Separate and differentiate Spotters and Marksmen

[Amentes]

In a nutshell, currently Spotters and Marksmen are functionally the same thing. I'd suggest limiting the Marksmen to weapons in the range of MXM and to just shy of .338, thus reserving the large-caliber Marksman-DLC weaponry for the Spotters.

 

I feel this would fit well with the current limiting of weapons for most other classes.

 

Spotters currently can't run Ghillies, which would be lovely to see a fix for.

[Eagle-Eye]

Agree on the ghillies.

 

As for the loadout:

I'm no expert by any means, but I always thought one of the tasks spotters are assigned is to be the sniper's close range protection? If so, shouldn't that limit their gear to standard rifles, with an optional grenade launcher if desired?

 

So something like...

Spotter: assault rifles (MX, Kathiba, Mk20, ...), up to medium range optics (RCO and the likes)

Marksman: medium-range rifles (MXM, Mk-I EMR, Mk18, ...), medium or long range scopes

Sniper: long-range or large-caliber rifles (MAR-10, M320, GM6), long range scopes

 

The way I see it, this would require a DM/S to have someone close to protect him from threats nearby, thus (hopefully) increasing team play?

[Jason.]

I'm agreeing more with Eagle-Eye here, the spotter's job is to spot (duh) for the sniper, and having access to UGL weapons would help with marking targets. I think the spotter should only have access to standard assault rifles (and give him a ghillie suit).

 

Marksman should be able to use MAR-10s etc as it's needed for them to fulfill their role, and I don't think Mk18 etc weapons are sufficient for that.

[Amentes]

All well and good, but we all know that roles aren't used that way on #1 and #2

 

I'm not gonna try to pull the real world down over this, in my experience, that's never a good solution.

 

I'm interested in differentiating them from each other while also keeping both different from the regular infantry roles.

 

For Marksmen, 7.62s should do fine. The EMR and M14 are both wonderful weapons. As for Spotters and them being close-range defense, the MAR-10 and it's OPFOR counterpart are very much able to function well in close range, so it seems like a good common ground to me. Worth noting that Spotters might still choose to downgrade their arsenal if they so desire.

[Karate Pyjamas]

Spotters and snipers are a 2 man squad, both trained equally and in real life they would take turns spotting and using the rifle. So one is to carry the rifle and the other a lighter rifle for close range protection indeed. They would both wear ghillies to avoid detection as they would need to be fairly close togheter. The spotter would do the calculations and give feedback to the sniper.

 

As for large caliber rifles, the M82 Barrett for instance wasn't used as an anti personal rifle, it was mainly used for explosive ordinance disposal, anti armor and anti material. A smaller bullet would do equally fine to personal. Bolt actions reign superior when it comes to accuracy, the .50 bullet was never intended to be an accurate cartridge. Not to mention the Barrett is a semi-auto and has a barrel construction which allows for lots of slight misalignment during shooting making it vastly inaccurate.

 

[Bloo Flar3]

24 minutes ago, Karate Pyjamas said:

Spotters and snipers are a 2 man squad, both trained equally and in real life they would take turns spotting and using the rifle. So one is to carry the rifle and the other a lighter rifle for close range protection indeed. They would both wear ghillies to avoid detection as they would need to be fairly close togheter. The spotter would do the calculations and give feedback to the sniper.

 

As for large caliber rifles, the M82 Barrett for instance wasn't used as an anti personal rifle, it was mainly used for explosive ordinance disposal, anti armor and anti material. A smaller bullet would do equally fine to personal. Bolt actions reign superior when it comes to accuracy, the .50 bullet was never intended to be an accurate cartridge. Not to mention the Barrett is a semi-auto and has a barrel construction which allows for lots of slight misalignment during shooting making it vastly inaccurate.

 

"Despite its designation as an anti-materiel rifle, it is used by some armed forces as an anti-personnel sniper rifle. It is also called the Light Fifty for its .50 BMG (12.7×99mm NATO) chambering and significantly lighter weight compared to previous applications.(M2 Browning)"

 

The Barrett is used quite a lot for anti personal, One story where the sniper was set up as over watch while friendly units raided a building, while in the building enemy insurgents set up a heavy machine gun and pinned down the units inside the buildings, The sniper seeing where the insurgents set up "behind a wall from his view" engaged the target, Shot through the wall (Acting like a shotgun blast coming out the other end of the wall) neutralising the threat.

[Amentes]

It wasn't intended for use in an anti-personnel role, which is where I think Karate's misconception comes from. It did end up being used as such, and some of the worlds farthest-kill records have been set by weaponry chambered for .50 BMG.

 

It's still a fair point that, for most purposes, something like .338 Lapua Magnum will shoot the same distance and remain lethal, but be lighter for the user to carry around. Unfortunately, ArmA doesn't have .338 Lapua Magnum, so we're stuck with 7.62x51 NATO.

 

Edit: Should clarify, I think Bohemia calls the MAR-10 a .338 LapMag weapon, but it damn sure shoots more like a WinMag.

