Sniper ships....

[RCIX]

What are they good for?

[eRe4s3r]

Filling the screen with bullets that do no damage  

My in-game snipers (and i have all of them) have... 0 kills.. lol (the problem is when i re-target my fleet, so do the snipers, and thus the ships they damaged are now being instantly repaired by engineers...)

By the way, just so you get the scope of useless, i have 30740 kills in this game - and k/d ratio of 49% (so i lost 15000)

The ships that died most often and without fail, are always snipers (followed by paralyzers ;p) the ships they killed, are without fail also always near 0. But unlike paralyzers (which i find immensely useful) i have no idea what snipers are supposed to do.

[RCIX]

The turrets aren't so bad (very good at hammering stragglers), but the ships i am confused about. the only thing i can see is that they are cheaper and mobile, which are useless attributes for a sniper mostly.

[FrostyThePyro]

well I guess you could use them to stop something that regenerates or would be repaired, from having that happen.  I guess trying to use the sniper focus fire node may also make them more usefull.  I dont know.

[orzelek]

You should also consider fact that if anything sniper stays on AI planet for some time it will reinforce with anti-snipers and there was your firepower..

[superking]

snipers have their uses, so long as you use the whole population in one system. I tend to put the whole group on a planet I have just cleared out but cant afford the AIP to destroy the com station as a 'peacekeeping force' combined with spider turrets if i am in supply or a dreadnaught if not. 170 odd snipers do a good job of stopping the planet from rebuilding too fast without any need for player intervention.

but yes, one of the weaker units we can all agree

[RCIX]

The big advantage is that they do not cost an exorbitant amount of crystal it seems.

[triggerman602]

Another thing that i see as an advantage is the minimum range. If there target is slower then the sniper and has shorter range, the sniper is able to kite the target indefinitely assuming it does not run into anything else.

[Kryzite]

I dont think they are all that useful on offense.

But they are amazing defending a spoke world or any world with multiple wormholes, esp if you have the entire sniper fleet mark 1-4 attack boosted with a few light starships on one ingress planet world with spider turrets and fortresses. Makes defending a key planet trivial.

[soMe_RandoM]

well I guess you could use them to stop something that regenerates or would be repaired, from having that happen.  I guess trying to use the sniper focus fire node may also make them more usefull.  I dont know.

i use them but they are weak to shoot at other sniper turrets that are on the system that arnt under anti sniper turrets. once the sniper turrets gone i start setting up a beach head with yust 1 over key area. once every thing is cleared including anti snipa then yust sit them thier as they are quite large force and could be alarming to the ai thus making them reinforce the planet when you yust gaurding it with you snipas also sned snipas into deep space so when the offencive forces get destroyed then yust keep them there or use node to concentrate fire

[TheStratovarian]

Id like to offer, they are, especially if you attack boost them (any big starship really helps, and the more the merrier), fortress killers (my favorite use for them!) if it doesn't have a counter sniper nearby. I've been able to use sniper ships (the full amount of tech 1-4) to in 2 volleys, drop a mark 2 and mark 3 fortress with minimal losses. (and a translocator helps if you have one to force it beyond its firing range and wormhole slide in fire, and jump them back out.) I lost maybe 12 snipers (as didn't see it had fired, taking nearly 30 seconds to reach them after it died firing, compared to 200-400 ships i would have trying to get it out of the protections it had (heavy beam cannons, flak, and others, given it was a tech 3 world)

I have noted they love to target shielded craft, making the riot starships a great way to soak up a volley to evac your snipers from the slaughter a fort can do. Move in snipers last, after a gate is clear, have them volley, pull them back out of the way, because i never lead in with the snipers, but bigger ships, the ai loves to toss in the arachnid startship killers, over a counter deployable. The longer you keep your own sniper fleet on your world, but drop in to use them for a volley, the better it goes.

At the same time, beware to heck and back if the ai is favoring teleport craft, it will, if they are on planet, zero in immediately on a chance to kill a few of them. (even if its going to lose 20-40 battlestations to kill 5 snipers.)

Raw damage, for sniper volleys, from tier 1-4 is a little over 1 million, a quick search, and you can boost to 5x, and 5 million points of damage every 60 seconds to a target that cant be healed, is staggering. Level 2 forts, drop, in a single volley, a minute, and you can kill a level on the second. you want to focus fire with snipers, if you want something to die now. Its hard to compare, but never lead in with them, since the ai has yet to remotely start building them with the way of sending them in afterwards, and pulling them out again.

[superking]

perhaps they should receive some kind of ker-razy damage bonuses

[Fox Soul]

Whenever I get sniper ships I use them like regular turrets but as the front line moves up so do they.
But if I ever have a build up of disabled ships in a system I tend to send them there to help remove the mess. Such as 1000 battle frigates.