Melee Weapons in 1.0

[Walkaboutout]

So, without the game in front of me at this time, can someone school me briefly on melee weapon effectiveness, in terms of sword vs. mace, as it is in 1.0 at the moment?

Typically I've just made plasteel longswords when able, as the apex of my melee combat. Am I missing a bet though? Should I be making jade (?) maces? I know a lot of end game baddies are coming armored, and I want my melee pawns to be effective against that, but there's plenty of squishy targets too.

In the end, what do you think is the lesser evil? Sacrificing some damage against unarmored, or sacrificing some damage against armored targets?

Also, is jade for blunt and plasteel for sharp melee weapons still the best way to go?

[XeoNovaDan]

From some 1v1 testing that I've done, maces simply aren't worth it right now. They still get outperformed by longswords and spears, even when talking heavily-armoured enemies. A spear still performs on par with a mace when both pawns have full flak gear and 14 melee skill, and any weapon with a stabbing attack will significantly outperform a mace against mechanoids - especially centipedes.

[Sirsir]

Are Wooden Maces still the best for smacking down prison breaks with the least risk of killing them?

[Boboid]

As of right now - Plasteel is still the best Sharp melee weapon material - It's got a 1.1x sharp damage modifier and a 0.8x cooldown modifier.

Uranium is currently the most efficient blunt weapon material with a 1.5x blunt damage modifier and a 1.1 cooldown modifier. You can't make Maces out of Jade and Clubs no longer have quality modifiers. Steel is better than wood for maces, plasteel is better than steel but only marginally.
I also need to do some testing - Uranium vs plasteel maces isn't as super clear cut as I'd like it to be - Uranium does more damage but swings considerably more slowly.. over-kill is a gigantic waste of overall damage. In practice Plasteel may be preferable, not sure.

Wooden maces are fine for prison breaks but they're really not intrinsically especially efficient by any means.
If you want to avoid random lethal death definitely stick to blunt damage, the material isn't super relevant but obviously the less damage it does per attack the better off you are. Frankly punching is probably at least close to the least lethal way to inflict pain.
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In terms of " Most likely to kill opposition quickly" Spears/longswords are currently the most lethal as the Stab attacks they both have have a tendency to cause spontaneous death, both to humans and as mentioned centipedes particularly.

In terms of overall combat performance - Well,pre-material-changes I was still massively in favor of maces due to their capacity to stun enemies. While it's true that dead enemies don't need to be stunned I found the ability to do so overall increased the efficiency of my melee colony considerably. Went all the way to year 8 with 39 people and at the time felt that maces were consistently outputting sufficient damage to overwhelm opposition while simultaneously offering relative safety.

That said with the current changes to melee I strongly suspect that Swords/Spears are sufficiently lethal to overshadow maces - As mentioned before dead enemies don't need to be stunned, they're busy being dead. Based on their likelihood to gib mechs Spears are probably the best overall weapon currently.
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A small side note - Maces are still the least likely to kill raiders with spontaneous blows to the brain or fragile internal organs. While the "Non-colonist enemies may die to non-lethal but downing damage" mechanic is still very much the most prevalent factor it is worth noting that any enemy you core the brain out of is never even going to get to roll those particular set of dice
I attribute my ridiculously large melee colony while playing Cass at least in part to extensive use of maces.

[Oblitus]

Uranium is currently the most efficient blunt weapon material with a 1.5x blunt damage modifier and a 1.1 cooldown modifier.

Effective DPS multiplier for plasteel 1.38, for uranium 1.36.

[Boboid]

https://imgur.com/a/KPhHpCu

There's also a massive armor penetration discrepancy.

Edit: Quite frankly you probably need to double check these kinds of things first - Currently Plasteel has a 0.9 blunt modifier and 0.8 cooldown modifier.
You couldn't reach 1.36 with those numbers even if you tried.

[Oblitus]

https://imgur.com/a/KPhHpCu

There's also a massive armor penetration discrepancy.

Edit: Quite frankly you probably need to double check these kinds of things first - Currently Plasteel has a 0.9 blunt modifier and 0.8 cooldown modifier.
You couldn't reach 1.36 with those numbers even if you tried.

Hmm, maybe. I remember comparing stuff and deciding that plasteel is the best, but can't remember why.

[Boboid]

Rebalanced stuff stats for melee specialization a bit.
Standardize melee cooldowns into slow, standard, and fast attacks. Rebalance a few melee weapons.

Material changes happened in that update, along with biting. It was a total rework.

[Canute]

For sharp weapons, plasteel is the best. No question.
But for blunt weapon the 0.9 blunt modifier made it not that good.
Sure with better cooldown it is still better then steel, and since uranium is a small material you will need you will need alot of it, plasteel is a good solution for blunt weapon's.
So unless you got alot of uranium (which i would put into shieldbelt's/power armor at first) plasteel is a good alternative for maces.

[Oblitus]

For sharp weapons, plasteel is the best. No question.
But for blunt weapon the 0.9 blunt modifier made it not that good.
Sure with better cooldown it is still better then steel, and since uranium is a small material you will need you will need alot of it, plasteel is a good solution for blunt weapon's.
So unless you got alot of uranium (which i would put into shieldbelt's/power armor at first) plasteel is a good alternative for maces.

Uranium is no longer small and is easier to get.

[Greep]

You also don't even need uranium for shield belts now.  Which really makes a melee fort actually quite good these days.

[Boboid]

You also don't even need uranium for shield belts now.  Which really makes a melee fort actually quite good these days.

A-yup. Once you research shield belt tech you can spew out the belts, they're not even particularly expensive - 74(50/2 components) steel 20 plasteel.

Don't have to wait for a gigantic melee raid to show up and steal all their belts anymore.