Hi all.

I've been looking into machine pistols for the purpose of dual wielding them and firing two long bursts per initiative pass (IE firing one gun with each action rather than both guns with one action). This allows for the use of smartgun (I believe. I know that firing both weapons at once doesn't.) and improved range finders, which will either a) mesh well as I'm planning on taking the 'Hawkeye' trait or b) be completely redundant.

The vision in my mind when I was thinking about this was a pair of identical MPs with the additional clip mod (to switch between APDS and Gel with but a thought), 5 points of recoil compensation (personalized grip, gas vent 3, underbarrel weight seemed the likely contenders) and external smartguns. The pistols need to be able to fire full auto in order to output long bursts, and are going to be for mid-intensity firefights (My smaller pistols can handle the light stuff, and if it looks like it's going to get heavy I bring out the assault rifle and full armour. I just have nothing really suited for this tactical niche.)

The main problems I keep running into are either a) the gun I'm looking at has ridiculously low ammo capacity or b) I need to mod it for burst fire, which eats up one of my precious mod slots (Additional clip takes 2, underbarrel weight takes another 2, and personalized grip takes 1... and if there's room left over then the improved range finder takes an additional 1. Oh, and as far as i know the only way to grab an underbarrel weight on an MP is to mod it on.)

Here are a couple of contenders. please keep in mind that having the base weapon under a grand is ideal:

1) Onotari Equalizer: one of the only machine pistols with armour penetration, and comes with full auto capacity built in. then you look at the clip size and your heart cries... 12 bullets base, dropping to 2*9 with the second clip added (both clips are 75% normal for pistol-sized weapons). That's less than two full bursts each, at least without switching ammo types!

2) 5-7C: Needs to be modded for full auto, but not only does it have a 20 (or 2*15) round clip and a low price but it also has a point of magic recoil compensation! switching the barrel weight for full auto mod gives me a net of one extra slot to play with... maybe extended clip?

3) Izom RP-71: Full auto and a solid clip size come as standard for this bad-boy, but at the cost of lacking either the Equalizer's penetration or the 7C's magic recoil. still a solid contender. Reduced weight as standard is also a consideration RP-wise.

4) Steyr TMP: better clip size than the RP-71 but also a heavier weapon, IC I think I'd go for the Izom over it simply because of the weight.

There they are, the pro's and cons as I see them. If anyone can give me some advice (preferably starting along the lines of 'last super-awesome duel-machine-pistol-wielding-killing-machine I made I went for...' ) it would be most appreciated.

PS: I want to say upfront that in spite of the superiority of a short-barreled SMG for this role I'd prefer everyone stick to machine pistols for this, simply because a strength 3 character dual-wielding SMGs feels wrong to me somehow (and in any case i doubt I'd be able to resist the urge to take the 100 round drum option if i was talking SMGs, which should really make them much too heavy to dual wield!)

The last super-awesome duel-machine-pistol-wielding-killing-machine I made I went for Gun Heaven 1's B&P MP9s. You can remove the Foregrip and add the Underbarrel Weight and a Personalized Grip for an RC of 3. Slap on a Gas Vent and your Improved Range Finder and you're good.

It comes with 25c and is FA.

What Marwyn said

Thanks, I have no idea how I missed that one. Just goes to show how carefully I was reading through them I guess!

That's why we're here, chummer. I'm guessing you're gonna go for Additional Clips on these as well?

Indeed. It's so hard to find a single type of ammunition that does exactly what you want every time you shoot it...
hey there's a thought! Ares, start developing Morphshot™ right away!

Hah, or enough of the right type of ammo! Each B&P MP9 modded with an additional clip is good for 6 total long bursts. That's 12 separate IPs for a pair, long enough to last most battles.

They're actually my new Cyberlogician's primary guns.

Well who am I to argue with a Cyberlogician?

I have been stuck on the Onotari Equalizer as a side arm/heavy pistol stand in for my characters w/ Auotmatics mainly for the AP and relative concealability from a fluff/looks perspective, but the mag capacity and RC on the MP9 looks very nice.

Agreed, the Equalizer is both good looking and packs more punch than most other machine pistols... it just has that absolutely fail-ridden clip capacity .
Ironically the shadowtalk calls it the 'fastest method of flattening copper against solid objects known' and talks about how it uses lighter rounds than normal machine pistols... huh?

The 'extreme' machine pistol is of course the Izom RP-63A, which combines an unholy number of standard upgrades with heavy pistol damage and penetration. it does, however, have a serious problem: It costs more standard than most of the pistols we've been discussing will cost fully kitted out! Add a few mods to it that depend on base price (eg throw on an internal smartlink, add a second magazine and chamber it for high powered rounds) and this gun can quickly start outpricing vehicle-mounted weaponry!

My ambidextrous street sam has had pretty decent luck w/ the akimbo Equalizers below for pretty much the same situations you're describing:

He's generally sticking w/ 2 short bursts, both to allow him to run the suppressor w/o too bad of a recoil issue and because it puts him in a fire and reload rhythm that fits relatively well into a combat turn (although to be honest most stuff is dead/down by the 3rd IP before he needs to reload so far and if it's still standing and in short range for an MP it gives me an excuse to use his swords). If you're going to be solo and/or facing a whole lot of opposition at once the extra magazine capacity (and clip for that matter) would be a godsend. I'd probably want my FA modded Ultimax 150 w/ the 100 round drum for those situations, but it's a bit harder to conceal when assembled

The RP-63A definitely caught my eye as well, but the price kinda turned me off too.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but very strict GMs might not allow more than one long burst in an action phase without the HV mod. While recoil is tracked per weapon there is a hard limit of only one long burst per action phase.

Where is this gun from?

Isn't a second mag a little pointless if all you can use is HP-rounds?

