So as an SL you might have noticed some called the sniper kit. Inside is a battle rifle with AP rounds and some scopes. Now the battle rifle is a great gun for long distance shooting. Mostly because it suffers zero fall off.
However this sniper kit has a few main issues. The main one being that well it has no IFF and the smart scope can’t zoom. To get around this issue you could move to the side lines. A well placed non spec sniper can do a lot of damage and I have used it to great effect aginst boilers. However lurkers exist. This means that the only time the sniper kit is usefull is when you have marines around you but no one standing in front of you. Forceing you to use it as a front line weapon.
The third main issue is that obviously it’s givin to a SL only a roll that is not supposed to sit in the back lines far aay from everyone else.
So what are some improvments you guy might make. One idea I had was give the user a thermal tarp.
i would give the kit a NVG hud, yes you can’t use NVGs with a scope but its still very useful and will allow the lad using the kit to walk dark which is rather big thing to lower you noticeability by xenos double so on Multi-Z maps.
If you give the sniper kit NVG, it will be too much of an advantage for marines.
99.9% of players will take the kit for the NVG and leave the useless sniper rifle in the prep rooms.
An exception can be made for a special scope in the kit that can only be mounted on rifles and slows down movement when used, similar to a sniper’s scope. It will illuminate/remove darkness within a radius of 2x2 or 3x3 from the player’s cursor, allowing you to snipe, but without gaining a full advantage or abusing the kit just for the sake of NVG.
Should’ve just given M41’s their own reflex smartscope (or just not cared that you can scope with an M41) instead of nuking one of the only things that made the b8 worth using.
No, marines don’t need full NVG. The scopes need them. The bigger, more cumbersome, the better.
If every 4x scope had NVG, it would gain a use it otherwise doesn’t have, but wouldn’t cause every marine to hunt for it just for the sake of it. Solves the issues of buffing marines too much, or just making a whole kit nobody takes anything from but one specific thing.
SL even in that kit should get fancy 4x smart scope.
That kit is noob bait anyway. As other have said the B8 smartscope just needs the zoom function back.
If you wanted a cool weapon kit to give to SLs, give them the old PFC veteran kit. (Mk1, u7 shotgun, mags and a large magazine pouch)
But if you wanted something REALLY cool make an SL “SADAR kit” where you get like 2 single use rocket launchers that can be folded up and distributed to your marines.
Since they’re non-reloadable and not AP they shouldn’t be super devastating for xenos to fight against (unless some poor T1 gets blasted) but it’d be a nice kit for SLs to choose besides the meta engineering kit.
Or if that’s too strong make a kit give out mini-medic kits to marines. Those used to be fun to use.
i mean all the kits kinda need some sort of extra item tbh. NVG kinda makes sense but maybe the sniper kit could cost a few points 4 it, but u have opportunity cost of metal and stuff which totals to more then the value of nvgs.
I think it makes sense to powercreep sl kits (especially one as outdated and useless as m4ra sniper) because rn its either metal or an extra gun which req has a bunch of already. Except for MOU, m2c, and maybe HPR which actually make sense to pick since its +1 of those very limited kits in circulation.
I used to play SL and grab a B8 scope for the M4RA specifically because it let me hang at the back to provide supporting fire while also giving me additional viewing range so I could better observe what was going on in the fight.
Removing the 2x zoom from the B8, especially after the IFF change, killed the only thing it was still useful for. Now it’s not even a sniper, it’s basically an SMG variant you only use for chasing and is otherwise a worse M41. There’s nothing ‘marksman’ about it. (Nevermind how bad the damage output is with a 4x/2x scope on top of not even having IFF)
It’s just all around a bad gun now. It has no niche for itself.
IFF change has actually made the smartscope a lot move viable as a general purpose tool. The firepower loss is rather low so that you can use it just the way you use a normal weapon. Now what makes it great for the SL is that a large percentage of fighting is happening in compromised line positions. If you’re good at not FF-ing(unlike me *salute), you’re still gonna do less damage to that lurker\ravager killing the idiot next to you, than I would do with smartscope, because you need to take more time to aim carefully. Mind you that the person you’re covering is also going to manuever around in the worst way possible for you. Thus I have more chances to save both the PVT “I don’t know how to shot” from that lurker and the PFC “fuck you, my ammo is too valuable to waste it on ravs” is not going to get me killed either.
Now the M4R4 kit itself is kinda worthless just like the M41 kit. If you’re not going restricted weapons yourself, you might as well ask your squaddies if they want something and if they don’t just get the mats and pass onto Bravo. Though 2 AP mags are still 2 AP mags. I guess to make it more comparable to other kits, maybe add the smartscope by default and up the number of AP mags to 3.
M41 kit kinda suffers for the same reason. Wish it would say come with 3 HEDPs. And if you make it to GySGT, 3 HEFAs.
Let me be a backline support, and be in a good spot for lazing. I now often just get the mk2 kit, occasionally the flamer (i do not think the flamer is a excellent choice or anything- i just find it fun.)
No if used well the flamethrower is the best weapons an SL can use.
It fills the role the M56D does. Not for fragging but for area denial and herding.
With a good flamethrower you can turn your’s self into a mini spec that can control the flow of battle. I have held off entire xeno pushes with green flame.
The power to make a t3 run away in terror the second they get lit on fire is a powerful one.