If you manage to get in a good spot, a silenced sniper rifle is by far the deadliest thing you could have in your hands. Nobody seems to hear the sound (or aren't used to it) and they look a lot farther than you are when looking for a sniper. I use it on my TSAR and it's good once i find a nice spot at the flank of a group of enemies. You take them out one by one, just aim at their heads and press the button... @sniperior: yesterday i heard the sound of a silenced 99SV for the first time. I couldn't hear it when i was at more than 30 meters, and even when i heard it it was just a very low sound. Totally recommended, in my opinion, but you have to remember that the bullet speed reduction is much more noticeable than on a RAMS. A silenced RAMS... well, its higher bullet speed reduces the downside of the silencer, so you may give it a go and see how does that work for you. 100 certs are not that much, 2-3 days if you don't play a lot.
OP - place a way point on a wall of a building. Walk away and fire at building till you find the point where the bullet meets the crosshairs (do this for both sillencer and non silencer). Note the range and report back. You could also note the ranges of each mildot as well if you wanted to be really thorough
The silencer is a niche tool to have as an option when you're planning what you'll be doing in the near future at the spawn screen. You don't need a silencer in HUGE (Multiple platoons, from multiple factions) fights because it's pure chaos anyway, and you don't need a silencer at long - mid range because it'll hinder your accuracy too much, and the benefit is moderate at best (because no one will be around you anyway to see you on minimap) If you're going to be assaulting a base (like a tech plant or something) or tower and you're going to be fighting in short - mid range I strongly recommend the silencer to avoid being flanked and picked up on. The silencer is an incredibly valuable tool in these scenarios.
The slower bullet velocity will make you miss more shots than is worth it. The slower shots also make it easier to follow back to their point of origin negating the whole point. If you are out behind enemy lines you shouldn't rely on a suppressor to keep you hidden. You should take a couple shots and the relocate. In big battles you probably can get to a sweet perch and stay there.
I have found the suppressor to be an invaluable tool for sniping. Just not with the high mag scopes. With a 6x on my RAMs with a suppressor I find anything that's easy to see on the scope is more or less an easy target. It works insanely well, it confuses people in small fights, in large ones it means you're not another flashing point of death and especially at night it provides great advantages. If you're into long range sniping it's obviously not that great but mid range it's an amazing tool.
From what i heard the semi auto/auto vanu snipers dont have bullet drop, but the bolt action are the only exeptions on vanu weponry
The parallax has a small drop but it's barely noticeable even at extreme ranges compared to TR and NC equivalents. If you add a suppressor the drop becomes pretty drastic.
Totally tossing this on my new bolt sniper I got (came with no scope on it, max zoom option is 4x, has faster bolt action time)
100 certs really isn't much And VR Training (Feb I think?) will allow use of any and all weapons, vehicles, and their attachments. (although unknown what kind of damage feedback there will be)
sniper rifles are standardized across factions, so the vanu sniper is 100% identical in all aspects sans looks to the NC or TR sniper. this includes drop and sway and available attachments and bullet velocity. It also should be noted that NC starts with the cheep bolt action while the other two start with the cheep semi-auto. All other vanu small arms weapons have no drop, including shotguns at the cost of bullet velocity, which are otherwise standardized.
