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.
Overview
There are four main categories of weapon this guide will cover:
Melee - Weapons made for close combat. Pawns are unable to fire guns at melee range, so these weapons have a wide variety of uses, from using hallways to bring enemies to you, to rushing a troublesome centipede.
Ranged - Generalist - Weapons that work well (or poorly) during most situations. They are good for open combat, or where both combatants can fire from full(ish) range. Threats like breachers may force you to fight outside the perimeter of your base, which is open combat. They function perfectly fine when inside a killbox.
Ranged - Specialist - Weapons that work for specific situations. The differences between "generalist" and "specialist" are somewhat arbitrary, but some weapons are clearly more niche than others. For instance, the sniper rifle can pick off enemies, but its terrible firerate makes it bad in a firefight. They function well in their niche, and may be great inside specialized killing setups.
Explosive - Grenades, launchers, and other oddball weapons/utility items like the doomsday rocket launcher. In addition to raw explosions, many grenade-type weapons have a special effect, like molotov cocktails starting fire. Most explosives do not rely on accuracy, Shooting skill, Manipulation, etc.
There are also three technology levels to consider:
Neolithic - Bows, spears, and clubs. Often necessary when starting a Lost Tribe or Naked Brutality run, but usually it is quick to replace them. (Tribal)
Early Industrial - Weaker firearms, like pistols. These weapons are often carried by pirate raiders, early on. For the purposes of this guide, this includes any gun from Blowback operation and before, as well as medieval technology like longswords and greatbows. (Earlygame)
Modern / Spacer - Weapons from Gas operation onwards. Even an endgame colony can find industral era weapons viable - charge rifles and miniguns aren't always the best weapon just because they are higher tech. (Midgame)
(As melee weapons are largely "more damage = better", their technology considerations are omitted)
Melee
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. Later in the game, and especially with higher difficulties, enemies will vastly outnumber your colony. A 200 tribal raid will eventually wear down your most well-geared melee fighters, even in the best scenarios. The second con is that melee in open combat actually has to approach ranged fighters, meaning it quickly becomes weak in those situations. Animals will always fight back against a melee weapon, even against a 0% manhunter, making them terrible for hunting.
Notes:
- 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 tanky 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.
- Comparisons:
When made of plasteel, a longsword of sufficient quality (1-2 levels above) can outdamage a monosword. A masterwork plasteel longsword will outdamage a good monosword, though has less AP. A plasteel knife is roughly on par with a steel longsword of the same quality. The next best weapons from longswords are spears and gladiuses. Faster weapons (like knives) have some niche to training melee.
Blunt
- Zeushammers are the strongest 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, and slightly weaker overall.
- Uranium warhammers
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 increase capture rate by a lot. Weaker blunt weapons can help supress berserking pawns.
- Comparisons:
In terms of raw damage, zeushammers lose to monoswords until facing foes in marine armor. Even centipedes don't have the Sharp% armor to resist a monosword. Maces lose to longswords until facing flak vest-level armor, and longswords can still harm the unarmored areas of the body better. Like with monoswords and longswords, a masterwork uranium mace can beat a good zeushammer.
Body parts
- Power claws are the strongest melee body part, but lowers Moving by 8%.
Artificial body parts can be used while holding a gun. Fulfilling the role of a sidearm, these implements are weaker than dedicated melee weapons. You can put these on your frontline gunners, who may not always be able to supress combatants in melee. These parts can slightly increase damage in melee; due to the melee verb system, sometimes the fists / body parts will be used as a weapon.
Creating these bionics is an advanced technology, so they are usually reserved for the mid- to late- game. Body parts can also be bought, though the surgery can be a bottleneck if you don't have a good doctor. Also note that pawns will prioritize their "best" melee attack; only one part is required.
- Comparisons:
Power claws are roughly equal to a normal plasteel longsword. Hand talons are stronger than elbow blades, which are stronger than a knee spike, though knee spikes have more AP. All three are roughly on-par with a normal steel longsword. Note that combat parts are incompatible with other artifical parts: hand attachments get in the way of a field hand, hand / arm attachments don't work with a bionic arm, and knee spikes don't work with a bionic leg. Venom talons are the weakest of the bunch, but do not occupy any useful area of the body.
Melee - Nonhuman
Animal
- Thrumbos are the best animal, but are notoriously difficult to tame and keep tame.
