Some stuff I've discovered about the M40 recon class in BFBC2:Vietnam, some of this you may know, some you may not. I don't profess to be an expert here by any stretch I am still very new to this game. I thought this might come in handy for other newer players who like the idea of playing the recon class.
Playstyle
Well this really is up to you, do you want to sit way back hiding in your bush picking people off?, or would you rather run around taking objectives, spotting for your squad, taking out vehicles and raining down hell on set locations?, personally I play the latter, an aggressive recon. (unless I'm eating a sandwich)
The Kit
I use the following:
Main Weapon - The M40 of course
Secondary Weapon - TT-33 (Love the rate of fire on this thing)
Gadget - Bog standard TNT, Ideal for taking out those peskie tanks.
Spec 1 - Ammo Upgrade - Double the ammount of ammo.
Spec 2 - Magnum Ammo - Greater range and damage.
Spec 3 - Vehicles are for pussys!
Gun Stats.
Firstly, the M40 is overpowered in the right hands, if you have a half decent aim with fast reaction times you can wreak havok with this thing, because of the simple fact that with magnum ammo you can 'one-shot' people not only in the head, but also in the torso from short-medium range (up to 45 in game meters I believe, and 20m without magnum ammo), at longer range its two shots . Personally, I'd like the 'one-shot' range to be lowered slightly, maybe match that of the M95 in vanilla BFBC2. Body Armor obviously effects this if the target has it equipped.
As you can see from the image above, the M40 does 105 damage to 20 meters, players have 100 health, you do the maths.
Aim Ahead of Targets
Hitting a moving target is a bit more difficult than a stationary one because of the bullet physics in the game, you need to aim slightly infront of the target in order to hit it. I try to aim where I think the player will be in the next split second depending on distance.
If the player is a fair distance away, you'll also need to aim slightly higher than normal again because of the bullet physics, bullets in BFBC2 'dip' over longer distances
Here's a video showing what I mean.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD3wnAap3Zw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD3wnAap3Zw</a>
Quickscoping
Played a fair few 'Call of Duty' games over the years and 'Quickscoping' is fairly popular with the kiddies in that series, it's a bit harder to do in BFBC2:Vietnam but it's possible.
Best way to describe how to quickscope is to try and center the target right in the middle of your screen before you zoom. Once he's centered, zoom in and almost instantly fire your weapon. What you're aiming to do is take the shot the second the crossairs are over the target.
Another video showing what I mean.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClW98x3LT0Q" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClW98x3LT0Q</a>
Controls
The basic control layout is entirely your choice, I pretty much keep the default keys with a few modifications. One thing I do change and I seriously suggest it if you want to do well or even think about quickscoping is that you uncheck 'Zoom Toggle' in your settings, and have zoom set to mouse2, it allows you to zoom in much faster than normal.
That's pretty much it. Have fun, and try not to get yourself banned from any servers by quickscoping and them thinking your cheating