User:Hordes/Weapons Guide

There are a wide variety of weapons availale in RimWorld. Using them effectively can give you a sizable advantage against raiders.

Melee

You shall not pass.

Melee weapons specialize in hand-to-hand combat.

Pawns who are adjacent to each other are forced into melee combat, even if they are wielding a shotgun. A gun's barrel is quite ineffective compared to a sword. Melee lends itself well to disruptive tactics, like rushing down a sniper or grenadier, or peeling off enemies from your gunners. The melee block - create a chokepoint with 3 melee outside, where only 1 enemy can melee at a time - is extremely effective. You can have gunners fire just behind them.

The main con with melee is that damage is unavoidable. Enemies will vastly outnumber you in higher difficulties; a 200 tribal raid will eventually cripple your most well-geared melee fighters, even in the best scenarios. The second con is that melee actually has to approach ranged fighters, meaning it quickly becomes weak for open combat. Animals will always fight back against a melee weapon, even against a 0% manhunter, making them terrible for hunting.

• Raw DPS is the primary concern, as there's no accuracy or range to worry about.
• Give your best melee pawns the strongest melee weapons, assuming you desire to get into melee at all.
• Shield belts are invaluable to give protection against bullets. They give melee pawns a new use, to serve as powerful distractions.
• Try to avoid using melee in the very early game; ranged weapons and spike traps are stronger than the weaker melee choices.

Sharp

• Monoswords are the strongest sharp weapon.
• Plasteel longswords are the best craftable sharp weapon.

Sharp weapons are the bread and butter of melee weapons. They are the most common type of melee, dealing strong all-round damage.

A plasteel knife is roughly on par with a steel longsword. The next best weapons from longswords are spears and gladiuses. Faster weapons (like knives) have some niche to training melee.

Blunt

• Zeushammers are the best blunt weapon. They also cause a small amount of EMP, stunning turrets and mechanoids.
• Uranium maces are the best craftable blunt weapon, and 2nd best overall.
  • Uranium warhammers are better against armor, but 3x as expensive.

Blunt wounds do not bleed, are much less likely to destroy limbs, and blunt weapons are often weaker in DPS than their sharp counterparts. However, blunt weapons are great for penetrating armor, as most armor protects poorly against it. They also have a small chance to stun for 45 ticks (0.75 secs) on hit. In addition, non-bleeding can help with capturing prisoners. Note that enemies have a Death on Down chance from pain, so this does not guarantee capture. Weaker blunt weapons can help supress berserking pawns.

In terms of raw damage, zeushammers lose to monoswords until facing foes in marine armor. Even centipedes don't have that kind of Sharp% armor. Maces lose to longswords until facing flak vest-level armor, and longswords can still harm the unarmored areas of the body better.