Frostea
04-04-2007, 04:06 PM
This is guide based on my own sniping experiences and random tips i picked up from other players, and is mainly for players with decent experience in marksmanship. If you do not know what do the weapons do, check this (http://www.totalbf2142.com/page.php?do=unlocks) out
The following is important. Please read to avoid confusion.
These points only apply for this guide.
From wikipedia.org: 'Typical sniper missions include reconnaissance and surveillance, counter-sniper, killing enemy commanders, selecting targets of opportunity, and even anti-matériel tasks (destruction of military equipment), which tend to require use of rifles in the larger calibers such as the .50 BMG.' In BF2142, this is more or less the same, except that snipers' main goal is to kill infantry and run the hell away from vehicles. Recon is a different thing that I will not cover in this guide.
A marksman is defined as a squad member who kills enemies quickly, efficiently, and for the good of the team. He also is constantly on the move. Baur is what he usually use for his main weapon, along with PK rockets.
Both, in this guide, completely destroys infantry and avoids vehicles.
This guide also assumes you have unlocked Zeller and X4 scope (As a sniper) or Baur and PK rockets (As a marksman). The defribillator, frag grenade, and running unlocks are secondary but important as well.
The Evil, Heinous LAG
'God damn i shot him before he did but he didn't die before i did!'
As commonly experienced in all FPS games, every millisecond of lag counts. Especially for snipers, marksmen and assault players.
Points to take note of:
NEVER play with >30 millisecond of lag as a sniper/marksman if you are planning to win.
Always play in a server close to your city
Bookmark servers that you don't lag in. This can be done by pressing the '+' button on the multiplayer tab of the menu.
Sell that antiqued 56k modem and use a proper broadband connection.
For serious gamers, go forums.speedguide.net to tweak your connection. There are several good guides there.
Your hold. Your rifle. Your wife. Your cuddly mouse.
'Damn, this thing is aching my hand!'
'Move faster damn it!'
Your mouse is your rifle. Take good care of it and don't smear oil over it while eating at the computer table. (Seriously)
Points to take note of:
If you are playing as a sniper a mouse with buttons to quickly adjust sensitivity is crucial if you play as a squad sharpshooter.
Stop being a cheapskate and buy a decent mouse if you plan to game properly. Any razer mouse or the logitec ones designed for gaming would be good.
I remember reading some article somewhere saying that the smaller the mouse, the better your control would be. Not sure if its true, but you could try it with some cheap optical mouse.
Use a single-colored mouse pad for god's sake. I know plenty of people who die in FPS games because their tables have some weird myriad of colors and optical mouse don't respond well to that.
Some people's hands will ache after a long game. You could use the 15 seconds while dead to rest them or simply buy one of those gel-filled wrist rest.
Now, into the actual strategy (not that the above advices are useless).
The Sniper
.:Shooting:.
Points to take note of:
If you are new to FPS or BF2142, practice sniping on bots first to get used to the weapon bob that BF2142 has to keep some realism in the game.
Hold your shots until you are certain you can hit a target to prevent exposing your position.
For a good shot, take in a deep breath, let out half of it and hold the rest. Aim and fire. Rinse and repeat.
Gruber is a very, very underpowered unlock. Do not, EVER use it unless you have no other items to use (that means, you are purely sniping, nothng else). The weapon bob is negligible if you are experienced enough.
Gruber does have its uses, like when enemies hide behind an obstacle and his head sticks out, and if you are doing very long range sniping (150m>)
Proning is not necessarily the best way to snipe. Against decent enemy snipers you will die in about 2 seconds while in prone position. Reason as contributed by Ghiblian: 'when you go prone, you do not actually see your "head" move forward. In fact, you drop straight down. Your body model, however, maintains its center (the waist) where you were standing. Thus, when you look, your "camera" is actually coming out of your waist, leaving your whole upper torso exposed.'
.:Positioning:.
Depending on your preference, you could hide behind foliage on ground level or on high rise buildings. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but extremely high buildings usually give the best advantage.
Hiding behind foliage means that you have good cover, but lousy aim and getting discovered is a bad thing unless you meant to lure enemies. Sneaky demopaks hehe.
Camping on high rise building give you a wide range of view but usually bad cover. Depending on the building, it can also mean you can be served some PK rockets for your main course. However, on very high buildings it is difficult to be rocketed but you still can easily hit people. (like some of the buildings in Fall of Berlin.) It could also mean dying from orbital strike in conquest/AL games.
