with people doing regular shots because they are out of rhythm, so you're leaving your non-Sniping characters "behind" in training. In other words, for every two mouse clicks where you are training 1-2 snipers, I am training my entire party with 1 click. And I always train all my guys at the same time, it's just more efficient. Hehe, even my Medic shoots at 100 because he participates in group target practice.

 

Picking the amount of points you put into a shot is incredibly useful since you can balance exactly how many APs you spend, instead of with a Snap, Aimed or Careful Shot which make you spend a fixed amount.

Ok I see your point. There is definitely some utility to being able to pick how many AP to spend, although I don't see this as a deal breaker. The best reason being, to be able to move your character after a shot. However, since I made it a point to get the Carbine 98K Silenced as quickly as I could, I played pretty much every mission since that with only my scout and my sniper. And they spend the entire mission hidden, so my sniper never has to bother with "pop-your-head-out, shoot, duck". He just sits right out in the open completely invisible. Actually, one of my big complaints in the game is balance issues and this is one of them. Specifically, I have trained my guys at hiding as well and my scout is invisible even a few feet from the enemy. In fact, I have seen plenty of enemies walk right past her and never see her, in the dark. It's really pretty ridiculous. My sniper is almost as good.

 

I do have to retract my statement in one sense though. While doing my experiments on Sniping, I did find one very useful usage of it. The first time you click on a target on Snipe mode, it prepares your shot without actually firing it. This is the normal 6 AP shot preparation. So, if you have 6 AP left at the end of a turn, say after reloading, you can prepare your shot and not have to waste 6 AP the next round. I really wish I knew this early on.