suggestion to people whining about snipers

[harryzhe 28]

You can bet this is gunna help you because it's written by someone who snipes people.

You need to learn to evade detection. If you find yourself getting shot by people you cant see again and again, it's because you're not being careful. Don't expect the game to get any easier for you.

Removing sniper rifles or making them more rare won't help. Dayz combat pits observations skills against eachother much more than it pits guns against eachother. Take away a sniper's rifle, and he'll move 400 metres closer and continue his work with whatever he can find.

I'd love to put an end to the posts pleading to remove sniper rifles from the game (as unrealistic as my goal is), as if theyre some kind of omnipotent super laser which is extremely easy to use and have no place in the game. The tension of the game is heightened by them, because they force you to actually be careful and think through your approach. Besides this, theyre a common reality of not only military but civilian life. Do the m24s in dayz bother you? Guess what - it's a remington 700, which are easilly affordable and legal in pretty much every trading country on the planet. Don't bother playing the "unrealistic" angle because it's just empirically untrue.

Some general tips you should follow to avoid being shot from great distances:

• The places with the best loot will always be watched by people who are bored of avoiding and killing zombies to get in and out with the gear - They'd rather you do it for them.
  
• Get binoculars (theyre common) if you dont have a scoped weapon to fight back with. Use the binoculars any time you hit a high-traffic area. Look all around to any place that gives a good overview of the town/airfield. Observe from outside and change position a few times to ensure you cover as much of the visible terrain as you can. It's very important to do this before you enter the town. Look at high ground. Look at unremarkable areas. Carefully scan every treeline for people hiding.
  
• Watch the streets of the town itself for some time. Look for zombies, listen for gunshots. Do this from outside the town as well. If there's zombies in a town you're well outside of, you can bet someone's in there. Snipers aren't the only thing you have to fear when looting. If you don't want confrontation with people, just watch a town you suspect has people in it. If you're worried about snipers watching, see if others are getting killed first. I cant even count the amount of times people continuously pour into one area of a major town despite a pile of dead bodies and reams of kill messages accompanied by 7.62 gunshots.
  
• When you feel safe to move into the town, use your best judgement to decide on the most likely angle a sniper might take watch. Put as much between you and that place as you can, to conceal your entry to the area. Cross open ground as quickly as you possibly can, and try not to aggro any zombies - they'll point right to you.
  
• When crossing open ground, "zig zag." This technique is taught in various military publications and it makes it very difficult for a sniper to hit you. Don't just sprint in one direction, because a skilled shooter can easilly lead your movement and compensate for it. The key is to make your movement unpredictable. Dart left and right irregularly, slow down and speed up at random.
  
• When you're on the move, always keep in mind the angles a potential sniper might observe from. If you need to expose yourself, try to take a route where you're backdropped by something with a noisy disruptive visual appearance. Moving in front of a line of bushes will disrupt your silhouette and make you less noticable than if you ran in front of a blank grey wall or a road.... Just don't go on the road if you can avoid it.
  
• To extend the previous point, remember that if you move into an elevated position, anyone below you will see you silhouetted against the sky. I cant stress this enough - The high ground is not safe in this world. Any miltiary manual will tell you the same thing. The reason people on rooves and towers and at the very top of hills get easilly picked off is because their silhouette creates so much contrast that they might as well be holding a light up on a dark night. This applies to moving along terrain in all circumstances as well. Hills give you a better view, but try to only ever half-ascend them to minimise your chances of being silhouetted. If you can, pick hills which are well wooded. Trees will help kill your silhouette as well.
  
• When you're in buildings, prone-crawl around the inside walls as close to the windows as you can. This is the trickiest spot for a sniper to hit you.
  
• If you're working with a crew, it can be beneficial to leave your backpack behind in the treeline, empty some inventory space, and travel into town while your crew overwatches and guards your shit. You won't be able to carry as much loot, but if you get shot you won't lose as much, and large backpacks have many times revealed to me the position of people who would otherwhise be hidden behind a low wall or similar. If youre lucky youll find another pack in town and be able to carry it out full of goods.
  
• If you have the firepower and the option, approach the town "through" the most likely sniper locations. For example, climb up the "other" side of a hill and come down on the side the snipers might be on. If you're careful and observant, you will get the drop on some shooters waiting to spot people in town. If you can close the distance to 300 or so metres, you should easilly be able to overcome them with assault rifles. But you'll need to have good general close-up combat skills to pull this off. Remember the concept of silhouetting - you'll most likely need to move slowly in prone so that quick glances shooters often make behind them wont reveal you, up the hill from them, silhouetted against the sky.
  
• If the place looks hectic - that is, if there's gunshots and dying and dead bodies and such in town... I'd advise steering clear of it until it cools down. You need to be able to spot this though. I guarantee you the most common mistake people make is just not noticing that people are getting shot in droves at the town they're looking to enter - their head is too focused on loot and not survival.
  

I'm sure other members could add more detail and points to this, but it should be pretty comprehensive for a start.

[rossmum 7]

Correct thread.

