PPN-8 Personal Defense Sidearm (Silenced Pistol)

"The TranStar PPN-8 Pistol is the standard issue weapon for all TranStar security personnel. Small, fast, and quiet, this pistol provides satisfactory damage while maintaining a degree of stealth."

- Tutorial

The TranStar PPN-8 Personal Defense Sidearm, also known as the Silenced Pistol, is a ranged weapon found on Talos I during Prey (2017), and on Pytheas during Prey: Mooncrash.

Overview
Morgan finds the weapon on the corpse of a fallen security guard. On the back of the pistol, there is a small screen that displays the number of rounds in both the inventory and the magazine. The weapon seems to be built around a modified toggle-lock action, as a portion of the top of its upper frame is seen bending at an angle and moving backward to eject a fired round. During its empty reload, Morgan can be seen pulling a small handle on the side of the pistol in order to cock the action and chamber a new round.

Material yield: 0.75,  0.25

Dismantle results: 1 Spare Part

Weapon Upgrades
On Talos I, the Silenced Pistol is a "security weapon" and can only be fully upgraded via weapon upgrade kits with the Gunsmith I and II neuromods. On Pytheas, which lacks upgrade kits or their fabrication plans, standard and advanced pistols are made directly from their fabrication plans, and have their upgrades built into them.


 * Gunsmith I     Gunsmith II

Artemis Golden Pistol
The Artemis Golden Pistol is a rare pistol that once belonged to the four-time World Champion Sports Shooter, Seleth Rain. It is now owned by Captain Jada Marks. It is the reward for completing the optional quest "Find Captain Marks' Golden Gun," which is activated by finding the body of Marietta Kyrkos in the Arboretum. The pistol itself is found in Jada Marks' safe in the Crew Quarters.

The Artemis Golden Pistol's starting firepower is the same as the fully upgraded firepower of the standard Pistol and it can be upgraded to be almost twice as powerful, but it is otherwise just a reskin of the Silenced Pistol.

The regular Silenced Pistol sometimes suffers from a visual glitch causing it's damage numbers in the Inventory screen to be bloated (possibly the Firearms I or II mod being applied twice). This may make it seem like the superior pistol, but it's purely visual and upon testing the actual damage done to enemies does not appear to be affected. For example a Silenced Pistol with full damage upgrades and Firearms II may have it's the damage in inventory displayed as 23, but actual (noncrit) damage done upon testing is 16. With the same upgrades and mods Artemis does 19 (noncrit) damage.

Material Yield: 1.00  0.30

Cannot be dismantled.

Weapon Upgrades

 * Gunsmith I     Gunsmith II

Standard PPN-8 Silenced Pistol
On Pytheas, standard pistols are more effective than the basic stock ones, and can be found in various locations, as can their fabrication plans. Their background color in the inventory is green, and their built-in upgrades are randomized. Some have elemental attachments, which modify their bullets so that they deliver extra damage, be it electrical, fiery, corrosive (possibly etheric), or psychic.

Advanced PPN-8 Silenced Pistol
On Pytheas, advanced pistols are more effective than the standard ones, and can be found in various locations, as can their fabrication plans. Their background color in the inventory is blue, and their built-in upgrades are randomized. Some have elemental attachments.

Usage
The pistol is best used against weaker enemies, or when fighting enemies that are capable of flying, and thus able to stay outside of shotgun range. The pistol is generally best used as a backup weapon, as it takes quite some time and a lot of ammunition to bring most enemies down. It can be useful for slowly wearing down a tough enemy with stealthy attacks since the sneak attack damage bonus is substantial and the enemy will not be made aware of precisely where the attack came from. The pistol is also an excellent tool for remote destruction of objects, such as explosive canisters.

Obviously, the Artemis Golden Pistol represents a better weapon overall, with two shots from the fully-upgraded Artemis doing slightly less than one shot from an unmodified Shotgun. This Pistol variant is a serviceable weapon even in straight-up combat against fairly tough enemies like Phantoms.

As a security weapon on Talos I, the Pistol benefits from the neuromods Firearms I and II.

On Pytheas, standard and advanced pistol variants' elemental attachments can be used to compensate for lack of other specialized elemental abilities or weapons. For example, you can compensate for lacking a disruptor stun gun or electrical Typhon abilities like electrostatic burst if you have a voltaic elemental attachment, as it causes the bullets that are shot past it to deal electrical damage, which can be used to stun enemies, and are particularly effective against robotic enemies, although less effective than specialized electrical weaponry or powers. If you lack a psychostatic cutter, nullwave transmitter, or psychoshock, but have a psychic elemental attachment, you can still temporarily nullify Typhon's psychic abilities, although for a shorter duration than with aforesaid traditional methods.

Trivia

 * The Security Guards among the survivors in the Cargo Bay remark that the pistols are "mostly for show", and that they don't seem to do much against the enemies they are facing. This is certainly true if one assumes that the guards are using un-upgraded pistols without the benefits of GLOO.
 * The first pistol that can be found, if following the story strictly, is actually a Mimic (unless something has caused the mimic to move, which sometimes happens), but there is a real pistol nearby it. The player can spot both pistols before entering the room if they angle themselves correctly.
 * The PPN-8 is likely not suppressed for stealth, but rather to prevent hearing damage. Outdoors this is not as much of a problem, but hearing damage is a constant danger in closed rooms such as indoor firing ranges and entry teams will tend to prefer suppressed weapons so that they do not have to wear ear protection.
 * The PPN-8 features a charging handle to cock the pistol, which is incredibly unusual as most modern handguns are charged by racking the slide. It appears the pistol is mechanically based on the German Luger pistol, with the charging handle linked to the base of the toggle-lock rather than having a knob on the toggle-lock joint as with a standard Luger. Additionally, the body of the PPN-8 is similar in style to a Glock Pistol with its grips likely inspired by the Colt M1911.
 * Contrary to the description, the PPN-8 is actually quite a large handgun, being comparable to a Desert Eagle or AMT Automag V in terms of size.