If you can hide behind the enemies’ position, by all means go ahead. Doing so will confuse the enemy, screw up their cover, and it usually means victory (at least for that area).
The sniping guide by Lunien states that the active cam unlock is good for getting to hiding positions. No doubt it can be useful, but personally i find that unless it gives complete invisibility, it is not very useful due to the many things that can counter it, which are the following: A EMP blast, Anti-camo net-bat, UAV, IDS. The worst thing that could happen to you is an EMP blast, because it will cause the camo to malfunction and changes you to a very colorful soldier for a while. Alert players can also see you easily unless from a great distance away.
.:Strategies:.
As shown in many spy movies, distraction is the best way to simplify things for a sniper. One of the best distractions would be to EMP your enemies with the help of a support, together with a sentry gun. This would usually send them scurrying for cover and you are free to run to a favored spot for sniping, which is most likely at the enemy's back. The downside is that you will die sooner or later if your team mates do not take the place as the UAV, IDS and sat-track can all detect you.
If you have Ghost, you can lure enemies to a spot and set off a well planted RDX-Demopak. Good places are like on roofs where enemies would never notice. Clean up with your Zeller. The downside is that this requires some fairly good sneaking skills and also you cannot use the APM to cover your back.
Alternatively you could get a support to place a sentry gun on a corridor and lure with Ghost.
Do not ever camp with other people unless there is really no choice. A couple of well-placed PK rockets will blow you and you team mate(s) into bits. Especially for conquest games, where death matters the most.
Do not camp in places where there are 101 places to get to you. Your APMs will be rendered useless if you do so.
Watch out for backstabbers (literally). If you do not wish for your dogtag to get stolen (its a 'pride' thing), toss a demopak on the floor and blow it up when you see a menacing figure with a knife in hand. Either that or blow it up when you hear the signature sound that the knife makes when unsheathing it. Both ways will most likely kill you and/or the potential assassin.
Alternatively you can also plant APMs, but those are easily noticed and can be bypassed by crawling. If well-placed, they can still kill the most experienced of players. An example would be placing an APM behind an obstacle, but with the frontal part facing out so that when players run pass they will activate, leaving them to wonder where the APM came from.
Team up with another sniper and have fun calling targets using voIP. Take turns firing first/last so that you both get kills. You can both take different positions so that you both cover different angles. ie, target hides behind cover to protect himself from sniper A, but becomes exposed to sniper B. As long as both snipers stay well hidden, this effect is particularly demoralising for the enemy because they can't hide from the snipers and even if they kill one of you, the buddy can take advantage of the sense of security they might had gained from taking one of you out. Plus you and your buddy can form a squad and have a beacon so that any death would not set you both back too much. - Contributed by BrandoIruka
The Marksman
A marksman is called upon when accurate firing is required in the heat of a situation.
.:General comments and things to take note of:.
A marksman is generally not needed in titan games, as enemies are either very far away, very close, or have hulking battlewalkers.
The original PAC assault rifle sucks royally for sharpshooting, as it does not have enough power to kill enemies beyond 20m, which is generally when a marksman is needed. The EU one, is almost the same as Baur, hence if you do not have Baur but wish to play as a marksman, always be on the EU side.
As a marksman, one has to be ALWAYS alert for notable enemies, such as enemy snipers, engineers that could compromise the battlewalker on your side (if any), and most importantly, support soldiers. A battlewalker is EXTREMELY important in conquest games. If you have one on your side, hope that the pilots are good.
Always be aware of who is under enemy fire in your squad. By doing so you can locate the enemy and subseqently, silence them.
When attempting to kill a far away enemy, this guide will always assume that you use semi-firing (one shot per click) instead of full auto as it doesn't make sense to waste ammunition and worse still, miss.
.:Shooting:.
Always be prepared to crouch. This is quite important as you could easily miss if you don't.
Aim for the neck area. This usually kills enemies quickly as you will hit the enemy anyways. If you are confident or if the enemy is >15m you can go for the head. If you are using Baur always try for the head if distance is >20m. One headshot from Baur hurts alot. And also it is quite suited for that sort of job.
Unlike sniping, shoot the moment you feel there is an enemy. If its a friendly, cease firing. If its hostile, you gain the upper hand as people don't respond that fast, especially if they are looking somewhere else. This may compromise your accuracy ratings, but ultimately it contributes to winning the game itself.