[Cebi]

If you ask me there is too many slots which can equip so called OneHitKill weapons. So suggestion to limit marksman to 7,62*51mm is music to my ears. But you must put it in context with EU1&2. Think about server population and what kind of players do you want there, then set rules, parametrs and loadout limitations.

[Amentes]

Yeah, I have brought up thiis idea previously, and it was shot down because AW didn't wanna limit the then-new Marksman DLC stuff.

 

Now, however, there's limits imposed on most classes already, and we already have two weapons that only two slots have access to, so it seems a very small step to do that.

 

Personally, I'd be fine with limiting Spotters to MXMs and below, and just lock the high-caliber semi-autos to Snipers to give them two more weapons to choose from, but I doubt that would fare as well on-server.

 

My main focus, though, is limiting Marksmen to 7.62, largely because that ties better into those classes on the Squad level. Currently, most Marksmen play as Snipers with MAR-10s.

[Taxi]

I'd say it'd be nice to have a sniper squad as a new support role. (Talking about EU #3 as I only play on there :P)

However, this would bring a couple of big issues with it.

 

First, people would be going lone wolfe, or double eagle if they'd have a spotter with them.

We've seen this happen with things like HAMMER and TORCH.

That's why I, whenever I am in a command role, prohibit others from using HAMMER or TORCH unless we are with more than 30 players.

Because if you are with less than 30 these roles usually ruin the game for the others.

They'd just go into the town of the objective ignoring other players and finish the mission on their own.

 

Second, I will asure you that the marksman, whilst supposed to, will not switch guns with the spotter unless the two players in this squad are actual friends (also play other games together and such).

You can already see this happening in other squads, take HAMMER for instance, if you are the driver and want to be the gunner next objective you probably won't get it.

Unless you are playing with your *friends* within the community then you might be switching roles within HAMMER each objective.

 

Unfortunately, that's just how things work.

Especially with the noobs of the community and the veterans.

Veterans don't want to give their role to a noob and noobs usually don't want to give it to a veteran either because they finally got to play the role they hadn't had a chance to play before.

Same thing goes for the lone wolfe thing.

If there's many noobs on veterans don't want to teach them everything and get annoyed by the mistakes they make and therefore take a support role solely to not have to worry about the others, WHICH THEY STILL SHOULD!

 

I'm not saying this is always the case, I've seen many people within the community that have been here for longer than a couple days help noobs out but this doesn't happen enough IMO.

 

-Taxi Thomas

[GamerbugUK]

As I think this is more relating to EU1 and EU2 (EU3 being more organised), I'd say yes, spotters should only have access to assault rifles and below, they are meant to be calling those shots and ranges for the sniper, and providing security, not sniping at the same time.

 

Marksman should be limited to 7.62 and below, and the Mar10, Cyrus and Kir should be snipers only.

 

Now you can say this is limiting, but we already limit weapons pretty heavily, (which I might not like but it makes sense.)

[Gimanel]

I agree with you guys. Although I only played on EU 1 & 2 so far I do believe it needs regulating (hopefully forcing teamplay). 
So I would say as others here:
1. Ghillies for spotters and no AR no higher than 6.5mm, no dmr's.
2. 7.62 for marksman,

3. All the high caliber "cool stuff" for sniper only.

[GamerbugUK]

53 minutes ago, Gimanel said:

I agree with you guys. Although I only played on EU 1 & 2 so far I do believe it needs regulating (hopefully forcing teamplay). 
So I would say as others here:
1. Ghillies for spotters and no AR no higher than 6.5mm, no dmr's.
2. 7.62 for marksman,

3. All the high caliber "cool stuff" for sniper only.

Yeah I agree on the Gillies for spotters/snipers only as well. 

[Auntystatic]

I always play spotter on eu2 when the slot is available, most of the time the snipers run off on their own and want to do their own thing, very rarely can I team up with someone who wants to play as a 2 man team, I always carry an EMR 7.62 and both an AMS and nightstalker scopes in my kit, I get invited to groups all the time as people like to have me in to spot for the group, they know I do a good job and with the EMR I have the weapon to take out the enemy sniper teams, however I've been away for the last 2 weeks and last night I went on servers 1 & 2 to find out that none of my loadouts work, they are all grey'ed out, I can't see anywhere on the forums of any changes that have been made to the servers, I'm upset and will have to adapt but it would be nice to know whats changed and why

 

[GamerbugUK]

3 hours ago, Auntystatic said:

I always play spotter on eu2 when the slot is available, most of the time the snipers run off on their own and want to do their own thing, very rarely can I team up with someone who wants to play as a 2 man team, I always carry an EMR 7.62 and both an AMS and nightstalker scopes in my kit, I get invited to groups all the time as people like to have me in to spot for the group, they know I do a good job and with the EMR I have the weapon to take out the enemy sniper teams, however I've been away for the last 2 weeks and last night I went on servers 1 & 2 to find out that none of my loadouts work, they are all grey'ed out, I can't see anywhere on the forums of any changes that have been made to the servers, I'm upset and will have to adapt but it would be nice to know whats changed and why

 

I feel for you regards not finding someone to team up with, especially in such a fun duo team setup, though arguably Tanoa is not a great place for long range engagements, at least in comparison to Altis.

