Machine Pistol

"Machine pistols are sloppy, but when I need to fight Flood Infection forms, sloppy's the best thing on the menu."

- Private Lewis Allen

The Machine Pistol is a human loadout weapon, exclusively seen in Halo: Spartan Assault's co-op Flood missions. It is an automatic weapon which fires very inaccurately and deals little damage, but has a fast rate of fire and a large ammo capacity to compensate.

Universe and lore
The M6/Z Magnum is a machine pistol that comprised part of Misriah Armory's venerable M6 series, a long-running line of personal defence weapons. It is fully-automatic, and specially modified for use in high-risk, close-quarters scenarios such as ship boarding actions. Though it was very inaccurate, even described as "sloppy" by Private Lewis Allen, it made up for this with its incredibly high rate of fire.

Misriah first introduced the M6/Z some time before late 2552. It did not see widespread use, but it did find utility against Flood during the UNSC's brief encounter with the parasite towards the end of the Human-Covenant war, particularly against infection forms like pod infectors. The weapon was also present in TACSIM training simulations hosted by Roland aboard the, at some point after December 5, 2557. These simulated a Forerunner location called X-40, and populated it with Flood forms, in order to train Spartans to fight the parasite, should the UNSC ever encounter it again.

Overview
"Short range dual-wielded machine gun pistols"

- Halo: Spartan Assault weapon summary

The Machine Pistol is a light grey pistol with a short barrel, a foregrip, a tall sight at the front of the weapon and a long magazine protruding from the bottom of its rear grip. It fires very inaccurately, has a short range and deals little damage, however sports a very large ammo capacity and fires very fast. Like many other sidearms in Spartan Assault, the player's Spartan will dual-wield Machine Pistols when picked up.

Attachments
At Halo: Spartan Assault's co-op loadout screen, if one of the two loadout options contains the Machine Pistol, the player can optionally equip it with one of three attachments, all of which increase its ammunition capacity by various degrees. These apply to all Machine Pistols in the match - not just the one the player spawns with. The upgrades will take effect for both players regardless of who bought it, and if both players purchase the upgrades, the increase in ammo will stack. This allows for a total ammunition increase of +90%. Upgrades will only apply for a single mission, and are single-use; they will need to be purchased again next time the player plays the same mission.

The three upgrades are as follows:

Counterparts
The Machine Pistol has no direct counterparts within the co-op Flood missions, as only a limited set of weapons appear in this mode. However, there are a number of other weapons in Halo: Spartan Assault and the Halo franchise in general which serve a similar role.

On the human, UNSC side, there is the SMG. Like the Machine Pistol, the SMG is an automatic sidearm, which deals very little damage per hit but has a fast rate of fire. The SMG appears in the Spartan Assault main campaign, where it fulfills a role very similar to that of the Machine Pistol, but is replaced by the Machine Pistols in its co-op missions. Like the Machine Pistols, it is dual wielded in Spartan Assault and is fully automatic, but it is significantly more accurate.

The Covenant uses a number of weapons similar in operation to the Machine Pistol. The and  are automatic weapons which fire plasma bolts which deal light damage, and are somewhat inaccurate. Furthermore, the Needler is an automatic Covenant sidearm which fires slow-moving pink needles that home in on the target, and can cause a "supercombine" explosion if enough projectiles connect with the target. Finally, the Paegaas Workshop Spiker is an automatic weapon which fires superheated spikes which travel very quickly, but deals little damage to enemies. Of these four, only the Needler appears in Spartan Assault, being present in the campaign mode, but not co-op.

The Forerunner Prometheans have a similar weapon known as the Suppressor. It fires hardlight bolts which deal light damage to enemies. The weapon is incredibly inaccurate, but has a large magazine and fires very fast. Although it does not appear in Spartan Assault, the Suppressor is present in Spartan Strike, where it serves a gameplay role almost identical to that of the Machine Pistol, albeit with a much reduced ammunition capacity.

Gameplay
In general, the Machine Pistol is a weak weapon with a very specialised role overall; it excels at dealing with pod infectors, but is useful for little else. It can be found abundantly in all of the co-op missions, with at least two spawning on every level. Additionally, red combat forms will always be equipped with the weapon when they spawn. All co-op missions besides Co-op 1: Checkpoint feature the Machine Pistols in one of their loadout options.

Stats
The weapon bears the following stats in Halo: Spartan Assault:

Advantages

 * The Machine Pistols fire in a wide angle, allowing a player to fire upon an entire group of enemies easily.
 * A Machine Pistol shot will kill a pod infector, making it an ideal weapon against swarms of them.
 * Ammo for the weapon is plentiful in all co-op maps, and it carries a very large amount.

Disadvantages

 * Due to its wide angle of fire, to engage a single target with the weapon, the player must move very close and risk a melee attack.
 * The weapon's damage against all other units is pitiful, making it a very ineffective weapon against them.
 * Its projectiles will disappear after traveling a short distance from the player.

Tactics and strategies
The Machine Pistols are most effective against pod infectors. Ideally, they should be used from a distance, to allow the user to more easily escape if a swarm of enemies overruns them, which is liable to happen given the weapon's low damage. Unless there is no other choice, the weapon should not be used against combat forms, as it deals very little damage and forces the player to move in close and risk being meleed. The weapon is best used in combination with another, more powerful weapon; the Machine Pistols can be used to mop up swarms of infection forms without wasting ammunition for the other weapon, which the player can switch to in order to deal with more dangerous foes.

Production notes
Despite not appearing in the game, the HUD icons for the machine pistol exist in the files of Halo: Spartan Strike, likely just a holdover from the first game. As with all HUD elements in Spartan Strike, these icons take on a slight green tinge when compared to Spartan Assault.

Curiously, the Machine Pistol takes on the appearance of the campaign's SMG when held by red combat forms, despite retaining the properties of the Machine Pistol. However, the combat forms will still drop a normal Machine Pistol upon death.

Due to only being available in one mode, in a relatively obscure Halo title, the Machine Pistols went largely unnoticed by the majority of the community, and by 343 Industries themselves. The weapon was not acknowledged in any media outside of Spartan Assault, nor was it mentioned in a Halo Community Update or Canon Fodder around the time of the release of the co-op mode. On one occasion in 2018, when asked, 343 Industries writer Kenneth Peters confessed to having forgotten they existed. Consequently, the weapon became a meme among the Halopedia community, due to the absence of any substantial information on the subject.

Following the release of Canon Fodder issue 128 in mid-2022, Halopedia admin Dab1001 joked on the Halopedia Discord server that Halopedia should collectively band together and all ask questions about the Machine Pistols in the next Canon Fodder Q&A. Canon Fodder writer Alex Wakeford jokingly encouraged this, and so when the next call for Q&A questions was made, Halopedia users made several posts asking various questions about the weapon over both Reddit, and Twitter. Users who submitted questions were awarded the "Machine Pistol Legion" role on the Discord server. Eventually, the Machine Pistols were expanded upon in Canon Fodder issue 133, in October 2022, initially with a humorous fakeout description involving Precursor neural physics, intended to make the reader think the question would not be answered seriously, before progressing to a brief segment establishing the Machine Pistol as the M6/Z magnum, manufactured by Misriah Armory.

"Augmented with fledgling knowledge of the esoteric Precursor science-magics of neural physics, the machine p--"

- Humorous, non-canonical description of the Machine Pistols.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Spartan Assault