u/krinkov

Since some people were confused of what this actually does compared to the long suppressor, the hybrid suppressors all incorporate the overall recoil reduction of the muzzle brakes which is a bit different than the long/lightened suppressors that improve recoil buildup/recovery. So all the hybrid suppressors incorporate the recoil buffs of both a muzzle brake and the long/light suppressors and seeing as the cheapest Hybrid is only 5pts more than the long, its a pretty good value for anyone thats trying to maximize recoil improvement. I only added the 30pt hybrid-L suppressor in this since the other 2 hybrids don't further reduce recoil and their points cost is tied into other buffs like hipfire/sway/sprint recovery so the recoil results should be the same. ADS test was done at 20m using a VCR with 40rd mag.

Went over the specs on this yesterday, I was off on a couple details but to sum up: it has the highest max damage at 150, but the trade off is no ADS bolt, slowest ROF, slowest ADS, slowest reload, lowest carried ammo (36), lowest base mobility and lowest base control of any other sniper.

The upside though is unlike other snipers that need a chest shot in their sweetspot range for a one-shot kill, with its higher max damage the interdictor is a one-shot sweetspot kill to any part of the body, that range being 120-150m. Outside of that though, the higher max damage surprisingly doesn't mean higher damage anywhere else. It does the exact same damage as all the other 100 damage snipers (80 body/54 limb). They're also apparently not doing anything different for the ballistics of this new cartridge compared to the other 100 damage snipers as far as drag/drop are concerned. I tested it in the ZN5YC sniper range with its other closest velocity 100 damage Sniper the L115 (L115 927m/s , Interdictor 915m/s) and at the 550m target they both landed at identical 1.3 seconds.

Also this thing is very back-loaded for important mods. Long range ammo doesn't come in till lvl33. Range finder at lvl38, and the only suppressor doesn't even unlock until lvl39!

So overall, this is going to be a very niche sniper choice. They stacked a ton of nerfs into it and the only real buff it has is its sweetspot hits in a 30m window are all 1-shot, and not just chest shots. So I suppose theres definitely a place for this, I played a lot of breakthrough with it today as I usually do to level up guns and theres a couple spots like the roof above A objective on Empire, Lib Peak on attack to B obj, Bazaar shooting down into that big C chokepoint, where if you know your ranges and position yourself in the exact right spot then basically every time you pull the trigger and hit its a kill and its almost comical. Outside of that though, I can't see me running this too much on a conquest or escalation map where you really don't control your engagement distances like you can in BT, because really this whole gun is built entirely around its 30m sweetspot and outside of that its objectively just the worst one to use for any other situation. I do like having quirky niche guns though that you can just build a very situational playstyle around so Im glad its in the game. Would be great though if they did a little something for this to buff it to make up for how many nerfs it brings along. Like instead of that max damage number it also did a bit more base damage, or maybe made it so this new caliber had less drag/flatter trajectory than the others to lean into its whole long range angle. But how are you all liking it so far, I want to hear if anyone is having better luck with it or playing it a different way?

Anyhow, heres my build for it. Since theres no ADS bolt I definitely wanted to run an ADS grip and both fast mag and mag catch, anything you can do to increase the ROF on this is mandatory. And yes running the range-finder, this is just not going to be a sniper you want to run close with these specs, you will get wrecked 😄

Looks like we're getting 3 new "Hybrid" suppressors that appear to combine some or all of the buffs from all the suppressors and even the muzzle brakes depending on the which goes up to 50 points for the most expensive one(!!)

Also the "Canted Vertical" that will be available for LMGs only.

And then the new Interdictor long range snipers, and i do have some concerns with this.

The Good
highest damage of any sniper at 150 base damage

The Not-So-Good

Slowest ROF

Slowest ADS

Slowest reload

no ADS bolt

mid velocity.

So yeah theres basically a lot of built in nerfs to this gun for the higher base damage, even though it does the exact same damage at every range as all the other 100 damage snipers, that being 80 chest damage and 54 limb damage.

Looks like we're getting 3 new "Hybrid" suppressors that appear to combine some or all of the buffs from all the suppressors and even the muzzle brakes depending on the which goes up to 50 points for the most expensive one(!!)

Also the "Canted Vertical" that will be available for LMGs only.

And then the new Interdictor long range snipers, and i do have some concerns with this.

The Good
highest damage of any sniper at 150 base damage

The Not-So-Good

Slowest ROF

Slowest ADS

Slowest reload

no ADS bolt

mid velocity.

So yeah theres basically a lot of built in nerfs to this gun for the higher base damage, even though it does the exact same damage at every range as all the other 100 damage snipers, that being 80 chest damage and 54 limb damage.

