So what exactly is a sniper in Unturned?

A sniper plays the game in the safest possible way by shooting players from far distances without having to deal with close quarter fights which are much more deadly, no matter the skill of any player involved.

Sniping is so safe because the targets are usually dead within the first couple of shots, and do not have a chance to fight back. Now this part is often disliked by other players, it isn't really the gentleman's way of killing people, but who cares about the things toxic kids scream at you?

To achieve this, a sniper fires accurate shots and remains unseen so that group members and people using respawns cannot find him. This makes snipers effective on servers without third-person, bullet ballistics, and especially in rainy weather.

As a sniper you should be patient and able to think ahead. You should feel comfortable in the woods. From my experience, a sniper is responsible for securing his teammates when they loot or helps them in firefights.

Its unlikely that you will find players on your own unless you are watching popular places, maps are quite big and most people travel through the forest, in which they have the advantage that snipers value so much: Stealth

I usually walk around the map and visit the most popular places while sometimes stopping at farms to get some food, though i prefer getting berries from the woods. It's rare that people are exactly where I expect them, so I usually listen for gunshots or non-careful messages in the chat.

Keep in mind that chat messages can be bait to attract people, I recommend checking their profiles to see whether they are experienced players.

So when I hear shots, I head to the location where I heard them and hide myself from my target first. Its important to check the woods around for other snipers, however I barely see people that snipe, much less people who do it correctly.


After making sure your target is by himself, or in the case that it's a group you are attacking, the whole group is near one another then it is time to shoot them as fast as possible since you don't want to attract new players and the players you kill could come back to search for you.

When you are shooting from a long distance, it is unlikely that they will see your muzzle flash, and a suppressor will completely mask your gun shots, so I recommend using a suppressor for whatever gun you choose.

I noticed that using a rangefinder to measure the distance, and then switching to an advanced chambering makes shooting groups way easier, with a fast finger and some decent aim you can easily shoot 2 people before they even react, and after this possibly shooting a third guy, all within a second or two.

If you are not able to shoot all targets at once, I recommend switching to a muzzle now because the remaining people will now look out for your shots, and possibly try to bait you by deliberately coming out of their cover. In this case, do not shoot the player that is acting as bait and relocate slowly, do not sprint through the forest when they are looking for you. If you can, shoot one of the players that is not acting as bait, this will probably cause all the players to jump around wildly and panic lol

The muzzle will make sure that they won't find your exact position, however be aware that your loud shots will now attract either new people, or make your targets find out your direction. A suppressor however will make a visible muzzle flash, which your targets will see.


I don't think I need to explain how to loot, grab whatever you need and get away quickly.

Really quickly!

This is what I tell many people: to be way faster. People are usually back within minutes and bambies with shotguns are very sneaky. So either have a friend backing you up, be super fast or don't loot at all, incase you already have everything you need.

Hiding yourself properly consists of many small tricks, so I will spare you with more long texts and just make a simple list:

• Wear Accessoires that hide your clothes, those can be bought on the market for a couple cents
  
  
• Skins for your guns are useful, woodland skins are good enough for most maps, but green skins are the best in my opinion
  
  
• Keep lasers, flashlights, rangefinders, NVGs and headlamps always off when you don't use them or even better, do not use them at all
  
  
• Use a green or brownish skin color with fitting hair and a beard

• Walk through the woods, keep near trees and bushes, try not to sprint to your target in a straight line, you will barely have time to check your surroundings and anyone who comes by will easily spot your movement.
  
  
• Stay off roads, boulders and dirt, any material really which doesn't match your outfit
  
  
• Do not snipe from towers unless you are willing or able to teleport away, do not get pinned down
  
  
• Walk on the sides of hills, not on top so your character doesn't stand out against the sky
  
  
• Stay away from airdrops, vehicles, bases and animals. Those are things that people often look at

As an example only, not every player has shadows turned on, so do not rely too much on them

The right location is very important, if you are camping on the crane, you can see the whole city, but keep in mind: The whole city can also see you!

• Higher positions, like hills
  
  
• Thick shrubbery
  
  
• Behind leaves of (pine) trees

• Buildings [Especially towers] which don't offer any quick escape routes, or are often used spots
  
  
• Clear hills which dont offer any trees/bushes
  
  
• Angled roofs, flat ones are better as you are able to crouch down and hide from multiple angles
  
  
• Very bright backgrounds like white walls
  
  
• The top of hills, as you will skylight yourself
  
  
• Berry bushes, they don't match the color of ghillie suits

Of course, you can also camp in buildings, not only in forests. But you should really fortify your building/nest and have a few friends who protect/help you, but I will advise you to always stay in the forests, as you have more possibilities to hide, and more escape routes.
Also keep in mind, that you might get sniped when you are on a building.

