Firearms in Deadside have pretty realistic bullet trajectories, this means when shooting targets at longer ranges, you will have to compensate for the velocity and drop of the bullet. Some weapons in Deadside are much more accurate than others, which can also be a major factor on your effectiveness at range. This page will cover all things related to shooting targets at a distance, starting with the absolute basics.

Bullets in Deadside have a set speed that they travel at, very similar to the speeds of real life bullets. This doesn't matter at close ranges since the bullet will strike the target almost instantly, however at further ranges, you will need to adjust your aim to hit your shots in some cases. Because your bullets are traveling at a set speed, in order to hit a moving target, you will need to shoot where your target is going to be, instead of where they are currently. This is called “pulling lead”, and its a common practice for most snipers in Deadside. There are many techniques for pulling lead, but they all come down to essentially putting the reticle of your scope where the target is going to be, and pulling the trigger at the right time, so that the trajectory of your target and the trajectory of your bullet meet. The amount of lead you pull, or how far ahead to put your reticle relative to the target, depends on two things. First is the speed of your target, and second is the speed of your bullet. If you can correctly estimate both of those speeds, you will have a good idea when to pull the trigger, hitting the target. Estimating the speed of your target is the easy part, they are either walking, or sprinting. Their speed can still change however depending on what direction they are moving, further complicating things. For example, if a player is sprinting perfectly perpendicular to you, they will be moving quite quickly, but, if the player is sprinting directly away from you (on flat ground), they might as well not be moving at all relative to you. Most of the challenge of pulling lead comes down to learning the speed of your bullet. Different weapons have different bullet velocities, and this all depends of the caliber of the weapon. For example, using an AK-mod, you might have to lead up to 4-5 body lengths ahead of the target, compared to a 5.56 AR, where you usually only have to lead 2-3. This just comes down to practice and experience, as you, the shooter, will have to estimate the amount of lead to pull for every single shot. Doing missions from long distances with a good scope, is a great way to practice pulling lead on targets, as the AI are relatively harmless at longer ranges. Its also worth noting, that the amount of lead you pull can be visually more depending on the magnification of your scope. With a scope like the ELCN, you will have to pull more on your mouse compared to a PU scope, since the ELCN is 1x more magnified. While pulling lead is all practice, knowing the speeds of your bullet can help you a lot. Below is a list of bullets, sorted by their relative speed. This should give you a good idea of which weapons and calibers are easiest to snipe with, and how much lead you will need to pull with each weapon. Remember, the slower the bullet, the more lead you need to pull.

On top of bullets having set velocities, they will also start to drop downwards. In real life, this happens due to gravity, and this is represented very well in Deadside. On almost all rifles, bullet drop won't become a factor until about 150 meters away from you, and this is because all rifles in Deadside most likely have a 100M “Zero”. Some bullets will drop much more than others, and this is due to a few factors, mainly the bullets velocity, but also its ballistic co-efficient. If you don't know what that means, that's ok, think of it like the bullets aerodynamics. In real life, some bullets will slow down quicker than others depending on how well it can fly through the air without slowing down, and this is represented well in game, with large bullets like 45 ACP dropping extremely quickly compared to something like a 5.56 bullet. So, if you intend to hit a headshot on a target, say 250 meters away, you will have to correctly adjust your aim for the drop of the bullet. You do this in Deadside by putting the reticle above the target you intend to hit, so that the bullet will drop down below your initial point of aim, striking the target. This is commonly called a “Hold Over”. How high you place your reticle above your target all depends on how much your round will drop at the distance the target is at. So, first you will need to estimate the relative distance between you and your target, and then estimate how much your bullet will drop at that distance. When you are estimating distance, you will have to take into account vertical distance as well. If the target is above you, the bullet will drop more because it has to fly a further distance. If the target is below you, the bullet will not drop as much since it is dropping in the direction of the target. You can use markers on the map to help you estimate distance, which can be extremely helpful if you aren't sure how far away a target is. This does take some time, so if your target is moving, you might not get the chance. So, the second part of this process is knowing how much the bullet will drop at that distance. Below is a chart of how most common rifle rounds will drop at different distances.

