[mbisber]

On p.55 it states that players may purchase Contacts, table on p.98, in addition to receiving free ones @ Charisma X 3.

"After that, future Contacts cannot be bought- they have to be earned." The presumption is that Loyalty and/or Connection of existing Contacts may be raised, as well as new ones may be bought.

Are these to be performed during downtime after the Mission is over? Do the GMs have guidelines for this? What are they?

[Kiirnodel]

For Missions, most contacts are earned through accomplishing the missions. Doing a job for an individual will allow you to gain that person as a contact.

For any of these Missions contacts, doing more jobs will get you more Loyalty. Any contact that is not involved in that mission (usually ones you came up with on your own) can still be improved, but is up to the GM if your interaction during that mission is enough to improve them. You need to do a lot to warrant that, but trust me, you'll get plenty of contacts from most missions.

[Marcus]

Contacts are people your character meets, and for some reason stays in contact with.
They may be friends, Frenemies, convenient business partners, childhood rival, profession rival, carefully selected target for exploitation.
Maybe it was a one night stand and you accidentally swapped com-links. Contacts should be easy to develop, a friendly Johnson, the detective your team crossed path with once to often, another user on your favorite forum/datahaven. Some random friend of your kid brother. The Taxi Drive you end up accidentally using repeatedly. The ganger sitting around on corner you trade insults with on the way home. The stuffer shack attendant who hands you, the soy-burger you order ever day, or the Pizza dilvery guy.

Contacts can be anyone, and favor for a friend (Aka favor for a contact) are very often the best runs, just b/c they can really, really random.

[Jayde Moon]

Every Mission has the following paragraph in the Picking Up the Pieces section where GMs look to see what they will award characters:

Characters might interact with NPCs not specified by the Mission and may earn these NPCs as a contact at Loyalty 1. They may also work with non-Mission-specific contacts that they have already earned or that they purchased at character creation and gain a +1 Loyalty to these contacts, with a maximum Loyalty of 4. Gamemasters should not grant these increases lightly, and players should work to earn these contacts by going the extra mile to impress the NPC, offering up favors, or paying them well above the standard rates for information or services.

[kyoto kid]

...indeed.  I had a Face character who had a reporter contact.  She gave this individual several major "scoops" and always treated him well (took him out to dinner regularly etc). The GM seeing this awarded her and extra point of loyalty with that contact.

[KarmaInferno]

Yeah. Got a city department of housing manager contact named Bob McBoberson this way.

Later, he became an accidental shadowrunner after delivering us documents and getting caught up in a firefight. Now he's a Neo-A contact.