Uranium - 235

All of those things can be done without a sniper rifle - especially the walker. Why the hell do I need a sniper to see that? I'll advocate using RDX / APMs / Lambert, but not sniper rifles. As was mentioned before, do I really want a member of MY SQUAD out spotting targets 400 meters away, where they'll be of no interest to my squad? Yeah, a guy with a Voss probably won't be able to say 'There's exactly 5 guys running 12 feet apart, one's carrying a Krylov, one's carrying a Clark, and they have an Otis'? Probably not. But how much of that is relevant at all? You know what I do? I say "Hey SL, I see like 5 guys heading up the flank towards Command Center." "Okay." Do I need specifics? No - that's called information overload. The basic message was achieved without requiring me to sacrifice overall.

And the reason we don't like snipers is that "that situation" is pretty much going to be all they encounter 90% of the time, on 90% of the maps.

It ISN'T worth the time. If snipers were as necessary for scouting and actually provided a tangible benefit (both of which aren't), then we'd ask for them in our squads. Are you telling me that in the years people have been playing 2142, it's never been considered or tried? Spotting vehicles is the most important thing to find, yes - yet they're also the easiest to see, so why do I need a sniper to do it?

Are you seriously telling me you can't see tanks across the map without a sniper rifle? Have you PLAYED Verdun?

Yes, press Q.

Yes, play support.

Play support and grenade spam.

I did. It was just the same rhetoric. "If a sniper is in a specific point on a specific map..." Distracting people with headshots? Having a sniper sitting outside of a little base on a rock is something you can only do on like, two maps, and those maps are so open any moron can stand on the roof and look at things. When I was playing Shuhia with Dreagh, and there were tanks attacking us, did we need a recon to tell us? And did it help us at all? No, and no. You can see the tanks coming from just as far as a sniper can. And what would the sniper have done? Shoot them? Hah.

Or I can rocket him. Or grenade him. Or just not rush him head-on. Are you going to seriously tell me that you believe a sniper's going to be able to hit a machine gunner from some magic vantage point that always exists where you need it? I keep hearing this, yet I've yet to actually see a map where there's real vantage points every 10 feet. Maybe I'm playing the wrong maps. Amazingly, whenever I play Support, I distinctly remember NOT being sniped from the grassy knoll every 10 seconds. Maybe it's because these magic vantage points that you're able to form anywhere you want don't actually exist. Then again, maybe it's because it's all just lip service, like I've been saying it is.

Oh yeah? A sniper where? On what maps? You're gonna whittle down a squad using your vantage point on cerbere or Tunis? Maybe I got killed by the squad because instead of killing them with rockets in one giant orgy of explosions, some sniper on a vantage point was only able to get one shot at them before they ran for more cover.

What the hell does that mean?

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To hell with this. Go make a movie about what a badass spotter you are, or of you using your magic vantage points to kill squads, or singling out the medics and getting them all. Until then, stop making up situations that you've come across once or twice and try to pass it off as the entire reason to play the kit. Guess what? One time I blew up a gunship with EMP grenades. That doesn't mean I'm going to making enormous, lengthy posts about how awesome Support is for anti-air that we're all biased idiots for not using it as such.

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LordKelvin

Alright guys, please take this discussion elsewhere. This thread was meant to be critique or acknowledgement of the points I make in my guide, and replies to it, not a sniper-bashing thread, or a sniper-glorification thread.

If you feel a need to do that, start one in general discussion, where Lorax can yell at you for bringing up the subject yet again.

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Morkrash

In response to pred011586, I would probably define long distance as 200-300m. Here's a list of the number of maps in which long range sniping is both effective and possible: Sidi Power Plant, Verdun, Shuhia Taiba, Minsk, SueZ Canal, Wake Island, Fall of Berlin (not so much). Contrary to your statement, Shingle isn't
that good because the fog of war is too thick - the only redeeming factors are the high rooftops and the good vantage points. So, if you compare that to the total number of maps, long range sniping is possible in more than half of them if you count Shingle as one. Oh, and I forgot the NS maps, all of which practically beg for
long-range sniping. In fact, my definition of long distance sniping does not even demonstrate the actual limits of a sniper rifle. I've gotten a headshot from 335m away on Sidi Power Plant, and the distance view in Wake Island can go up to the 400m range.