Alright, let's now cover your main gun, which does not have to be a sniper rifle.

If you favor damage, the Shadowstalker would be best, as it deals the most damage per shot in the game, and even people with helmets might die because they will likely bleed out.

But the Grizzly and the Timberwolf/Ekho are overall better. They have more rounds in their magazines, they are easier to refill using high caliber boxes, the firing rate, especially of the grizzly, is a thing that comes in handy, when you need to shoot at vehicles, or at helmet-wearing people.

Sabertooth and Snayperskya need two headshots to kill, even without helmets, but they compensate that with their big magazine sizes, their high firerates, and the ability to put muzzle attachments on. They also use low-caliber boxes so refilling is even easier.

Assault rifles are doing very good jobs too, but they dont have the big range, and deal way less damage than other rifles. But because they compensate this with a very high firerate, the ability to use all attachments, and have their big magazines, they are very useful at short ranges, like scorpion or in cities.

If you get involved in close quarter combat, or simply want to save space in your inventory by not carrying an assault rifle, then you will need a secondary weapon

I usually use a Peacemaker or Scalar because of their high firing rate and the ability to use muzzle attachments. The Peacemaker however deals low damage, so often 10-20 shots are required for a kill, obviously less if all rounds hit.

For most people the Honeybadger is the best, which I agree with but I cannot recommend it for snipers because of the following disadvantages:

- While it is internally suppressed, it cannot use a muzzle attachment
- Equipping it takes a long time
- Equipping it makes a sound

Of course, you can snipe with iron sights, but c'mon, most of us are not finnish enough for this!

Any preferred zoom scope, for me the 16x

Muzzle (No muzzle flash, bullet trails and less recoil)
Suppressor (Leaves muzzle flash and bullet trails visible, but it makes your weapon silent on longer ranges)

Be aware that both the Muzzle and Suppressor wear down with use, so you will need a blowtorch, scrap metal and engineering skill to repair them from time to time
Bipod or grip (Depending on stance, obviously the bipod has a bigger effect on shooting)

Rangefinder or advanced chambering


Secondary:

Muzzle attachment depends on situtation, I personally find the muzzle fits the best

Advanced Chamberring (Increases rate of fire)

Any fitting grip

Do not use a scope on your secondary gun, it's made for close combat and your scope will just get you killed

If you loot immediatly after killing someone, you may find some players coming to you, but those aren't the ones you should worry about: Worry about the players that you can't find.

But if you wait before rushing, players would have enough time to sit down and look for you, or kill you once you get the loot. Also, the player you killed could have come back
Do whatever fits your situation


Those noobs players don't have any access to near cover, you can at least shoot two of them before the third one runs away, and since he is on a flat, clear beach, it won't be much of a problem to take him out

A great tip: If you just sniped someone out of a group, shoot a couple times to make them spot you, and then hide behind a tree/rock/bush with an assault rifle and wait for them to come.
Most noobs fall for this and just attack snipers, thinking that they only have a rifle.

Having trouble with a group which just doesnt want to stand still and just keeps walking? Get one of your noob friends onto the server and make him get their attention (gunshots, explosions, flares/smokes), so they finally stop walking

Shooting at vehicles:
1. Shoot the vehicle, watch it blowing up and kill the spreading players (Its the most risky way because they will probably spot you after you shot 10+ rounds at them
2. Shoot the driver, and wait for others to take the driver seat, easy way of killing a lot of stupid players, or again kill the spreading players
3. Shoot some random guy in there, most players will give a ♥♥♥♥ on their teammates and just drive away so you can loot em, if you got a spotter, he should watch if the vehicle comes back

Use whatever way you like, what fits to your equipment, your ammo or the situation

Useful stuff:
- You got a max. range of 300 meters, USE YOUR RANGE
- Kill the best equipped guy first, so the others are forced to loot him
- Never shoot more than two times from the same spot, if you do, switch to an assault rifle
- You can shoot surfaces next to your target, to make him think youre shooting from an other direction, and so make him hide in a totally wrong spot

Here are some examples, why its worth buying weapon skins.