It helps a lot if your mouse is configurated to your favored sensitivity. Different people prefer different mouse speed, but generally speaking a DPI(dot per inch) of around 1500 is recommended. Play more and adjust.
.:Positioning:.
Don't be a fool and hide close to corners. You are not James Bond. PK rockets and frags can kill you easily if you do so.
Stay behind your squad. Remember that you are responsible for killing targets, so you can figure out how many enemies you are killing while dead.
.:Strategies:.
Stick to close-quarter environment that preferably have shelters. Running out in the open means you are exposing yourself to a grand death. In conquest games, this is very important.
Always stick to your squad leader. I've seen too many fools join a squad yet do not do anything helpful to the squad.
See a sniper? Switch to your rockets and immediately rocket him down. You will be surprised how easily you can get the frag. You will also be surprised to see half your squad dead if you don't.
Kill order should be something like this: Whatever that's in front of you> Snipers > Support > Engineers > the rest. On a true battlefield, flexibility means victory, hence if the situation calls for it, change as needed.
Remember that you got to avoid vehicles? Well that does not mean you can't kill them. a few properly placed PK rockets can kill a FAV. Or you could kill the drivers inside by shooting very carefully and hope that they don't see you.
Read up on that stickied post on how to kill vehicles, more specifically the part about battlewalkers. Battlewalkers have vents on the underside that any weapon can damage. Its 1 damage per shot, but it adds up. Just be careful not to empty your whole clip in case the pilot pops out at the wrong time.
If the pilot does pop out, either get into the walker if its health is still in good condition (lol hijack) or kill him first. Do not get into the walker you already pumped a few magazines into it as the pilot(s) is/are most likely engineers and could just kill you with a single pilum rocket.
.:The Armoury:.
This is a small section dedicated to the weapons I mentioned that are used by the Marksman and the Sniper.
Why Zeller?
I see many people who prefer park or morretti (the original sniper rifles) to Zeller. To be frank there is a couple of drawbacks using Zeller. Here's a comparison
Original recon rifles
5 rounds per magazine, total of 7 magazines, 35 rounds.
5.4 seconds to reload for park, 5.0 seconds for morretti
1.0 seconds to draw another round for park, 1.166 seconds for morretti
Deals 80 damage to soldiers with light armor. Around 54 to those with heavy armor
Requires 3 shots to destroy a sentry gun with full health
Requires 2 shot to kill any soldier with full health unless headshot
Pumps out around 40 damage per second, assuming non-stop shooting action with no headshot
Zeller-H ASR
3 rounds per magazine, total of 10 magazines, 30 rounds.
5.4 seconds to reload
1.0 seconds to draw another round
Deals 100 damage to soldiers with light armor. Around 79 to those with heavy armor
Requires 2 shots to destroy a sentry gun with full health
Only item that can destroy mines other than defuser (requires 1 shot)
Requires 2 shot to kill any soldier with full health unless headshot
Pumps out around 36 damage per second, assuming non-stop shooting action with no headshot
Sniper rifles do not have their weapon damage decrease over distance, and every round travels at 1200m/s, meaning instantenous hit when you click.
The main reason why Zeller is superior than other rifles is mainly due to the fact that you deal significantly more damage per round. I strongly recommend Zeller unless you are excellent at sniping, that means, dealing at least 1 headshot every 2 hit. The only other reason why you may be using the original rifles is that you aim for kill damage assist only, which is pretty silly. However this does not mean you must stick to Zeller. Use your preferred sniper rifle if you dislike Zeller.
X4 scope
This is a powerful unlock that allows very long range sniping. As far as I know, there is no considerable weapon drop for sniper rifles, hence making it all the more powerful.
After unlocking this, it will be automatically attached to all sniper rifles you spawn with.
Use mouse wheel to focus (scroll up) or defocus (scroll down)
The amount of zoom you should used should be tested in single player as different player have different preference and mouse sensitivity.
Baur H-AR
This is basically SCAR-11 (the EU rifle) with more firepower and recoil. Clip size is also considerably lesser but Baur is more efficient if all your rounds hit.
Shooting works the same way as a sniper rifle (refer to the previous sniper shooting techniques) except that you must aim and shoot faster. Do not hesitate (this requires a hell lot of practice) and mind the recoil.
Practice using single round shots in single player to get used to the recoil.
