Sniper Question

[R Ditto]

Excuse me?

Before I wander off into a half mile long post, let me ask this...

Do either of those weapons even classify as somthing compatible with the Sniper skill?
Are they even usable for precise long range shooting capable of taking out a target in a single shot and in such a way that makes it difficult for defenders to even know where the shot came from?

No, I don't think so...

You can have an accurate long range weapon without needing a 'sniper' weapon.
If you intend to take out a target with one hit at long range, before anyone a mile away gets a clue as to what just happened to their buddy's head, then you want to get a 'real' Sniper weapon.

A sniper is like a surgeon, a sniper weapon like a scalpel.
Regular long range heavy hitting weapons are more like a thug with a chain saw equipped sword, don't need to hit a precise spot, you just need to hit it.

[Rallan]

Well the Naruni "Shoulder Cannon" is pretty much described as being the energy weapon equivalent of an anti-materiel sniper rifle. It's designed for a lone marksman to be able to take out heavy MDC targets (like military equipment or supernatural beings) at long range.

[sHaka]

What's the range on the JA-12? That does some hefty damage and the grenade launcher backup is always handy.

[rat_bastard]

All of th Juicer Assassin weapons are sniper weapons

however there are many others of interest

The Naruni Shoulder cannon is the pinnacle of sniping weapons

there is several great sniper weapons in Merc Ops (a damn good book) Including a wilks sniper rifle (huge bonuses to hit) and Northern gun sniper rifle, (very good all around) and a few TW sniper rifles.

[Killer Cyborg]

Does anyone know of a decent energy sniper rifle that does more then 4d6 MD and has a range greater than 2000 feet?
Ive been looking for something for a Tandori and Sunaj but I cant seem to find any that really cater to long range snipers and what ive found in several books is terribly inconsistant. Ive found some that have a range of 1200 ft then followed by a machine gun that has almost twice that range.

To help im looking for something that can be easily handled by a human size and strength equivelt in full enviromental armor or a light exoskeleton power armor.
Any suggestions?

My only suggestions are
-That you revise your expectations of the effectiveness of snipers in a Mega-Damage environment against MDC enemies.
-There have been plenty of Sniper oriented threads before, and you should use the Search function to find a couple and read up on the subject.

[tundro]

I might be old fashioned, but I always thought of a sniper as "one with the terrain, hit hard and silent then disappear again" sort of character. Shooting mini missiles just doesn't SEEM very sniperish to me. It seems like a good laser rifle would be a better choice...silent and invisible. I agree that being a sniper in an MDC world would be pretty challenging, but thats where "adapt and overcome" would come into play.

[Killer Cyborg]

I might be old fashioned, but I always thought of a sniper as "one with the terrain, hit hard and silent then disappear again" sort of character. Shooting mini missiles just doesn't SEEM very sniperish to me. It seems like a good laser rifle would be a better choice...silent and invisible. I agree that being a sniper in an MDC world would be pretty challenging, but thats where "adapt and overcome" would come into play.

Exactly.
Being a sniper just means that you're skilled at shooting from a concealed position, not that you can take out heavily armored targets with a single shot.
It's about stealth and accuracy, not firepower.

[Killer Cyborg]

I might be old fashioned, but I always thought of a sniper as "one with the terrain, hit hard and silent then disappear again" sort of character. Shooting mini missiles just doesn't SEEM very sniperish to me. It seems like a good laser rifle would be a better choice...silent and invisible. I agree that being a sniper in an MDC world would be pretty challenging, but thats where "adapt and overcome" would come into play.

Exactly.
Being a sniper just means that you're skilled at shooting from a concealed position, not that you can take out heavily armored targets with a single shot.
It's about stealth and accuracy, not firepower.

yeah, but aren't talking about it in general ? if you are then that's part of it. but I have to say most sniping I've seen uses something heavy duty, like anti-material rifles used to take out vehicles. that's part of the sniper's job too.

a sniper can also be an assassin, and I think there's a difference between the two. if your target isn't a big armored whatever, then a pea-shooter is fine.

in Rifts being a sniper may have a completely different meaning, thanks to the setting.

