Machine pistol

The machine pistol is a slightly lighter, multi-shot firearm in RimWorld which fires 3-shot bursts of rounds which deal a low amount of damage each; a slightly shorter delay between each shot; a very short time between bursts; slightly shorter range and slightly higher overall accuracy.

Acquisition

Machine pistols can be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, outlander settlements, or obtained from the following raider kinds:

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Scavenger Gunner	25.20%	Normal	40-110%
Pirate Gunner	22.26%	Normal	70-230%
Villager	5.32%	Poor	20-200%
Town Guard	17.63%	Normal	60-200%
Mercenary Gunner	10.38%	Normal	70-320%
Ancient Soldier	8.61%	Normal	100%

Machine pistols can also be crafted at a machining table once the blowback operation research has been completed; from 45 steel, 3 components and 11,000 ticks (3.06 mins) of work. A crafting skill of at least 4 is required.

Analysis

Despite its low per-shot damage, the machine pistol still has a respectable damage output owing to its excellent rate of fire, easily outclassing the autopistol, and even going toe-to-toe with the more expensive pump shotgun. Its very high close-up accuracy and the aforementioned fire rate also makes the machine pistol an excellent weapon for low-skilled shooters, as well as general close-quarters combat. The machine pistol's also very easy to acquire due to earlygame raiders often using it as well as its relative ease of manufacture.

However, unlike the pump shotgun or even the revolver, the machine pistol isn't able to stagger advancing humans or human-sized mechanoids. The machine pistol also unsurprisingly has poor armor penetration which somewhat limits it towards the midgame onwards, but it still manages to keep up with the pump shotgun. Almost every other ranged weapon in the game also out-ranges the machine pistol - exceptions including hand-thrown weapons and shotguns.

Another result of the machine pistol's low per-shot damage is that it's very unlikely to outright kill humans, but any human that gets downed by a machine pistol will usually have many bleeding gunshot wounds that need tending. Therefore, it's advisable to use at least herbal medicine to be able to patch up multiple wounds per tend, unless you're confident that your doctors can patch each individual wound quickly enough.

The machine pistol is best suited as a close-quarters engagement weapon due to its high close-up accuracy and good damage output, and it's also a good weapon for hit-and-run tactics due to its burst-shot nature and very short warmup/cooldown cycle. Due to its low per-shot damage though, as well as its relatively short range, it's ill-advised to use the machine pistol as a hunting weapon since it'll easily send animals into a manhunting rage.

Against an unarmored human, a machine pistol can kill with 7 hits to the torso, 5 hits to the head or 4 hits to the neck; cripple or destroy limbs in 5 hits; and cripple or destroy eyes and digits with 2 hits. A single hit to the brain will cause debilitating brain damage, but typically won't kill unless the victim's consciousness hits 0%. It'll generally take around 11 hits (~8.3 seconds average) to incapacitate that human from pain shock.

Overall, the machine pistol is best paired with a careful shooter up to level 12, then with a trigger-happy shooter beyond that point.

Weapons that would typically supplant the machine pistol include the chain shotgun and heavy SMG.

Melee Combat

Tool	Attack	Damage Type	Power	AP	Cooldown	Likelihood	Base DPS
Overall	-	-	9	13%	2.00s	-	4.50
Grip	Blunt	Blunt	9	13%	2.00s	50.00%	4.50
Barrel	Blunt	Blunt	9	13%	2.00s	25.00%	4.50
Barrel	Poke	Blunt	9	13%	2.00s	25.00%	4.50

Machine Pistol vs. Comparable Weapons

This section goes over how well the machine pistol fares against comparable weapons (similar value, tech level or similar characteristics) in 1 vs. 1 combat.

Methodology

All testing is semi-automated which allows for large sample sizes to be gathered per set of results with ease
All pawns have skill levels of 14 in ranged and melee
No pawns have any traits that affect combat performance
All pawns are of at least 18 years of age and completely healthy
Pawns are divided by walls to prevent stray shots from skewing results in any way
Weather is always kept clear
No cover is used for either team

Results in the tables below are the percentages of battles that machine pistols either won or tied against the weapon listed in the first column of said tables, with a sample size of 2,000 battles per result. Higher percentages are better.

Unarmored

For the unarmored testing, all pawns wore normal quality plainleather pants, plainleather button-down shirts, plainleather dusters and plainleather cowboy hats.

Other Weapon	3	7	12	18	25	32	40
Heavy SMG	37.43%	38.81%	36.61%	38.85%	-	-	-
Pump Shotgun	76.44%	66.34%	51.12%	-	-	-	-
Autopistol	80.66%	74.18%	66.93%	63.80%	-	-	-

Armored

For the armored testing, all pawns wore normal quality flak pants, flak vests, plainleather button-down shirts, flak jackets and steel simple helmets.

Other Weapon	3	7	12	18	25	32	40
Heavy SMG	35.69%	34.13%	33.68%	35.79%	-	-	-
Pump Shotgun	77.37%	69.13%	51.76%	-	-	-	-
Autopistol	81.49%	75.64%	66.35%	62.92%	-	-	-

Graphs

The graphs assume a normal quality machine pistol against an adult human that's out in the open in clear weather. For DPS, projectile speed has also been factored into the equation, with the weighting based on the base amount of attacks that it'll take to put the aforementioned target into pain shock.