Default Timberwolf:
Flektarn:
Multicam:
Woodland:
And my favorite, the green Timberwolf:

Introduction

Snipers are a threat to anyone who is not on their team. As such, protecting yourself from other snipers is important. Other snipers use the same principles as you do and that makes them so dangerous. If they are skilled and experienced enough, then they will likely know how you will react under certain situations.

Luckily, I have maybe seen a handful of snipers in the past years who were sniping "correctly". Mostly you will see guys with all kinds of unnatural colors rushing through the forest and blasting douzens of rounds into the ways of people.

However, preparation is key, no matter how unlikely it is to encounter a sniper, much less a skilled one, it is important to protect yourself. Are you willing to risk your life just because encountering a sniper is unlikely? In the best case, you save some time by not reading this guide, in the worst case you die and lose your stuff. For me the choice is easy but other people may not take this as seriously as I do.

All of the chapter's content is based on my experience and knowledge, it is possible that I am wrong or that your experiences do not match mine. I am open for any discussion

How to counter a sniper, as a sniper - the actual tactics

Snipers are chesspieces, just like all other players. They act under certain rules, these rules are mostly the following, but it is impossible for me to claim to know the intentions of all snipers:

- A sniper likes killing - they are attracted to people
- Snipers stay far away
- Sniper don't show themselves
- Snipers shoot few rounds but hit many

Now, I can roughly imagine the following scenarios where you, as a sniper, are endangered by other snipers. For this I will only include scenarios in which both you and your enemy as acting as snipers. For example, encountering a sniper in the woods and having a close range gunfight does not count.

- You are camping somewhere and out of the blue, you get spotted and possibly shot at
- You get spotted and possibly shot at during or after an attack on other people
- You are attacking a group that has a sniper in the woods. The surviving players instruct the sniper on how to find you
- You have seen your enemy and your enemy has seen you. This is a fight about who moves the slowest, who blends in the best and who hits the other first


Now, when I try to present you a solution, I encounter the following problem:

The solution in all of these scenarios is to be better prepared than your enemy.

In other fights between non-snipers, it is always a battle between action and reaction. When the other guy moves, you counter his movements, when he shoots, you either shoot back or get into cover. Fighting a sniper is hard because you cannot react to their movements, you cannot see them, you cannot react to "being dead". (excluding respawning of course)

You will probably encounter people who are simply better than you. There is no way around this. However, it is not only skill that decides the outcome of a fight:
- You can still outsmart people, although outsmarting could be called its own skill
- Equipment can matter. Being able to shoot further or having more ammo than the other or having a more powerful weapon can be of high value.
- Luck. Honestly, all kinds of minor effects can result in different outcomes of a battle, whether it is rain, your mom calling you for dinner, you grabbing a bit of chocolate, your weapon being on semi instead of full-auto, anything really. I will call this combination of minor effects "Luck"

I will go into more detail for each scenario that I made up above:

As long as you are able to react to the other sniper, you still have a chance. Before that happens, whether you get shot or not depends on your preparation. Being camouflaged better or being out of the snipers range - you can influence these things. Practice camouflage and position yourself away from where you expect snipers.

- You get spotted and possibly shot at during or after an attack on other people -

Again, be prepared. Know common spots for snipers and know your escape routes. Relying on pure shooting skill is the last thing I want to do. I want to rely on my preparation.

Probably the most interesting scenario. The are many ways to counter this, the simple ones being:
- Killing the sniper before you kill his friends
- Positioning yourself out of his range
- Running away before he shoots you

But you can also cover yourself in metal plates to ensure that he cannot shoot you unless he changes position, during this movement he is obviously vulnerable and unable to help his teammates.

The use of suppressors and muzzles is vital during such a fight. A muzzle flash or a loud gunshot is something you cannot affect otherwise and will easily doom you.

This is a difficult situation:

- Not moving and simply shooting as soon as possible is probably what a lot of people would go for and it might work, but it might not. You can bet on your luck but I wouldn't take that approach.

What I would do is the following:

First of all, run away and get out of his distance. Then, get him to focus his attention on something else, maybe by throwing smoke or going somewhere else and causing noise there. But I would want him to focus on the forest I am in. It is tiring and hard to find green people in a green forest. Once I have backed off, I will move out of his sight to a new location, very slowly, and try to find him again. If he is out of range, watch him and adapt to his movement. Once I get in range without him noticing, I shoot him.

This sounds simple but it might take 20 minutes if you encounter someone who is patient and really out to get you. It might not work everytime, so do not hold back on the opportunity to just run or teleport away