Really, I took a look at the thing, and thought, "Heck Ya! Semi-Auto SAS-R!" (One of my favorites, Arxied in a Day). Then I tried it, and now I am confused. How the heck are you suppose to use this thing? It Feels like it wants to be, like I said, a semi-Auto SAS-R, but as it is, it just feels like a bad Scout Rifle. Tried it like Mid range Assault sniper, and nope. Tried it like a close range Scout rifle, nope. Even playing it more like a Vandal, and that did not work either. Mostly it's that blasted kick. Anyone have any Tips?
Well, I can give you a few tips as I like the semiautomatic sniper rifles. This works for me. First tip: Do not expect a weapon as powerful as the SAS-R as the mechanic of the weapon is totally different. Second tip: Always go for an starter headshot. If your first shot is HS, then you can always kill your objective with the second one, which is the real good trait of this weapon. HeadShot - BodyShot - Repeat... Third tip: Do not use it in long ranges. It is call a "sniper rifle", but this is just lore description. It is an scout rifle, and I always use mi semi-snipers in shot to medium range. My best scope for this weapons (including shadow) is the x2 - x4 and never or rarely anything further. I do not use it nor in long range nor in CQC, try to avoid those situations. Fourth tip: Disengage. If you cannot kill your enemy (miss shots or HA shield, etc) in two shots, three as maximum, then disengage the combat, cloak and escape. Then choose another position and repeat until you kill the enemy. Shoot, cloak, repeat, shoot, cloak, repeat. Five tip: Trigger discipline. The first HS is critical and absolutely necessary to success with this weapon (although you might have good time with it even with no HS), so learn to restart the recoil of the weapon after the first shoot to hit with the second. Patience. Last tip: Find the exactly distance where you are comfortable using it. As I have told, mine is short to medium, but you should find the exact distance where it works for you. And then, keep always that distance to your enemy. The semi-sniper is not the longest ranged weapon (almost every non-CQC Carbine-LMG-AssaultRifle will have the same or more range than you) so use the advantage of choosing you preferred distance and aim well. Good aim is almost mandatory with this kind of weapons, as too many missed shots will kill you for sure. I hope you find this useful, Salud, Saguardia
I don't have the Impetus yet, but I think that will be my next primary buy (a while off though). That said, I DO have it's high-zoom optics cousin, the Gauss SPR, and have over 800 kills with that. I have VR room tested the Impetus quite a bit (compared it's feel to both NC and NS SAScRs and found that I preferred the Impetus (mainly for it's lovely 0 still CoF, and better damage), others have 0.1 (which makes them unreliable with getting headshots against still targets beyond 100m). The big difference between the Gauss SPR and Impetus is ofc the optics and how that affects effective ranges. The Impetus is very hard to use beyond about 150m (even with 4x scope) because you just don't have enough zoom to get the fine control you need in a timely fashion for lining up headshots, not to mention how much harder it becomes to accurately judge range and account for bullet drop. That said, it's much easier to use at shorter ranges, especially thanks to not having to fuss with the sway/hold-breath mechanic (I hear the Gauss SPR may get an attachment to allow this feature on it, and that would definitely be awesome for the Gauss SPR as that mechanic is especially annoying at times on a semi-auto as opposed to a bolt, where it feels much more natural and seems to flow nicer with typical usage patterns). Saguardian hit the core basics to using any of the semi-auto rifles in the game nicely. I too had to learn trigger discipline, particularly for shorter range fights w/ the Gauss SPR (which are tricky w/ high-zoom optics; I found it best not be within 50m, 75m+ preferable). The other thing to think about is what hit patterns are minimally sufficient to get a kill, obviously 2HSK is always doable, except versus HA with overshield, where a 3rd shot is needed as you get near the min damage range (always for the SAScRs), without nano-weave, you can get 1HS+1BS kills on standard infantry, but this is sufficient by only 1 damage overkill at the min damage range, ditto for the 3BSK. I do disagree slightly with his last tip, the Impetus is a better long range weapon than anything that isn't another semi-auto sniper or bolt-action sniper, but that doesn't mean the weapons he listed aren't effective at the ranges the Impetus is ideal to be used at, which means you have to have a healthy respect for what those weapons can do to you and act accordingly.