I don’t understand why people think they can replace snipers with rockets. Here are 9 reasons why sniper rifles are better than rockets:

1) Rockets can be dodged. You see a giant volley of them coming. A well-aimed headshot can't.
2) Rockets give away your position. Although a Zeller might with the noise or tracer shot, a Park or Moretti most likely won't.
3) Many rocket users stay still while firing them. If there are any snipers around, this makes for an automatic head shot. However, this goes for any other class. It's like a big red "SHOOT ME" sign.
4) Rockets waste much more ammo. How many people have you seen fire 2 rockets instead of 4? This point isn't the greatest, but I only need one bullet with a sniper.
5) Although rockets have a virtually unlimited range, trying to shoot them very far will have poor results because of their drop and an increased likelihood of the target seeing them.
6) You're making the assumption that they're aimed against mostly stationary targets. They're great at taking out these, but this is not so for any moving target whose elevation is equal to or above yours.
7) Rockets take up an equipment slot. So many assault players simply take the defibrillator and rockets it's disgusting. Have they ever tried the Herzog shotgun attachment? How about the radar grenade? I'm absolutely astonished by the lack of these unlocks on TG servers, and this is partially because all assault teams think they can replace snipers entirely.
8) Rockets are excellent at taking out enemies behind barriers, but assault users don't have the NetBat delay unlock that snipers do, a significant disadvantage. Granted, sometimes you can re-spot them by simply spotting around the area, but this isn't always the case.
9) Your decision to use a rocket implies that your target is not directly in your sight range, or just very far away. A sniper’s positioning will not only allow visual contact with the enemy, but of all enemies in the area. Of course, this also enables the enemy to view the sniper. However, if the sniper is playing well enough (minimized appearance, long distances, use of the Ghost/Active Cammo), then the tide will turn in favour of the sniper. What I mean by this is that a sniper, due to his positioning, will have a better chance of taking the enemy out because his or her information and control of the area will be better than an assault troop who is cruising by to the next objective.

"Oh yeah? A sniper where? On what maps? You're gonna whittle down a squad using your vantage point on cerbere or Tunis? Maybe I got killed by the squad because instead of killing them
with rockets in one giant orgy of explosions, some sniper on a vantage point was only able to get one shot at them before they ran for more cover."

These maps, due to the fog of war, considerably decrease the effectiveness of a sniper. However, I can give you excellent examples of vantage points on them.

Cerbere:

1) Just east of Roadblock, there is a large hill. From here, you can see into Roadblock Area, the area north of South Town Center, the destroyed house on top of the large hill
north of Church, and the area immediately south of South Town Center.

2) Just south of South Town Center, there is a section of the hill behind the wall which has a few bushes. From here, anyone incoming to Office Ruins, up the hill to Church,
inside the southern corridor of Church, and anyone directly below South Town Center can be seen.

There are many other areas, but with less flanking potential. These include the hill west of Roadblock Area, south of Church's south wall, and possibly the ruined house north of Church. Overall, Cerbere isn't exactly a sniping map, but a few snipers can really deny the enemy some areas of it. A large part of the effectiveness of a sniper is determined by his or her equipment selections. On actual TG servers, I’ve been able to stay hidden in the area described in 2) by simply using the DS-22 Sniper Decoy, even when Office Ruins was captured. In fact, I’ve even killed people on the platform between South Town Center and Ruins where the stairs from Ruins lead -- this isn’t even 50m away -- without them noticing me. I dare you to try to do that with an assault kit.

Tunis:

IMO, a better map for sniping. I’m pretty much giving out a lot of my favourite spots here, so I’m going to limit my descriptions. Given the right placement, a sniper can see across the canal from Eastern Docks to Junkyard and vice-versa. I’ve also been able to flank tons of soldiers by staying near the PAC uncap and shooting southwest into the area behind the boat (near Junkyard), while my team mates were pinned down near Eastern Docks. Is that not a perfect example of a sniper whittling down the enemy team for his own team? Geez, I can go on all day with examples, but if you don’t realize the usefulness of a sniper, that’s fine by me - I just don’t want you to spread the idea that we’re completely replaceable. In any case, you will still find me playing sniper and substantially aiding my team.

