A "Sniper" class with a "Sharpshooter" skill, huh? Sounds reminiscent of the Sniper tree in the vanilla Sharpshooter class - although your custom classes seem more than capable of replacing the vanilla ones anyway. If you're open to renaming the "Sharpshooter" skill, as unbelievably petty as my comment is, it would really help me sleep at night. :)

Also, I noticed that mods from other people actually add mutiple Guerilla Tactics Schools skills for purchase. Have you considered that for this class? And would it be possible to RESTRICT the player to only buying one GTS skill per class? To use a vanilla class for simplicity, for example, you would have to choose between a skill that gives all your Rangers increased damage on flanking attacks and, say, some concealment upgrade. In this sniper class, maybe you could create two GTS skills which each complement one side of the class' skill tree and force players to choose what general style they want their Snipers to have in each playthrough.

Maybe GTS skill 1 and GTS skill 2 could both have a cost of 75 Supplies and... 1 Legendary Super Special Item. This Legendary Super Special Item can only be acquired once per playthrough as an automatic reward for building the GTS - which means you can only buy one of the two available Sniper skills in the GTS. Is that a lot of work? I don't know if you're interested in putting that much effort into it, but it's just an idea that can maybe be helpful to someone in the future. :)

Hey, Metal, thanks for the feedback.

I did get a laugh over naming that perk. I actually couldn't think up a more fitting name for it, and then when I was reviewing the Long War perk trees I realized that it was very similar in function to an ability from their Sniper class which was also called Sharpshooter. Making that connection reinforced my decision to stick with the name Sharpshooter for the perk; I don't see myself changing it at this point unless some divine inspiration strikes me.

I'm actually not looking to force the player to make any further choice over the role of the Sniper. The perks are already designed to reinforce the different playstyles, but the core functionality was intentionally designed to remove the classic Squadsight/Snapshot restriction that prevented individual Snipers from switching between the two modes of operation for the class. The tradeoff is the 1-turn investment in making the role transition, as well as the additional specialization in the perk tree that makes any given Sniper better at one role over another Sniper.

Luc, your soldier mods are bar none the best around, here on steam or Nexus. The perk trees show an obvious careful consideration of tactics and strategy while still being fun and unique- yet avoiding the excesses of so many other Mod classes. Can't wait to try the sniper- I'll be back in a few days to give ya notes!

Keep it up!!

Some testing feedback. First thing I looked at was can I run this class with the sharpshooter. With the pistol marksman tree definately. With the sniper side they are different sorts of snipers. I see this as similar to how I ran my scouts in Longwar I almost always had a sniper and a marksmanship rifle scout with a squad sight marksman scope.

That said with the exception of kill zone the trees are fairly similar serial vs in the zone, dead eye (modded to not suck) vs precision shot, relocation vs death from above, steady hands vs zero in. The similarities are rational and in the field the base mechanics make enough of a difference. You could replace or run both, it really comes down to play style.

Now I see two trees one dedicated to overwatch/movement. I find cover target to be interesting and it builds well with low profile, target leading, sharpshooter (this is a good tier because both skills are equally useful to both playstyles). For this reason I feel like at least target leading should be on the right should be on the right side of the tree, just for thematic sake. In the Zone and Vital Point work equally well for either build as well.

I feel like follow up is the clear winner in that tier. I wonder if relocation would not be well served to have the sniper enter overwatch after the move. One rewards set up and pounding the target and fits well on the left, the other rewards movement and both end up providing the same number of shots.

All in all another solid class I will keep testing it. The snap shot analogue and the set up ability are both nice additions.

Thank you for your feedback, Thaleras. Yes, I didn't end up deviating from the Sharpshooter tree too much for the attacks; it wasn't actually that bad, but it was missing a lot of the flavor and flexibility normally available from other perk options.

I'm glad you find so many of the perk choices to be viable decisions. I see what you mean about Relocation. Here's something I'm going to adjust about the ability for the next update: "The Sniper may Relocate without leaving Set Up."

I don't necessarily need the two abilities, Follow-Up and Relocation, on that tier to be equivalent in the number of attacks, but Relocation should be equally powerful in logistics. How does that sound to you as a way of improving that perk choice?

I rolled "In the Zone" on a specailist through the AWC and found that the free action only procted on kill (of an exposed target) if I had not moved the unit prior to firing. Is this intended behavior?

@Lightning Thats the default behavior of Serial as well, so its probably copying that code

Hey, LightningKilo, thanks for your report. No, that's not intended behavior (and no, I didn't just copy Serial). I'll try to reproduce that tonight.

Reloads should be free when you're set up. It ruins gameplay when you lose an entire round to reload.

Interesting point, Epic Boss Fight. I've had some similar thoughts in the past. This would be a pain with sniping on the Sharphooter as well, though, wouldn't it? In any case, luckily there is a weapon mod for that.

