Neolithic Weapons

This article is about a spear like weapon. For other types of spears, see Spear (disambiguation).

Pila are slightly heavier, thrown ranged weapons which deal a high amount of damage per pilum thrown. They have a very long time between throws, and slightly shorter range and slightly lower overall accuracy.

Note that pila, once equipped, can be thrown infinitely; they are not consumed by use.

Acquisition

s can be crafted, each requiring and Expression error: Unexpected < operator. of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter.

Alternatively, pila can be purchased from neolithic war merchants, orbital combat suppliers, tribal and outlander faction bases, or found on the following raiders kinds:

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Heavy Archer	50.71%	Normal	100%

Analysis

Pila deal a great amount of damage per shot, matching the much more advanced sniper rifle. They also have a massive stopping power - able to stagger humans and anything smaller than 2.5 body size. However, pila have the slowest fire rate in the game, at least for conventional ranged weapons. They also have a terrible range, only outranging both shotguns and all grenades. And in terms of DPS, pila are very poor - even short bows are superior. Therefore, pila are best used as support and hunting weapons.

Because of the immense damage per shot, pila are known to completely destroy body parts, which can maim or outright kill a pawn. And, as thrown weapons, pila have a tendency to strike internal body parts more often. A pila user in the back can fish for lucky hits and stagger enemies. The per-hit damage also makes them good for hunting, though problems can arise if the quarry turns manhunter. As a downside, pila are likely to dismember any enemies you might want to capture for yourself.

But, overall, pila aren't very useful. They have a high research cost and terrible DPS. Pila shouldn't be used outside of the Lost Tribe scenario, which begins with one. Even then, bows deal more damage, which is generally more effective. For colonies with guns, the pump shotgun is another close range / high stopping power option.

Stats

Against an unarmored human, a pilum can kill with 2 hits to the torso, 1-2 hits to the head, or 1 hit to the neck or brain; cripple or destroy limbs in 1-2 hits; and destroy eyes and digits with a single hit. It'll generally take around 3 hits (~36 seconds average) to incapacitate that human from pain shock.

Pila are best paired with careful shooters up to level 6, then with trigger-happy shooters beyond that point.

Attack table

Neolithic Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Neolithic Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
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^{Values shown in Red indicate the weapon is out of range at the reference point for this range band.
The value is provided due to the interpolated nature of accuracy between range points.}

Pila vs. comparable weapons

This section goes over how well pila fares against comparable weapons (similar value, tech level or similar characteristics) in 1 vs. 1 combat.

Methodology

All testing is semi-automated which allows for large sample sizes to be gathered per set of results with ease
All pawns have a skill level of 8 in shooting
No pawns have any traits that affect combat performance
All pawns are of 18 years of age and completely healthy
Pawns are divided by walls to prevent stray shots from skewing results in any way
Weather conditions are kept clear and no cover is used

Results in the tables below are the percentages of battles that pila either won or tied against the weapon listed in the first column of said tables, with a sample size of 2,000 battles per result. Higher percentages are better.

Unarmored

For the unarmored testing, all pawns wore normal quality plainleather pants and plainleather button-down shirts.

Pila vs.	3	7	12	18	25	32	40
Short bow	17.80%	22.40%	33.95%	35.50%	-	-	-
Pump shotgun	6.00%	6.75%	10.75%	-	-	-	-

Flak armor

For the flak armor testing, all pawns wore normal quality steel simple helmets, flak jackets, flak vests, plainleather button-down shirts and flak pants.

Pila vs.	3	7	12	18	25	32	40
Short bow	9.85%	15.20%	25.35%	27.40%	-	-	-
Pump shotgun	2.50%	2.65%	3.95%	-	-	-	-

Marine armor

For the marine armor testing, all pawns wore normal quality marine helmets, marine armor, plainleather button-down shirts and plainleather pants.

Pila vs.	3	7	12	18	25	32	40
Short bow	10.25%	16.55%	28.20%	29.15%	-	-	-
Pump shotgun	2.15%	2.55%	2.85%	-	-	-	-

Graphs

The graphs assume normal quality pila against an adult human that's out in the open in clear weather. For DPS, projectile speed has also been factored into the equation, with the weighting based on the base amount of attacks that it'll take to put the aforementioned target into pain shock.