This and the post that followed, are complete crap. Ignore it. Here is some information that may prove useful Xisor, unlike the other two guys.


Machine pistols are exactly that. Pistol sized weapons capable of firing at machine gun rates. In SR terms they are Pistols that can fire BF or FA. Utterly and completely useless both in SR and in the real world. That is not to say they wont kill people, they will. Their just not as effective as a SMG or a Heavy Pistol.


I also recommend reading the information on Raygun's site, it is very useful. Click on the link below to find it.

They're great for suppressive fire. Any ganger or wannabe can have one and start hosing lead.

ed- Damn. Beat me, toturi

Yawn.

Hostage situation, different ammo types, otaku runners... and that's only after 3 seconds.

Kanada, the SM doesn't figure in Suppressive Fire.

And you base this information off your long and extensive RL personal knowledge of fire arms right? Tell me again if you have ever fired a gun?

Technically, I think MPs use "machine pistol ammunition." I haven't seen (note old book + imperceptive) anything that said otherwise, and machine pistols are put in their own category, so I'd expect they used their category ammunition like everything else.

I have no problem taking advice from those people. I have never presumed to offer practical experience that is outside the ken of someone who has never fired a weapon first hand. I can also vouch for the fact that I know more about firearms than a number of people I know with more practical experience. First hand practical knowledge is only one part of a much bigger equation, and it's completely fallacious to suggest otherwise.

Xizor clearly stated that he had been trying to understand the SR machine pistols by reading up on real life weapons. Blond's comment and my comment were intended to remedy this by explaining that SR's guns do not follow real life, do not follow any internal logic, are not sane, and do not make any sense. That's all.

Are machine pistols completely worthless? Consider that they are completely and totally outclassed by weapons that are, under a long coat and in a concealability holster, almost exactly as concealable and far more potent. SMGs do 6 or 7M, are almost just as small, and can pack a lot more compensation. Heavy pistols hit for 9 or 10M and will actually hurt your target instead of making him or her simply laugh at you. Per SR canon, they are a class of weapons with absolutely no advantages over anything else that is practically available. They'll never hit anything if you fire enough to stage up damage, and if you fire with searching or suppressing fire, they'll hit and do no damage. Get a heavy pistol or an SMG.

SR3, p. 279, Ammunition

There is no Machine Pistol range, they use LP ranges. Ergo, they use LP ammo.

So basically you're saying that anyone who desires to wear a concealable holster and long coat all of the time and fight armored high-body foes will get no use from a machine pistol?

Really, I'm fine with that, but it doesn't make them "completely worthless"

I meant Suppressive Fire, Searching Fire, /or/ combined with a Smartlink... If you have the Smartlink, go for a called shot to ignore armor or increase damage.

How about an example?

Mobster with Pistols 4 skill loading Ex-explosive in a Machine Pistol with Folding Stock and Shock Pad (-1 RC) plus a Custom Grip (-1 RC). The Mobster has a Combat Pool of 6 and uses one simple to aim (-1 TN) before firing a burst with 4 Combat Pool. The burst has a base damage of 11M and a Target Number of 4. Average of 4 successes. The Target Number to dodge is 5 and requires 5 successes.

Mobster Twin with Pistols 4 and an SMG loaded with Ex-explosive, Folding Stock and Shock Pad (-1 RC), plus a Gas Vent IV (-4 RC). Twin lets out two bursts using 2 Combat Pool (Max 1/2 Skill Defaulting) each shot. The first burst has a base damage of 13S and a Target Number of 7. Average 1 success. The second burst has a base damage of 13S and a Target Number of 8. Off and on success. The Target Number to dodge both shots is 5 and requires 2 successes.

Mobster Monster with Pistols 4 and a Heavy Pistol loading Ex-explosive ammo with a Custom Grip (-1 RC). Monster fires two shots using 4 Combat Pool and 2 Combat Pool respectfully. The first shot does base damage of 11M with a Target Number of 4, as does the second shot. Average of 4 and 3 successes. The Target Number to dodge is 4 for both shots requiring 5 and 4 successes.

Joe Doe agrees to stand in as our dummy and has a Combat Pool of 8, Lined Coat (4/2), and a Body of 6. Because we don’t want to skew things, each shot happens in its own scenario. Joe’s lucky perception test and previous experience tells him Dodging is the better option in all cases (Target Numbers of 5 and 4 versus Target Numbers of 7 and 9).

Using 8 Combat Pool to dodge against Mobster’s shot, Joe will average 3 successes, reducing Mobster’s net successes to 1. That’s not enough to dodge so we take Joe’s 3 successes and Mobster’s 4 and Stage the Damage. Joe rolls 6 Body against a Target Number of 7, averaging 1 success, making his net 4 successes. The Damage Code of 11M is not staged up or down, and Joe takes a Moderate Wound.

Joe Doe will dodge Twin’s first shot using 6 Combat Pool and averaging 2 successes. The second shot will often miss, but if we assume it hits we’ll also assume Joe garnered a success on his dodge using the last 2 Combat Pool. That mean we’re on to Damage Staging with Joe rolling Body 6 and averaging 1 success every few rolls against a Target Number 9. Even if we assume success on the Body roll, that makes 1 Success for Twin and 2 for Joe, so the damage is not staged. Joe will take a Serious wound if the second shot hits.

