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And why do you think they fitted stone ends onto wooden clubs? Because it increases the damage that they can do.

And criticizing something from the 90s as obsolete is laughable in historical fields of study, but if you want something more recent then here is an excerpt from Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003) by a well respected expert in the area, Matthew Restall:

The one weapon, then, whose efficacy is indubitable was the steel sword. It alone was worth more than a horse, a gun, and a mastiff put together. Because a steel sword was longer and less brittle than the obsidian weapons of Mesoamerican warriors, and longer and sharper than Andean clubbing weapons or copper-tipped axes, a Spaniard could fight for hours and receive light flesh wounds and bruises while killing many natives. Spanish swords were just the right length for reaching an enemy who lacked a similar weapon. Pizarro preferred to fight on foot so he could better manipulate his sword. Descriptions of battles in which Spanish swordplay caused terrible slaughter among native forces pepper the Conquest accounts of Cieza de León, Cortés, Díaz, Gómara, Jerez, Oviedo y Baños, Zárate, and others. Military historian John Guilmartin deftly summarizes the point: "While Spanish success in combat cannot be attributed to a single factor, it is clear that the other elements of Spanish superiority took effect within a tactical matrix established by the effectiveness of Spanish hand-held slashing and piercing weapons."

This trilogy of factors—disease, native disunity, and Spanish steel—goes most of the way toward explaining the Conquest's outcome. Remove just one and the likelihood of the failure of expeditions under Cortés, Pizarro, and others would have been very high.

While I generally agree with you here Borsuk, I will note that animals will often eat pretty much anything, even if not strictly part of their diet. For instance, most cat foods use grains as their base. Additionally, while I don't generally condone giving non-meat to obligate carnivores, there are videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59DpxqlYaV4.

Everything in Rimworld is harder to make than people think. Certainly making a stone club or axe is easier than a bow. And if our colonists can fabricate solar panels from steel I think they can handle making a sharp stone axe.

As to the "why". Remember that in the next alpha Rimworld will have different scenarios with limited tech. You may start with tribals with no dropped/available steel at the start, but who are experienced in things like stone crafting. Additionally it because there's not much reason to craft stone melee weapons that I'm suggesting it be made easier to craft them so they may have more utility.

It is universally acknowledged that the Spanish had superior equipment, and despite the common belief that they conquered so much of the New World due just to political alliances and disease it is also the case that their superior equipment, and the tactics that work in tandem with them, play a significant role. Here's a passage from "The Military Revolution: Origins and First Tests Abroad," The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Clifford J. Rogers, ed. (Boulder, Colorado; Westview Press, 1995), pp. 299-333. http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/Revolution.html

Latin Americanists, perceiving the shortfall between tactical reality and earlier hypotheses, have correctly pointed out the importance of Amerindian allies to the conquistadors.68 Beyond doubt, neither Cortés nor Pizarro could have succeeded without the aid of numerous and well-motivated indigenous allies. But the ethnohistorians recognize that their explanation, though far more satisfying than previous hypotheses, is incomplete,69 for the Spanish acquired allies willing to fight alongside them only after they had demonstrated their overwhelming tactical superiority in the field.70 On what, then, did that superiority depend?

Sheer technological advantage was a crucial part of the answer. Probably the most important single Spanish advantage lay in the superiority of steel swords over hand‑held Amerindian, weapons. The macahuitl was a slashing weapon of awesome power, but to be effective required a time‑consuming full swing, giving an alert Spanish swordsman or mounted lancer the opportunity to deliver a quick thrust and recover. Andean stone‑headed clubs and spears were at an even greater disadvantage. Horses were essential to Spanish success, a fact reflected in the enormous value the conquistadors placed on the animals and the pains to which they went to care for them. Steel armor magnified the advantages of Spanish slashing and thrusting weapons and permitted greater aggressiveness in close combat. Except for helmets, however, the conquistadors mostly abandoned steel armor in favor of quilted protective garments of canvas or cotton in imitation of Amerindian practice and armor was not itself a major factor.

Also are the stone clubs you make short, or wooden clubs with stone mounted on their ends? I am discussing stone clubs as I imagine them in Rimworld, being identical to wooden clubs except for material, and that is what my argument are concerning.

Maybe they could spawn with the ingredients as "Unknown"?

Stick a radius around the pawns that they will try and pick up superior weapons from so that they won't travel very far to get weapons. This should work since they usually cluster together anyways. Additionally it would be great if they grabbed weapons dropped by fallen colonists, picking up their plasteel knife, etc.

The very first tool man ever created was the stone hand axe. Our ancestors didn't need to build a research bench, research stone cutting, build a stone cutting bench, and cut out stone blocks in order to make these.

What I would like to propose is to allow direct manufacturing of stone melee weapons from chunks of stone at the crafting spot. I think making stone melee weapons more accessible in the early game like this will make them more relevant. To balance this change I would decrease crafting exp gains from crafting stone weapons and increase the time needed to craft them.

A wooden club does not hurt nearly as much as a stone club. A wooden club may kill someone if struck to the head depending on the strength of the wielder, a granite club, however, will obliterate their skull. And let's not start pretending that Spanish tactics and weaponry weren't far superior to the Aztecs, the Aztecs fought off the Spanish and their allies for only two years before surrendering and had only huge numbers for an advantage.

I think a good way to balance this would be to have raiders take the weapons of their fallen comrades if they have better weapons. So if I snipe a sniper rifle user, a pistol-wielding enemy will arm themself with the sniper rifle. Eventually when the raiders flee the fleeing raiders will have the best weaponry, leaving the lower quality stuff behind for the player.

I should also note that I've seen a cougar consume a haygrass plant, but I was playing on fast and didn't save in time to capture it.

I have to agree with billycop. I usually have to make shotguns if I want them in good quality for hunting and close up fighting. And I usually make sniper rifles as well.

I've noticed there is a natural priority that appears to be Corpses -> Everything else -> Chunks. But without seeing what those priorities are it's hard to trust my colonists. For instance, if cargo pods drop meat on other side of map, will my colonists get to it before it spoils? I don't know, so I feel a need to manually tell them to go get it.

The reason they are forbidden is because all of your colonists are restricted to the Home area of the game, so they can't go out to pick those up. As an aside, some people may have issues opening .xy files, if you are using a Mac then you can compress files into a .zip by simply right clicking on the file and selecting "compress".

I don't know where it would go, but I would really appreciate a hauling priority tab that would allow me to order items in the order that I want colonists to prioritize picking them up. Right now after a fight I always have to manually order my colonists to pick up the bodies and meals before they rot/spoil, followed by the weapons because I don't want damage done to them. Similarly after I kill a bunch of manhunters I want my colonists to pack them to the fridge before they haul anything else.

Alternatively a drag and drop "priority haul" command where everything I select gets prioritized for hauling over things not selected by it would be useful.

I love this suggestion. This would honestly be my favorite addition to the game right now.

Edit: I'd like to add that this would be great for cleaning. Currently either you prioritize cleaning so low that it never gets done, or you prioritize it high enough that it does get done but the person can't really do anything else because every time there's a minor dirt patch that pops up the colonist gets distracted from their other jobs and moves halfway across the home area to clean it.