Well, add enough buffs and any weapons can be great. Still, you need to be quite far in the game before you can have all those buffs and make that ultra gimped weapon actually useful.
The only thing an SR needs is quick aim, you may not kill them outright but you can remove any limbs you don’t like. Like I said earlier, it’s not the best damage dealer of the game but it’s always reliable at it.
Well, it’s universal in the sense you can always make them work against anything.
Tell me then. Is there any situation where bringing an SR is the wrong answer? Wrong in the sense it’s going to get you killed not just be sub optimal? You can kill vehicles, Scyllas, The Pures and anything in between with no fuss. And you start with them, the better ones you find later are only a plus.
And what you think about my modifications: 1) to lower damage and 2) change ability behavior on closer ranges?
I think it would remove them from being the Universal Answer to anything. So yeah, seem ok to me.
If you play with skill spamming (for example, using quickaim twice or more per soldier per turn) you can basically get way with everyone carrying a SR and a pistol. But then again, what can’t you get away with if you skill spam?
On the other hand, if you are playing without skill spamming relying too much on SRs can get you killed, simply because they don’t do enough damage.
Howcome? Synedrion sniper armor is available from the start. Marksman is a level 5 skill, which currently you get in less than 10 missions. Chances are at least some of your recruits will have third row damage buffs in the first few columns. And at first basic ARs are the best weapons, as the crabs wear little to no armor.
The thing about SRs is they are “easy”. They do enough damage to penetrate any armor, they are accurate. If you use quickaim twice per turn they do decent damage. Their big advantage is that you don’t have to think much about how to use them best.
It depends how you will balance the other weapons. If you change SR without the others then it seems to be not really balanced, because:
That’s why I personally almost don’t use SR for my sniper crossclassed frontliners in closer range, other weapons do this job better. In fact, even my long range infiltrator sniper almost uses the synedrion AR (Daimos) because of nice accuracy, more damage per shot and with quickaim for only 1AP 
TLDR, without balancing the other weapons I personally see no reason to nerf SR.
Fighting at pandoran’s bases with only SR is near suicide, I think. Low mobility in early game also not good. To make full SR squad in the beginning you need too much resources which you don’t have. In mid game terminator with shotgun or melee is best choice.
So, SR good in the beginning against heavy armored enemies, but later it’s become more support, then main DD.
I looked at the pros and cons arguments and have to throw my 2 cents in here too …
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@VOLAND Let’s stay objective. All the special equipment and broken terminator builds do not allow a neutral comparison of the weapons.
Really?
It should not be ignored that an average panda (mid-game) has 20 armor and a dangerous panda 40 + armor!
Here is a table for PP waepons, so that objective argumentation can take place!
i think it would be better if dealing damage worked a bit differently… Right now, high damage is prerequisite for armor penetration… Yet, in reality, high damage is one thing, and armor penetration something completely different…
Real world Sniper Rifles usually use some type of Hollow Point/soft core ammo which has increased soft tissue damage, but its usually very weak against armored targets. Of course, sniper rifles can also use AP ammo, but such ammo has inferior soft tissue damage, due to over-penetration (round goes straight through target, not creating big enough wound channel)
So, how to solve this within the game? maybe by simply making armor 2x more effective against normal damage, but give all weapons some AP abilities. This way, Sniper Rifles would still do a lot of damage but only against unarmored body parts - snipers would have to aim to hit these weak-spots, instead of being main armor disabling weapons…
At the same time, i think all explosives should have their damage values decreased significantly, and instead should get more shred and concussion effects to be more about disabling the enemy, instead of killing it outright. This way grenades and rockets would have more utility value at disabling armor, wounding enemy, stunning them = buying time for player so game is less about alpha strikes…
Hmmm Arn’t we in danger here of doing the same with Snipers as we did with Assults? Those who exploit ‘OP’ combos or spam special abilities complained about dash etc until it was nerfed into pointlessess. (Although recent patch has made the AR half useful again) Not saying dash wasn’t an explot waiting to happen but In my last few playthoughs i have not picked up any other of the assult class bar my starting lads. Can’t remember the last time i even used dash either. I’d hate if Snipers went the same way because we’d got the devs to nerf the weapon so as make sniper something you only cross class for a bit of long range harassing. I tend to role play my snipers as being armed with M82s so for me the damage it does across the board isn’t an issue. I think in general the balance between the weapons is fine on PPs side. However I do think Pandoran armoury balance could do with work. Oh I’m going to say this here- I get Tritons using the weapons of those they have raided. I don’t get crabbies machine gun. I don’t get where they build them, i don’t get how they appear to be implanted or… I even get the grenade launcher, but that hard core sqaud eviserating MG. ummm how dat happon? mutter mutter cheating Pandoran swine.
