Imho the damage base game mechanic should not only came from accuracy to distance, but a bullet drop travel should be there too on simulate the damage algorithm, it may more complex but easier to differentiate weapon class or at least some random ‘critical hit’.
Does it explain why sniper with pistol should become less accurate than berserker with pistol at the same close range?
This is why I feel a couple of your points have merit regarding adjacency since in game terms they can’t be any closer than 1 tile. 2 tiles and you could fire from the hip in their direction and you’re still going to hit.
Fair point. This is why overwatch shots on falling targets often miss. If crabmen could hit highway speeds it’d be a good argument. As is I feel speed of target is already modeled in game.
Are they any better with pistols than berserkers at the same long range?
Yes, exactly, but you can’t shoot at them with the same degree of accuracy because you are shooting from the hip. That’s the problem with the SR at the moment.
I think it would make sense to give a penalty only to SRs when there is an enemy nearby, not to the class as a whole. In addition to the pistol issue pointed by @Lorifel, imagine a different class with the sniperist trait.
However, that would also affect shots at distant targets, so rather than an accuracy penalty for shooting from the hip it would be an accuracy penalty for “pressure”.
For shooting from the hip what I meant is that there already being instances in the game when the freeaim reticle changes size, it would be about changing it as it moves over a closer target.
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Only because you weren’t trying. The point is at such a close range you don’t even need to aim to hit because it’s near impossible to miss. There’s nothing that would prevent aiming or shooting though.
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How would you aim a SR at such close range (a distance hardly much larger than the length of the SR for enemies one tile way)? Through its optics? I’m genuinely curious as I would think that at this range it’s impossible to aim a SR with any degree of precision.
The real problem that needs addressing is that the sniper rifle has no drawbacks. It’s a weapon for all seasons and ranges. This isn’t realistic. They don’t give door kickers sniper rifles because “at such a close range you don’t even need to aim to hit because it’s near impossible to miss”.
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Surely it jsut has to register the cross in the middle of the reticle, which lights up the body part you are focussed on? That’s how it works at the moment - you target Crabbie A standing behind Crabbie B, and any bullets that don’t hit Crabbie B will pass through the gaps to hit Crabbie A.
So all that’s happening if you’re adjusting the reticle for distance is it registers whichever target is in the centre cross.
The whole problem with balancing SR by reducing their accuracy at close range is that we are playing turn based game. Just imagine how much you would have to reduce accuracy with current aiming model to properly reflect difficulty with wielding long and heavy rifle in close quarters. Right now in point blank SR user can pick witch freckle he want to shoot. Aim penalty would have to be around 10000%. How do you scale it when facing someone 8 meters (tiles?) from you. At this range it’s very close but still possible to take aim. Not through scope but along the rifle barrel or using side sights. Problems with following fast moving targets apply only if the target is actually moving and not sitting in cover, waiting to unload half of his magazine to your face.
From my - admittedly amateurish - experience as a Live Action Roleplayer back in the day, that’s simply not true. Firing a bow at a close-in enemy charging at you was much more likely to miss than targeting someone at medium range, simply because you didn’t have time to aim properly and get a proper bead.
That would be equally true of a long-barrelled weapon such as a sniper rifle. So I can see the merit of giving such unwieldy weapons an aim penalty at close range - and I agree with C-Mike above that it would be good to build in drawbacks for the sniper rifle in-game.
Shotguns & pistols are classic close-range weapons, so shouldn’t have any aim penalty at close range.
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As I see it rather than giving flat nerf to SR, there should be accuracy penalty based on the distance your target travelled this turn.
Edit: Give weapons one more stat - Handling. That would determine how much of that penalty is mitigated.
Well, how much have you trained shooting at moving targets. Take into account the fact that bows are so much harder to operate than guns. We assume PP soldiers are trained in such way. They should be. It’s basically compulsory training for Spec Ops today.
Yes. The thing is, at the moment, unless I’m mistaken, the size of the reticle never changes because of what it is pointing at. It does change though after casting quick aim. How difficult it would be to make it change dynamically while in freeaim is something I don’t know. Maybe @RedHellion can elucidate?
@ gauntlet I’m not sure what you mean here:
What I mean is making the TR so big that you can probably hit the target but not in the exact freckle you would wish to.
Personally, I’m happy to accept a higher degree of abstraction rather than simulating aiming penalty for movement. And once you go down that road, wouldn’t you want to take into account the direction? Someone running straight at you makes for a better target then someone moving in a zigzag. Then you have to teach that to the AI. And then we will have 
s running around like headless 
s all over the place.
Also, right now it is clear to me that the soldiers and their opponents are not really stationary targets, because if they were the TR doesn’t make much sense. Even a novice shooter can reliably hit a stationary target within the weapon’s effective range aiming down the sights. So the game kinda assumes they are all kinda moving.
Yes, that sounds good.
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That also makes some sense.
Am I right in thinking that with a sniper rifle in order to take an accurate shot with it, that you then also have to set its sights to the range that you’re firing at? - If so a target that moves in or out of that range could lead to you receiving an accuracy penalty).
- An alternative to the target reticle changing in size, could be to blur the target when aiming at something close to you could be to blur the target, making it harder to aim at a particular body part.
(I think you also set to individual solider who is firin, to which their could be a accuracy penalty for making use of a sniper rifle that you’ve picked up from the map, but I guess that’s a minor occurrence either way).
At one tile I’ve already agreed with you that it’s reasonable to say you couldn’t shoot at all. Two tiles is about six feet and at that range you could quite literally aim down the barrel, or just point at the body part you want to hit still have a great chance to tag it.
And yet it should be less precise then aiming through the optics at 20 feet, wouldn’t you agree?
No I wouldn’t. That’s why you wouldn’t need the optics. Optics make distance shots easier, the closer the target the less they’re needed.
I’d agree it’d be more accurate than aiming down the barrel at 20 feet.
OK, I assumed that it was reasonable to assume a drop in accuracy, but if it’s not it’s not.
What about a “pressure” penalty for using SR when an enemy is nearby? Or what else would you suggest to make SR less of a one fit all solution?