Look at the official sniper weapons.
The typical damage is 3d6-4d6 MD.
That right there says that they're not going for one-shot kills against heavily armored foes.

[Killer Cyborg]

does the "pulse" (pull trigger once, get multiple shots) still qualify for the definition of the Sniper skill ?

Only rifles that can be made to fire a single round or blast can be used for sniping (no automatic/multi-firing rifles).

looks like a "no", just curious what others think.

No.

[Rimmerdal]

does the "pulse" (pull trigger once, get multiple shots) still qualify for the definition of the Sniper skill ?

Only rifles that can be made to fire a single round or blast can be used for sniping (no automatic/multi-firing rifles).

looks like a "no", just curious what others think.

No.

Agree, which is why it has a single shot mode..most E-weapons do have them.

[Killer Cyborg]

does the "pulse" (pull trigger once, get multiple shots) still qualify for the definition of the Sniper skill ?

Only rifles that can be made to fire a single round or blast can be used for sniping (no automatic/multi-firing rifles).

looks like a "no", just curious what others think.

No.

Megaversal Legion ARP-1 Plasma Rifle fromSA2 is capable of firing aimed bursts.

If there's an exception, that would be it.

[Killer Cyborg]

one thing about star wars, was stormtrooper armor or not, you hit somebody, they usually went down.

One stupid thing about Star Wars.

[Killer Cyborg]

Its just that against some targets 3d6 mdc is gonna take alot of shots to take down, especialy to the head.

This is true.
Which is why:
a) A character who is a Sniper should be careful about who and what his targets are.
b) A GM running a campaign for snipers should throw good sniping targets into the adventures, not just expect reality to rearrange itself and for the snipers to be able to take on full conversion Borgs and other creatures that they're not equipped to deal with (at least, not quickly).

[tundro]

An Australian SAS sniper held off a battalion of Iraqi's by positioning himself in a prime llocation for over 2 weeks! Now if we look at a juicer, they have no real patience. That is one thing that eludes me about Juicers. They are DEFINATELY not patient. The world slows down for them. All actions are in slow-mo. what gives?

Juicer's don't really have the time to be patient. With the juicer chemicals reducing their lifetime to a mere fraction of what it was, the have to give life everything they've got right now. Besides, it would be a waste of talent to make a juicer a sniper, what with their raw strength and fighting skills...two things a sniper would hardly ever use.

[Nightmaster]

Coalition War Campaign book, page 198, Burbs section (if I recall right).

In this page there is a huge picture of a firefight with CS soldiers in it. In the picture there is a soldier that have been shoot in the torso and is bleeding (the picture is that detailed) and is still well alive. Another soldier is starting to open an fist-aid kit to help his comrad.

Well the point is: the combat system needs rules for soldiers getting damaged while using armor different from the AR rules.

This will correct all manners of problems in the modern combat system that palladium uses and will make snipers and sniper weapons effective with the listed damages so far.

No need to up the damage cap to make then capable of doing the job their were created for.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

SA2 the Long Gun- 1D6X10 MD 6000' range 10 shots per e-clip
.
.
.
.
Or.....ATL-20 3D6X10+20 Md 3000' range and 1 shot per e-clip

Or chi demon rifleup to 2D6X10 MD with 50 shots

[Shadyslug]

Juciers are the perfect snipers...

One of the things that everyone seems to overlook is their ability to "power down" so to speak.

They can go into a slow metabolism with minimal awareness and then snap back into action at the hint of danger or a target.

Not to mention they have the ability to go long periods without sleep, which is necessary to get to the location...

Everyone who says that Juicers lack patience aren't looking at the whole picture...

[tundro]

I suppose there are always exceptions to the rule...but it just makes sense that with a juicers INSANELY short life span, a vast majority would consider "patience" to be a waste of valuable time. The whole point of becoming a juicer is to go out in a "blaze of glory". Snipers don't tend to do that.

[Killer Cyborg]

The problem comes in when your fighting anything else but a SDC target.
From Minor to Major MDC D-bees to Borgs, Bots, and Power Armors, all the way to lesser and greater supernatural creatures, and creatures of magic.
As a Assassin you either have to specilise to one type of being and refuse all jobs for the others or expand your circle of knowledge and expertise to include all possibilities.

