Laser Sniper rifle

[IceSquirrel]

The laser sniping rifle seems to be impossible to be effective.
Is there any situation where it is worth using?

[CidDaBird]

The LSR is one of the most accurate base weapons you start off with. Did you just start playing Apoc?

[IceSquirrel]

Originally posted by CidDaBird:

The LSR is one of the most accurate base weapons you start off with. Did you just start playing Apoc?

I played some in the 90s and now again. A few hundred hours in total. But I mostly use M4000 and autocannon and stun gas because they are easiest.

[RemingtonRyder]

Usually I use the sniper rifle for reaction fire. In other words, leave the soldier with this weapon with plenty of time units to fire at anything which tries to surprise your squad during the alien turn.

[Cowardly Camper]

Real time. I use the sniper rifle with a group of 4+ and have them snapshot fire playing real time. As long as they don't move into close quarters, they are quite deadly against any early game stuff, especially when prone firing. It's all about fields of fire.

[Mr Nich]

All the starting weapons are massively flawed in one way or another, otherwise there would be little point in replacing them with alien tech. Personally, I found the sniper rifle to be the worst though, to the point of being useless. The power is absolutely feeble. It does have very high accuracy, but at the beginning, your guys accuracy is so bad they still miss every shot. I usually go with M4000s because then I can shoot so many bullets I eventually hit something, the problem I have then is having to use other weapons as I use more bullets than I can buy/steal. However I'd rather go with the autocannon or plasma pistol before the laser rifle

[PinkyDK]

I had fun with m4000 and sniper combo - Running 2 squads with 4-6 people in each seems to provide good results for the first 1-2 weeks raiding a lot :-)
Machine guns up close on entry/exit points and snipers on support

[Cowardly Camper]

Autocannons are the best early weapon because regular rounds do a lot of damage and explosive rounds used properly will both suppress most enemies and pack slaughter hyperworms and brainsuckers. If you get a good high point, explosives also never miss. Those things only really become obsolete when aliens start wearing shields.

If you're having trouble killing aliens, you just aren't bringing enough agents, including with sniper rifles.

[Cowardly Camper]

Actually, I take it back. The best early weapon is the stun grenade, and you can even drop it on your own agents as long as you don't knock out all of them. If an alien gets stunned, have someone stand on them and they'll never revive.

The stun grenade, sniper rifle, and the stun grapple are the only early weapons that can safely kill poppers until you get the plasma pistol. Dual wield them on full auto, and close stuff drops almost instantly until later aliens and shields.

[Furrfire]

When I was new to the game I had the same feeling about them (not very good), and after looking at the stats ingame again- wow it really is bad. 26 damage vs 21 for the machine gun or 24 for the lawpistol. I thought it did more damage then that but nope.

I was using up the few I start with on new games- in the future I'm just gonna sell them and buy more lawpistols and machine guns instead.


SNIPERS PARADISE CHALLANGE!
I am tempted to start up a new game someday on superhuman where I ONLY use sniper rifles until I run out of ammo to buy and see what would happen lol.

[Eightball]

The sniper rifle is amazing.

Have a squad of 4 of them with marsec flying suits, put them on rooftops etc and have them snipe like actual snipers, covering your "assault" squads and watching critical fire lines.

There really is no reason not to use them like this. Very useful tool.

However, the BIGGEST advantage the sniper rifles give you, is the skill gain.

Run snipers with your machine gun guys together from the start of the game and watch how your snipers accuracy skill is 4x that of the machine gun guy.

Skill gain clearly is not based on how many shots you fire as the snipers accuracy will be sky high compared to the rest of your guys and then when given alien guns later will be your best, most accurate soldiers.

[Furrfire]

Eightball you just blew my mind with that...
I never realized certain guns give different skill gains. That is very interesting.
Do you do this on realtime or turnbased?

[trooperrob]

I think it might be that you get more chance to gain skill the more hits you get.
If you put a very accurate sniper on snap, and they gain lots of hits, then snap will go up.
If they were on aimed, then accuracy will go up.
You may need to kill to gain the benefit.
at least that is what I think I have seen.

[CidDaBird]

Originally posted by Eightball:

The sniper rifle is amazing.

Have a squad of 4 of them with marsec flying suits, put them on rooftops etc and have them snipe like actual snipers, covering your "assault" squads and watching critical fire lines.

There really is no reason not to use them like this. Very useful tool.

However, the BIGGEST advantage the sniper rifles give you, is the skill gain.

Run snipers with your machine gun guys together from the start of the game and watch how your snipers accuracy skill is 4x that of the machine gun guy.

Skill gain clearly is not based on how many shots you fire as the snipers accuracy will be sky high compared to the rest of your guys and then when given alien guns later will be your best, most accurate soldiers.

Thats why i had to say something lol yeah sure, base guns aren't great misnomer to us vets but still useful mid game. The hit chance is higher then any other weapon at the start = more skill gain. Got some mad juice up in the noggin Eightball.

Originally posted by CidDaBird:

The LSR is one of the most accurate base weapons you start off with. Did you just start playing Apoc?

[CidDaBird]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

I think it might be that you get more chance to gain skill the more hits you get.
If you put a very accurate sniper on snap, and they gain lots of hits, then snap will go up.
If they were on aimed, then accuracy will go up.
You may need to kill to gain the benefit.
at least that is what I think I have seen.

Try having 10-20 rookies with all sniper rifles with a choke point vs your average troop comp OP and tell us how it goes. Very interested if you're willing to test this for us to see for yourself if its useless. I play on real time as well.

Originally posted by IceSquirrel:

The laser sniping rifle seems to be impossible to be effective.
Is there any situation where it is worth using?

[Cowardly Camper]

Yeah, I always play superhuman mode real time, and always have one of my squads run 6 sniper rifles to keep open areas locked down. 20 of them should massacre anything alien before week 3 with ease. However, it can be really tough running that many of a single weapon during week 1 due to limited quantities of ammo in the store.