As other classes, I spend most of the time with "in your face" type of combat. Not necessarily limited to CQC only, but I play aggressively: find an enemy and kill him or die trying. Rinse and repeat. Naturally, I use automatic weapons with limited effective range, even ARs lose effectiveness at certain range, so I usually can't peek out from cover without a threat of being cut down by a precise long burst of another automatic weapon. I have tried bolt action sniping before, and I still use it when I need to countersnipe someone, but it is mind-numbingly boring. But at least sniping requires *some* skill: to lead the target, to nail that headshot. Trigger discipline, finding a good position. Anti-counter-snipe movement trained to mechanical level - decloak-shoot-recloak. Today I wanted to try out some semi-auto Infiltrator action, so I picked up the Vandal I bought long ago on a sale with 3.4x scope and went to one of those terrible new bridge-type bases on Hossin, "construction sites" I believe they're called. It had a 96+/96+ fight in progress, so I hung back, picking off people in bad positions or just sticking out of cover. I was at that perfect range where no one could reliably gun me down with an automatic weapon before I could just run away and hide in cover. Snipers are mostly easily countered by just strafing all the time, which is made easier by Vandal's 75% ADS. As I was picking off people from range where they could at best wound me, it struck me how effortless it all is. Nobody can harm you, so your skill as a shooter here doesn't correlate with your survival, only with how many kills you get. I'm interested to hear what the rest of marksman community thinks about all that.
i play on about 20 to 1 meters with the vandal try it and u will love the vandal do not aspect to be any good when u start this way off game play u will need to learn to be good and u will have fun playing the vandal some tips - hip fire on close range the vandal is good at this - switch scopes to the game play - keep moving - play a couple off hours in VR ore warp gate (do not shoot dummies shoot other players) - run cloaked in the middle off friendly's when attacking the frontside - use sensor darts allot - go where nobody is looking/shooting and surprise from the side - .......
I think it's pretty easy to stand in a corner somewhere picking people off. The hard part about playing infiltrator in my opinion is how to be a proactive member on the battlefield. I have 10k kills with my rams 50, I recently joined a Spec Ops outfit and my infiltrator has switched to cqc. All that being said I prefer my smg>vandal. Infiltrator inside of 50m is all about finding small flanks.
Unless I'm sniping from the top of a tower or other places where I can't move all that much, I tend to run in the outskirts of the battlefield with my BASR, always moving in between shots, often stumbling upon enemy sunderers or sniper/engi balls in the process, sometimes being hunted by a pissed off light assault or two... It's hardly what I'd call "effortless". Here is what my usual sniping session looks like. (Please note the frequent commi kills in the middle of it.) And here is how it turns out when things go completely crazy and I end up running right in the middle of or just behind the enemy lines. (Please note how I use my knife and commi more than I do my rifle. ) So, nope. My long range combat at least is anything but "effortless". Can't say about semi scout rifles, but I don't see how they would be drastically different or easier... I started doing a bit of AI Max a month or so ago, and that, by comparison, is a walk in the park (nowadays, I often do it after a particularly long and eventful sniping or smg session, to calm down a bit). You move slowly, your huge health pool lets you see death coming from miles away, and you'll kill at least three people before dying even if you jump in the melee without a care in the world (like I often do... when I play "seriously", as a MAX, it usually means 20+ killstreak incoming).
and i quote - I was at that perfect range where no one could reliably gun me down with an automatic weapon before I could just run away and hide in cover. - As I was picking off people from range where they could at best wound me this is called sniping
It's true that at range there's very little that poses a threat to someone besides snipers and vehicles, however I would rarely call it effortless. At least for me, every time there's a location where I'm fighting from there's a little cat and mouse game to be played with the random people who wander your direction or who do grab a sniper to try and counter you. That along with ensuring I maintain proper range from a fight makes it so there's constantly something I have to be paying attention to. With the semi-autos it's even more effort since on top of all that I'm working with an inaccurate weapon, which requires me to carefully control my shots so that i'm not sending bullets randomly across half the map. So no, semi-auto sniping/long ranged combat is far from effortless, there's still plenty you have to be aware of to ensure you have a good run.
