A balanced approach to sniper rifles
 

Here's the deal - I've been playing Zone for almost 3 years now. Sniper ammo has been there since I was a trial, and every day I had my gold subscription, I awaited it to come out (since i'm a fanatic sniper at heart).

It never did. Blamed on balance issues.

So here, I propose to you - a solution to the balancing problem of the sniper rifle.

The sniper system would be fairly simple. In order to shoot, you prone on the ground and are immobilized the whole time you're looking through the scope. You can shuffle slightly to better your aim, but very, very slowly. Think half poison speed slow. While you lie prone, you are extremely vulnerable to mid-close range attacks. How much so? 50% more damage taken from the first three hits within 10 seconds of standing up from the prone state. A newb with a r51 will one shot you if he catches you off guard.

However - you are invisible from radar, and 80% invisible to players who are further away than 6xy radius (think a 6cm circle on the screen). They can spot you through a shimmering effect on the ground, from an absolute maximum of 9xy.

An average sniper scope (low grade) can zoom up to 3-4x. In Zone, we'll translate this to 3 levels. The further away you aim, the longer the bullet will take to reach it's target (we're talking milliseconds here) and will be subject to random bullet drop once it surpasses the 2 level limit (bullet drop is where the bullets disappear with the typical ricochet fx). Once you have fired (provided your sniper rifle isn't silenced), you are highly visible on the radar and are marked by a red crosshair on it. This effect will disappear after 3 seconds (how long it takes to reload, a sniper rifle will have 1-3 shots per clip).

Sniper rounds travel at incredible speeds - twice as fast as an iricia speeder. The noise the rifles make counteract this, as they may be able to be heard from nearly 2 levels away.

Sniper damage is multiplied 1.25x to "light" targets. The following classes fall under the light category:

Commando
Scout
Light infantry
Medic
Squad leader

Sniper damage is reduced by a multiplier of 1.25x to "heavy" targets. The classes that aren't listed as light fall under the heavy category.

And now, for a few sniper rifles:

IX41-LR Sniper Rifle
Power: 75 (subjective)
Spread: .05
Cloaking effect: 60%
Reload time: 4 seconds
Clip size: 2
Clip amount: 10 (plus sniper ammo)
Kit: Sniper/Light Infantry
Effects: IX41 is a highly versatile sniper rifle, providing deadly surgical striking capability, and can be equipped with a silencer to reduce detection rates. (Silencer is a gun specific addon that costs 4000)

TI-LR Sniper Rifle
Power: 45
Spread: 0
Cloaking Effect: 75%
Reload time: 6 seconds
Clip size: 3
Clip amount: 20 (+ ammo)
Kit: Scout/Light Infantry
Effects: A reconnaissance-geared sniper rifle which does sub-lethal damage but is completely silent in doing so. Boasting a high cloaking effect, a large clip but one of the longest reloads a sniper rifle can have, the TI-LR is excellent for highly mobile situations.

I4 MKII-HV Sniper Rifle:
Power: 90
Spread: .30
Cloaking Effect: 30%
Reload time: 3 seconds
Clip size: 1
Clip amount: 10
Kit: Sniper/Heavy Infantry
Effects: The I4 is an effective tool boasting huge amounts of stopping power at the price of stealth and accuracy. Provided one can score a hit with the I4, it's an instant kill or a lethal wound to many soldiers.

I7-LR Light Sniper Rifle:
Power: 50
Spread: .20
Cloaking Effect: 90%
Reload time: 10 seconds
Clip size: 2
Clip amount: 10
Kit: Sniper
Effect: Not to be confused with it's heavyweight cousin, the I7 provides one of the best cloaking systems known to date. However, due to the high energy usage of the system, the I7 severely lacks in stopping power, and the automated clip feeding system is very slow due to high resource sharing.

Oh, by the way: spread is effectively how much x/y the bullet offsets by over each level. A .20 spread rifle will have shifted .6x/y at a 3 level range. This leaves the potential for highly powerful rifles with huge inaccuracy problems. The rest is up to you.

The format of the sniper rifle was already great and didnt need modification, staff are just too lazy to release it. Sniper rifle was released a very long time ago tho, back when i just 1st started i think, but was called back for moderation and then never was seen again. Well Hiro the trader in DM still has it, lucky bsterd.

Just make it so that you can only use it from bases like the Rocket Launcher.

That would suck so hard.

Wow, Raeiphon's idea is kickass, good job.

i agree with rae

omg i love sniper rilfes ive heard of it before but never got to use it.
SWEET ;)

I accede with rae.

Idiots like you (No offense) are why the Rocket Launcher can shoot only from bases, and why it's dead, DEAD.

I agree with the Sniper Rifle idea tenfold, but you have to realize that although we all know it's farely simple to make those add-ons needed for the sniper Riffle to be balanced (in your perspective) Somebody will probably overcomplicate them in their heads and not bother with making them because it's "Too much work".

I kindv'e like the idea but not really. If it had 1 sniper only and the aiming system was remisnecent to knigdoms arrows system would be nice but... this has been suggested before and around the same things were said.

Prob with ur idea when ur aiming ur basically Dead if u get shot so ur kinda Screwed so no need to rune the weap so no one buys it and the staff delete it for good because it will suck to the Max by Limiting it to Nothing the Rocket Launcher is Understandable the *** Rockets chase u down i highly dount the Sniper Bullets are Pixel Heat Seeking so making the Sniper Rifle More Complex to get a Kill while you are Highly Vulnarble would just be dumb and not needed.

Only allow them to be moved by the movement keys so they have to use those for aiming well, and use a red laser dot for aiming.

agreed, i definatly come back to zone for a sniper

<3 raei

A scope, laserdot, whatever. When you're sniping, you press D to scope/unscope and S to fire. Scoping cloaks you and places you in the prone state.

Time to simplify:
If you get caught prone, you're very likely dead. Higher damage weapons will have less cloaking power, while lighter more mobile weapons will have more cloaking power at the expense of damage. All sniper rounds are subject to random bullet drop over the 2 level mark. Bullet velocity is roughly 50-60 xy per second. All enemy sniper shots in range of you are flagged with a crosshair on the radar until you reload, otherwise they are invisible to it. Cloaking percentage is the chance not to be detected by eye when enemy players move close to you. The calculation that determines whether you are exposed or not triggers every 5 seconds.