That is a solid change. I know there have been times where I would have really liked to be in set up still but had to move to fire. I had a Haven defense mission with a sniper and sharpshooter (pistol) together and it was a very flexible combo. I could hit things across the map and move to reset up on reinforcements.

I like the idea behind your class, but I think it would be better if it was altered to be two types of sniper: one that doesn't miss and has good mobility and utility and one that focuses on raw damage output. To that end I've created the following skill-tree inspired by and mostly consisting of your sniper class:

Marksman
You can fire sniper rifles after you move at an aim penalty of -15. They only require 1 AP to fire, but firing still ends your turn.
Set Up - 1 AP, ends your turn, you gain squadsight and treat low cover as high but lose 4 mobility. Lasts until you move.
You can fire and overwatch with your pistol as a secondary weapon.

1a - Precision Shot - Fire a shot that is guaranteed to hit, 2 turn cooldown, 2ap.
1b - Headshot - Fire a shot that is guaranteed to crit, 2 turn cooldown, 2ap.
-
2a - Steady Weapon - Gain 20 aim on your next shot and it cannot be dodged, 1ap, no cooldown. Works with overwatch.
2b - Zero in - Gain 5 aim and 10 crit while Set Up.
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3a - Reposition - free action, grants 4 bonus mobility, one bonus move and immunity to overwatch/reaction shots for this turn, 3 turn cooldown. Can only be used while Set Up.
3b - Exploit Weakness - Grants 2/3/4 bonus critical damage and 10% chance to crit. Shots from concealment are guaranteed to crit.
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4a - Follow-up - If you miss a shot on a target, take a second shot on that same target as a free action.
4b - Target Leading - Your overwatch shots have +10 aim, Covering Fire and can crit.
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5a - Death From Above - Killing an enemy from a higher elevation while setup refunds all AP.
5b - Sabot Round - Fire a shot that ignores armor and cover, hitting all enemies in a line. Requires 2AP, 2 uses per engagement.

GTS - When you use Set Up, your weapon is reloaded and you gain Concealment.

I'm not good with coding, I've been going through youtube tutorials on modding but it's still a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. If you want to adjust your class mod to the one I've described above, by all means go ahead. If not I may end up making it myself in the future.

Infantry class is cool too, by the by, though a little powerful compared to the vanilla classes. Still a must have on any playthrough, I just found this sniper class somewhat lacking in doing what it was (in my opinion) designed to do.

Thanks for the feedback and ideas, Xenogfan43.

I'm definitely not looking to make such a major change to the ability tree for the Sniper class. It's pretty close to where I want it; mostly I think that just a few individual pains need to be addressed to ensure that perk choices are compelling at the different ranks.

Good luck with your plans to get into modding. :)

Hi, it seems your nexusmods page is not as active as this one when it comes to feedback, so I'll write here again.

I like the idea of Set Up but given my overly aggresive XCom style, I wish it gave you squadsight on the turn you use it. I know you won't make that change to your mod but could you possibly teach me how to do it myself to my version?

I've never modded before, only modified ini files, so if it's too much trouble I'll understand.

If you feel there's a guide on the web from which I could learn to do it myself, you could link me to it too.

I love your infantry class, though. My best ranger got Fire For Effect as AWC perk. She went nuts with her shotgun and talon rounds :)

Hey Lucubration, I've been playing with the Sniper for a good while now (30 missions or so) and I've got some feedback on the perk tree/balance.

In my opinion (of course), The first three levels are pretty well balanced. While it doesn't fit how I'd use the sniper, the idea of a sneaky mobile marksman (Operator tree) definitely works. But things get a little more clear-cut past that.

Follow-Up. This skill is basically Double Tap, except you can't shoot two targets. This is insane at this rank. I'm not sure the slight nerf in use cases makes up for the buff in uptime and availability (Double Tap being a Colonel-level ability and having a cooldown).

Follow-Up is versus Relocation, which is in itself a pretty awesome skill... if it wasn't up against such ridiculousness.

Moving on to Sharpshooter vs Sabot Round. This one is pretty obvious IMO. SS is a situational +20 aim modifier... and Sabot Round is a guaranteed AOE, +4/6 armor penetration, Follow-Up trigger. And finally, VPT vs fan favorite ITZ. This one is little more interesting, since your VPT gives +4/6 damage instead of a situational +2. But by this point, single-target damage is already through the roof with Precision Shot -> Follow Up, so VPT is kinda unnecessary.

I'd try to fix this by simply moving Follow-Up to Colonel and shifting the other Marksman perks down the line. To buff Follow-Up to compensate, you could perhaps give it an Aim/Crit buff (to balance out the loss of Zero In) or maybe even allow it to proc off of every target hit by Sabot Round.

Thanks for reading!