Semi auto sniper rifles do slightly more damage than scout rifles, but it just never comes into play, since scout rifles kill all targets in the same amount of headshots. Meanwhile, scout rifles have higher effective rate of fire and better moving accuracy. Which is another problem. If you're starting with headshot anyway, might as well use a BASR and just kill the target with that first headshot (not an attack on your tip, just a passing comment about overall viability of the weapon). That said, semi auto sniper rifles are slated to receive some buffs. Just shelve it for now and wait for the next patch when they'll become stronger. But right now there's just no reason to ever bother with a semi auto sniper.
Sure, no problem. This is why my first tip was "do not expect a SAS-R". No other rifle gives you thever cqc possibilities of the cqc basr. It is just another mechanic with other gameplay: more sustained fire, more rate of fire. You can use it without the starter HS and still have some good kills with it. But to be clearly effective and get the best of the weapon, the HS is the way. I completely think this rifles requires some changes out of the sway, but that is other war. Frightning89: Thank you. Just give a try on the silenced Impetus and I am pretty sure you will have the same range as an SMG. Well, it is a joke with some truth. I would like suppressors to reduce damage but not to give so bad bullet drop. As a sniper the range lost is just too much. My opinion of course. Thank you, Salud, Saguardia
It's true that their # of headshots required is the same, but no one is a perfect marksman, you will have misses, you will have bodyshots instead of headshots, no matter how good a marksman you are, and the better still CoF is a big deal; I am of the opinion that it is preferable to not be moving when you go to fire as an infil with a sniper rifle (and this is easy to do safely because of the cloak), so the still CoF is what matters for an infiltrator, not moving CoF (snipers actually have awful moving CoF stats). Sanguardian: Suppressors are awful on sniper rifles no matter what type they are (and are typically bad on mid-range weapons like the AF-18 Stalker too), this is mainly because such weapons suffer from a whopping -40% to muzzle velocity from having one (for comparison, SMGs get a cool -20%, and pistols only suffer -12%). Which means the travel time and bullet drop characteristics are like you are shooting at a target 5/3rds as far away as they actually are, which is a BIG deal.
It's always better to fire stationary, for any class, with any weapon. But it's not always possible, and cloak doesn't help mid-engagement. Scout rifles gives an option to fire on the move, sniper rifle does not. Correction: only Emissary gets 12% reduction, all other sidearms get the same 40%.
Good point about the ability to fire on the move (moving CoF on SAScRs is 0.15 crouch, 0.25 standing, a lot more usable than 0.2 crouch, 0.55 standing of a SR), really rather neat how the stats system in this game is tuned that every weapon has strengths and weaknesses compared to other similar weapons. As for pistol muzzle velocity, unless they've changed it since March of this year, it's still 12% reduction for all pistols (that can have it).
Any source on that? I wasn't aware of any suppressor changes in march. Search on reddit and patchnotes came up empty.
I think you misread, I meant that unless they did change it since March, that all pistols are still getting only -12% MV from suppressor, it's recorded that way on the PS2 wiki, and they cite the Vanu Labs spreadsheets for that data. (I wish that you could actually pull the weapon attachment effects off of the PS2 API; I tried when they added weapon/item data, and you can bring up the attachment itself, but none of the data pertaining to its effects on a given weapon seems to be available).
No, I didn't misread, I just didn't know Vanu Labs had suppressor penalties for sidearms in that spreadsheet. On closer inspection, it only has penalty for Beamer, though it is written as 12% penalty. Given the same penalty to Emissary, I guess it makes sense. But I'm still not 100% convinced, Beamer and Emissary could very well be exceptions. Thanks anyway.
From in-game experience, I can tell you the NC04 Mag-Shot definitely doesn't have a full -40% MV penalty with suppressor, I would not be able to reliably kill people at ~25m away from me w/ it if it did. I really wish we could pull the actual data about this stuff from the PS2 Census API, afaik, that's not possible yet. (Also dunno know why they haven't implemented a system where the changes to stats that an attachment has show up in the stat panel, with altered numbers showing in green if they're improvements and red if they are worse, shouldn't be too expensive development-wise to make happen, and would really help).