That's the thing; a Sniper is a specialized assassin.
They have their area of expertise, accuracy and stealth, and that's what they stick to.

[Killer Cyborg]

I suppose there are always exceptions to the rule...but it just makes sense that with a juicers INSANELY short life span, a vast majority would consider "patience" to be a waste of valuable time. The whole point of becoming a juicer is to go out in a "blaze of glory". Snipers don't tend to do that.

Actually, the whole point of becoming a Juicer is to be an inhuman combat-machine.
Not everybody wants to die from it.

[Killer Cyborg]

You can also play one of those Gene-Splicer Juicers who get all the bonueses and no penaltys I bellive.

Actually, I don't believe that the book says that there are no penalties from the Gene Splicer conversion.

[Library Ogre]

Personally, I think Borgs are the better snipers than Juicers.

Think about it. Most will have multi-optic eyes, meaning they've got integral telescopic, thermal, and low-light sights, plus a targeting computer. They're not silent, but they're usually doing things at such a distance that silent isn't as important as "careful", and their PP means they can be that. And with their bionic bodies, they can stay in one place for days if need be without muscle cramps. They can carry some truly frightfully huge weapons (we were talking on another thread about a rail gun that threw mini-missile warheads), and then skeddadle at the speed of a motorcycle, or even a power armor.

[sennin]

As far as the whole stealth thing goes, it is not absolutely necessary. Check out this:

http://www.riflesnguns.com/article/mobile-sniper-strike-team

I found it interesting. I feel that being able to adapt to a situation is one of the most important skills for any assassin type person.

[Colt47]

Am I the only one in the whole Rifts megaverse who thinks the concept of a Laser sniper rifle is self defeating? You can see the bloody laser beam lead right back to the shooter while the shot is being taken! The range isn't important as long as it is far enough away that the guy being shot will have a hard time seeing the shooter initially. I'd rather use something like a high powered crossbow with explosive bolts. Naruni weapons might seem nice at first, but the plasma cartridges glow while in flight, which means after the first shot, assuming no one is looking in the snipers general direction, someone is bound to see the second and third shots coming from the snipers position.

When I made a character with a sniper rifle for rifts, I had him using specially crafted .50 caliber rounds with MD explosive tips that focus the charge into a small cone area. The sniper rifle was a single shot rifle and even then a bit bulky, but at least it could blast through most standard EBA helmets (including Coalition) and kill the man wearing the armor.

[Killer Cyborg]

Am I the only one in the whole Rifts megaverse who thinks the concept of a Laser sniper rifle is self defeating? You can see the bloody laser beam lead right back to the shooter while the shot is being taken!

Agreed, IF the beam is visible.
There's disagreement about that; a lot of people think that it would be invisible, just like how you don't see the beam in a laser dot or other modern lasers.

When I made a character with a sniper rifle for rifts, I had him using specially crafted .50 caliber rounds with MD explosive tips that focus the charge into a small cone area. The sniper rifle was a single shot rifle and even then a bit bulky, but at least it could blast through most standard EBA helmets (including Coalition) and kill the man wearing the armor.

This is a problem that exists with most home-brewed Sniper Rifles.

If the technology existed to create .50 caliber rounds that could blast through a MDC helmet, it would exist many more places than just in that one model of rifle.
There'd be a machinegun version of the same gun that would make pretty much every single existing weapon on the face of Rifts Earth obsolete in terms of firepower.


The absolutely best, most realistic sniper rifle I've seen is the MD hunting rifle in Dinosaur Swamps, the one that adds a natural +2 to strike in the right hands, dropping the crit range from 20 to 18+.
Add a couple of house rules...
-The +2 Aimed Shot bonus from the Sniper skill is a natural bonus that stacks with the gun's bonus
-Armor piercing bullets follow the same enhanced critical damage rules as armor piercing missiles

...And you've got a pretty deadly sniper without creating a world-changing uber-gun.

Also, of course, port in the "One Life, One Shot, One Hit, One Kill" ability from N&S, only make it a skill that takes 2 skill slots to learn and requires the Sniper skill (and maybe even Sharpshooting).

