Just got my Marksman specialization 
So while waiting for the “new things to do” in the game, that Mr. Graham recently announced, I’d like to work a bit more on my newly acquired specialization. Usually I’m using my 4* Algstudsare with 4-8x rifle scope against runners and hunters, and my 4* Pansarvarnsgevar with 8-16x sniper rifle scope against tanks and harvesters. I like to take down as many runners as possible with my rifle while maintaining a distance in the terrain. The rest I prefer to take down from inside houses, barns, or church towers. My longest kill shot so far is 374m. What is your best kill shot, and how do you configure your rifles? Tips and tricks appreciated.
Hey, Sniping in this game is really strange.
In other FPS games sniping is really cool and I like the gunplay of GZ excapt sniping.
What annoyes me so much is the weird bullet drop. You have to aim below your target to hit it.
I dont really know how it works. Sometimes I have the feeling that the bullet drop in the game goes in the wrong direction (upwards) or that the guns are zeroed at 300 m.
On top of that is the rendering limit that causes that you don’t see the impacts (sparks) after about 100m.
The sum of those phenomenens causes that I don’t enjoy sniping in GZ.
Well I do use snipers often but only because it’s effective to kill runners but I don’t enjoy it.
Devs if you read this, plz fix the bullet drop and increas the render limit if possible.
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Wondered about the bullet drop myself, actually. Might be an issue here. And yes, it is annoying that you don’t see the impact effects over longer distances. You do see the targets dropping machine parts, though.
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Well, to start off with, other than the rendering issues, sniping in GZ is arguably a bit more realistic than many popular shooter games. In the real world, many weapons used in an AMR or APS capacity have some degree of bullet rise, and lose accuracy pretty fast past a certain range (because the projectile goes subsonic, and the turbulence from that transition destabilizes it).
For the specific weapons:
- Pvg 90 seems to have functionally zero bullet drop across the entire max render distance for machines (roughly 500-600m). The accuracy doesn’t seem to fall off either, it’s consistently about 0.5 MOA from what I can tell, so your spread at 500m is roughly 7cm (if I’m doing the math right, and I’m not certain I am), which is better than almost anything else in the game. Combined with the high bullet velocity (a real world Barret M88 has a muzzle velocity with standard .50 BMG rounds of about 1km/s, or just short of Mach 3 at sea level), it’s essentially the best sniping platform you can get if you want to go really long range.
- The Älgstudsare has moderate bullet rise out to about 350-400m, then the bullet starts dropping (relative to the peak height of the rise, not the point of aim). I can’t say if the exact curve for the bullets is realistic, but .270 Winchester does have pretty significant bullet rise IRL as well. Accuracy seems to be about 0.75 MOA over the entire range I’ve tested, which translates to a spread of roughly 10cm at 500m (again, if I’m doing the math right). Bullet velocity is low and the damage falls off pretty severely past about 200m, so it’s best used at closer ranges, but you can mount a suppressor, which doesn’t really impact damage at all.
- The Meusser has similar bullet rise to the Älgstudsare, though it’s a bit more accentuated and the peak height is a bit closer. Same argument about realism here for the .243 Winchester. Accuracy is about 1-2 MOA over the range I’ve tested, falling off noticeably past about 300m. I would only ever use this one as a stopgap if I didn’t have ammo for one of the other two.
- The Gvg Mm/49 is actually a viable option if you’re looking at long-range combat, even though the Marksman specialization means essentially nothing for it. It’s actually pretty accurate over a rather long range, and can nuke entire packs of runners all at once. My own longest killshot is roughly 650m with one of these, having taken out an entire pack of runners. Past a certain range, you have to start using it like a howitzer instead of actually aiming where you want it to hit.
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Wow, that was impressive, @ahferroin7! Really appreciate the detailed explanation. I will try to align my aim with the the bullet rise information, you provided. I wasn’t aware of that. 650m? Really? Cool.
So what range do you judge the sights are set on the Älgstudsare: i.e. at what range does the bullet drop to hit the point of aim precisely?
