How does sniper damage work?

[prodigy]

As you can see, I'm new to the forums here so please forgive any amateurish oversights. From what I can tell, the sniper rifles do flat 70 damage, with SP this brings it up to 98. Now assuming the upper-body multipliers to be 1.5 we can say that, for the most part, a sniper is capable of 147 damage. How is it then that a player who supposedly only has 100 health can "sponge" a shot from the Intervention? I'm not QQing, I'm genuinely curious. I've gotten headshots (had to be a headshot since nothing else was showing), that have been clean absorbed by the enemy. Is it down to lag, a poor understanding of the gameplay mechanics on my part or something else entirely?

I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain what actually happens when a bullet is seemingly sponged, thanks for any help.

You are my bro, bro.

[acidsnow]

No idea how a perceived headshot didn't land you a kill, must have been lag, or maybe your bullet penetrated a surface before landing on your target. I'm pretty sure shots to the 'arms' count as a torso shot (but I'm NO sniper) - otherwise people would be bitching 24/7 that the snipers suck...

[dplasters]

it is very likely bullet penetration coming into effect. while you can't see that the bullet is actually passing through an object, it is.

[mannon]

Penetration is a good possibility especially if you're grasing your own cover. Even if what you penetrate is thin and barely sucks any damage from the shot a bullet loses damage over distance after it comes out the backside of whatever you shot through, all the way down to 1 damage. Thus shooting through even glass will be a problem if it's close to you rather than your target.

Arms BTW are not counted as torso and have a multiplier of 1 same as legs. There is no sniper rifle that can 1HK to limbs except in hardcore. Painkiller is another possibility since it cuts damage down to 1/3, though you should get the painkiller indicator.

If you died immediately after the sponged shot then lag is probably the culprit, meaning on the Host's end you were killed before you got off your shot. Usually the killcam can answer those questions, watch some, they are informative.

As for how damage works, here's a table.

---

Sniper Rifles					Hits to Kill					Damage					Multipliers
Weapon	SP	Silencer	Base Dmg		Head/Neck	Chest	Stomach	Other		Head/Neck	Chest	Stomach	Other		Head/Neck	Chest	Stomach	Other
Intervention	Yes	No	98		1	1	1	2		147	147	107	98		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
Barret .50cal	Yes	No	98		1	1	1	2		147	147	107	98		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
WA2000	Yes	No	98		1	1	2	2		147	147	98	98		1.5	1.5	1	1
M21 EBR	Yes	No	98		1	1	2	2		147	107	98	98		1.5	1.1	1	1
Intervention	Yes	Yes	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	77	70		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
Barret .50cal	Yes	Yes	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	77	70		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
WA2000	Yes	Yes	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	70	70		1.5	1.5	1	1
M21 EBR	Yes	Yes	70		1	2	2	2		105	77	70	70		1.5	1.1	1	1
Intervention	No	No	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	77	70		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
Barret .50cal	No	No	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	77	70		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
WA2000	No	No	70		1	1	2	2		105	105	70	70		1.5	1.5	1	1
M21 EBR	No	No	70		1	2	2	2		105	77	70	70		1.5	1.1	1	1
Intervention	No	Yes	50		2	2	2	2		75	75	55	50		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
Barret .50cal	No	Yes	50		2	2	2	2		75	75	55	50		1.5	1.5	1.1	1
WA2000	No	Yes	50		2	2	2	2		75	75	50	50		1.5	1.5	1	1
M21 EBR	No	Yes	50		2	2	2	2		75	55	50	50		1.5	1.1	1	1

Legend
Values = Low Average High
Usage = Off On
Hits to Kill = Better Worse

Of course, for all that the only truly important information in it is the HtK chest column and to a lesser extent the stomach one as well. Head/Neck and Other are exactly the same for all rifles but included for completeness.

I'm almost tempted to throw the FAL (long & short) in there just for giggles.

BTW I colored 98 as high in the base damage column and only average in the actual damage column on purpose. Even though 98 is pretty high damage since it will still require 2 hits to kill in core vs an uninjured target I thought it better to make 100 the cutoff in those columns between average and high. Technically it is still high, just not high enough, but I felt this would be more informative.

Similarly in the multipliers I would normally consider 1 average and anything over that high, but I wanted to use all three colors to make the three different values visually distinct.

[jlayman920]

Nice chart. That's exactly why I come to this forum instead of the "What camo do you think looks the coolest on the AUG?" boards.

[James]

Jan 2, 2010 20:22:51 GMT -5 jlayman920 said:

Nice chart. That's exactly why I come to this forum instead of the "What camo do you think looks the coolest on the AUG?" boards.

You don't think Red Tiger looks cool on the AUG?

[adree]

Jan 3, 2010 21:15:33 GMT -5 James said:

Jan 2, 2010 20:22:51 GMT -5 jlayman920 said:

Nice chart. That's exactly why I come to this forum instead of the "What camo do you think looks the coolest on the AUG?" boards.

You don't think Red Tiger looks cool on the AUG?

I'm always hesitant to use the brightly colored camos on my normal builds but I usually end up dying anyway and then see that I was given the hawaiian shirt guy model.