Using a sniper rifle, or even a battle rifle, against someone from a range they can't really retaliate effectively is about as effortless as using a CQC weapon against a sniper rifle user in close combat. The only difference here is that oclose combat is always more risky, you have to be much more on your toes with regard to flanking, being overwhelmed by numbers and being caught off guard by another CQC weapon user; plus, even in close combat, you can quite easily become the target of someone shooting from a longer range. On the other hand, when you're fighting from long range from a good position, opponents have far fewer flanking opportunities, you almost never get overwhelmed by numbers, and you can only be threatened by other long range weapons, mainly BASR's. Also I should mention that since cloak makes you practically invisible at long range, a well practiced cloak-fire cycle will keep you alive indefinitely against anyone but the top 1% of counter snipers. But to take full benefit from that you need to be a BASR user yourself, otherwise the longer uncloaked duration of semi auto kills makes you an easier target to a far larger proportion of counter snipers. Overall I have to agree, long range combat is safer and requires less focus to be effective. I find this to be even true as a heavy assault using a battle rifle, compared to heavy assault using an LMG at closer range.
Interesting replies so far, I'd just like to specify that I meant to position oneself among allies and behind cover, not at some obscure position, far from the battle itself.
Well, there's a difference between low-risk and effortless. At long range, you won't die as much, so that's great and all for padding your K/D, but it takes skill and/or good positioning to be effective at those ranges. And the thing about sniping (which you were doing in a broader sense) is that as the fight goes on, eventually people start to learn where they can and can't safely take cover, so you have to reposition to keep getting easy kills.
Someone with an automatic can still kill you if they are good, burst firing 1-2 bullets does miracle (actually killed a guy ~200m away with an automatic yesterday. Took a **** ton of shots, but on semi auto mode, it wasn't that long. As far as what you're talking about, how effective do you think you are on the battlefield doing that. Are you just getting a kill here and there, or are you getting kills after kills after kills. There's a difference. I tried going to look for you, but it seems you don't even have 50 kills with the vandal yet.
It's possible, but you won't take out a Vandal infil that way. It's less kill per minute of life, but the life is longer, no "dead time", pretty much can hang back and take pot shots non-stop. If I were trying to play there as LA, I'd get 2-5 kills, get killed, and have to spend time re-insert myself back into a position where I can get kills. I'm not saying it's Ofc not. As I explained in the OP, this is pretty much first time I'm trying something like that. The battle rifle with Wrel's loadout (flash supp., 3.4x, laser) used to be my go-to weapon on my seldom-played engineer, but I didn't spend much time thinking about it, just used the gun as a big powerful pistol I guess.
I'm talking about kph. For instance, on your top gun, you got a 3.2 or so k/d, but your kph is 55. My k/d on an automatic is roughly 2.2, but my kph is 120. See what I mean? Depending on if you're aiming for k/d or what, you'll be looking at different stats to guide you.
The scout rifles, which the Vandal is excel at the range you are talking about Iridar and yes, when you get into that range it will own ARs and the longer range carbines. The skill comes into these weapons when you are out of that comfortable range. This is the same for every weapon type in the game, if you get it into the situation it requires things become a lot easier. Is your only question about the scout rifles or what other options you could have for this range? In terms of scout rifles, you have the automatic ES version whihc i believe is best used from about 1 - 50m, the ES semi auto which you can push out to 100m quite easily then the vandal which is the closest option of them all.... a lot of people take the vandal with hip fire setup. If you would like something a little harder hitting at the longer ranges, i would suggest the semi auto sniper rifle with the short range scopes (the Impetus for he NC). These rifles kick quite hard but really reward your well placed shots.
So you did everything right to minimize risk to yourself and now you are shocked that you weren't at risk?
Pretty much. Within the range of automatic weapons, you're always at *some* risk, even if you try best to minimize it. Here there was no risk, maybe if I pissed someone off and he decided to snipe me specifically, or an infiltrator who somehow got through 3 layers of my allies.
I don't really want to disagree with someone who is more experienced than me and whose guides helped me out a great deal, but long range combat with a BASR is far from effortless. Sure, it's not as hectic as SMG Infil/LA or as intense as Stalker cloaking your way into a high pop. base. But there is still a fair amount of effort involved. You need to position yourself correctly, factor in bullet drop and lead your target, constantly be on the move and always on the lookout for a better vantage point and most importantly you need to keep a sharp eye on your surroundings. If you do all of the above, there is very little risk involved but that doesn't detract from the effort required to put the above into practice.
I can't really tell without stats, but you were most likely not as usefull to your team as you thought you were. Your kph is probably very low, as well as a low score per hour. At automatic weapons, you are not always at risk. If I take a heavy and camp up a stairs like I sometime do on low BR char (gotta get them certs). I know I will NOT die for the first encounter, and unless the second is a bit too close by, I will not die to it either. In fact, until I get 2 players in front of me, 99% I'm not going to die. And with 2 players, I still do them both more often than not. You could call that being safe also, I'm at a strategical place, looking down on players whom are (with a barely a few exceptions)not as good of a shot as I am. There's always situations where you're safe, but usually those don't yield the biggest rewards either.