I had noticed that while using the server browser you get more results simply by applying the filters twice. In the video you can see even without searching for anything specifically and only setting the free spots to "any", when I hit apply filters I only get about half as many populated server results than when I go back into filters and hit "apply filters" again, even without changing any other settings. Ive repeated these results several times over several days and the same thing happens when I actually use a term in search bar like "hardcore" for example. I've seen a lot of complaints from people about Portal in general saying that even when they use the search/filter function they hardly get any populated servers coming up, seeing if anyone else noticed this and if not give it a shot and see if you get the same results. Definitely something that needs fixed seeing that the upcoming main MP server browser looks basically like a port of the Portal server browser.

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion and its my fault for moving too fast in the video but yes, I do have "Free Slots" set to "Any" BOTH times before I hit Apply Filters" but on the second time you get many more populated servers listed.

Not sure why you can't uploads videso to this sub but heres the youtube link

https://youtu.be/q7pZbwkRNns

With as strong as the Little bird is, especially on the new map, I wish I'd see more people taking shots at them instead of just trying to hide. Even if you can't expect to take one down with an AR you can at least chip away at it, and with its new movement nerf it makes it even a bit easier to land some shots before they can flick back at you like before. And if you're serious about it obviously a belt fed LMG is the way to go, but after some testing theres a few surprises that make some better than others.

First off, the basics of the three helis health and LMG damage. The LB has the least health at 700, the attack heli has 1000, and transport heli has 1200. The problem though is all guns do reduced damage to the LB and attack heli and then even less damage to the transport heli. The damage breakdown is:

7.62 LMGS to LB + Attack = 14dmg under 20m - 11dmg under 75m - 9dmg past 75m
7.62 LMGS to transport heli = 7dmg under 20m - 5dmg under 75m - 4dmg past 75m

5.56 LMGS to LB + Attack = 16dmg under 20m - 13dmg under 75m - 11dmg past 75m
5.56 LMGS to transport heli = 8dmg under 20m - 6dmg under 75m - 5dmg past 75m

M250 to LB + Attack = 16dmg all ranges
M250 to transport heli = 8 dmg all ranges

So right off the bat the first odd thing to notice is the 7.62 LMGs all do LESS damage than the 5.56 LMGs. I'm assuming this is a bug but it took all the 7.62 out of consideration for my testing. And in 5.56 the best choice I found was the L110 with 200rd belt since it was far more accurate than the M123K at the ranges you're going to be engaging helis at, but even then the majority of the time it struggles since you're most often engaging helis past 75m, and 75m might seem far enough away when engaging ground targets, but when they're in the air 75m is closer than you think. Which leaves the M250 as hands down the best choice for countering helis with its full damage at all ranges, the only downside being you really need to pay for the hugely expensive 100rd belt to make it effective, it does leave enough points left over though for a heavy/ext barrel, flash comp, and a 10pt optic, this is the setup I ran with a 1.75 ROM.

With this setup you can take down an LB with 45rds, attack helis with 63rd, and don't even bother with transports unless you can see they're already almost destroyed. Was running this setup all last night and was having good luck with it, especially now with LB pilots trying to come to grips with the new flying behavior, you can see in this clip this fellow was kind enough to smash his LB next to me, and even though it wasn't at full health I was able to take him out quickly even with his engineer budy using his repair tool the entire time. Admittedly this isn't the best example but unfortunately it wasn't recording any of my better ones when I thought it was turned on, but it does show how quickly the M250 can put 400+dmg into an LB.

So overall do I think LMGs make effective anti-heli weapons? No, not nearly as good as RPGs, but the M250 with 100rd belt can definitely melt a LB if you catch one under you for just a few seconds, and its actually pretty fun totally surprising and agro'ing some of these pilots that aren't used to worrying about infantry 😄

You've probably noticed (or rather, haven't noticed) that hardly anyone is running grip pods on their builds nowadays. I always make a point to look at the guns and attachments every time Im killed and the amount of times I see a grip pod is around 1-2%, if that. And I don't blame people, you learn pretty quick in this game that with its fast movement and TTK there's not a lot of opportunity to stop and mount up to take shots before you're instantly beamed, though a lot more nowadays, especially after the last weapon patch, I find myself picking my gunfights more strategically, and firing more from cover and flanks than the typical close range run-and-gun of earlier seasons. I'm also leaning more into guns that accell in the midrange and find myself mounting to fire a lot more often, so I decided to have another look at the grip pods that I haven't really touched since season 1.