This chart shows how much a bullet will drop on a player standing strait up at different distances, which can be very helpful when determining how high to do your hold-over. Lets say we wanted to hit a headshot with a Mosin at 300 meters. Using this chart, we would know that if we just aimed at the head, the bullet would drop to the players chest. So, to hit a headshot, we would see how far the distance is between the players chest and head, and then aim up that amount. That way, the bullet hits the head instead of the chest. Basically, we aim up the same amount that the bullet drops, so that the bullet impacts exactly where we want it too. Keep in mind that this chart assumes weapons are perfectly accurate, which they are not.

Another thing that can impact the amount of drop you get, is something called “Height Over Bore.” This is the physical distance between the center of your scope, and the barrel or the rifle itself. Because bullets in Deadside come out of the barrel, if your scope is mounted very high up the rifle, your point of impact might be below your reticle at very close ranges. This is most noticeable on weapons like the Mosin, Grom, and Fasam since they mount their optics on a high mount, or on a carry handle. 

As mentioned above, weapons are not perfectly accurate, and some weapons will simply miss even if you aimed perfectly. Most of the time, this comes down to the length of the barrel, however there are a few exceptions. The most accurate weapons in Deadside, are the Mosin, M99, and 5.56 ARs. These weapons are pretty much prefect for sniping, and if you aim correctly, you will almost always land a hit. Then we have the VSD, which is slightly more inaccurate at range, however its still won't cause you any problems most of the time, especially since you will be firing multiple shots with it usually. Then we have your average tier of accuracy, this is where the rest of the ARs sit, mainly the 7.62x39 ARs, 5.45x39 AKs, the MG36, and the BB19. These weapons are capable at hitting medium range shots consistently, but shots further than 300 meters away have a bit of luck involved. The rest of the weapons in game aren't really accurate enough to shoot at range, and most of them cant even mount an optic in the first place. However this should give you a good idea of what to expect when picking up a weapon, and knowing how far you can realistically engage an enemy at. 

An extremely important skill in sniping is learning how to use the breath hold system effectively. Without holding your breath, your scope will sway around randomly, making it very hard to hit targets at a long distance. You can hold your breath by holding Shift while aiming down your scope, without moving. You cannot rebind the hold breath key, and this is done intentionally to limit its use for static sniping only. When you hold your breath, your reticle will stop drifting, and it will hold where it is completely still for a short time. In this short window, you will have to adjust your aim and take a shot before your reticle starts moving again. After the breath hold window ends, you will hear your characters heart beat until you can hold your breath again. The duration of the breath hold depends on how fatigued your character is, for example, your breath hold will be slightly shorter if your character was just sprinting or jumping, compared to if your character was crouched for a long time. Your characters fatigued state can also heavily effect the amount of scope sway there is in the first place. If you are sitting still for a long time, your scope won't be drifting around much at all, making it a lot easier to take a shot when holding your breath. If you were just running, your scope will sway a lot, and your breath hold time is slightly less, making it a lot harder to quickly land an accurate shot. This doesn't even apply to only sniping too, if you are sprinting a lot in CQC, your hip-fire sprays while strafing will be more inaccurate compared to if you didn't sprint at all. You can tell how fatigued your character is by how heavily he is breathing. 

So, if you have read through this page, you should have a good idea of what to expect when trying to snipe in Deadside. Practice is everything, learning how much to lead and hold over at the same time can be difficult at first, but after a while it becomes natural. Doing PvE Events with snipers is a great way to learn, and a great way to get loot at the same time. There are other factors involved in effective sniping, like learning the map, learning how and when to take a shot on a target, but those things can really only be learned with experience. Good Luck!