Shadowrun: Hong Kong – Tips and Tricks for Getting Started

Before you play the Shadowrun: Hong Kong game, you will definitely want to know these simple but useful tips and tricks. If you have any tips feel free to share with us!

Things to Know Before Playing

• The fanmade “Hong Kong Bugfix Compilation” is very recommended to fix a number of issues with various abilities and bonuses.
• You get any number of “urgent” missions that you can put off forever. The only one that has an actual time limit is Strangler Bao’s request.
• The first few missions feature fairly worthless paydata, but latter runs will have data sales that will give you about 1/3 of the total payment for that run.
• Take Gobbet along to the feng-shui mission.
• If you want to get the best ending, make sure to talk to at least Crafty and Is0bel regularly. There’s also a phrase you can select to end an argument at one point some ways into the game, keep that phrase in mind for later.
• Useful etiquettes include Shadowrunner, Academic (mostly for bits of info rather than tangible benefit) and Gang/Corporate.
• The Auto-Loader arm is a piece of cyberware that can be purchased once you’ve done three missions or so. It automatically reloads pretty much every gun / grenade launcher / minigun you can find. Immensely useful for any build that relies on ranged weapons.
• The Shiawase Loader arm automatically throws back any grenades that land near you. Useful, but: you need strength to throw grenades accurately, arm cyberware slots have a lot of other neat choices, and Duncan has this as an upgrade option.

Companion specialization notes:

• Duncan: the tier 6 Magnet arm (catch and throw back grenades) is straight up silly overpowered. Cluster in groups, bait grenades, profit.
• Is0bel: you can buy her tier 4 Espionage upgrade (+40% Matrix move speed) at Maximum Law’s for 500 nuyen and loan it to her if you’re so inclined. The 6 extra Fire damage DoT on the grenade launcher (which is great, by the way) is worth either putting up with slower Matrix movement or a nominal investment.
• Gobbet: the tier 5 Plague Wall spell is actually a reusable inventory item with a cooldown, which lets you fill that other slot with any other spell you desire without pushing anything off her default loadout. There’s a case to be made for the free Devil Rat token if you’ve invested heavily in the Spirituality track, but Plague Wall is special.
• Gaichu: this may be obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me; his tier 3 Shuriken Toss is a Strength attack, which means that it deals the listed 12 damage plus Gaichu’s Strength and it pops cover.
• Racter: Spec his drone to be a sniper or a melee beast. Mixing and matching doesn’t work that well. If you go melee: the drone isn’t terrible accurate, so be prepared to supplement this with abilities.