Precision rifle, maybe?

I guess I've always wanted to think of the LR as a sniper. It's also the only way it'd be viable in its current state tbh, though I'd like to see what the devs plan for it in the apparently planned hotfix.

Well, in the past I've always seen the LR as a great, though extremely situational, gank machine. Back in Chromosome you could melt a brick tanked heavy in 3 seconds with a prof. 5 Viziam and 3 damage mods, and you could do so at HUGE ranges once your sharpshooter was leveled up. I remember many hilarious matches with an A-Series assault suit sitting on a spire with an LR in the old ambush bowl map

I'm very interested to see where they take the LR with that hotfix as well, hopefully it doesn't reach Chromo levels, but it would be great to see them be viable again.

What would the Minmatar racial variant of the LR be? Obviously it couldn't be laser based, but it would have to be at it's most effective at a distance to keep within the parameters of the LR. So I thought..... Acid hose? If you hit someone too close to yourself, you catch splash and that makes it at it's best at range. It would also make it have persistent damage though, and would be extremely hard to balance out with resistances and whatnot.... so then I thought.... Flame thrower? Make it a super narrow stream of fire that does little damage at close range, then about 20-30m out have it become something of an AOE cloud about the size of an assault MD blast where it does the most damage (not much damage mind you, but constant damage for as long as you are within the cloud). No persistent damage, since I've yet to see anything on a dropsuit that looks the least bit flammable. It obscures your vision and does constant damage (20hp/sec?), making it a spectacular short/mid range suppression/support weapon.

What do you think the LR racial variants for the different races should be?

Caldari long-range rifle: Sniper Rifle
Amarr long-range rifle: Laser Rifle
Minmatar long-range rifle: Precision Rifle
Gallente long-range rifle: ???

Each race will eventually have their own version of each type of weapon. For instance we're still missing Minmatar and Amarr light AV, Gallente and Amarr heavy weapons, Amarr and Caldari CQC light weapons, etc. The 3 new sidearms coming soon will give each race a pistol, and give us another racial SMG. But eventually you'll be able to play any role using weapons from only one race.

Why are you assuming the Laser is the Amarrian sniper rifle? Its not and doesn't function in a nearly effective manner enough to ever fulfil that hyper long range precision role like the current sniper rifle can.

What would the Minmatar racial variant of the LR be? Obviously it couldn't be laser based, but it would have to be at it's most effective at a distance to keep within the parameters of the LR. So I thought..... Acid hose? If you hit someone too close to yourself, you catch splash and that makes it at it's best at range. It would also make it have persistent damage though, and would be extremely hard to balance out with resistances and whatnot.... so then I thought.... Flame thrower? Make it a super narrow stream of fire that does little damage at close range, then about 20-30m out have it become something of an AOE cloud about the size of an assault MD blast where it does the most damage (not much damage mind you, but constant damage for as long as you are within the cloud). No persistent damage, since I've yet to see anything on a dropsuit that looks the least bit flammable. It obscures your vision and does constant damage (20hp/sec?), making it a spectacular short/mid range suppression/support weapon.

What do you think the LR racial variants for the different races should be?