The only people who see fit to complain about "sniper rifles" (news flash, modern sniper rifles are usually built off of common hunting rifles, just to military spec - there is very little difference and no argument that they are 'rare' or even 'vaguely uncommon' in real life) are those who are careless, oblivious players who go charging into the open without even stopping to think.

In addition to what Harry's already said - all of which is solid advice - I have some, too, also as a bandit who hunts other players for sport:

• If a shot is fired, your immediate reaction should be to sprint for maybe five paces in a random direction (not 'at' the direction of the shot), dive to the ground, start crawling for maybe another 10-20 metres in a different direction, and only then do you observe the situation, find a target or likely target location, and return fire. When you know you are being watched, you should only run in short bursts, then dive down and crawl again, always changing direction so you pop up in a different place.
  
• Never use a road. If you need to navigate by one, parallel it some distance away, preferably in a ditch or treeline.
  
• Only visit large cities if you just spawned and need loot, or if you want to PvP. If you want to carebear it up, there is no reason to go into Cherno and you're an idiot if you do. The same loot can be had at much less dangerous locations around the map, and even though it may take longer, you won't end up getting shot.
  
• Raid at night. Moonlit nights are the best time to be out, as you don't need light sources to see and the shadows will hide you really well. Also, several sniper rifles in the game don't play nice with night vision.
  

[Duckman404 37]

If a shot is fired, your immediate reaction should be to sprint for maybe five paces in a random direction (not 'at' the direction of the shot), dive to the ground, start crawling for maybe another 10-20 metres in a different direction, and only then do you observe the situation, find a target or likely target location, and return fire. When you know you are being watched, you should only run in short bursts, then dive down and crawl again, always changing direction so you pop up in a different place.

I would never recommend going prone unless you're behind cover, or at least somewhat visually hidden by something. Many times, the moment me or my friends have died from sniper fire was due to going prone; at range, grass doesn't cover you, so all going prone does results in you becoming a nice big unmoving target.

Random zig-zagging to avoid sniper fire works just fine.

[harryzhe 28]

I would never recommend going prone unless you're behind cover, or at least somewhat visually hidden by something. Many times, the moment me or my friends have died from sniper fire was due to going prone; at range, grass doesn't cover you, so all going prone does results in you becoming a nice big unmoving target.

Random zig-zagging to avoid sniper fire works just fine.

I'm going to agree with this, but i get the impression ross' post was assuming there was reasonable cover around the place which would help. Most the time in arma this isnt really the case though because the terrain is pretty smooth

[rossmum 7]

I would never recommend going prone unless you're behind cover, or at least somewhat visually hidden by something. Many times, the moment me or my friends have died from sniper fire was due to going prone; at range, grass doesn't cover you, so all going prone does results in you becoming a nice big unmoving target.

Random zig-zagging to avoid sniper fire works just fine.

At a distance where grass doesn't cover you, the game will actually 'sink' you into the ground mesh to make you less visible. It isn't perfect, but it's better than running around in the open. Crawling everywhere is a real life thing that doesn't translate perfectly to the game, but it can help since your silhouette is reduced so much.

The big key is to move first, hit the deck, then move again. Don't just do the usual ArmA AI thing of proning on the spot the moment shots are fired.

[Mos1ey 6301]

R700 legal in pretty much every country on the planet? What are you smoking and where can I get some? ...Or are you another American that thinks America IS the whole planet?

Edited August 4, 2012 by mZLY

[harryzhe 28]

R700 legal in pretty much every country on the planet? What are you smoking and where can I get some? ...Or are you another American that thinks America IS the whole planet?

Well i did say every "trading" country because the only reason i can think of that a country would not have civilian held remingtons or rifles of the exact same function and capability would be if they did not import them.

Since it would take less time, i challenge you to list all the countries in which a remington 700 would be illegal.

and i'm not american.

Edited August 4, 2012 by HarryO)))

[rossmum 7]

R700 legal in pretty much every country on the planet? What are you smoking and where can I get some? ...Or are you another American that thinks America IS the whole planet?

This is a joke, right? I mean, this has to be a joke. There is no way somebody would actually believe this, surely?

Neither Harry nor myself are American. In fact, we live in Australia, which has some pretty tight gun restrictions. Guess what one of the most common rifles here is! Guess what rifle you can get in almost any country where guns aren't completely banned, and easily at that! Even in places like the UK people can get the R700. It is a civilian hunting rifle and an extremely prolific one at that. Play a little less CoD (I can only assume that this is why you seem to attach some mystical reverence to the R700 and thus elevate it to "OMG CIVILIANS CAN'T HAVE THEM EXCEPT IN AMERICA" level) and spend more time fact-checking before you make idiotic sweeping generalisations.

By the way, which country do you live in? I bet you can get R700s there. In fact, I'd be pretty much certain of it. I can't think of a single country offhand which is advanced enough to have widespread internet access, yet where basic bolt-action hunting rifles are not legal. Because that is what the R700 is, a basic hunting rifle. The M24 is just a more rugged, standardised version of it.

Edited August 4, 2012 by rossmum