- Megasloths, elephants, rhinos, and both bears are behind the thrumbo, but can be found in the wild.
Animals are much more expendible than a colonist, and most have a lot more health than a colonist. However, they cannot be drafted, limiting their combat use severely. In addition, they require one or multiple pawns proficient in the Animals skill in order be tamed and trained. They thus have 2 main uses:
- Animals trained in Attack can... attack. They will rush towards nearby enemies, acting as a powerful distraction for your gunners.
- Animals can be put in an allowed area in a hallway raiders are passing through. Raiders and the animal will be forced to attack each other, resulting in a melee block scenario. Pen animals will not be attacked by raiders, and in any case are unable to be zoned.
Animal selection is also limited by biome, and large animals can turn hostile in failed taming attempts.
Wild animals
There are three dedicated ways to make wild animals hostile to your enemies:
- Psychic animal pulser is a single use item that turns all wild animals on the map manhunter. Wall in doors (to prevent exit via mental break) and watch the carnage - this item can easily end smaller raids, or at least force sieges to attack.
- The manhunter pulse psycast turns all animals in a large, 57-tile radius into manhunters. Reusable.
- The animal warcall gene
turns a specific animal hostile against your opponents.
All three weapons depend heavily on your map's current fauna. Also, all three become progressively weaker as raids become stronger; an elephant can't handle 30 gun-wielding raiders, for instance.
Mechanoid
 | This section relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
- Scythers are the most effective at melee combat.
Mechanoids have all the advantages of being an animal, but then some, including the ability to be drafted like a colonist. Mechs can be repaired of all damage for just the cost of power and can be resurrected for a couple of steel. This negates all the long-term problems that lategame melee faces (though mechs are, of course, not invincible).
Mechs have their unique costs. They require their mechanitor nearby to actually control. They cost bandwidth, which could have been used for any amount of ranged mechs. And they create toxic wastepacks, which will eventuallyy pollute your landscape. As combat mechs can be turned off, the actual costs of power and pollution are rather limited.
- Comparisons
Scythers (2 bandwidth) are the strongest and most effective at melee, and move slightly faster than a baseline human. Tunnelers (3 bandwidth) have twice the armor of a scyther and a natural 250 HP shield belt, but are much slower and don't do as much damage. Tunnelers can also mine. Centipedes (4) and mechanoid commanders (5) have similar armor to the tunneler, and have much higher actual health, though are mainly used for ranged combat.
Ranged - Neolithic
Bows
Bows are a mid range, generalist option.
- Short bows are the simplest ranged weapons in the game, only requiring wood and a crafting spot.
Recurve bows are a direct upgrade to the shortbow, with an increase to damage, accuracy, and range, for only 
10 wood more. Tribal starts begin with Recurve Bows unlocked, meaning they just need a Crafting skill of 5 to make these. At maximum range, recurve bows are suprisingly competitive with early firearms, especially at high qualities. (These can also be made at a crafting spot.)
Bows are at least something to fight raiders without having to engage in melee. Even without a single melee fighter, 5 tribals with shortbows can easily repel raids. Focus fire on 1 target, and don't let melee enemies too close. Doors can help with early ranged tactics; place 2 doors on opposite ends of a larger building, and when melee raiders get too close, go to the door on the other side.
Naked Brutality players will want to rely on spike traps to kill raiders at first, using the shortbow for hunting and to save on traps. Of course, tribals can also use traps to their advantage.
Pila
Pila are incredibly short ranged support weapons.
Pila lose even to a shortbow in raw damage. They have a tiny range of 12 tiles, and a massive cooldown, so are terrible as standalone weapons. However, the pila can stagger humans. The best use of the pila is a support weapon; place a low-skill fighter with a pila behind melee fighters. They also have some use as a hunting weapon. The high per-shot damage compensates for the lowered range.
Due to its weaknesses, pila shouldn't be actively created or sought after. However, a Lost Tribe will start with one.
Ranged - Early Industrial
Note: something about quality mattering
Handguns
Handguns are close-mid range, general combat options.
Long ranged
- Greatbows are on-par with most pistols, but have a higher range. "Greatbows are better than pistols at the pistol's max range". However, it is not worth all that effort to research greatbows, when other guns are easy enough to get from raiders. Also, they are outclassed by the bolt-action rifle in every respect.
- Bolt-action rifle