[glitterboy2098]

Am I the only one in the whole Rifts megaverse who thinks the concept of a Laser sniper rifle is self defeating? You can see the bloody laser beam lead right back to the shooter while the shot is being taken!

Agreed, IF the beam is visible.
There's disagreement about that; a lot of people think that it would be invisible, just like how you don't see the beam in a laser dot or other modern lasers.

and those are visible spectrum lasers. a weaponised laser is probably going to be near Infrared wavelength, one humanity can't perceive anyway.

a laser is a beam of tightly directed photons. unless they illuminate something in their path, you can't see them. (the classic images of test lasers and laser light shows always have lots of smoke and dust in the air to make the beam visible.)

air is not substantial enough to make a beam visible, and if it was, it would make the beam too weak to work as a weapon, because the light would be scattering off stuff and reducing the strength of the beam.

if using a visible spectrum laser (again, unlikely in a weapon), the only sign a laser has been fired is going to be when the target explodes in a bloody mass. a laser weapon would not burn or drill, it imparts thermal energy in a rapid pulse, vaporizing and creating hydrostatic shockwaves that creates a kinetic kill effect. you might see a faint line as the beam scatters a bit on impurities in the air, but given that the beam moves 300,000km a second, and is probably going to be a microsecond pulse, the odds of catching sight of it is basically improbable. the target might see a brief flash of light in the color of the beam if hit near the head, but its unlikely the head would survive long enough for it to register.

if you really want lasers to leave a glowing trail, us UV lasers, they cause the air to fluoresce as they pass through.

so a laser is invisible until it hits. it's also almost silent, at worst a slight hum or crack sound as capacitors discharge and heat is dumped. though the target exploding into messy goo would make a lot of noise. and it has such little recoil that it might as well be recoilless.

a perfect sniping weapon.

[Killer Cyborg]

a weaponised laser is probably going to be near Infrared wavelength, one humanity can't perceive anyway.

Key word being "probably", because it ain't necessarily so.
A lot of the ways that nuclear power supplies would probably work in real life is clearly NOT how they work in Rifts.

Which is one reason why people are split on the subject.

[glitterboy2098]

a weaponised laser is probably going to be near Infrared wavelength, one humanity can't perceive anyway.

Key word being "probably", because it ain't necessarily so.
A lot of the ways that nuclear power supplies would probably work in real life is clearly NOT how they work in Rifts.

Which is one reason why people are split on the subject.

true. but that just means that the light seen would be visible to the target when hit. nothing else changes.

as for nuclear power supplies, we did have a general consensus until RUE, and even now the bulk of the accumulated evidence still support fission. but lets not get into that again.

[Killer Cyborg]

a weaponised laser is probably going to be near Infrared wavelength, one humanity can't perceive anyway.

Key word being "probably", because it ain't necessarily so.
A lot of the ways that nuclear power supplies would probably work in real life is clearly NOT how they work in Rifts.

Which is one reason why people are split on the subject.

true. but that just means that the light seen would be visible to the target when hit. nothing else changes.

as for nuclear power supplies, we did have a general consensus until RUE, and even now the bulk of the accumulated evidence still support fission. but lets not get into that again.

Let's not.
And let's not argue over lasers either; it's been done to death.
No matter how lasers would work, between his love of Star Wars and some flavor text that (IIRC) describes visible lasers, I think that Kev intended for them to be visible.

[batlchip]

To bad there isn't a phase sniper rifle.That would take care of the armor problem.By the way there are two types of snipers.Your basic hit man type and your military type.The military type does more than just shoot and kill targets.They can wound men,do recon,call in arty,and air strikes.The hit man is just that a one shot killer.

[rat_bastard]

To bad there isn't a phase sniper rifle.That would take care of the armor problem.By the way there are two types of snipers.Your basic hit man type and your military type.The military type does more than just shoot and kill targets.They can wound men,do recon,call in arty,and air strikes.The hit man is just that a one shot killer.

Phase weapons generally don't have the range most people would like in a phase weapon.

[Killer Cyborg]

To bad there isn't a phase sniper rifle.That would take care of the armor problem.By the way there are two types of snipers.Your basic hit man type and your military type.The military type does more than just shoot and kill targets.They can wound men,do recon,call in arty,and air strikes.The hit man is just that a one shot killer.

