Hey everyone!
First time on the forums on here, sooooo I was wondering if anyone
had any sniper gear/weps advice to share with me and others that view this
page. At the moment I have the Anti-Material Rifle and might I say it works
very swell, just wondering if anyone had a better suggestion on gear I could
retrieve.

If so just hit me up with a few tips, and I had also wondered is there black ranger gear?
I thought I seen some before but never thought to kill one to get some.
If so let me know! Thanks fellow Valterians! aha!

Wolf.

Hello! I play a sniper and there are several good weapons, however they are quite rare and sniper rifles in particular lose condition quickly so it's a good idea to be able to make weapon repair kits if you plan on a sniper build, because keeping weapons in good condition is going to be tricky/expensive if you can't make kits yourself.

I tend to carry with me at least 2 from the following list:
Gobi Campaign Sniper Rifle (unique sniper rifle)
Sniper Rifle + suppressor (for when you don't want to alert a whole mob of deathclaws with your first shot!)
Anti material rifle (ammo not that easy to come by)
Gauss Rifle (a scoped energy weapon)
YCS/186 (unique gauss rifle)

Definitely aim (and take the hand loader perk just so you get every ammo option at the reloading bench) to make your own ammo, because you can't buy some of the best ammo available, you have to make it yourself.

My personal favourite is the YCS/186, with max charge microfusion cells it does an insane amount of damage, but iirc you can only get it if you didn't take the Wild Wasteland trait

well if you are a guns user. I like a suppresed sniper rifle. If are using guns such as the sniper and AM rifle than you want to have a good repair so that you can make your own bullets and get jury rigging s you can repair the sniper Rifle with a service rifle that is easier to find.

Jury Rigging is a must, as is Hand Loading.

Frankly, I have found the AM rifle to be a disappointment. The damage of the sniper rifles with JSP is as good, and their ROF is better. Then add the
weight and the AM gets left in the footlocker in the Lucky 38. Also, surprised to find the Hunting Shotgun with slugs a good medium ranged sniping weapon.

The Van whoever (Energy weapon merchants) combat armor is black.

Jury Rigging is a must. Absolute must. You can use it to repair your sniper rifles with any similar weapon, you can scrounge (though, to be honest, I've found that you generally need to find weapons such as light machine guns or assault carbines, I think. Not 100% sure, but keep that in mind.

I missed out on Hand Loading, but from what I hear, it's can be a godsend.

I have the YCS/186, the AMR, the Gobi Campaign Sniper Rifle, a hunting rifle with scope and a standard sniper rifle with silencer and carbon fiber parts. To be honest, I use the Gobi and the standard sniper rifle the most. The ammo is cheaper and more plentiful, and thanks to their high damage and rate of fire, they match up pretty well with the AMR.

You can easily take down Deathclaws and Cazadores with one or two well placed shots with the sniper rifles.

.308 JSP is so ridiculously overpowered. The basic .308 round is apparently a FMJ "ball" bullet, and the JSP should have similar benefits to hollow points; damage bonus at the cost of enemy DT scaling disproportionately. It makes no sense at all that a jacketed soft point (which is specifically designed to NOT pierce very well) does flat-out more damage than a basic military-style FMJ bullet.

You'll want 3 rifles IMO

Gobi-general purpose combat
Silenced Sniper-picking people off without them coming after you
Anti-Material-rare occasions for things Sniper cannot 1-shot but AM can.

You'll definitely want as much luck as possible, the 5% crit perk, the 50% crit damage perk and Boone's hat, since the Sniper Rifle and the Gobi quintuple your base crit chance (allowing for 100% critrate at 10 luck, making the Gobi/sniper absolute beasts using hipfire).

Hand-loader is pretty disgustingly good since it's 50% dmg on Sniper Rifle shots and 15% dmg on the AM shots. The 15% dmg on the AM shots is a significant difference since I found I couldn't 1 shot Deathclaws (on Very Hard) with the AM without the Hand-loader ammo (alternatively I could have used Psycho though).

