I mean, besides the Pansarvarnsgevar 90, the other 2 Sniper rifles in the game are pretty small and weak, at least as far as Sniper rifles go. The first is a .243 Sniper, the second is a .270, and as expected for such a small caliber (Even the machine guns have more powerful bullets, the game itself admits this) the damage is abysmal, making them unattractive for anyone as a primary. Shouldn’t Sniper rifles generally be some of the more powerful firearms given that they’re supposed to destroy from long ranges?
And speaking of which, even the .50 Caliber Pansarvarnsgevar 90 seems underpowered for its caliber too. I’m not expecting it to one shot massive machines like the Tanks, but it’s a little ridiculous to see a .50 Caliber round simply bounce harmlessly off a Tick when it hits the tick’s armour. It’s a .50 caliber, realistically it should oneshot anything that isn’t a Harvester or Tank and blow any machine smaller than a hunter cleanly in half!
Well the other 2 are only hunting rifles.
And the DLC sniper rifle is weaker than an hunting rifle, unlike other video games and real life, the sniper rifle is actually useless and does not behave as a sniper rifle does.
Gameplay balance?
This isn’t some hard-core FPS like Tarkov where everything has to be super realistic and exactly like IRL
Besides experimental 50 Cal already nukes everything you aim it at
I love the 270 for taking out runners. It’s an awesome weapon for that. The best in game in my opinion for that kind of sniping. The only drawback is the small mag.
Do you have to aim at a specific spot? Most of the time my PVG 90 rounds simply bounce off Runners and their armour just falls off, and then I get blasted to oblivion by .32 ACP gunfire
There’s no “strictly” designated sniper rifles in the game. Only two hunting and one animateriel rifles, all are good enough for sharpshooting.
First small detail is that your run-of-the-mill “sniper rifle” guns are all tuned to be effective against soft target, not anti-materiel. Even then, both bolt-action rifles are civilian hunting rifles for small and medium game. Of course they would be ineffective against machines, though they do one-shot “small iron game” up to runners. Against bigger machines, you should shoot where it hurts most - guns and intestines that go blue sparks. 5* Algstudsare with SP ammo can fell down a prot hunter within one mag (guerilla solo, 2 to machinegun, 2 for “vents” if you manage to directly hit those hitboxes; military and FNIX needed on average 2-3 mags).
.50 BMG has better raw damage, but SP ammo multiplier to “components” mitigate this advantage and it makes it ain’t that great in comparison, but experimental (6*) Barrett does greatly multiplied damage by virtue of piercing whole machine through, regardless of type and series - it counted as multiple hit if more than one hitbox is on the bullet’s travel trajectory.
Pros of these rifles lies not in dishing out a lot of damage (as we used to think about “bolt-action sniper rifles”), but in potential damage per weight, meaning “a lot of damage for these measly one kg worth of ammo”. Among other pros these three has quite a flat travel curve and very high velocity.
As with stated examples, on one hunter I could spend ~40 to ~100- g worth of ammo weight. If I’d go with automatic guns - it’ll certainly be over way 200g per enemy unit on average.
I admit that automatic guns win over “sniper rifles” in most cases but that’s usually “spray’n’pray” tactic that wastes ammo reserves in your pockets or in almost melee range.