Good point, one that I've brought up before but didn't get to this time.

There's a lot to be said for picking off an enemy's guns in Rifts.
Not too tricky, and once they're disarmed you can kill them at your leisure.

[rat_bastard]

To bad there isn't a phase sniper rifle.That would take care of the armor problem.By the way there are two types of snipers.Your basic hit man type and your military type.The military type does more than just shoot and kill targets.They can wound men,do recon,call in arty,and air strikes.The hit man is just that a one shot killer.

Phase weapons generally don't have the range most people would like in a sniper weapon.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well one of the main problems with the entire rifts system is that current technology is advancing so quickly that most of the high tech stuff in rifts is based in 1980s designs.

We actualy have high powered weapon lasers that are invisible on jets, we have rail guns, we have all kinds of differente weapons for close range to long range combat that are superior to rifts weapons.
Hell we have Tanks now that are better then most in the current rifts system.
We have a tank that not only is it fast and highly manuverable but can fire its rounds in such a way that they all hit at the same time while the tank is already moving to another location.

Somehow, I think you're failing to grok the whole "Mega-damage" concept.

[Colt47]

Well in any case, if I am having a character who is going to snipe anything, it's going to be with a hard ammo weapon.

[Jesterzzn]

But really could you please define what "mega-damage" is in reality?

A kid hitting a tank with a baseball bat.

[Library Ogre]

Mega-Damage is the dumbest and most offsetting idea ever invented for a rpg system. All the other SDC based systems are much easier and simler to deal with.

But really could you please define what "mega-damage" is in reality?

I used to think so. Then I watched Macross again (remember, MD was originally a Robotech concept). In one of the first episodes, Rick "pilots" a VT through several buildings before coming to a stop. The VT, for the most part is fine.

I do think that the idea has been more elegantly implemented in other systems; WEG's scales, for example; but it's not completely non-sense, especially when you consider the genre it came out of.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well one of the main problems with the entire rifts system is that current technology is advancing so quickly that most of the high tech stuff in rifts is based in 1980s designs.

We actualy have high powered weapon lasers that are invisible on jets, we have rail guns, we have all kinds of differente weapons for close range to long range combat that are superior to rifts weapons.
Hell we have Tanks now that are better then most in the current rifts system.
We have a tank that not only is it fast and highly manuverable but can fire its rounds in such a way that they all hit at the same time while the tank is already moving to another location.

Somehow, I think you're failing to grok the whole "Mega-damage" concept.

Mega-Damage is the dumbest and most offsetting idea ever invented for a rpg system. All the other SDC based systems are much easier and simler to deal with.

But really could you please define what "mega-damage" is in reality?

There is no Mega-Damage in reality.
Which is why it's silly to claim that we have better weapons now than they have in Rifts.

[glitterboy2098]

But really could you please define what "mega-damage" is in reality?

does a visual help?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4Ksz3nHM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZDtC9kjVk

Lessons learned about the M1 from the gulf war

M.D.C. is shorthand for "has lots and lots of SDC". it represens the kind of damage that tanks, warships, buildings, and other very tough things have to take before getting destroyed. M.D.C. objects are pretty much unharmed by conventional bullets and weapons that don't also inflict this ultra-high level of damage, like how a main battle tank today is basically immune to pistols, rifles, and machine guns, but another tanks main cannon can punch right through.


in rifts, advancements in materials technology, explosives, directed energy weapons, and other areas have made it where even small things can be built with this level of extra toughness. levels of toughness that allow things to survive having buildings dropped on them, a few tons of explosive force applied to them, struck by anti-tank missiles, ect.

[Nightmaster]

I used to think so. Then I watched Macross again (remember, MD was originally a Robotech concept). In one of the first episodes, Rick "pilots" a VT through several buildings before coming to a stop. The VT, for the most part is fine.

I do think that the idea has been more elegantly implemented in other systems; WEG's scales, for example; but it's not completely non-sense, especially when you consider the genre it came out of.

Yeah, WEG's scale system is what made the D6 system very good. No hope for you destroying a vehicle with his hand gun.

