Harven wrote:1 per team would cause fights... "No I want to be the sniper." "No me!"
I'll use the sniper rifle when the bullet acts like a real bullet.. I'm assuming the scope should be somewhat calibrated.. but not for 10 meters.. You zoom in fire at a guy laying prone (you are above him) he's 60 meters away.. you can see the bullets hitting the ground 3 feet away from him all over.. come on.. properly adjusted rifles just don't do that unless your are jumping up and down while firing...
How about this.. someone said we should be able to adjust the scope depending on range and wind(how can we tell?) ... how about you look at a particular area.. you hit a single key.. the calibrate key.. 5 seconds or less and the scope is set up for the distance you your point at when you hit the button.. how about that? It would mean the snipers would have to take their time and be sneaky.. Otherwise they would get caught with their pants down.. like they do now!

... But with a small amount of hope.
So, I mentioned this in the early stage of this thread. Just trying to summarize things again about sniper rifles, which nobody repied, but would be really important:
1. Sniper rifles should be very accurate weapons. Period.
2. "Accuracy" means the bullet should go to the very middle of the crosshair, IF THE SCOPE OF THE RIFLE IS CALIBRATED for the given distance!
3. The're is a definitely need for calibrating the scope, but I suggest that this could be done by utilitzing additional binoculars with range finder (spotting scope). The binoc can work the same way, that the APC-s and MBT-s range finder: simply prints out the target's distance instantly. AFTER the sniper checked out the distance, he has to choose back to the rifle, and press a button one or more times for setting the range "zone". This can be done as defining more than 2 different "firemodes" for the sniper rifle, and can be designated at the "firemode" indicator in the lower right corner. There can be "1-2-3-4-5" for the different ranges. Experienced snipers can even eliminate the need of the rangefinder, they can guess the range correctly. By the way a "spotting scope" would be a MUST for the snipers anyway.
4. With the so accurate weapon there's a certain need to make the aim of the rifle MUCH more difficult to eliminate the "killerbot" effect of the sniper, and give him much more a support role. That's where I suggested the rifle "wave" technique, which can be suppressed for the time of the aiming by pressing AND HOLDING an "AIM" key during the aim, AND THE SHOT!

If you don't press the aim key, then the accuracy would be horrible. The time for the aim can be limited to a maximum of 5 seconds (i.e. holding your breath), which can be done the same way as the "RUN" indicator in the lower left corner. After you start pressing and holding the "AIM" key, the indicator (can be the same as for the "run") starts to decrease, and the wave of the rifle became much less. After the indicator reaches zero, the wave would be more than normal, and off course it'll need a certain time to "reload" the indicator for the next accurate shot.
5. The sniper rifles in the current version (at least in Vanilla BF2) works in that way, that the position of the player (standing, crouching, proning) won't affect the accuracy of the shot.

This could be definitely changed, so the position could affect the "wave" of the rifle very much.
6. As someone mentioned the sniper can be spot very easily because of the sound of his rifle.
Let me quote from a website related to military firearm suppressors:
"Military snipers can expect to be subjected to intense mortar or artillery fire should their location be inadvertently revealed. The suppressor could be the most important piece of "camouflage" used by a sniper team. The suppressor camouflages the rifle shot by almost eliminating muzzle flash and blast that can give away a sniper's location. Proper positioning of the shooter to cause the bullet to pass close by one or more hard objects can add to the enemy's confusion as the muffled shot will be veiled by the sonic crack which will seem to come from multiple locations as a result of it bouncing off hard objects."
and another pick:
"Even when firing full power loads supersonically, a suppressor….so dramatically reduces a sniper's sound signature that I think ultimately we are going to see suppressors on all sniper rifles."
-- Major John Plaster - Advanced Ultimate Sniper video
So, as these people suggest we should try to apply a suppressor for the sniper rifles as well.
7. If all of the suggestions I mentioned above can be applyed, then there's no need for limiting the number of sniper players per team, because only those people will try to be a sniper who can live with those difficulties. And I'm sure that a sniper of a team won't be able to be ot the top of the score table, but can play very important support role from a certain distance.
8. IRL the snipers're used for eliminating VERY IMPORTANT TARGETS
ONLY. They're not wasted for killing a single soldier. But for killing a squad leader, or even the commander can be very useful. If you kill the squad leader, then the squad will loose it's mobile spawn point at the important location. The only problem how can you distinguish the squad leader from the rest of the squad?! I think that could be some kind of distinguishing feature of the commander and the squad leaders (i.e. slightly different color of the helmet). What about that?
That's all folks for now, I'm looking for your opinion about these suggestions!