Melee Weapons

[dStreamline]

Personally, I'm interested to see what the forums think is the best melee weapon, so I give you this quick poll. Would also be curious to see the reasons behind these preferences (cost, damage, recharge time, etc).

Answers are much appreciated.

[realdead_man]

D: none of the above.  I reroll till "brawler" is NOT a trait.

ALL shooters, all the time!

If that answer is not acceptable, then C:  whatever does the most DPS.

[MajorMonotone]

If I'm looking to recruit then the mace, and if I'm looking slice off limbs then the longsword.

[Hessra]

Out of those probably longswords.
But I prefer sprinting death machines injected with a cocktail of drugs and grafted with ludicrous amounts of weaponized prostheses.

[Shurp]

I'm a fan of "none of the above" as well, especially now that AI has improved and it's difficult to separate pawns with door games.

If an enemy makes it to melee range then all my guys on the firing line run up to him and pummel him to death with fists. Then go back to shooting the others.  Fists are reasonably effective.

[SURU]

Gladius or Spear and belt for shield. SPARTA!

[Listen1]

Longsword has a higher base dmg but Gladius has more DPS, so if you go full melee equip everyone with Gladius.

If you only have one or two melees, equip the longsword.

[XeoNovaDan]

I have several weapons that I really like using, but I'd have to go with Gladius as my all-round favourite.

My take on each weapon

Shiv: A great weapon for the early game because a shiv is significantly cheaper than a club, and also quicker to make.

Club: As nice of a weapon as it is, it's generally a bit of an expensive one for early-game where it sees most use. Blunt damage means that it is more effective against armour as armour typically offers poor blunt damage protection.

Knife: Other than early-mid game for crashlanded, I don't really use the knife much. It has a very short cooldown so it's an excellent weapon for very low level melee people. The shiv is much cheaper for a slight DPS deficit, and the gladius is only slightly more expensive for considerably more DPS.

Mace: Blunt damage means that maces are effective against armour, so I try to mix a few maces into my melee squad.

Gladius: As I said earlier, all-round favourite. Short cooldown, significantly more powerful than the knife, relatively cheap to make. Great weapon for low-skilled people.

Spear: Another decent weapon, basically a compromise between the gladius and longsword. However, I don't really see myself using spears much for other than early-mid game where I'm at the point of looting melee weapons.

Longsword: A close second for me, only not taking my personal top spot because it's only really going to see a lot of use with high level pawns. It has the highest DPS out of all melee weapons, and I typically eventually replace gladii with longswords as pawns get more skilled with melee.

Other mentions...

Scyther Blade: Despite the nerf, scyther blades are still good melee weapons. However, a better than superior quality plasteel longsword will out-DPS scyther blades. Although with enough drugging up and a pair of bionic eyes, Scyther Blades are very dangerous when used in conjunction with a charge rifle. I'd like to reserve the scyther blade treatment for sheriffs though, and other generally incapable pawns that excel at combat.

Fists: Seriously, the buff to make fists do 7 damage (as well as 1.65 -> 1.6s cooldown) is something I meet with disagreement as it only blurs the line between a few melee fighters going up against a few gunmen in melee. I've found that a lot of my melee pawns (with good+ steel/plasteel weapons) end up getting downed by fists this update.

Wood Log: Was a great improvised weapon, not so much any more. Fists out-DPS logs.

Beer Bottle: Similar story to the log, except I don't really use beer as an improvised weapon because I'd typically have a decent stock of melee weapons by the time that I get a brewery up.

[Limdood]

just a heads up, for single hit damage, club and mace are identical.

They do the same damage per material, but club has a very slightly longer cooldown.  That being said, club is far cheaper, AND has access to jade, whereas the mace cannot be made of jade.  A jade club has the highest blunt damage per hit AND dps for its quality.  a plasteel or uranium mace even still falls short to the jade club.

I've always been a longsword guy, but i'm strongly considering having my late game colonies have a squad of jade clubmen. 

I only ever now use:
stone clubs (early, churn em out til you get a quality one)
spears (if i don't have any good crafter, i'll salvage enemy tribal spears of decent quality, but never make my own)
jade clubs
plasteel maces (fast cooldown...quantity of hits is more important than quality for disabling)
steel, then eventually plasteel longswords.

[Mufflamingo]

Gladius or Spear and belt for shield. SPARTA!

Same.

Gladius, or Spear and Shield and Cape. SPARTAAA!

(There's no capes.  )

[ITypedThis]

Longswords. Plasteel, colony-made longswords.

Great for the occasional Brawler for the sheer damage which often removes limbs in one hit. I don't prefer melee, but I can't deny the effectiveness of a Brawler ambush in a tight corridor.

[erdrik]

I don't like de-limbing for most of the game because of losing a potential recruit to it.
Last time I took a deep look, Blunt damage in general was harder for armor to absorb than the cutting damages, and doesn't de-limb. They also don't cause bleeding which makes captured prisoners easier to recover. So I usually stick to Maces for my melee weapons.

[Crazyabe]

If I'm looking for captives for... one reason or another, I use maces.
If I want something dead, I use my Right to Bare Bears with arms, and Barely ever have any issues.
If I Want something dead Quickly, I Use bionic fists and Bullets.

[TheMeInTeam]

There are many raid types where melee is crummy on extreme.  Mechs, raiders with doomsdays that won't separate (like sappers), large tribal raids are all too dangerous for melee to be viable.

However, melee is great to pick off isolated enemies, which you can still do.  It's easily the highest early DPS option for tribes.

As a result, my vote goes to club.  It's slower than the shiv, but still extremely fast to produce.  Since a decent crafter can make dozens of them in a day if needed, you can quickly produce a respectable volume of high quality clubs.  Early game a couple quality steel clubs will drop enemy pawns very fast...even 3 pawns hitting target will often have it down by 2nd volley of swings.  They have the additional upside of being less affected by armor and more likely to down enemies for recruits and clothing.

Later on, you can use jade clubs.  Raw DPS they're weaker than the top grade longswords, but vs armor that gap closes considerably...and they're still fast to crank out.

@erdrik blunt damage actually can de-limb.  You don't see it often from fists, but good clubs and maces can rip off fingers and actually will cause bleeding when they do so.  Since jade clubs have a base damage of 18, high quality versions can inadvertently cause serious damage...one of their few downsides as a choice relative to maces, which load their respective DPS over faster, weaker hits.

[erdrik]

...
@erdrik blunt damage actually can de-limb.  You don't see it often from fists, but good clubs and maces can rip off fingers and actually will cause bleeding when they do so...

*shrug* Blunt is still significantly better odds of saving the target's limbs than cutting damage in my experience. With blunt damage I see "destroyed" or "shattered" far more often than "torn off", and I don't recall ever seeing a destroyed or shattered body part cause bleeding.

...one of their few downsides as a choice relative to maces, which load their respective DPS over faster, weaker hits.

According the data files, Clubs and Maces have the same base damage. Its entirely quality and material that makes the difference. A Jade Club is going to do the same damage per hit as a Jade Mace(assuming equal quality). So no, its not "faster, weaker hits". Its just "faster hits" that do the same damage.