That is the sort of thing that is missing in palladium MDC combat system. The SDC combat system dont really need this since the vehicles and structures of the game have an "Natural AR" that define if they take damage or not.

An scale system would make the combats in the rifts setting a lot more reasonable.

[R Ditto]

Ok, my bad. I didn't know the NE-75 was made to be a sniper weapon.

I agree thar Juicers in their normal state would make bad snipers, but they can fulfill the related role of sharpshooter/marksman (or markswoman, or marksthing).
Some Juicers can be 'patient' if they need to be (in Mercs, one was a bodyguard iirc, which requires patience in its own right)

Snipers do not shoot and run.
They shoot and stay.
In modern sniper training, IIRC, multiple instructors 'camp' around the 'target', each looking for any signs of the sniper.
IIRC, the sniper crawls into position, sets up, takes a shot as they watch for it, then the sniper takes a second shot, then they crawl away.
At any time an instructor thinks they see the sniper or a muzzle flash, they order the sniper in training to stand up, to see if it actually was the sniper they spotted, or if the sniper pops up someplace else, indicating they successfully 'evaded detection'.
(It's been a while since I saw a show on the subject, so I might be mistaken in some places)

A Marksmen/Sharpshooter is probably more akin to what a Juicer would be, and I think that is also the term used for police 'snipers', who have the skill, but without as much camouflage and stealth training.

Back to Juicers... a good Sniper can bring in a LOT of money... a Juicer may very well be more than willing to sit around for a few days if it means they can get a lot closer to the goal of having enough money to pay off whoever juiced them, or otherwise be able to afford detox before their time is up.

Borgs would make BAD Snipers... unless they have some darn good stealth systems to deal with the fact they are a large chunk of cold material that is likely going to have a 'hot spot' from a small nuclear power source.
As has been mentioned over at Nexus Nine, heat is one of the few things that can not be easily hidden all of the time.

On the subject of an ultimate sniper rifle becoming mass produced spinoffs.
Not the case. Ammo could be expensive and hard to make, and a single shot weapon would be more accurate and have better muzzle velocity/range than an automatic that uses some of the gasses to eject the casing and load the next round, etc.
Also, not everyone is going to have the skill, training, and patience to even use a weapon in such a way. There is a difference between hitting an animal a 100 yards away while hunting and hitting an enemy soldier at many times that range in less than controlled conditions.

On the subject of lasers as sniper weapons.
IR lasers would be effectively invisible, and unless there is a lot of fog and dust out, chances are IR optics won't see the beam unless you are looking right at the weapon as it fires... while it is aiming at you...

On the subject of Storm Troopers going down easily, I saw a funny 'fan' video once (YouTube, called "The Injured Stormtrooper"), of a squad of Storm Troopers caught in a small battle, at one point one of the 'shot' Storm Troopers moves and says something to the effect of "I'm not dead."



On the subject of MDC being a problem...
Use Armor Piercing style home rules
Say a weapon will punch through anything of MDC equal to or less than double the max damage. Like how you can put a sledge hammer through a wall without bringing down the section of wall...
E.g., a weapon that does 1D6x10 MD will automatically have some damage pass through the armor if it has 120 MDC or less.
For Rail Guns, this is a problem, as 1D4 MD per round means they have poor armor piercing potential.

If a weapon is a specific armor piercing weapon, they do 'less' base damage but the ratio goes to 1:5, so a weapon firing an AP round that does 1D6x10 will punch through anything of up to 300 MDC.
In the case of a physical AP round like an APFSDS type round, it would punch through armor of 5-10 times max MDC it could do (forget which, don't have the notes available at this moment), it would have a lower base damage, but if the AP weapon fails to punch through the armor, the armor takes the full brunt of the shot's force, taking triple damage, so a 1D6x10 MD AP round that doesn't penetrate does 3D6x10 MD as the entire amount of kinetic energy is transfered into the impacted material.. (3D6x10 MD would be the 'base' damage of the normal weapon, but the APFSDS would be designed to punch clean through armor, not simply put a dent/whole in it with brute force)

[Daikuma]

Just use Naruni Micro-Missiles with a spec of anti-matter in the warhead. Should do 1D4x100 or 1D6x100 conservatively. Make them the smart version and triple the cost: 24,000 credits each.

