No problem! The range is probably because I wanted it to not outclass the Sus cannon, but I probably forgot to account for regular rifles having a much larger range than it. I'll try and see if I can buff it to define its niche a little bit more.

I also accept that I could expecting too much from a tier-2 module going toe-to-toe with tier-3 aircraft. It would be reasonable to expect a player to move on to gatling guns to fight tier-3+ planes.

All in all, though, I still enjoyed my time with this weapon. It's a great concept that meshes with the setting beautify. While I think it is perhaps underpowered, it's limitations made it a fun and interesting weapon to try and work with. There is certainly nothing else like it at it's tier vanilla or otherwise. As someone who loves starting long conquest games from tier-0, anything that makes the early progression more exciting very much welcome. Great work and thanks again!

Played around with it some more, fought some flying circuses. It got the job done in the end, but there were times when the planes were shredding my ships and the snipers simply couldn't land their shots to stop them.

The thing that makes vanilla rifles and gatling guns really good at what they do is the shear volume of fire. It doesn't matter that most shots miss when enough still hit to whittle down the enemy. The sus sniper has a slower fire rate than cannons and is difficult to deploy en masse, so it could never hope to match them in that respect.

I know you said the idea is that it takes down the troops before they even get close. I haven't been able to try it on anything slower, but I can say with some confidence that the idea doesn't pan out against planes. They close the distance very quickly and are just too darn hard to hit without a million bullets or splash damage.

It's for troops/aircraft then, gotcha. Thank you! I think what I'll try then is throwing a couple on a specialized anti-troop ship for when I meet an empire running them.

As for the range, I can't really comment in terms of balance since I haven't used it for it's actual purpose yet. Although, it does feel a little strange that the purpose-built sniper rifle has a much shorter normal range than the vanilla rifles.

Specifically vs troops the Sus sniper has much higher shot speed compared to rifles and muskets. Combine this with its high range + damage and its able to snipe troops out of the sky before they can reach you.

I think my idea when creating this was to have a low-cost, low-tech alternative to the Sus cannon that would be ideal against smaller targets such as troops (hussars, planes, shrimp, etc.) and lightly armored airships. I'm not sure if I purposefully changed the range from 1800m to 570m in the Compendium, although tell me if it feels a bit short.

I really like the concept of this module, but I'm not sure how best to actually apply it in game. Does anyone have any advice?

I started a conquest run at tier-0 with the compendium mod. Optics was the first tier-2 tech I got to, hoping I could use this in some neat ways. But I can't think of any.

Compared to tier-1 cannons, the only advantage it really seems to have is the range. I thought maybe I could use it to out-range structures, but it doesn't have the damage to pick them apart. It's not great against lighter-armored ships, either, since they just close the distance and negate the range. I haven't tried it out against fighters yet, but I'm not optimistic it will perform much better than a fistful of rifles with how quickly fighters/bombers close the distance.

Am I going about it wrong? How should I use it? (Also, quick aside, the compendium version's module description says it's range is only 570m. Is that a mistake?)

Snipin's a good job mate

very nice