Glad you found a legit way to solve this, even if it took you several reloads. Reloading to try new approaches is also a legitimate way to learn, re-rolling the dice until you get what you want isn't and is the reason for the "fixed" results.sirburton wrote: However I solved that mess using mind control on a tough muton which served as decoy for those serpens and in the meantime I managed to get close enough to bomb them with acid.
Re: Snipers
If you want to see the perks with english names and description use this page on UFOpedia
I think both Scopes (+ aim) and Laser Sight (+ crit) can be useful on snipers depending on how you use them, who you fire on, what's your base aim stat and AWC perks.
Kubikiri aside (it's apparently still buggy) a good crit, especially with "Precision Shot can easily one-shot most high health enemies. The sniper in the screen-shot above usually fires from much farther away, she's built for crits and ideally on flanked targets (they don't see her and don't know where to take cover) as she has Hunter's Instinct and hits like several trucks (she usually one-shots anything cough in the open or low cover). She has a stock on her rifle, Death from Above gives her a single action point after she kills an enemy (did i mention her role isn't to wound them but kill them outright), not enough to fire again but enough to use Steady Weapon after each shot and keep +25 hit/crit each turn until she runs out of ammo and have to reload at which point the engagement should be over. Higher ground isn't usually that hard to find, especially with a Grappling Hook from Spider/Shadow armor allowing access to normally non available elevation. I've occasionally planted her on top of a truck with no cover, the trick is : no enemy should get past your main line to see her, who cares for cover when nobody shoots at you
In case you were wondering i didn't fire at that shieldbearer as 72% to hit is too dicey for me, i just showed you it's possible to have high crit chance on high cover.
The scope is very useful to reliably hit even on high cover as Devon explained but i didn't get to build elite scopes until really late this campaign so i tested other options. You'll want to shot at targets you can kill without crits if you go this way but it's definitely possible if you stack damage boosts (especially if you get Lethal at the AWC for another +2 damage)