In regards to your user name, I was laughing because I really hope that it’s not the character with the most play time that you have in the game. IF your in-game name is Uranium-235, how do you expect me to take you seriously when you’ve gotten less than 100 kills with all three sniper rifles combined? Oh well, enough of the ad hominem.

Bomber

Really man, you think a win is a WIN which then means you think you have no impact on the game. Destroying assets, understood, I always ask for someone to switch to recon to take out their assets but...anyone can do it and it takes seconds to go kill another guy and take his kit. Pretty much winning a game comes from vehicle control, infantry control, and bleed control, but a sniper can only defend a point. A well-balanced squad, like you said, needs a squad leader, generally I take up that role or command and if I went sniper instead of squad leading or CO'ing, unless I knew there were several other squad leads who talked and understood the game, I will not be game changing.

On rockets versus sniper, the main thing is the defib with rockets to help with pesky snipers. Sniper bullets can't be dodged. Unless your god, a moving target who constantly changes direction is almost impossible to hit in the head, body shot granted, then cover so....nothing happens. For the easy head shot, granted, yet if a squad shoots rockets at you, so now there is a huge volley unless its some huge vehicle map, you are going down 100% of the time while the guy you killed will get revived. Radar grenades blow, and just smoke grenades are better, and the herzog is pretty weak, granted stronger than a pistol but I say(because I'm bad with it) weaker than the original gun. On 9), not true at all, rockets generally kill a lot faster, 2 shot generally so I use them a lot, whether its out in the open or not.

The problem here is Uranium is set in his beliefs and so am I. Granted I'm willing to give snipers a chance, I need to see it happen on the battlefield much more often instead of lone wolves coming in. Also, when the server are full of snipers, it is very easy to outshoot them and run over them. The timing of the sniper is easy so you have to move, hear the shot, crouch shoot, and then move again. They need an infantry core that is winning the game in my to be of any impact. So, if you could produce any footage of say you contributing to the team, go ahead, it'd be much appreciated.

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|TG-55| Infantry Division

Uranium - 235

Because the sniper rifles in BF2142 are so different from the sniper rifles in every other FPS game, and the mentality of snipers is so different . Hell you pretty much just admit that you hide and lone wolf on the TG server. Good job? Stats are meaningless - are you implying I should have to dedicate hours upon hours to have an opinion that that certain thing is stupid? Maybe you should go join Crux, that's about the only thing he can respond to arguments with too. Are you going to try to spin this into a "well you obviously get killed by snipers a lot, so therefore I'm right" argument?

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Mech__Warrior

Guys, settle down. Like Lord Kelvin said before, this isn't a sniper glorification thread nor is it a sniper promotional thread.

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Thesleeper01

The problem is that a support with a ganz can do almost as much as a guy with a sniper rifle can AND they can put down an IDS and sentry or emps, all of those have the ability to easily change the course of a game and the main differance with the recon is those PARTS of a kit often do almost every game.

With support you can cover a back flag with a sentry and IDS AND go jump in the rocks with your ganz and provide suppression and intel on a wide area.

The other things that your saying a sniper has value for are not limited to only snipers. That leaves things like kills and tickets lost and saved.

Lets compare shall we.....

Morkrash's stats:

Recon:
Zeller-H ASR 04 Days 20:12:16, Kills 4551, Deaths 787

RDX DemoPak 00 Days 13:07:23, Kills 1277, Deaths 403

Anti-Personnel Mine 00 Days 08:17:03, Kills 1561, Deaths 529
Total -Kills 7389, Deaths 1719

So you have taken 7389 tickets and lost 1719 meaning with sniper your teams are totaly up 5670 tickets over 5.5 days.

Assault:
Baur H-AR 04 Days 00:26:01, Kills 7176, Deaths 1427

Revives 2481

Heals 2771

With assault you have taken 7176 tickets and lost 1427 so your team is up 5749 tickets in under 4.5 hours (est.) when you add in the tickets you saved with revives it becomes 8520.

So with one day less played you got your team 2900 more tickets than you could of with a baur as Assault and you could have still provided all the same awareness you could of as a sniper.

A sniper is a lost ticket every time when they are set up because they set up in some out of reach place most kills you recive can be revived as other kits because no other kit requires you to lone wolf to use it best.

In the end you play a sniper because you want to & that is fine unless you SL wants different.