More of the same stuff is not that bad. The HP mod in itself is though.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the Ares Crusader yet?
Ares Crusader 4P 40© 700¥
-Firing selection Change FA 300¥
-GasVent III 400¥
-Personalized Grip 100¥ Electronic Firing unfortunately does not fit.
-Underbarrel Weight 25¥
-external Smartlink 400¥
You can fire one fully compensated burst, the weapon is smart and you have a magazine capacity of 40 for 1925¥. What's not to like?

The main strengths of the Crusader is that it carries a good hunk of ammo, and it comes with gas-vent 2 standard. This makes the unmodified version a very solid choice for GMs outfitting low-end opposition.

For a PC the best feature is probably its ammunition capacity, as if you're seriously planning on modding it that's the only feature that's likely to stay (ripping out gas vent 2 and replacing it with gas vent 3 is almost a given for a PC).

EDIT: oh, and the only reason i threw the HP mod on was because it's based on the weapon's base price, not because I'd ever use them.

A quick Google search indicates that the Izom Armaments RP-63A was one of 9 guns added to the Gun Heaven section of Runner's Black Book. The new items were print-only and not available to PDF purchasers. From the Shadowrun4 forums:

• TPP (light pistol)
• Ultimax 70 (machine pistol)
• AN-39 (assault rifle/grenade launcher)
• Terracotta Arms DLW (sporting rifle)
• M428 Grenade Launcher (grenade launcher)
• Kriss X (submachine gun)
• XM-629 OICW (assault rifle/grenade launcher)
• Evington's Propelled Katana (think Tom Jane's Punisher's switchblade)
• Izom Armaments RP-63A (machine pistol)

In my opinion, it's kind of a jerk move to make material print only when so many books are being made available as PDFs and the book was primarily a print version of several PDF products. It's an incentive to buy the print copy, but I feel that it's a bit of a slap in the face to everyone who supports PDF products.

Only place I've seen it so far is in the Runner's Black Book. It's part of the bonus content.

Edit: LOL, NM somehow didn't see Cabral's comment before I posted

The new compilation is even more brilliant as it has extra content too, but on the otherhand it doesn't have all of the Eurowar Antiques content(only gear, not the fluff parts).
So now neither PDF buyer nor the physical book buyer get everything.

Awesome publishing strategies for the information age...


The majority consensus of most of the feedback I've heard is that adding HP powder and casing to other ammo types should be an allowable ammo mod, but I don't think I recall mention of this in RAW.

Why in the world would they think this is a good idea? Why segregate the market?

Pretty sure it's targeted in some part towards encouraging die-hard fans to purchase multiple copies of what is for the most part the same content. Kinda like exclusive in-game pre-order bonus bits offered through different retailers or 6 different collectors editions for video games...

That and encouraging initial single purchases w/ the idea of "Ooo, look! Exclusive bonus content!"

Which is why you get different people to buy different items and then share them. Makes for a better gaming group.

No arguments w/ that here

The advantage of having your gaming library on your tablet is lost. It's not just an inconvenient choice of action; Catalyst is making some material exclusive to PDFs and other exclusive to hard copies. In addition, because the way the material is structured, there is no discount for buying both. I may only be mildly offended by this attempt to short the customer, but I do want to discourage this from continuing or escalating.

Anyone up for some runs against CGL?

You can still have the "extra" stuff in the books on your tablet... Just take a picture of it... You may not be able to search/index it but you will still have it.

What really gets my noodle is the obsession with hard-cover books... Why would I want to pay 50+% more for a book... Why do they not produce soft-cover books? Palladium does, and their core books are around $25 for 300+ pages. And, I still have their books (and in good condition) over 20 years later. The core SR4 books are around 200 pages and are $40+. Sorry, no offense, but I am not wasting my money. I did buy the core books for SR4 but anything else.... No! If the only format is hard-cover.

Now, I don't know if the book in question is hard-cover or not (I was making a separate point) but I bought the PDF's of the other books, someone else in my group will buy the book and I will just take pictures of the stuff I am missing.

Or better yet, scan and OCR it... IANAL, but I think this is still legal under fair use. I'm definitely not a fan of exclusive content, or paying full price for an electronic copy of a physical product I already bought.

I personally usually prefer hardcovers as they tend to hold up longer and are usually printed on higher quality stock in color. I have a bit of a fetish for nice books though. Having the option for either soft or hardcover would be nice, but I doubt they'd do this and even if they did I'm not sure we'd wind up w/ anything close to that kind of pricing. Seems like most of the CGL softcover books are ~100-150 pages and still $20-30.

Runner's Black Book is a pretty well executed hardcover w/ really good color and a pretty beefy binding.

I'm probably showing my age here, but I don't know if I've ever owned a Shadowrun book that was Hardcover. When I used to play, everything was soft cover, and when I got back in, everything was PDF.

Indeed, all my 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition Shadowrun Books were Softcover. It was only in 4th Edition that I began seeing any Hardcover books (and a sore lack of Softcover main books). However, The Precious is a work of art.

Hmmm, I thought I remembered my 1E core book as hardcover but it's been a long time ago now since most of my 1E books got lost, only one I still have is Shadowtech. Only ones I've bought since then are the 4E ones.

I'm about 99% certain my old core book (Sally, Ghost and Dodger in 80's glory) was softcover - I have a memory of creases across the cover.

I just ask what Machine Gunn Eddie would do.

The normal runs were softcover, the limited editions were hardbacks. I think I technically have all the pages of my first edition softcover; my BBB (Big Blue Book) is in fine shape.

Indeed... I have my 1st and 2nd Edition Main Books in excelent condition, as well as ShadowBeat and Rigger Black Book 1. All my 3rd Edition books (I think I had all of them) were stolen.