while I disagree that dash was nerfed into the ground (in my opinion it is still one of the strongest skills in the game…but now at least its a guy running (extremely) fast…not teleporting) I get what you are going at…and I can see the risk of nerfing sniper rifles into oblivion.
I would actually have changed sniper rifles to have nerfed damage and greatly nerfed range, but come with a skill unique to scoped weapons, the ability to sacrifice time (AP) to increase effective range (gain accuracy) and a base reduction in AP to fire from 3 to 2. this change would come along with a pletora of changes to skills and how weapons interacted.
the idea was that an SR could act like a battle rifle (hard hitting semi-automatic) dealing single high damage shots at a solid pace (around 100 pnts/2 AP…without using quick aim) but in this mode its accuracy would be comparable to that of an assault rifle (so no cross map shots to shoot a crabs face off, but I did buff AR effective range to be around 30, nerfing the deimos effective range and buffing the bulldog and ares while leaving the pirana as is, that suggestion effectively narrowed the range spread of AR’s between factions).
While used in its aim-mode it would be come a slightly weaker but significantly more accurate version of the current SR’s. (100 dmg/ 3AP but with effective range over 90)
this suggestion however is contrary to what the OP wants, as it was made with the idea to make SR’s more flexible and give them a slight buff to damage per AP if used in BR mode (going from ~40 to ~50 DPAP, and to counteract my mauling of +% damage skills, and nerfing of the then + accuracy boost giving quick aim, that I inverted…making QA give an aim penalty when used) while slightly reducing their effect on high armor targets (though this didn’t amount to much for weapons like the raven)
on an unrelated note, stay away from the crabby MG, that gun is hell to fight against but it allows cover to work…its an actual threat and the cause of many “oh shit he didn’t die” troop deaths…its the type of opposition players…in my opinion…need in this game. even though the dahm thing makes no sense atoll.
So, we come to one clear fact - most of base mechanics in this game is bad or not in balance with other basics. And cause of it changing just damage, range and so on will balance nothing, but add new stupid moments to the game.
2 all. You want small range for SR? You want low damage? You want SR useful only for bash in melee? You want to nerf everything in this game to make it absolutely unplayable like AR?
Yes really, that’s why I wrote ‘raw’ damage per AP.
Look on your table and even against 20 armor SR is still at the end of the list.
BTW, you forgot to take the shred of ARs in to account, against 20 armor they will deal 10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18=126 and not 90. Sure, every bullet must hit the same bodypart but we talk about close range, so you will mostly get something between 90 and 126.
And 40 Armor is pretty high, the usual armor in the endgame is 20-30, only chirons, scyllas and some rare pure or forsaken on some parts have more.
Edit:
Don’t get me wrong, SR are very useful against all targets with high armor. But that’s it and the most enemies you will see are the ones with not that high armor. That’s why for me SR are NOT “the ultimate answer to any foe”.
I think Quick Aim should have the accuracy reduced. It’s a quick aim, not an accurate aim.
0 Armor is a little rare, don’t you think?
Yes, I know too, but didn’t want to count the smallest pea 
Aren’t you twisting the facts here in favor of your argument? Not meant bad … Is it fair to compare the effectiveness of all weapons on an “extreme” example (close distance)?
I wonder: How would the other weapons against Sniper Rifle do over an extremely long distance?
See my edit:
Another edit:
Or to be more clear, I personally see no reason to do anything with sniper rifles, I think they are pretty balanced compared to all other weapons with their specialty on long range and high armored targets.
Ok, I have it
But doesn’t the range matter to you?
Yes, I edited again 
So I summarize:
Sniper rifle:
Pretty good isn’t it?
