Here is the last of my 4-part guide on the SPECACT achievements; this time, for Recon. The difficulty of this one all depends on your sniping skills. Do you regularly get headshots, get Combat Excellence medals, and numerous kills per round as a sniper? If so, this will be a cakewalk for you. However, if you are terrible at sniping (like me), prepare to be departing on a looooong road to the achievement.
As the stats show, the M95 is the most powerful bolt action sniper rifle, and more or less the most powerful conventional weapon in the game. The drawback? It’s slow as molasses, that’s what. So slow, that, if you land a body shot instead of a head shot on a healthy opponent, they will probably be long gone before you zoom back in after getting another round in the chamber. Now, a lot of people seem to think that because it’s so powerful, that if they put Magnum Ammo on it, its damage goes from 99% to 100%. This is false. It raises it by a decimal amount, so you still will not be able to land OHKO body shots (unless you are playing in Hardcore mode). This renders Magnum Ammo a wasted perk on the M95. Instead, take Body Armor to increase your livelihood. As for Spec Slot 1, it’s a matter of personal taste/practical performance between Ammo Hip Bandolier (more shots before you die/need to venture for ammo) and the 12x scope (allows longer range sniping, but makes short-medium range aiming cumbersome in my opinion).
First up: Reach a kill streak of 5 without dying with the M95 SA. A great map to do this on is Isla Innocentes as Attackers. From the hill, you can see the entire enemy encampment; a sniper’s paradise. Just be wary of enemy snipers doing the same (protip: defending snipers tend to hang out near the house on the far right side of the island). If you’re getting lots of body shots but not kills, I suggest giving Hardcore a try. You can basically one shot (in most cases) anyone from most distances, making it easier to reach 5 kills without dying. The downside is that it’s easier to die from everything else, as you have much less health and everything does more damage in Hardcore.
Next on the plate: Get 8 kills in a round with the M95 SA. Just follow the same advice from above; except for this one you don’t have to worry about staying alive that much.
And, of course: Accumulate 100 kills total with the M95 SA. As mentioned at the beginning, this will most likely be either insanely easy or insanely hard. I am a horrible sniper, so I wager I’ll be working on this one for a long time. Good snipers can probably get this after a few sessions with no problems at all. As mentioned, if you’re having trouble getting kills in normal mode, switch to Hardcore until you accomplish this deed. Once you do, an insignia for 5000 exp and an achievement (assuming you got the two others before this) for your labor.
With that, I’ve now posted a guide of tips for each class’s SPECACT awards. I hope they’ve all been of help to you, or at least an interesting read. Thanks for viewing!