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[RAM]

I just hope that they replace it with rescuing the chip that the commander's mind was uploaded onto before the original body was converted into a [insert profession that is considered to not require a mind here] that went on to a successful civilian career.

[Flying Dice]

Thats literally what Accurate Swords is, its the ini tweak. I've just been lazy and let it do it for me.

Problem is, it doesn't touch the axe. I'm pretty sure that it's overridden by the LW2 weapons ini as well.

[nenjin]

Do some of the Viper classes in LW2 just straight up not trigger overwatch? I swear the last two encounters I've had with some of them, they'v slithered past a whole line of guys and spat poison into them, when the next three guys coming into overwatch range get shot at.

[kilakan]

yeah sidewinders have squadsight and don't trigger overwatch.  They are evil. apply fire.

[Xvareon]

I ran into a massive pod of like 7 Najas (Viper snipers) and a Muton once. Know how I didn't take any injuries from that fight? I Flashbanged them to disable the Najas tongue and poison abilities, then I closed ranks and just dashed into flanking positions. Flanked enemies naturally move away, and since they were all carrying sniper rifles, they couldn't shoot after they moved. Cue epic facerape from my Assault shotgunners and back row Sharpshooter.

[nenjin]

Yeah, Flashbangs are great.

Just did the Avenger defense mission. Ho-lee-shit. 44/51 enemies killed. I was literally sprinting 1/3rd of my team, guns empty, into the evac zone ahead of multiple squads of guys at the very end. Multiple hits from Advent Mech Mini Missiles and Snek Poison had many of my guys running low, and one sniper got set on fire and essentially burned to unconsciousness and had to be carried off the field 1 turn from bleeding to death. And this was with save scumming my ass off.

The way enemy squads move in must be specially controlled in that mission because there's simply no way you could survive the first few rounds if everything that looked aggroed actually aggroed. Admittedly though it's scary as fuck and the only thing that kept me alive through the first solid wave of MECs and other crazy shit was hacking and creating a few decoys for the enemy to shoot at. That and snipers. Shinobi was completely worthless on that map other than cleaning up a few problem left over sitting in cover.

Kind of amazed by the whole thing actually, the sheer #'s of guys at play. Don't even want to think about what it's going to be like doing this again with tougher advent....

Btw, is there any way to shake the UFOs tracking you? Just finished that mission and I still have a second one dogging my ever move. I really, really don't want to have to fight another one of those so soon.

[Xvareon]

Btw, is there any way to shake the UFOs tracking you? Just finished that mission and I still have a second one dogging my ever move. I really, really don't want to have to fight another one of those so soon.

Yes. But it's random. There is a chance every time a UFO locks on to you that the Avenger successfully manages to evade pursuit, in which case the mission will not occur. I think that refraining from flying the Avenger anywhere at all while the UFO is patrolling over the country or general area it's in also helps you not get locked on to in the first place.

[nenjin]

Btw, is there any way to shake the UFOs tracking you? Just finished that mission and I still have a second one dogging my ever move. I really, really don't want to have to fight another one of those so soon.

Yes. But it's random. There is a chance every time a UFO locks on to you that the Avenger successfully manages to evade pursuit, in which case the mission will not occur. I think that refraining from flying the Avenger anywhere at all while the UFO is patrolling over the country or general area it's in also helps you not get locked on to in the first place.

Oh ok. I figured if I was passing time was it floating directly overhead I was going to get detected easier. The other way makes sense too though.

[Flying Dice]

Kind of amazed by the whole thing actually, the sheer #'s of guys at play. Don't even want to think about what it's going to be like doing this again with tougher advent....

It gets much worse numerically as well.

[Rince Wind]

I used a shinobi to get to the objective and the sniper shot it from close to the starting position.
But I was not very far in the game yet, which makes this mission easier in my opinion.

[Flying Dice]

The principle problem with snipers in both vanilla and LW2 is this:

They're all about setting up in a static position and killing enemies as they come. The vast majority of missions are a) on a tight timer and b) require you to play as the active force, rather than the reactive one. Even on the few missions where you are free to set up and wait/draw enemies in, you have to orient everything around the presence of the sniper: you aren't as free to move up into the map, you're much more static once contact is made, and you still have to set up shots for the sniper.

Why? Because snipers can't effective maneuver and fire. If an enemy is in cover they can't just work their way around to a flanking position, they have to try to shoot them out of cover. Which means that either you're taking a lot of low percentage shots or you're using other soldiers' turns to destroy cover or drive enemies out of it... just so you can take a shot that's barely better than rifle damage with barely better than rifle accuracy.

And as the final kick, the attachment to the longrifle means that most of the opportunities for advancement at low levels (grenades, close-range flank shots, &c.) don't mesh with how they play, so snipers tend to lag behind in exp unless you go out of your way to carry them.

Yeah, at high level and high gear they're not bad in their niche, but you have an awful slog to get there and they're still less useful than literally anything else on the vast majority of missions. Most of the time, when I bring a sniper, they spend half their turns trying to move into a position to shoot people, one or two turns missing shots, and the rest of their turns yellow-moving towards evac. :|

[Shadowgandor]

I've played on the medium difficulty so I'm not sure how useful this is, but I mostly used snipers as kill zones. Put two of them on a roof and you cover a large part of the map. No enemies would flank you when these guys were alive. They did require some levels before they got useful, but I never understood the hate these guys would be getting. At higher levels, they could get multiple kills each turn, limited only by having to reload.

[Mephansteras]

Huh, I don't have that problem. My snipers are generally quite effective. Then again, early game I use them to take out drones which levels them pretty well and often saves spending multiple people's turns to take out the drone. I also like to use flanking to force enemies to move, which works well with a sniper on overwatch.

Granted, I may also just be lucky with them. I've had them hit a lot of clutch 25% shots to take out an enemy in full cover.

[nenjin]

Snipers are fine if you have time to work. They're a pain when you're on the move constantly. Sometimes setting them up on the high ground overlooking the map while the rest of your squad moves works. Other times, it gets them flanked and/or picked off/have reinforcements dropped on them.

My snipers are resigned to doing their jobs only at specific times. That said, they're still the one with the highest kill count in my force right now.

[Xvareon]

In LW2, snipers form just 1/8th of my forces because I tend to keep a balanced team lineup, but I usually bring one along on most missions. I don't take them because of their raw damage ability, I take them because they can effectively deal with certain dangerous threats that I don't want to have a turn to screw me over, like enemy Rocketeers or Engineers. They get first pick for offensive AWC perks to up their killing potential; I've got a Sharpshooter with Executioner and Lethal, fer cripesake. She aims for officers and enemy assets to remove them from play ASAP.

It helps that snipers, since they can lie outside of enemy LoS and still shoot, have the potential to fire at enemies who unwittingly flank themselves when facing them; for example, if your squad encounters a pod that moves to cover between them and your sniper(s), they will take several high accuracy, high critical-hit shots from my long range soldiers before they realize what's going on. The same thing happened in LW1 when I had Gunners with LMGs on a roof, using their enhanced Squadsight range to kill Sectoids that took cover that flanked them against my Gunner that they couldn't see and thus couldn't take cover against.