New to game and looking to spend some money to be effective at sniping/hacking

I think you mean 1000... or $7 (1 hour of minimum wage, lol -- look at those ratios and TELL me this game isn't 90% hollow cashgrab ... in which case the LAST thing you should be doing is spending cash and encouraging them)

No? The XM98 (and whatever bolt action the TR get) is functionally identical to the Bolt Driver and costs 100 certs.

They're all "good enough" if you want a one-shot kill.

Soooo...... How's it coming, Storm?

Were any of these people right and your KPM shot right through the roof? ... or was it more down to earth like I described?

Are you kidding? I would much rather blow $10 than the amount of time it takes to accrue 1000 certs. Crazy.

hold off on spending the money...

#1 you can't buy any increase to hacking (which only speeds up the time it takes)
#2 you can use free weapon trials to try out the different sniper rifles to find which one you like the best

You're a bit late... It doesn't look like the OP even plays anymore. Guess that answers my question though.
(I hate being right)

I love all the sniper hate. Makes it way easier to snipe bully HA & LA from a mile away without worrying quite so much about bullets coming back at me. But my favorite kills are scythe pilots while they patch up their nerd-wet-dream-go-carts, which are second only to blowing away elmos as they patch the holes in their tanks....delicious.....

if you really want to spend money in this game as an infiltrator then get Longshot/Parallax/Rams.50 then an SMG which carries all classes can use ( there really is nothing left to buy for the infiltrator class other than camo's )

Other classes :
the AV MANA Turret for Engineer's
Lock-on rocket Launcher ( Annihilator )

as far as MBT's are concerned get and AV cannon ( there's a tone of vehicle spamming going on these days so having something thats AV around is usefull )

but your still gonna have to grind like the rest of us if you want improve any particular aspect of each class