General rule of thumb: if Enemy >20m, full auto, couch if possible and aim for body. If enemy <30m, single rounds, couch if enemy not a sniper and aim the head. 20m-30m is the grey area where you have to use your own judgement.
Spend every round like gold; Baur only has 20 rounds in 1 magazine. SCAR has 30 and Voss has 40. The only good thing is that you have more or less same number of rounds in total compared with other rifles, and that you reload faster.
When toe-to-toe against an enemy, do not back off. Instead move forward and aim for the head. Reason is due to the fact that Baur has heavy recoil and will have a large weapon deviation if you move. If you try this you will automatically realise why.
In close quarters, be wary of people who carry shotguns. 1 headshot from that kills, and one hit is almost as hard as a Zeller. The good thing is that shotguns also have a weapon draw time (cooldown) like sniper rifles and you can kill them within that time if you aim for the head.
PK Rockets
This is one of the few equipments that requires lots of skill to use efficiently. Generally you use it to clear out camping enemies, most likely snipers.
The rockets will simply refuse to explode if you fire it >20m. However I once killed a player when I headshot him with 1 rocket >5m. Weird possibilities.
This is god-like for clearing camping enemies if used properly, and is better than a normal frag grenade.
If you fire this weapon normally without zooming, it will explode when it hits a solid target <20m, including walls etc, causing a large area of effect.
If you zoom this weapon, you can adjust when you want the rockets to explode anywhere <20m using the mouse wheel like the zoom function of X4 Scope. 1 tick of the mouse wheel will increase/decrease the distance by 3m, with minimum being 20m.
A smart way of using this weapon to kill enemies camping behind obstacle is to use the obstacle itself to gauge when the rockets should explode. Aim the obstacle then zoom in. You will notice the distance of the target automatically set, and hence you only need to increase the distance by a small bit then fire it over the obstacle, making it explode over the enemies head.
This is especially useful if the said enemy has no walls behind him, such as when assaulting a titan reactor core, in this case you can make the rockets explode right after the walls as most people would camp there.
To conclude, marksmanship effectively based on 4 main things. Skills, experience, strategy, and teamwork, listed in importance (in my opinion, that is). Master them all and prepare for glory!!!
Any opinions, suggestions, ideas or strategy, feel free to drop them here. Do state your sources and give examples if possible.
The following is important. Please read to avoid confusion.
These points only apply for this guide.
From wikipedia.org: 'Typical sniper missions include reconnaissance and surveillance, counter-sniper, killing enemy commanders, selecting targets of opportunity, and even anti-matériel tasks (destruction of military equipment), which tend to require use of rifles in the larger calibers such as the .50 BMG.' In BF2142, this is more or less the same, except that snipers' main goal is to kill infantry and run the hell away from vehicles. Recon is a different thing that I will not cover in this guide.
A marksman is defined as a squad member who kills enemies quickly, efficiently, and for the good of the team. He also is constantly on the move. Baur is what he usually use for his main weapon, along with PK rockets.
Both, in this guide, completely destroys infantry and avoids vehicles.
This guide also assumes you have unlocked Zeller and X4 scope (As a sniper) or Baur and PK rockets (As a marksman). The defribillator, frag grenade, and running unlocks are secondary but important as well.
The Evil, Heinous LAG
'God damn i shot him before he did but he didn't die before i did!'
As commonly experienced in all FPS games, every millisecond of lag counts. Especially for snipers, marksmen and assault players.
Points to take note of:
NEVER play with >30 millisecond of lag as a sniper/marksman if you are planning to win.
Always play in a server close to your city
Bookmark servers that you don't lag in. This can be done by pressing the '+' button on the multiplayer tab of the menu.
Sell that antiqued 56k modem and use a proper broadband connection.
For serious gamers, go forums.speedguide.net to tweak your connection. There are several good guides there.
Your hold. Your rifle. Your wife. Your cuddly mouse.
'Damn, this thing is aching my hand!'
'Move faster damn it!'
Your mouse is your rifle. Take good care of it and don't smear oil over it while eating at the computer table. (Seriously)
Points to take note of:
If you are playing as a sniper a mouse with buttons to quickly adjust sensitivity is crucial if you play as a squad sharpshooter.
Stop being a cheapskate and buy a decent mouse if you plan to game properly. Any razer mouse or the logitec ones designed for gaming would be good.
