Overwatch: Looting Safely

[WildLeon 18]

I've seen a lot of posts regarding how sniper weapons shouldn't be in the game, and also posts about how snipers ruin the game. There are very important for the safety of my squad.

I provide overwatch for my squad during our loot raids. Little back story first. Our Community has In-House TDM's Weekly. These are purely for fun. However, seeing as we hold these weekly we need supplies to keep our troops well fed on ammo and weapons. This means we need to send out squads of 4 or 5 to loot NWAF and Stary Sobor for ammo/weapons/grenades. Seeing as I'm Troop Lead for Squad 5 I'm overwatch. Our Clan has set rules for looting when we encounter another Survivor(s).

If we encounter a solo survivor I tell my Squad to take defensible cover and to wait until he is in direct chat range. We then inform him that we are looting this area, and that we have a sniper aimed right at him and ask him to leave. If he leaves, I keep an eye on him until he gets a reasonable distance away. If he doesn't leave or doesn't respond i am forced to pull the trigger for the safety of my squad. (Sorry to any I may have killed)

If we encounter two survivors same protocol as above. The only difference is that after they leave, my squad leaves and we move to the other loot area. This is because we once had a problem where two people split up and I can only keep tabs on one at a time. We had one time where two people split up and circled around and one of my squad died.

However, if we encounter a small group (3+), chances are its a bandit group and the protocol changes. I inform my squad a small group is inbound and we take defensible positions and my squad informs them they have 7 seconds to leave or a warning shot will be fired. After 7 seconds I fire a warning shot. They then have 4 seconds to be running the other way. If not I WILL kill them.

This all changes situation to situation. Depending on how geared the survivor(s) are I may take another warning shot. We don't want to kill anyone, but if its you or my squad, it will be you every time.

So as you can see, we take precautions to make sure we don't kill innocent people. This requires snipers for me to do my job effectively. OR a L85A2 AWS. So unless people want the L85A2 AWS to spawn more often, please stop dissing on snipers.

EDIT: To all those reading this and thinking "this doesn't stop snipers from sniping cherno and elektro" heres a tip. DONT STOP MOVING. Its very easy to hit a standing target at 400/600/800 range. But hitting a crouching moving target weaving between buildings is incredibly difficult. Also, prone when looting whenever near open windows in buildings. Cant hit what you cant see.

Edited August 12, 2012 by WildLeon

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

All very sensible but it brushes over the chaps sat over Cherno and Elektro for hours on end sniping for no good reason other than to increase their murder rate. It's like any OP aspect of a game, people will abuse it for their own end.

[KennyNZ 121]

It's not the guns that are the problem, it's the lack of incentives to act in a more cautious/friendly manner, and they will eventually get to sorting that all out, most likely in the standalone now.

[SugarFreeBrowny 8]

I support you on this. I never really find them that often but they do provide great advantages such as this and I feel this outways the negative side that people use them to snipe players just to kill.

[Bacon Surfboard 61]

All very sensible but it brushes over the chaps sat over Cherno and Elektro for hours on end sniping for no good reason other than to increase their murder rate. It's like any OP aspect of a game, people will abuse it for their own end.

You say it like these snipers are actually difficult to kill.

[Cheese_omg 8]

I hope you dont kill Medic of the Wastelands because thats not very nice :|

[WildLeon 18]

I hope you dont kill Medic of the Wastelands because thats not very nice :|

We try not to kill anyone but i think I'm at about 50 or so murders strictly from our looting sessions. Maybe more. We never loot any of the bodies but that doesn't mean I don't feel bad for killing them.