Thoughts on suppressors, subsonic rounds, and alerting enemies
One of the issues often discussed here is the Hollywood level of silence from suppressed weapons which goes hand-in-hand with poor enemy detection. Somewhat related is the fact that a few 5.56 SBR (short-barrelled rifles) have very poor damage and limited range.
Until we get an overhaul to how suppressors, ammo/cartridges, damage, and detection works to make it realistic, here's my suggestion for those that want to make things a bit more immersive.
Let's say that current suppressed noise levels, are only remotely appropriate when using subsonic ammunition... like 45 ACP or 300 BLK.
For those that aren't familiar, 300 Blackout is basically a .308 caliber bullet in a .223 (5.56mm) casing. All you need to do to convert a 5.56 rifle to 300BLK is a barrel swap. The base of the cartridge is the same, so the Bolt Carrier Group (BCG) and even magazines work equally fine with both. 300BLK has lower muzzle velocity and more drop-off at range. It makes sense that 5.56 SBRS in the game with lower damage and range are actually configured to shoot sub-sonic 300BLK.
We can use this to inject a bit of authenticity and immersion...
Let's make a rule that any SBR AR with damage less than X is actually configured to run 300 blackout subsonic. On these weapons, you can use a suppressor, and the Hollywood sound output and detection is probably closer to reality. Although still exaggerated, it's better. I haven't fired one, but if you watch some Youtube videos, literally the only sound such a gun makes is the sound of the bolt cycling which is not silent, but pretty low profile.
X could be 22 or 25 or 27, whatever you feel is reasonable, (I pick 25)... but definitely any of the assault variants are excluded from this. I would really only include weapons with short barrels - which is a characteristic of most of the under performing 5.56 rifles anyway.
Then any AR with damage greater than X, is assumed to be firing high-velocity supersonic rounds but is still assumed to be suppressed, but instead of a suppressor you equip a linear compensator (blast shield I think it's called in the game) and that's how much sound it makes when suppressed. So in other words, shooting unsuppressed with these weapons is analogous to shooting suppressed in real life. In other words, it's not Hollywood silent, and will attract attention.
Now for Snipers and DMRs, they should be run without suppressors at ll times to be realistic, because they are shooting high velocity rounds that will make a supersonic crack. The main benefit of a suppressor on these weapons is for flash and signature suppression and reduce the chance of being located, which isn't an issue with the poor AI detection we have in this game. And if you're shooting a DMR or SNR from more than about 200m you're not going to alert anyone anyhow... even without a suppressor which is already ludicrous since anyone in the region would likely hear the report of a 50-Cal being fired. 
For Handguns, I think they should normally be unsuppressed as you want to be able to quickly swap to your sidearm if you go Winchester on your carbine, and/or you're injured, have a jam or whatever.... you want maximize swap speed and damage. Since they fire 9mm and 45ACP subsonic, you can obviously equip a suppressor and greatly reduce their noise signature, but I think suppressed handguns are too Hollywood quiet - they won't even be heard in the next room. And while it can be fun and challenging to do pistol only infiltrations, no operator is going to do that. Instead, use a suppressed SBR as discussed above.
I realize this is a half-a$$ed solution full of holes but I'm trying to work with the crap mechanics we have in this area the best I can.
Thoughts?
Copying this example of what I mean from later in the thread....
Here's an example of how I've setup my ARs... in this case I'm using the ACR, as it's new, but you could do this with any AR that has a short barrel and a regular barrel. I'm also running Gear Score on so I can use buffs to further differentiate the two.
Here's the SBR variant (assumed to be running 300 Blackout)... it's quiet and mobile as you would expect...

Here's the Assault variant (assumed to be running 5.56)... this does more damage, has more range, but is louder... just as you'd expect for 5.56 vs 300Blk subsonic...

(Note I can't put a control shield on this so I just used a flash hider)
Here's a comparison of the two, you can see they are very different weapons, doing different damage and different range and different noise signatures that are fairly representative of the real-world difference between 300 Blackout subsonic and 5.56 supersonic.
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