I remember reading some article somewhere saying that the smaller the mouse, the better your control would be. Not sure if its true, but you could try it with some cheap optical mouse.
Use a single-colored mouse pad for god's sake. I know plenty of people who die in FPS games because their tables have some weird myriad of colors and optical mouse don't respond well to that.
Some people's hands will ache after a long game. You could use the 15 seconds while dead to rest them or simply buy one of those gel-filled wrist rest.
Now, into the actual strategy (not that the above advices are useless).
The Sniper
.:Shooting:.
Points to take note of:
If you are new to FPS or BF2142, practice sniping on bots first to get used to the weapon bob that BF2142 has to keep some realism in the game.
Hold your shots until you are certain you can hit a target to prevent exposing your position.
For a good shot, take in a deep breath, let out half of it and hold the rest. Aim and fire. Rinse and repeat.
Gruber is a very, very underpowered unlock. Do not, EVER use it unless you have no other items to use (that means, you are purely sniping, nothng else). The weapon bob is negligible if you are experienced enough.
Gruber does have its uses, like when enemies hide behind an obstacle and his head sticks out, and if you are doing very long range sniping (150m>)
Proning is not necessarily the best way to snipe. Against decent enemy snipers you will die in about 2 seconds while in prone position. Reason as contributed by Ghiblian: 'when you go prone, you do not actually see your "head" move forward. In fact, you drop straight down. Your body model, however, maintains its center (the waist) where you were standing. Thus, when you look, your "camera" is actually coming out of your waist, leaving your whole upper torso exposed.'
.:Positioning:.
Depending on your preference, you could hide behind foliage on ground level or on high rise buildings. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but extremely high buildings usually give the best advantage.
Hiding behind foliage means that you have good cover, but lousy aim and getting discovered is a bad thing unless you meant to lure enemies. Sneaky demopaks hehe.
Camping on high rise building give you a wide range of view but usually bad cover. Depending on the building, it can also mean you can be served some PK rockets for your main course. However, on very high buildings it is difficult to be rocketed but you still can easily hit people. (like some of the buildings in Fall of Berlin.) It could also mean dying from orbital strike in conquest/AL games.
If you can hide behind the enemies’ position, by all means go ahead. Doing so will confuse the enemy, screw up their cover, and it usually means victory (at least for that area).
The sniping guide by Lunien states that the active cam unlock is good for getting to hiding positions. No doubt it can be useful, but personally i find that unless it gives complete invisibility, it is not very useful due to the many things that can counter it, which are the following: A EMP blast, Anti-camo net-bat, UAV, IDS. The worst thing that could happen to you is an EMP blast, because it will cause the camo to malfunction and changes you to a very colorful soldier for a while. Alert players can also see you easily unless from a great distance away.
.:Strategies:.
As shown in many spy movies, distraction is the best way to simplify things for a sniper. One of the best distractions would be to EMP your enemies with the help of a support, together with a sentry gun. This would usually send them scurrying for cover and you are free to run to a favored spot for sniping, which is most likely at the enemy's back. The downside is that you will die sooner or later if your team mates do not take the place as the UAV, IDS and sat-track can all detect you.
If you have Ghost, you can lure enemies to a spot and set off a well planted RDX-Demopak. Good places are like on roofs where enemies would never notice. Clean up with your Zeller. The downside is that this requires some fairly good sneaking skills and also you cannot use the APM to cover your back.
Alternatively you could get a support to place a sentry gun on a corridor and lure with Ghost.
Do not ever camp with other people unless there is really no choice. A couple of well-placed PK rockets will blow you and you team mate(s) into bits. Especially for conquest games, where death matters the most.
Do not camp in places where there are 101 places to get to you. Your APMs will be rendered useless if you do so.
Watch out for backstabbers (literally). If you do not wish for your dogtag to get stolen (its a 'pride' thing), toss a demopak on the floor and blow it up when you see a menacing figure with a knife in hand. Either that or blow it up when you hear the signature sound that the knife makes when unsheathing it. Both ways will most likely kill you and/or the potential assassin.
Alternatively you can also plant APMs, but those are easily noticed and can be bypassed by crawling. If well-placed, they can still kill the most experienced of players. An example would be placing an APM behind an obstacle, but with the frontal part facing out so that when players run pass they will activate, leaving them to wonder where the APM came from.