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Zhohar

Gentlemen, this is a friendly reminder: let's keep the discussion mature.

TacticalGamer is a place for mature gameplay and mature discussion. Whether you wear our tags or not, you are required to post in a mature, polite, and professional manner on these forums. Personal insults, passive agressive posts, and citing a person's stats to undermine their argument, among other things, is behaviour that is unacceptable on TG.

This is obviously a topic of interest to a lot of people and I am certain none of you would like to see it quelled: hence, let's keep this mature and TG-like.

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Razcsak

The sniper scope does not increase view distance in any way. Identifying an infantry threat two hundred meters out is not, in my opinion, worth the loss of a defib. If anything, an infantry target 200 out is a sniper, and therefore just an irritant at best. Now, a tank 200 out, that's a bit more of a problem, but I don't need a scope or binoculars to see that.

edit: If, for some reason, I found myself marching at a Verdun flag with no armor either attacking or defending, I'd do it with a sniper, support, and four medics. That's one of the only times I'd ever consider asking for a sniper. If someone wants to play as one, I'm probably not going to say no, but I'd rather see a medic or support available.

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Thesleeper01

Citing a person's stats is part and parcel to debate other wise the strongest point you can make is "I think...".

I was not able to see where it was against TG rules unless someone thinks it was said to incite argument or if someone thought it was a flame, if they do my apologies it was not intended as either.

The fact that the person said "I'm nearly in the top 500 with both weapons" validates them as someone that should have good stats for both weapons meaning there words should carry more weight the fact that their stats do not support them is very important.

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Zhohar

The former is a logical argument based on stats. The latter is a personal insult. I meant to discourage the citing of stats as a basis for personal insults.


A valid argument using stats would also sound something like:
There is a world of difference between that, and the following.
Needless to say, this kind of conduct is unacceptable and counter-productive.

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Uranium - 235

Interesting - that's how people have talked about games for decades until this new-found obsession with arbitrary numbers arose recently.

That depends how you see stats. My perception is that stats are meaningless. If the best player in the world only played the game for a week, and a ****ty, mediocre player plays for a year, guess who'll have the best stats? That's ALL stats are - exercises in time. It's like being the Grand Master Duderino in WoW's PVP - skill is hardly a factor, it's just about who plays the most. Go look at my knife stats - guess that means I'm a pimp at knifing people right? **** no, I just went on a knife server. The mere fact that he went out of your way to go look up my stats unprovoked is more than a little pathetic, and is why I find any kind of ranking system to be laughable and ridiculous.

What's more, at what point do you consider stats meaningful? When they're close to your own? When someone's stats match exceed or meet yours, do you not mention it? I highly doubt Morkrash would've mentioned them if they did. But when you're better than someone else, suddenly out comes the "LOL U SUX NOOB ORLFZ"

Maybe we should have whatever no-life is in the #1 spot come in and tell us all what to think, hmm?

Last time stats were part of an argument it was Crux pointing out that he had four berjillion hours of game time, and I had whatever, and therefore I wasn't allowed to have an opinion. I pointed out that I had more posts than him and that therefore he should shut the hell up. Both are utterly meaningless.

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Thesleeper01

Ok, sorry I thought you were talking about what I posted.

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Thesleeper01

No not at all, where I compared usage of a weapon over a similar time frame that removes bias from one side haveing an advantage of time. and as to player skill it is totaly irrevalent for 2 reasons.

1 - the player stated he was good in both and his KD/other stats show that to be true though his KD in Baur is lower meaning that he is likely better with the sniper rifle.

2 - if were talking about effect on the fight then how good the ~player~ can do with either gives us a great point of referance.

In this case he shows himself to be a better ticket advantage to his team when he uses the baur.

Please Uranium - 235, dont bring up that thread in this one. If you want to debate it post what you think and why and then send me a link to it, I have lost track of that thread a long time ago.

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Zhohar

The last I heard, the military granted its flying licenses based on the number of hours a pilot has flown. Seems like they're basing their opinion of a person's worth on their stats.

Stats are not meaningless. Stats, especially time played as a role, reflect greatly on a person's skill level. I do not respect Crux in terms of Squad Leading because he is older and more intelligent in real life: this is a factor, yes, but it's a basic fact that he has ran squads longer and has had more experience. Experience comes above all.

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