Anyone know?

other than paying like 7000 caps for one at the gun runners store? mostly just getting lucky and finding an ememy using one and killing them. one last possible place is NCR snipers use the good sniper rifles no clue what the location they are at thought you just have to look around

Sniper's Nest near Cottonwood Cove (after Camp Searchlight at the bottom right of the map). It's near the top of a mountain or whatever that lets you overlook the entire settlement. There's a Very Hard (100 Lockpick) locked chest with the Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle, which is a greatly improved standard Sniper Rifle.

Otherwise, once you get some levels, the Gun Runners start selling the .50 Anti-Materiel Rifle, and some NCR rangers are equipped with it as well.

If you want something a bit more early, the Ratslayer in Broc Flower Cave (also near the bottom right of the map, but closer to the road you take while following the main quest) isn't bad.

Gobi Sniper rifle is found in a very hard locked footlocker at the Sniper's Nest overlooking Cottonwood cove.

A scoped Varmint Rifle is an excellent "sniper rifle" for the early game, but you probably want to move on to a proper one like the Sniper Rifle and Anti-Matriel Rifle. I've seen both be for sale at 188 and the BoS bunker respectively.

I've seen that as well but they're in very poor condition. Though if you complete the quest line and have full access I believe the Anti Material Rifle is around 80%.

I wanted my character to be a sniper character from the beginning, you know pistols and sniper rifles. But I still haven't found a sniper rifle...

Early on you just go south from Novac and look for Broc Flower Cave, there's a unique Varmint Rifle inside, good damage, great scope, skill req = 0 and it can be repaired with one of thousand cheap Varmint rifles you loot off people. Then for mid-game you can steal yourself a Hunting Rifle from Brahmin rancher's house in Novac and get a scope for it off Gunrunners or other good store (wait 73h for inventory to respawn if it didn't show up the first time). Mid-game cause you need .308 ammo which is uncommon - and also need higher than basic level for Hunting Rifle to show up in stores along with upgrades. Then get Lockpick 100 and grab GOBI off Sniper's Nest.

Oh, Laser Rifle with a scope isn't bad either. It's comparable with Hunting Rifle in damage output.

Good advice, thank you.

Not enough points into Energy weapons I think. I'm a guns person lol.

ok i had the gobi scout rifle and it was almost identical in stats to the normal sniper rifle, it had 2 less Dam but 9 more Dps, it also has 1 more bullet in the clip, but it can'e use a silencer so i went for the normal sniper rifle with silencer, however the wiki page says the gobi rifle has something like 60 Dam and 217 Dps, this certaintly isn't the case in my game and i have 100 gun skill, what is the Dam and Dps for you guys??

61 DAM / 192 DPS, 100 Guns skill, 100% CND and standard ammo (HP/AP ammo obviously have different DPS/DAM values).

hmm that doesn't make sense, i have 58 dam and 139 dps, with the standard ammo and 100 gun skill and 100% condition

sniper rifle is level scaled item you won't see it for sell till like level 12+ earliest I saw it was level 12 at 188

Just looked in the ESM in the toolset I was wrong it is not 12 it is 11 for the level before you start seeing it on vendors

*mistyped not 13 it is 11 in the gun runners leveled sell list and 12 for the 188 arms merchant

The base DPS without reloading time is 106 DPS. That's what the game normally shows. Ammo and other variables can greatly increase that.

However, keep in mind the 5x crit multiplier. A 1st Recon or Green Beret alone would net you 25% crit chance. And the Gobi and standard Sniper Rifle are one of the few weapons in the game where crit damage is 2x and not 1.5x. Add that to the fact that crits ignore DT and you've got some serious damage potential.

As you need very little to reach 100% crit chance with these weapons, just use HP ammo damage values and multiply them by two if you want to find out your actual damage potential.

Do you have that trait that lowers firing rate (it would make the DPS report as lower)? That's the only thing I can think of, since the only flat damage boost I have is the Lord Death challenge perk, and I doubt it's such a huge difference.

i don't think so, i have the lord death perk as well, i think i may have level 2 lord death perk, i'm level 30 and my perception and agility are both 8 i don't know if they affect anything, oh well its not big deal, i just find it odd that the dps varies so much, if you use the jsp ammo the dam goes up about 30 points and dps goes up about 55, kind of overkill there, you can one shot anything from stealth even on very hard difficulty