Against a Target Number of 7 Joe averages 3 successes, as we know, leaving 1 net for Monster. The Body roll only nets 1 success too, meaning Monster’s first shot deals a Moderate wound to Joe after staging (4 successes and 4 successes). The second shot uses Joe’s straight Body 6 against a Target Number of 7. One success won’t stop Monster from raising the damage to Serious, dealing a total of nine boxes of damage in one phase.

Conclusion: A few mobsters firing Machine Pistols can ruin anyone’s day and still let the PCs survive the encounter without fudging dice rolls. Obviously, the Heavy Pistol is the best choice in most cases. However, if Heavy Pistols carried heavier Legal ramifications (which many GMs incorporate) then it makes sense for people who interact with police forces more often to carry the concealable Machine Pistol. Note that Twin did not aim because doing so did not increase the chance of hitting. The chance of fully dodging Monster’s two shots is near impossible requiring 9 Combat Pool total (and all success), while to dodge Mobster’s shot only requires 5 Combat Pool (though a Pedestrian only has 4 Combat Pool).

Now, if we give them all Smartlinks...

Did you answer his question or even help? No you acted like a jackass and now are trying to show everyone how smart you are. Whoopee. My point was you didn't answer the question, you have no real knowledge of firearms accept for what you have read on the web. You took it as an oppurtunity to bash the rules which you don't like. Wahoo, your a genius.

Next time someone asks a question why don't you try being helpful? Jeez.

Well if you had said that, at least he would have know where the hell you were coming from. Regardless if I agree with you or not (and I don't) it would have been a lot more useful then,

"flush your brain down the toilet".

As for the rest of it, I will just chalk it up to you being a jackass.

Not really. Even per canon, they fire different ammunition and have completely different damage codes (6 or 7M to the heavy pistols' 9 or 10M).

Conceal of 4, not 5. And you can get that first shot off with no recoil if you just get a custom grip, but they don't fare very well on the second; +3 may not be impossible, but it does make things a fair bit harder. Do the +1 to the dodge test and +2 concealability make up for (an effective) 2 shots less capacity, triple recoil on the second shot per phase, increased ammunition costs, increased weapon illegality, slightly decreased range, inability to do damage on semi auto, and impotence against hardened armor? Personally, I don't think so. I really wouldn't call that overcompensation.

Are you simply talking about the rules, or do you mean if an enemy draws one on a character?

From the rules perspective: I can buy a week supply of MaryJane for 20$ and a week supply of cigs at 35$... I can buy a gun for 65$ and a knife for 200$ or a car for 200$ and a bicyle for $500 or an airplane for 10,000,000$ and a house for 96,000$. Why would anyone buy a knife, an airplane or a pack of cigs?

If the enemy draws one on you, I've already shown they can do damage.

You seem to think that Street Index is the same everywhere, all the time. This is simply untrue, if a supply truck gets hit and it's filled with Machine Pistols, the market is flooded and the SI goes down. Other locations might favor Machine Pistols, as well. The high price is probably an indication of the lack of street demand. One thing to remember is that a plus one TN makes something twice as hard to accomplish (except at 6/7).

My metaphor is that people buy things for different reasons. Look at the Brand Name Firearm debate, think about the PC/MAC debate, and other things in real life. None of it makes any sense. We cant really say what weapons are better because they don't have neat little damage codes to compare. Neither do the guns in the Shadowrun world. At least, not to the people in the world.

For most GMs, I believe it is. That aside, even taking the canon street indices as general averages, they work out dramatically in the favor of anything not a machine pistol.

And, yes, that +1 does halve your chances of succeeding, but when you consider all the other dynamic elements in play in combat, that +1 really isn't all that significant— especially when I can do the same thing and do it far better with an SMG. If I'm going to make you dodge at +1 or +2, I'll make sure you're ducking away from 9, 10, or 12S, not 9M. Especially when the recoil is, at its most favorable for the Ares Crusader, identical to the SMG.

Yes, they do, but just because people in SR don't have damage codes to look at doesn't mean they can't read assessments of the terminal potential of various rounds from whatever the SR equivalent of the IWBA is, or, hell, just browse some matrix information for opinions. Once you get that, it will at least be incredibly obvious that the lethality of that 6L slug, even if fake you don't know it does 6L, is pretty fucking limited— just like I know I'll never drag a .22LR pistol into combat unless I have no other choice.

Interesting, but the mobster is still going to see the Heavy Pistol spotted 29.76 percent of the time and the Machine Pistol spotted 8.1 precent and think: hummm...

Like I said, I can reasonably justify mobsters and gangers carring them just so I'm not killing my PCs left and right. But I also modify SI and Legality, so...

Then I think, hummm, those conceal 5 SMGs and conceal 6 and 7 Heavy Pistols are looking pretty damn good.

Go ahead and do that. I think we all know how I feel about modifying canon. My point is that, by canon, there's really no use for the things unless you're specifically looking for a rather impotent weapon.

[edit]

Certainly, there's no way to perfectly calculate what is the best weapon in real life, but also keep in mind that those shitty weapons that sell well don't sell to people who'll likely ever bring them to combat, and are much less likely to sell to someone who lives by the thing. I'm not suggesting that every person in the Shadowrun world is perfectly professional, but by and large, a runner should never run into a canon machine pistol short of a fluke who thought it was a good idea and is about to be proven sorely wrong.

Shouldn't SMGs qualify, here? And, per canon, it's not like there's a concealability issue. Lots of heavy pistols are harder to conceal and presumably smaller than most SMGs.