I don't think Jury Rigging is a must. 50 repair for Weapon Repair kits at least though, that is required. But Jury Rigging is mostly useful for Armor: you don't find many weapons that repair Sniper Rifles. The AM rifle becomes EXTREMELY cheap to repair, that is true, but if you're going for the best possible results the Gobi/Sniper will see much more use.

The above posters hit the nail on the head. If going guns, I would say getting a suppressed sniper rifle quickly. I got the AM rifle but find myself not using it all that much because the suppressed SR is just so much more flexible. Especially if you have go into vats (last ditch imo). Hand loader and jury rigger also helps out TONS.

My gear set up is a little light so I stay quiet as much as possible.
I use http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Wasteland_Wanderer_Outfit, and

I have terrible DT, but I rarely get hit seeing as I am the last thing they never see.

I pretty much stick with the Suppressed Sniper Rifle.
Once you've got it fully modified, the Gobi really has nothing over it. I'm not that keen on the AM Rifle since the sonic boom pretty much tells everything in a 100 miles exactly where you are. LOL! Otherwise, I just carry a Riot Shotgun, This Machine and a modded 10mm Pistol and SMG.

I absolutely agree with the others that the Jury Rigging perk is a must have. It's either that or, like Epona said, learn to make repair kits. One thing about Jury Rigging, though ... stay alert when doing repairs! Once you have that perk, you will be amazed at what can fix what and it's easy to accidently use something you want to keep.

As for ammo, I've never had a problem finding tons of .308 around. Between scavenging and all the merchants in the game, I've not had a problem and that's even when I use This Machine as my medium range weapon. With the .50 AMR rounds, it seems to me (and I could be totally wrong) that the game will have plenty of either that or 12.7mm but not both. In my game, the key merchants seem to always have some .50 ammo but never 12.7mm. In my boyfriend's game, he can never seem to find enough .50 but Gun Runners has 12.7mm every three days like clockwork. Drives me bonkers since I love the 12.7mm Pistol with Silencer.

The black NCR Veteran Ranger armor becomes very plentiful once you hit a certain point in the story, no matter which faction you're supporting. I have yet to see it in a container so if you want it I'm afraid you'll have to ... errr ... help one of the Rangers suffer a mishap. I wanted it for Boone so I just went to one of the Ranger Stations (Alpha, I think) and backed way off and sniped her for it. As long as you're far enough away and can one-shot kill the Ranger (I used AP ammo) then your rep with the NCR should be fine.

Personally, I use the Chinese Stealth Armor with the Combat Helmet Reinforced Mk. 2.
That way, I can just tag Sneak at the start and pretty much forget about it, dropping stray points in to it every so often. What my character gives up in DT (it's 19 combined) is more than compensated with the +5 to Sneak and having Boone with the All American as my companion.

So, yeah, I doubt mine is hardly the "perfect" sniper character but I get by really well.
:)

What does that have to do with being sneaky/stealthy? O.o

Also surprised nobody has mentioned Ratslayer, it's easy to get early in the game, and can do some decent damage with a sneak critical.

I generally carry either the Gobi or a fully modded Sniper Rifle, a Hunting Revolver, and a Marksman Carbine. Dinner Bell + slugs if I feel like having fun...

As a side note, I didn't take Jurry Rigging as a perk, I take everything to the Outpost in the SW corner of the map and actually pay for all my repairs, I like to think it keeps me from getting way too many caps....

[quote name='Skurgebane' date='12 November 2010 - 12:29 PM' timestamp='1289582985' post='16670440']
What does that have to do with being sneaky/stealthy? O.o

=D Aesthetics...because looking cool while getting the pink mist is the bee's knees.

At level 30 with gun skill at 100 I just use the sniper rifle with suppressor and carbon fiber stock and hand load. From sneak it one hit kills everything including Lanius and Deathclaw Mothers at normal difficulty. Earlier in the game with same rifle and standard ammo Deathclaws would take a few shots if I missed their head. I have 8 luck and the critical chance perk so the 2nd or 3rd follow up shot is usually critical and kills them. I always try to take first shot in sneak for auto critical.