 

I would also argue if you were part of a spotter/sniper team, you have the wrong gun for the job. A spotter is not meant to long range engage, rather to spot, range and provide close range security. However as a lone spotter, you are basically a marksman, so I get the choice.

 

Also see my answer to your other post as to where to find updates, but for ease https://mods.ahoyworld.net/ 

[TheScar]

10 hours ago, Auntystatic said:

however I've been away for the last 2 weeks and last night I went on servers 1 & 2 to find out that none of my loadouts work, they are all grey'ed out, I can't see anywhere on the forums of any changes that have been made to the servers, I'm upset and will have to adapt but it would be nice to know whats changed and why

 

 

class restrictions are in place since 2.86x (dont recall the actual version of change now)

It hasnt been brought up for discussion,most people found out the hard way and had to adapt their kits to their class restrictions.

 

In your case the EBR is considerd a "Marksman" rifle,so to use it you either need to be "Marksman" or "Sniper".

Hence when playing Spotter having a EBR loaded in your kit its greyed out due to the class restriction.script and you not being able to load it when not occupied above mentioned slots.

 

Load up Arsenal in the Game Options and delete the EBR from your most prefered saved slots and once back on EU1 or EU2 find a different gun when playing "Spotter".

Hope that clears it up a bit.

 

[Auntystatic]

I can still have the EMR as spotter its the nightstalker scope that's missing along with many others (acog included) its not just my spotter loadout thats greyed, medic, engineer,  rifleman and others are all greyed out, and nowhere in the changelog does it say why, the thing is I'm not the only one this has happened too over the last week and server 2 is nowhere near as full as it used to be, I think a step backwards has been taken here

 

[GamerbugUK]

9 hours ago, Auntystatic said:

I can still have the EMR as spotter its the nightstalker scope that's missing along with many others (acog included) its not just my spotter loadout thats greyed, medic, engineer,  rifleman and others are all greyed out, and nowhere in the changelog does it say why, the thing is I'm not the only one this has happened too over the last week and server 2 is nowhere near as full as it used to be, I think a step backwards has been taken here

 

 

I do have one arsenal build that is greyed out, but never discovered why, though this has been for a few months. I just made another one.

 

The only update recently as far as I know was a CBA update yesterday. However since updating to this I can't play on EU1 and EU2 had a big warning message (though this went away afer a few seconds).

Have you posted in the help section, or tried contacting an admin?

[Auntystatic]

I had that cba_a3 warning too, but I was told to unsubscribe from the steam workshop and delete the @cba_a3 shortcut from the !workshop folder, that did work but to me that's messing with the way the game works, so I wonder why its not working as it was designed.  I was discussing it on eu1 last night with Teddy and Armentes no one can shed light on why some of the weapons have gone, I'm begining to think it might be due to the recent updates, I had to play as medic last night (out of my warm blanket comfort zone of marksman) so created a new loadout for it, I might go looking for the loadout file and remove anything that's stopping it from working as its a real pain in the ass and I don't want Lostbullet shouting "hurry up Aunty" as I'm stuck in the arsenal making up new loadouts lol

[GamerbugUK]

16 hours ago, Auntystatic said:

I had that cba_a3 warning too, but I was told to unsubscribe from the steam workshop and delete the @cba_a3 shortcut from the !workshop folder, that did work but to me that's messing with the way the game works, so I wonder why its not working as it was designed.  I was discussing it on eu1 last night with Teddy and Armentes no one can shed light on why some of the weapons have gone, I'm begining to think it might be due to the recent updates, I had to play as medic last night (out of my warm blanket comfort zone of marksman) so created a new loadout for it, I might go looking for the loadout file and remove anything that's stopping it from working as its a real pain in the ass and I don't want Lostbullet shouting "hurry up Aunty" as I'm stuck in the arsenal making up new loadouts lol

 

I didn't know I was subscribed to CBA in the workshop, unless it's an automatic thing. Will check tonight, thank you.

[fir_nev]

23 hours ago, Auntystatic said:

I had that cba_a3 warning too, but I was told to unsubscribe from the steam workshop and delete the @cba_a3 shortcut from the !workshop folder, that did work but to me that's messing with the way the game works, so I wonder why its not working as it was designed.  I was discussing it on eu1 last night with Teddy and Armentes no one can shed light on why some of the weapons have gone, I'm begining to think it might be due to the recent updates, I had to play as medic last night (out of my warm blanket comfort zone of marksman) so created a new loadout for it, I might go looking for the loadout file and remove anything that's stopping it from working as its a real pain in the ass and I don't want Lostbullet shouting "hurry up Aunty" as I'm stuck in the arsenal making up new loadouts lol

 

I received that bright orange warning too but I loaded my AT gear and ran off without any issues. Is it because we are 'subscribed' to Steam Workshop? I have never subscribed to anything cos I have been updating using ARMA3Sync.

 

U can always go on a roadtrip with me in my trusty Med HEMTT if U do not want anybody to pressure U.