A few times I have noted that my first shot with the Algstudsare takes down a runner when aiming at the fuel cell. Succeeding shots at the next runner in line does not do that. Is there a heating effect in the barrel and is it modellen into the simulation, or have I just experinced random effects?
I’ve had some odd cases like that too, not quite sure what it is to be honest. I think they may be modeling recoil effects for everything, not just the stuff with full auto fire, because I see similar behavior with pretty much every weapon when firing semi auto.
I find that sitting still for about half a second to a second after the scope stabilizes again significantly improves accuracy for most things in the game, I think that’s the ‘reset’ time for recoil effects.
Should be a bit less than double the distance to the peak bullet rise, because the game does appear to be modeling proper ballistic curves. I haven’t been able to determine it accurately, but the Älgustudsare loses accuracy pretty quickly past about 450m, so it’s hard to tell for certain.
My sniper build so far is using the PVG 90 and AG 5 on single shot with a 1x4 scope for dogs, hunters, …
My reasoning behind using one assault riffle is that i want to make use of the skill to do extra damage when using automatic riffles in semi auto mode (make it count i think it’s called). With the recoil reduction in that skill tree you’re always on target and can hit the weak spots in quick succession. The PVG i use for far range and harvester/tanks. My pistol is the .44 because you can scope it (thought it made sense). You can actually take out military harvesters pretty quick with that .44. I also carry a scoped riffle with me because .243 or .270 is pretty easy to find. Other than that i’m going for being sneaky. Probably will be taking 1 skill in extra carry capacity and if i have skill points left go for either (or both) increased damage to armor and increased damage to components.
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Well, the sights cannot be set at more than 450 metres - it’d be more like 200 or 300. But which? Somebody who does multi-player needs to experiment and see. In fact I’m surprised that we aren’t told, or could set them ourselves. Then we could accurately aim off…
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Keep in mind the devs admit that they aren’t firearm experts, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were scoped for some particularly long distance.
As far as setting them ourselves, it would be nice, but it would have to be something where we just dial in a number instead of going through the full process (the game just doesn’t give accurate enough impact markings for doing it right ourselves), though even then many people would probably need it to be explained to them.
Little box next to the sight - set at 100, 200, 300, or 500. Job done…
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My point was more that many gamers just don’t get the concept of needing to zero a scope at a specific range, and would need to have the setting explained. It’s pretty rare from what I’ve seen to find a game that actually lets you set a custom zero point for your scopes.
Well yeah, but most of them don’t model the bullet rise and drop properly. What’s the point of having a cross-hair if the bullet doesn’t strike at it?
@Bootie
True, depending an a variety of variables, the bullet will (over distance) seem to miss looking at the crosshair.
The crosshair is not a precision instrument, it gives an approximate direction where it will hit.
Your brain, then…
If you calculate the variables, the crosshair can suddenly become quite darned accurate!
Longest kill shot: 3.540meters…
Note, this is not quite easy to do…
I am pretty sure ArmA does weapon ballistics accurately but to be honest that kind of detail isn’t something that appeals to me. I know lots of players thrive on this kind of detail but if its not in a game I don’t lose sleep over it.
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“The crosshair is not a precision instrument, it gives an approximate direction where it will hit.”
Bless you, that’s not true, or it shouldn’t be. There is a discipline called “zeroing”, where you ensure over five or six rounds that your sights are perfectly aligned for a certain range. Now, when I shot at Bisley, we had only two rounds to zero with and then seven rounds to count, but the principle is the same. If my character recovers an AG4, the first sensible thing to do is to get out the little screwdriver, pick a target, fire at it, adjust, fire again, adjust and keep doing that until you hit it square (assuming that you are sufficiently talented to do so). From then on, you simply move the sights up and down for range. Now in this case we can’t do that, but we need to know at what point the bullet and the sights intersect. Perhaps @tene might consider making a video where he investigates each one and reports - if he’s running out of ideas for instance 
…
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