To cover the basics, theres 3 grip pods in the game that provide the same benefit as less expensive recoil grips, but incorporate the bipods recoil/spread buff while deployed.
The PTT Grip Pod for 20 points that gives the same recoil benefit as the 10 point Folding Vertical
The QD Grip Pod for 30 points that gives the same recoil benefit as the 20 point Alloy Vertical
The Classic Grip Pod for 30 points that gives the same recoil and ADS benefit as the 25 point Full Angled

So right off the bat you can see the first 2 cost 10 points over the recoil only grips for the bipod feature, but the classic grip pod is only 5 points more, so thats the best value and the one I tested with.

I did all my testing with an L110 at 25M and all patterns were the full 100rds. The first thing I wanted to test was the regular standing ADS patterns compared to the ADS patterns while mounted with regular grips compared to mounted with grip pods. The quite surprising thing I found out is there is NO noticeable recoil/spread benefit from mounting with any other grips. Yes, seriously, I was getting the exact same spread patterns with ALL the grips I tested weather standing or mounted. I tested at least half the grips, tested with no grip at all, and even tested it with a couple other guns to see if the L110 was bugged for some reason but no, theres just no advantage at all to using the mount ability with anything other than a bipod/grip pod and I wish I knew this sooner for all the times I used this function up till now. There is notably a bit less sway, which I suppose would come in handy for a sniper/DMR, but for any automatic weapon it really serves no purpose.

You can see the results with the grip pod mounts are quite dramatic though, honestly better than I was expecting. So Ive been running the Classic on a few different LMGs and ARs in games since yesterday testing it out and just getting used to mounting before firing as much as possible. For that there are a couple of control settings that really help out to mount quicker AND get out of the mount quicker. In settings go under your mouse+keyboard or controller settings > Infantry > Control Settings > scroll down to "Other" you'll have a couple options here for mounted behavior. First one is "mount breakout" and you want to set this to "instant" so you can immediately break out of a mount by pressing any movement key so you can move as soon as you start taking fire. The second is for mount deployment, and personally I just have it set to ADS so that anytime I ADS if Im in a position where mounting is available it will do it automatically and saves time having to hit a separate mount button.

Overall Ive been having a lot of luck with the grip pod now that Im getting more used to them. They're still not going to be for everyone, all you SMG/carbine guys and blue/violet laser enthusiast that like to constantly strafe-fire its probably not going to be for you, but for LMGs and midrange ARs it really does make a huge difference once you learn to get into and out of a mounted position quickly. Let me know what you guys think, is anyone here using grip pods on their builds? Also if theres any other details on grip pods I missed.

Some of you have probably already noticed how a lot of what should have been easy headshots with the VSSM sometimes go sailing right over their heads, heres a video example of whats going on. The base zero for the VSSM, like all other DMRs/Snipers is 100m. Not a big deal for those others since even zeroed at 100 they fire flat enough that you'll hit anything you put your crosshairs on under 100m. But with the VSSMs ultra low velocity and high drag, theres a noticeable arc just to get it to 100m. Not a big problem up close or closer to 100m, but those headshots right in the middle from around 35-65m can arc right over if you aim at the forehead. Bit of a problem for the VSSM since its HS damage is its biggest strength so you'll want to aim a bit lower in those ranges.

...is 3.35 seconds, just had to see for myself. At least the VSSM holds its last 50m damage drop off all the way out to 500m so a headshot is still 37dmg and a regular body shot is 21dmg. So you'd need to land 3 headshots in a row, so just plan for that 😄

Still working on that second flash assist.

Look, the sooner they know about this, the sooner it gets fixed.

I call it: Run the RPKM in single fire as a DMR instead.
Ok Im half joking but hear me out.

The VSSM has the exact same damage/range profile as RPKM and the RPKM is the only 35 damage gun with access to synthetics to match the VSSMs 1.8X HS multiplier, so with the right attachments (30rd mag, basic or extended barrel, ADS grip) you can get the same ADS and similar stats but you also get

- Actual usable DMR velocity
- 50% bigger mag
- less recoil
-and the big one, it can be switched back to full auto when you need it to be an LMG again

Only real downsides to it is you get the non-subsonic suppressor spotting out to 21m instead of 9m (which you only get on the VSSM with the more expensive suppressor anyways) but again we're now using this as a DMR so sub-20m is not as important. Slower reload, but again you have 50% more ammo, and lower hip-fire, not a real important stat for me in a DMR though. And don't pay attention to the difference in precision, that only applies to the RPKM in full auto, in single fire with its lower recoil the RPKM actually holds tighter groups at 20m than the VSSM. I put this build together as a bit of a joke at first after spending the whole first day with the VSSM trying to level it up, but when I actually took it into matches I was instantly having better luck with it as a DMR than with the VSSM. 😄

So, does the RPKM actually make a decent DMR?
No, absolutely not. With their wonky damage profile and drop off the RPKM and VSSM get out performed by both the least powerful 5.56 DMRs at only 10m and then just get worse past that.
Does the RPKM make a better DMR than the VSSM?
Yes, by all objective comparison, it just does. Thats why I wish I learned earlier what everyone has figured out since then, which is...