Team up with another sniper and have fun calling targets using voIP. Take turns firing first/last so that you both get kills. You can both take different positions so that you both cover different angles. ie, target hides behind cover to protect himself from sniper A, but becomes exposed to sniper B. As long as both snipers stay well hidden, this effect is particularly demoralising for the enemy because they can't hide from the snipers and even if they kill one of you, the buddy can take advantage of the sense of security they might had gained from taking one of you out. Plus you and your buddy can form a squad and have a beacon so that any death would not set you both back too much. - Contributed by BrandoIruka
The Marksman
A marksman is called upon when accurate firing is required in the heat of a situation.
.:General comments and things to take note of:.
A marksman is generally not needed in titan games, as enemies are either very far away, very close, or have hulking battlewalkers.
The original PAC assault rifle sucks royally for sharpshooting, as it does not have enough power to kill enemies beyond 20m, which is generally when a marksman is needed. The EU one, is almost the same as Baur, hence if you do not have Baur but wish to play as a marksman, always be on the EU side.
As a marksman, one has to be ALWAYS alert for notable enemies, such as enemy snipers, engineers that could compromise the battlewalker on your side (if any), and most importantly, support soldiers. A battlewalker is EXTREMELY important in conquest games. If you have one on your side, hope that the pilots are good.
Always be aware of who is under enemy fire in your squad. By doing so you can locate the enemy and subseqently, silence them.
When attempting to kill a far away enemy, this guide will always assume that you use semi-firing (one shot per click) instead of full auto as it doesn't make sense to waste ammunition and worse still, miss.
.:Shooting:.
Always be prepared to crouch. This is quite important as you could easily miss if you don't.
Aim for the neck area. This usually kills enemies quickly as you will hit the enemy anyways. If you are confident or if the enemy is >15m you can go for the head. If you are using Baur always try for the head if distance is >20m. One headshot from Baur hurts alot. And also it is quite suited for that sort of job.
Unlike sniping, shoot the moment you feel there is an enemy. If its a friendly, cease firing. If its hostile, you gain the upper hand as people don't respond that fast, especially if they are looking somewhere else. This may compromise your accuracy ratings, but ultimately it contributes to winning the game itself.
It helps a lot if your mouse is configurated to your favored sensitivity. Different people prefer different mouse speed, but generally speaking a DPI(dot per inch) of around 1500 is recommended. Play more and adjust.
.:Positioning:.
Don't be a fool and hide close to corners. You are not James Bond. PK rockets and frags can kill you easily if you do so.
Stay behind your squad. Remember that you are responsible for killing targets, so you can figure out how many enemies you are killing while dead.
.:Strategies:.
Stick to close-quarter environment that preferably have shelters. Running out in the open means you are exposing yourself to a grand death. In conquest games, this is very important.
Always stick to your squad leader. I've seen too many fools join a squad yet do not do anything helpful to the squad.
See a sniper? Switch to your rockets and immediately rocket him down. You will be surprised how easily you can get the frag. You will also be surprised to see half your squad dead if you don't.
Kill order should be something like this: Whatever that's in front of you> Snipers > Support > Engineers > the rest. On a true battlefield, flexibility means victory, hence if the situation calls for it, change as needed.
Remember that you got to avoid vehicles? Well that does not mean you can't kill them. a few properly placed PK rockets can kill a FAV. Or you could kill the drivers inside by shooting very carefully and hope that they don't see you.
Read up on that stickied post on how to kill vehicles, more specifically the part about battlewalkers. Battlewalkers have vents on the underside that any weapon can damage. Its 1 damage per shot, but it adds up. Just be careful not to empty your whole clip in case the pilot pops out at the wrong time.
If the pilot does pop out, either get into the walker if its health is still in good condition (lol hijack) or kill him first. Do not get into the walker you already pumped a few magazines into it as the pilot(s) is/are most likely engineers and could just kill you with a single pilum rocket.
.:The Armoury:.
This is a small section dedicated to the weapons I mentioned that are used by the Marksman and the Sniper.
Why Zeller?
I see many people who prefer park or morretti (the original sniper rifles) to Zeller. To be frank there is a couple of drawbacks using Zeller. Here's a comparison
Original recon rifles
5 rounds per magazine, total of 7 magazines, 35 rounds.
