Ranged sneak attack

[Lorkar1]

Is ranged sneak attack broken?
I ask because it is functioning less than 30% of the time. I was curious having noticed it in passing before so I went to FD
and started plinking wolves using HiPS with my rogue.
I went through 8 sets of combat sequences and then went back and counted the number of attacks and the number of sneak attacks.
I performed each attack separately so I could make sure I was stealthed. I was amazed at how few times I was able to sneak attack.
The range went from 6/53 to 9/31.
I repeated the procedure with melee and found the sneak attack working almost everytime.
When ranged sneak attack went off it seemed to do so in clumps.
And then it seemed to work better only after being spotted and then having a successful hide.
For the record I would hide and attack, then hide and attack repeat ad nauseum.
I also tried this on a friends lowbie just to see if it might be level related and lo and behold I got results worse on a PC.

In the immortal words of Bartles and James "Thank you for your support"

[P. Fricebottle]

You must be within 30 feet of the target for the Ranged Sneak Attack to fire. Of course this can become a problem for the vast majority of us without a measuring stick on hand, but you get used to it after a while. Takes a while, but you'll develop the sense of what is within range and whats not.

Melee attack works differently then ranged, it works every time because you're always going to be within the 30 feet range to get a successful sneak attack.

[Netrom.dk]

If you maximize your minimap you will see a grid. This is the grid that shows the tiles, and each tile is 10x10 meters, which is close to 30x30 feet.

[Lorkar1]

I will try it although for most of my attacks I was almost within melee range. But I will pay attention to distance this time.

[JesterOI]

Your sneak attacks won't work either if a target has you targeted, even if they aren't in range.

[P. Fricebottle]

Yea, a sneak attack still has to be a sneak attack. Most likely the 'clumps' you were referring to werre the first one or two sneak attacks that you got off and the rest were just normal because you had already attracted the NPC's attention.

[Lorkar1]

So HiPSing won't disrupt the attack queue like it does a casters then I take it. That in itself makes it broken since I had read in a previous post that targeting while invisible or stealthed by creatures was something coded for NS4.

[JesterOI]

HIPS'ing only disrupts players queue's from what I recall.