My favorite VSSM setup: We have SCW-10 at home.

Yup, the full auto mod turns the VSSM into basically a bit better SCW-10. With the same damage and ROF but with less damage drop off, more HS damage, and bigger starting mag. Here they are setup together as close as possible. The SCW still has better ADS but VSSM has better hipfire, outside of that specs are pretty close and the extra HS damage and less damage drop off are noticeable. Been playing it this way all morning and its been much more enjoyable to use.

Anyhow, these are just my terrible opinions and not actual advice, I just like experimenting with funky builds at this point to see what's more fun than trying to min/max anything. If theres a better setup for the VSSM you've found or just some other stupid/fun build I should try let me know! 😄

After my similar post last night about the VSSM that got quite a bit of colorful comments and concern I figured I'd hold off till today to post the results of the the Brod and EF88 and I can assure you I have touched grass and emptied my bucket 😄

And also these two guns were MUCH more enjoyable to level up compared to the VSSM, in fact they've become two of my favorites in their classes. One small note though thats a little disappointing, both of these headshot multipliers are apparently bugged and they have the old pre-patch lower HS multiplier. I thought it might just be a bug in the menu but no, even in the test range their HS damage pops up lower than other guns, hopefully they get that fixed soon.

BROD 3

Apparently in early Labs testing this one originally had a 771 ROF, not sure why they decided to move it up to match the GRT carbine but it absolutely rips! And I already liked the GRT since it just felt like an M4 with a bit less ROF but much more controllable, so I was expecting the BROD to be nearly identical but it just felt a bit better, sure enough in testing the BROD was able to keep a bit tighter spread grouping than the GRT, not huge but maybe 10% tighter, in fact its almost as good as the QBZ. I do wish though they would have done a bit more for it to differentiate it from the GRT like give it access to the cryo barrel or synthetic ammo, but like the GRT it has neither. Either way though, I'll probably run this one over the GRT and QBZ.

EF88

Unlike the BROD they at least gave this one its own ROF niche almost exactly between the faster B36 and slower L85, so I expected it to also land exactly between those two for its spread pattern but it ended up being much tighter than I expected and a lot close to the L85s. Overall just a great mid-range AR that has no problem running full auto at longer ranges and you hardly need to tap-fire at all except for quite long ranges.

Heres the setups I ended up running the most with them, but post up what builds you're using with these as well how you're liking them so far.

As is my tradition, I took the first day of the season off work to get all the new guns fully unlocked (I'll touch grass tomorrow, I promise) and decided to start off with the one I was looking forward to the most as a DMR fan, the VSSM. After spending the whole morning with it though I'm honestly feeling a bit mixed about it. I did end up having fun with it, but you really can't go into it playing it like a DMR, it really feels closer to just playing a single-fire only NVO or RPKM but with half the velocity. That's because it does the exact same damage as the NVO and RPKM at all ranges and has their same damage drop off, so its already outperformed by even both the 5.56 DMRS after only 10m. Thats fine though, with its subsonic ammo its obviously not meant to be played at range, which is oksy since you will struggle to hit anything moving at 50m with its velocity, but then the problem does come into play that you are operating a DMR in SMG/Carbine ranges most of the time and you will just lose SO many gunfights.

The one saving grace of this gun is it gets synthetic HS damage multiplier for free and you really need to land headshots if youre going to survive gunfights at these ranges. One other interesting mechanic to this gun is even though its subsonic, you don't get the subsonic benefit (9m minimap spotting range) unless you run the more expensive 30pt suppressor, if you run the 20pt supressor you get spotted out to 21m the same as if you were running standard supersonic ammo, which then makes the whole subsonic part of the gun basically useless so you might as well just run the more expensive suppressor.

As for the full auto conversion, I ran that for a bit, and it actually felt like a bit better SCW-10, which makes sense seeing as they're both 35 damage, 800 ROF guns, but the VSSM has less damage drop off, 20rd mag, and gets the synthetic HS multiplier whereas the SCW can only run HP ammo. So if anything they might have just put in the game a DMR thats pretty frustrating at being a DMR but pretty awesome at being an SMG 😄

Heres the build I ended up with, would love to hear from other that have been using it today and what setups are working for you!