5.4 seconds to reload for park, 5.0 seconds for morretti
1.0 seconds to draw another round for park, 1.166 seconds for morretti
Deals 80 damage to soldiers with light armor. Around 54 to those with heavy armor
Requires 3 shots to destroy a sentry gun with full health
Requires 2 shot to kill any soldier with full health unless headshot
Pumps out around 40 damage per second, assuming non-stop shooting action with no headshot
Zeller-H ASR
3 rounds per magazine, total of 10 magazines, 30 rounds.
5.4 seconds to reload
1.0 seconds to draw another round
Deals 100 damage to soldiers with light armor. Around 79 to those with heavy armor
Requires 2 shots to destroy a sentry gun with full health
Only item that can destroy mines other than defuser (requires 1 shot)
Requires 2 shot to kill any soldier with full health unless headshot
Pumps out around 36 damage per second, assuming non-stop shooting action with no headshot
Sniper rifles do not have their weapon damage decrease over distance, and every round travels at 1200m/s, meaning instantenous hit when you click.
The main reason why Zeller is superior than other rifles is mainly due to the fact that you deal significantly more damage per round. I strongly recommend Zeller unless you are excellent at sniping, that means, dealing at least 1 headshot every 2 hit. The only other reason why you may be using the original rifles is that you aim for kill damage assist only, which is pretty silly. However this does not mean you must stick to Zeller. Use your preferred sniper rifle if you dislike Zeller.
X4 scope
This is a powerful unlock that allows very long range sniping. As far as I know, there is no considerable weapon drop for sniper rifles, hence making it all the more powerful.
After unlocking this, it will be automatically attached to all sniper rifles you spawn with.
Use mouse wheel to focus (scroll up) or defocus (scroll down)
The amount of zoom you should used should be tested in single player as different player have different preference and mouse sensitivity.
Baur H-AR
This is basically SCAR-11 (the EU rifle) with more firepower and recoil. Clip size is also considerably lesser but Baur is more efficient if all your rounds hit.
Shooting works the same way as a sniper rifle (refer to the previous sniper shooting techniques) except that you must aim and shoot faster. Do not hesitate (this requires a hell lot of practice) and mind the recoil.
Practice using single round shots in single player to get used to the recoil.
General rule of thumb: if Enemy >20m, full auto, couch if possible and aim for body. If enemy <30m, single rounds, couch if enemy not a sniper and aim the head. 20m-30m is the grey area where you have to use your own judgement.
Spend every round like gold; Baur only has 20 rounds in 1 magazine. SCAR has 30 and Voss has 40. The only good thing is that you have more or less same number of rounds in total compared with other rifles, and that you reload faster.
When toe-to-toe against an enemy, do not back off. Instead move forward and aim for the head. Reason is due to the fact that Baur has heavy recoil and will have a large weapon deviation if you move. If you try this you will automatically realise why.
In close quarters, be wary of people who carry shotguns. 1 headshot from that kills, and one hit is almost as hard as a Zeller. The good thing is that shotguns also have a weapon draw time (cooldown) like sniper rifles and you can kill them within that time if you aim for the head.
PK Rockets
This is one of the few equipments that requires lots of skill to use efficiently. Generally you use it to clear out camping enemies, most likely snipers.
The rockets will simply refuse to explode if you fire it >20m. However I once killed a player when I headshot him with 1 rocket >5m. Weird possibilities.
This is god-like for clearing camping enemies if used properly, and is better than a normal frag grenade.
If you fire this weapon normally without zooming, it will explode when it hits a solid target <20m, including walls etc, causing a large area of effect.
If you zoom this weapon, you can adjust when you want the rockets to explode anywhere <20m using the mouse wheel like the zoom function of X4 Scope. 1 tick of the mouse wheel will increase/decrease the distance by 3m, with minimum being 20m.
A smart way of using this weapon to kill enemies camping behind obstacle is to use the obstacle itself to gauge when the rockets should explode. Aim the obstacle then zoom in. You will notice the distance of the target automatically set, and hence you only need to increase the distance by a small bit then fire it over the obstacle, making it explode over the enemies head.
This is especially useful if the said enemy has no walls behind him, such as when assaulting a titan reactor core, in this case you can make the rockets explode right after the walls as most people would camp there.
To conclude, marksmanship effectively based on 4 main things. Skills, experience, strategy, and teamwork, listed in importance (in my opinion, that is). Master them all and prepare for glory!!!
Any opinions, suggestions, ideas or strategy, feel free to drop them here. Do state your sources and give examples if possible.