Figure on a damage radius of 50 feet with EMP twice that. Knockdown is automatic for anything under 200 MD within 50 feet.

Perfect, but the damage radius is 50 Miles, the EMP just took out the entire continental shelf in this region of the planet, knockdown is everyone, everywhere...

And oh yeah, the atmosphere is burning off the planet.

How I love those antimatter-in-an-atmosphere tactics!

[Vrykolas2k]

*Shrug.*
I just convert all ranges to yards.
It's more logical that way. I figured the people who right the books don't know a thing about shooting, so I changed it.
No fuss, no muss.
For instance, I think they give the .44 Remington black-powder pistol a 100' range.
I knock steel targets off the rail with mine at a hundred yards regularly.

[Qev]

Just use Naruni Micro-Missiles with a spec of anti-matter in the warhead. Should do 1D4x100 or 1D6x100 conservatively. Make them the smart version and triple the cost: 24,000 credits each.

Figure on a damage radius of 50 feet with EMP twice that. Knockdown is automatic for anything under 200 MD within 50 feet.

Perfect, but the damage radius is 50 Miles, the EMP just took out the entire continental shelf in this region of the planet, knockdown is everyone, everywhere...

And oh yeah, the atmosphere is burning off the planet.

How I love those antimatter-in-an-atmosphere tactics!

Antimatter isn't that bad, geez...

[Blight]

...snip...Borgs would make BAD Snipers... unless they have some darn good stealth systems to deal with the fact they are a large chunk of cold material that is likely going to have a 'hot spot' from a small nuclear power source...snip....

I have to disagree with you on this one. A light borg would make an amazing sniper. Think about it, fully immune to the environment, temp, rain, and insects. (Let me tell you insects can make a prime shot position hell) The optic enhancement and targeting computer (calculating wind speed and distance for solid rounds) stable firing. Hmm looks like I'm going to be designing a sniper borg for the CS.

[Library Ogre]

...snip...Borgs would make BAD Snipers... unless they have some darn good stealth systems to deal with the fact they are a large chunk of cold material that is likely going to have a 'hot spot' from a small nuclear power source...snip....

I have to disagree with you on this one. A light borg would make an amazing sniper. Think about it, fully immune to the environment, temp, rain, and insects. (Let me tell you insects can make a prime shot position hell) The optic enhancement and targeting computer (calculating wind speed and distance for solid rounds) stable firing. Hmm looks like I'm going to be designing a sniper borg for the CS.

A suggestion: get a nice ghillie suit for your borg, and let it get nice and mossy. The vegetable signatures will mask your thermal signature.

[Dustin Fireblade]

A suggestion: get a nice ghillie suit for your borg, and let it get nice and mossy. The vegetable signatures will mask your thermal signature.

Merc Ops has a "hi-tech" ghillie suit that actually can mask your thermal signature, made by the CS and NG.

[Wildfire]

lets look at real life assassinations with rifles the sniper waits for the right time for the target to be in thier most vunerable situtation to make his shoot to kill his target. So sniping that full armours CS officer is not the best thing, but sniping him in his base camp from a klick or two is acceptable because then you slip away. and leave the area. Or in an urban setting sniping them when they are in a car with light MDC window or shooting them in thier rooms when they are out of thier armour.

If you want to play a combat sniper then you are the guy who holds back in the rear and takes head shots while your teamates are in the thick of it. you might not make the kill but the 4d6 range can definately blow away the armor or the head after a few shots unless the god of unluck is with you for damage rolls. Snipers also become very handy when fighting people who are not in enviromental armour or who have open face masks like dog boys or mages (if you get the drop on them cause gas masks or the Ley walker speail air filters genrerally are not MDC)

[Wildfire]

what you have described is similar to the One Shot One hit one kill Martial arts power from N&SS and with that power for ever round you spend aiming your crit goes 1 number lower you could convert this power to a skill for 2 or 3 occ skills

[Aramel]

there is a rare CS sniper rifle ( rifter 28 the jannisary project ) that does 1d6x10 if i remember right