BROD 3
Looks like this one has almost identical specs to the GRT carbine, the precision specs are still bugged on this early access preview but I included the specs for the GRT on this screenshot and it looks like it has a bit more precision and a bit less control than the GRT. Overall they look very similar so will be interesting to see if they play any different.

EF88

This one seems to slot perfectly between the B36 and L85 for 5.56 ARs. Again the precision is bugged but if its got near the same precision as the L85 with 40 higher ROF then Im really looking forward to getting my hands on it.

VSSM

First thing that jumps out at you is this thing has a 1.8X HS multiplier built in for FREE. Then the the full auto conversion will set you back 40 points and knock your precision down from 80 to 18. Also theres 2 suppressors options for 20pts and 30pts, the only difference in the description is the 30pt "reduces the range" where you're spotted while the 20pt "slightly reduces the range"? Not sure what that difference is but it sounds like what they are describing is the difference between regular and subsonic ammo, so I guess in this gun the 21m or 9m range is built into the suppressors and not the ammo? guess we'll see.

(sidenote: For all the weapons I tried to get shots of them with the least amount of attachments as possible but you can see on the VSSM the full auto screenshot its running a fast mag and laser so thats why theres a bit of difference with the semi-auto VSSM specs)

Barrels

2 new 25pt barrels, the "extended light" and "short light" that combine the buffs of those 2 barrels into 1.

1.5-4.5 LPVO

single adjustable LPVO with a clean reticle. There was also one other new high mag optic I saw as an option but haven't seen anyone run it yet so I'll update this if it gets played.

BROD 3
Looks like this one has almost identical specs to the GRT carbine, the precision specs are still bugged on this early access preview but I included the specs for the GRT on this screenshot and it looks like it has a bit more precision and a bit less control than the GRT. Overall they look very similar so will be interesting to see if they play any different.

EF88

This one seems to slot perfectly slot between the B36 and L85 for 5.56 ARs. Again the precision is bugged but if its got near the same precision as the L85 with 40 higher ROF then Im really looking forward to getting my hands on it.

VSSM

First thing that jumps out at you is this thing has a 1.8X HS multiplier built in for FREE. Then the the full auto conversion will set you back 40 points and knock your precision down from 80 to 18. Also theres 2 suppressors options for 20pts and 30pts, the only difference in the description is the 30pt "reduces the range" where you're spotted while the 20pt "slightly reduces the range"? Not sure what that difference is but it sounds like what they are describing is the difference between regular and subsonic ammo, so I guess in this gun the 21m or 9m range is built into the suppressors and not the ammo? guess we'll see.

(sidenote: For all the weapons I tried to get shots of them with the least amount of attachments as possible but you can see on the VSSM the full auto screenshot its running a fast mag and laser so thats why theres a bit of difference with the semi-auto VSSM specs)

Barrels

2 new 25pt barrels, the "extended light" and "short light" that combine the buffs of those 2 barrels into 1.

1.5-4.5 LPVO

single adjustable LPVO with a clean reticle. There was also one other new high mag optic I saw as an option but haven't seen anyone run it yet so I'll update this if it gets played.

So after the update I started playing some older guns I haven't used in a while and noticed I was having a lot better luck with the NVO and RPKM than the 5.56 ARs and LMGs and began to suspect it was because of their wonky damage profile that always ended up doing over 100 damage on the last BTK to a target at most ranges compared to the 5.56 guns that always did an even 100 damage because of their usual 25/20 damage model. I was planning on doing a bunch of testing with each gun in the range but turns out Xclusive Ace already did an entire video on it (I should have known) so I just copied the results here in case anyone missed it.

In short, raising that minimum damage from 25 to 26 was to give all the 5.56 guns enough extra damage to have at least 1 limb/abdomen shot worth of "forgiveness" but a few guns actually get 2 limbshots worth out to around 40m, those are the two 7.62X39 AR and LMG the NVO and RPKM. In SMGs both the UMGs get that 2 limb shot range, and in carbines all the 5.56 guns and also the AK205 get that 10-40m range which is really the carbines most effective ranges so they're probably the class of weapons that came out the best with the changes.

So hope this helps anyone thats still getting a bit frustrated by landing a lot of limbshots. If you run ARs maybe give the NVO a shot, and if you usually run 9mm SMGs maybe give one of the carbines a go. And big thanks to Xclusive Ace, wish I could buy that guy a coffee! 😄