For armor I just use the Bounty Hunter coat. My sneak skill is 60.

Nice!
I can support that! :tops:

Sniper rifle and My/Veronica/Oasis robes wins everytime.

Funny that you actually know what a JSP round is, but you don't know why it increases damage :laugh:. The damage increase is supposed to represent the expansion of the round in the target, which causes more bodily damage. I can see why it's weird though, as it doesn't modify the force/speed of the round at all, but that's how it's supposed to work.

Yup, put all that energy into the body cavity instead of going through it. Now if the varmint rifle could only shoot Nosler ballistic tips.

He is talking about the soft point wouldn't penetrate as well as the standard steel core bullet. Of course, the NV .308JSP may have steel core.....

Recon Armor + Recon Helmet or Hei Gui Stealth Suit

-Gobi Campaign Rifle
-Anti-Material Rifle
-DKS-501 Sniper Rifle with Silencer and Carbon Fiber Kit
-.308 JSP, well worth taking Hand Loader.
-.357 JFP
-.44 SWC
-.50 BMG AP or INC
-9mm +P
-Scoped Hunting Rifle with Mod Bolt and Scope
-La Longue Carbiner-Good luck getting it from the Corporal...
-Gauss Rifle/YZ186
-Scoped 9mm with Extended Mags
-Scoped .44 Magnum

ha you wimps real snipers use varmint rifle and doesn't afraid of anything.
:P

Beginning levels:
Varmit Rifle - The iron sights are still the easiest to aim with on this gun by the end of the game, IMO. If you get lucky, you can pick up the mods as early as Goodsprings. Fully modded Varmit Rifle is an early level snipers dream.

Low-Mid levels:
Ratslayer - It's exactly like a fully modded varmit rifle only it looks cooler and does more damage.

That's really it, besides the obvious choice: Sniper Rifle. I'm on very hard and I've yet to find anything that I've needed the anti-materiel rifle for. The Sniper gets the job done. And the Gobi Scout Rifle is inferior, IMO. It barely does more damage, and isn't silenced. A full modded sniper even weighs less. The only benefit the Gobi has over the Sniper is it's easier to maintain, but Jury Rigging makes that benefit trivial. Considering the Gobi uses the same ammo as the Sniper Rifle, I see little reason to carry it around other than aesthetics.

As for what to use when you're not sneaking and sniping, and a little more up close and personal, I favor the Marksman Carbine, and it's named version "All American" when you can get them. I usually equip AP ammo and tear up anything that gets past my sniping. I also make Boone carry around the Riot Shotgun and I keep some bean bag ammo ready for emergencies. (Riot Shotgun and beanbags are an autocorrect button for forgetting to sneak around deathclaw territory).

Dont forget Rtslayer and the All American for ower level enemies you dont want to waste 308. or 50. ammo on.

Ammo and repair kits are very important. I use the Anti- M. It sweeps the strip of enemies.
As a close range weapon, a shotgun recommended. Marksman Carbine is a must have when low on sniper ammo.

N/T

For taking out lower level trash I go closer in and use a modded (mags/laser/silencer) 10mm with JHP. Besides it looks so cool with the laser pointer!

Also, Bloody Mess adds like 5% to damage. I think I started with 4 eyes and Bloody mess.

Also, at lower levels where you can't one shot, technique is awesome.

For example, target has a long arm and is firing. In vats, target right arm (maybe twice) then leg and head. They will drop their weapon, and stumble with the leg hit, then plink away at the head. So, you have decreased or stopped the incoming fire, and saved some of their ammo to pick up when you loot.

Suppressed sniper rifle is probably the best all-around weapon for a sniper.
I used a suppressed and scoped varmint rifle until I got the sniper one.
You could run around naked if you wanted since nothing should ever get close to you and putting much into sneak skill is only useful for indoors or trying to get sneak crits with automatic weapons.
If you have trigger discipline and use an AMR it's faster to swap to a sniper rifle after your first shot than to chamber the next round.
Handloaded ammo is a must.
I like to take rex and boone since I am so far away when I kill things that I sometimes have trouble finding the corpses.