That is a horrible place to be, as a sniper.
Its centralized location, relatively high position to the map itself, and low clearance (distance from pipeline to ground) make it one of the best placed for Drop Up-Link deployment. This results in many people focusing their attention there, while being in range of nearly every weapon, as people try to make their way there themselves for it's team-oriented benefits. Laser Rifles and Scrambler Rifles are better suited for that position than the Sniper Rifle.

Fracture Road (thanks for the name) lacks any common path. The map itself is so large and spread apart that it necessitates the use of vehicles. The map constantly has the vehicle quota reached. The hit-detection while in LAVs is still pitiful. So much of their body is exposed, yet so little can actually take damage. While Dropships protect their cargo by flying with the nose or aft facing a sniper.

I'm no stranger to Combat Sniping (the act of sniping from within AR range), that was my bread and butter of Ambush in Beta. Ashland was very good for this. Skirmish point "A" and the catwalk for the pipelines. There were many good spots on that map, all within the range of an HMG (with Sharp-Shooter). Line Harvest as well. From the table-top itself to many positions on the ground around it.

These new maps have no such area where people need to travel, except the vast distances between each multi-layered installation. And there are a great deal of different paths you can take, typically staying in cover. Until a single head-shot from a Tactical Sniper Rifle can kill a suit of the same tier, the Sniper Rifle will never be an area-denial weapon again. The new design philosophy of "no long range access" to null cannons means it can't be a point defense either.

The most tactically advantageous point on each of the new maps would be on top of those turbines... only they cause damage to anyone atop of them.

Much like the HMG needs a bottleneck in close quarters to maximize its defensive capabilities, the sniper rifle needs a bottleneck on open terrain.

maths.

Ishukone Sniper Rifle: 229.5 base damage. proficiency 5, +15%. 5 complex damage mods +31.34%, head-shot bonus +75%

229.5*1.15= 263.925 * 1.3134 = 346.369 * 1.75 = 606.6 damage

In PC, the charge time on the Charged Sniper Rifle is just too long. Doing point defense or area denial just isn't viable with it. it can get a bunch of kills in pub matches, but that's because most people aren't running full proto. Though it can do a lot of damage, requiring it to be a head-shot to kill is a bit ludicrous. The tiny bumps in on most of the maps make that precision very hard, and if people know a sniper is out there then they will dance around and not just travel in a perfectly straight line.

321.86 is the Charge's base
max possible damage to Head-shot is 850


and 355.3 for the Thales... so 939. But that really shouldn;t be taken into consideration when talking about balance. it is drastically underpowered compared to the bonuses that the Balac's the Krin's, or the Gastuns' give to their weapons
Nor should damage modifiers be used to balance the weapon. You don;t hear people screaming that the 'Exile' and 'Toxin' ARs are over powered because you can stack damage mods on suits with those. it is only when talking about sniper people cry out about Damage Modifiers (and Ishukone Breach Forge Gun :/ ) being unfair and being too high. I should be able to use a sniper rifle on a Gallente Scout (single high slot) just as well as on a Caldari Assault suit (4 high slots), or many favored Amarr Logistics suits (3 highs).

The charge Sniper Rifle needs to have a base damage ranging from 400 to 450. The whole point of sacrificing Rate of Fire is to do massive amounts of damage. Which is the amount it does currently with damage mods and high proficiency.

The Ishukone and Kaalakiota similarly need that boost in raw damage output. so around 335-350 for the Ishukone and 275-300 for the Kaalakiota. A buff to the ADV variants to bring them into the middle of current STD vaules (which are good for STD weapons) and modified proto values.

As well as a return to the original head shot modifier of 195%

EDIT: Scout suit math. Base Shield = 70, Base armor =130. Complex plate = 145. So a Scout couldn't actually take that with 5 damage mods, but they could/did with only a single complex damage modifier. Unless of course, you run 2 armor plates and then you can

The fact, that a single Militia Sniper Rifle can suppress us be damned. How dare we be effective.

. . .


What convinced CCP to go with an anti-sniper level design? What?
It COULD NOT have been the complainers, because you have more people complaining about the Assault Rifle than you do people that complain about Snipers.

I want to know WHAT the snipers did to deserve getting an ENTIRE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY geared against them?

CCP LogicLoop has been responding in this thread, so don't lose hope. Keep the feedback reasoned and constructive.