Neolithic Weapons

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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.

Version history

0.4.460 - Damage nerfed from 45 to 30
1.5.4062 - Texture recreated with higher quality.

Original pila sprite

Weapons

Melee | Neolithic: Breach axe • Club • Ikwa • Knife (Jade) • Spear

Medieval: Gladius • Longsword • Mace • Axe • Warhammer

Ultra: Eltex staff • Monosword (Persona) • Plasmasword (Persona) • Zeushammer (Persona)

Improvised: Beer • Elephant tusk • Thrumbo horn • Wood

Ranged | Neolithic: Greatbow • Pila • Recurve bow • Short bow • Flamebow

Medieval: Nerve spiker

Industrial: Assault rifle • Autopistol • Bolt-action rifle • Chain shotgun • Heavy SMG • Launcher (EMP, Incendiary, Smoke, Toxbomb ) • LMG • Machine pistol • Minigun • Pump shotgun • Revolver • Sniper rifle • Hellcat rifle • Incinerator

Spacer: Charge lance • Charge rifle

Consumables: Doomsday rocket launcher • Triple rocket launcher

Throwables: EMP grenades • Frag grenades • Molotov cocktails • Tox grenades

Mechanoid: Heavy charge blaster • Inferno cannon • Needle gun • Thump cannon • Beam graser • Charge blaster turret • Hellsphere cannon • Mini-flameblaster • Mini-shotgun • Slugthrower • Spiner • Toxic needle gun

Structures: Autocannon • Mini-turret gun • Mortar (Weapon) • Uranium slug cannon • Auto-mortar • Inferno cannon (Turret) • Light charge blaster • Mini-slugger • Tactical turret gun

Related | Body part weapons: Prosthetic arm • Bionic arm • Archotech arm • Power claw • Field hand • Drill arm • Venom talon • Venom fangs • Knee spike • Elbow blade • Hand talon • Flesh whip

Integrated weapons: Grenadier armor • Phoenix armor

Handful of Stones

The club is a neolithic melee weapon that does a moderate amount of blunt damage and has a moderate-long cooldown. As a blunt weapon, it doesn't cause bleeding (unless a body part gets destroyed), and generally do more damage against armor when compared to sharp weapons.

Acquisition

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

They can also be purchased from any combat supplier or war merchant, or obtained from melee raiders drops.

Analysis

Clubs are generated without a quality level - in essence, all clubs are "normal." This makes them worth considering if you have no competent crafters yet. With underwhelming damage output, clubs only make sense as melee options in the early game; once you have craftsmen capable of reliably producing better than normal quality weapons, there is little reason to ever build a club again.

Although uranium clubs are effective weapons for use against armored foes, maces are clearly superior weapons, especially when high quality, for only 10 more material.

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.}

Styles

Ideoligions allow the selection of styles which then change the texture of the certain items and buildings when constructed by the colony. These style variants can be crafted if the colony has the selected style, or can be looted from raiders from factions with the requisite style.

Base variant
Horaxian

Version history

0.7.581 - Added
Beta 18 - clubs no longer generate with a quality value.
1.1 - Wooden club is burnable now and the metallic variants are smeltable
1.5.4062 - Texture recreated with higher quality

Texture prior to 1.5

Weapons

Melee | Neolithic: Breach axe • Club • Ikwa • Knife (Jade) • Spear

Medieval: Gladius • Longsword • Mace • Axe • Warhammer

Ultra: Eltex staff • Monosword (Persona) • Plasmasword (Persona) • Zeushammer (Persona)

Improvised: Beer • Elephant tusk • Thrumbo horn • Wood

Ranged | Neolithic: Greatbow • Pila • Recurve bow • Short bow • Flamebow

Medieval: Nerve spiker

Industrial: Assault rifle • Autopistol • Bolt-action rifle • Chain shotgun • Heavy SMG • Launcher (EMP, Incendiary, Smoke, Toxbomb ) • LMG • Machine pistol • Minigun • Pump shotgun • Revolver • Sniper rifle • Hellcat rifle • Incinerator

Spacer: Charge lance • Charge rifle

Consumables: Doomsday rocket launcher • Triple rocket launcher

Throwables: EMP grenades • Frag grenades • Molotov cocktails • Tox grenades

Mechanoid: Heavy charge blaster • Inferno cannon • Needle gun • Thump cannon • Beam graser • Charge blaster turret • Hellsphere cannon • Mini-flameblaster • Mini-shotgun • Slugthrower • Spiner • Toxic needle gun

Structures: Autocannon • Mini-turret gun • Mortar (Weapon) • Uranium slug cannon • Auto-mortar • Inferno cannon (Turret) • Light charge blaster • Mini-slugger • Tactical turret gun

Related | Body part weapons: Prosthetic arm • Bionic arm • Archotech arm • Power claw • Field hand • Drill arm • Venom talon • Venom fangs • Knee spike • Elbow blade • Hand talon • Flesh whip

Integrated weapons: Grenadier armor • Phoenix armor

This article is about a specific weapon called spear. For other uses, see Neolithic Weapons (disambiguation).

The spear is a melee weapon that does a large amount of sharp damage with high AP.

Acquisition

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

Spears can be purchased from any combat supplier or war merchant, or obtained from several kinds of melee raiders.

Analysis

The spear is a sharp weapon with a very similar damage output to the longsword, despite the in-game tooltips stating otherwise. This is because the game does not account for the melee verb selection mechanic introduced in 1.1.

Spears and/or longswords are the best sharp melee weapons that colonists can craft. They compete with maces and warhammers for best overall craftable weapon. In-depth comparison can be seen in the below section.

Comparison to longswords

Spears have very slightly less DPS. The longsword is +1% stronger in raw DPS than the spear, after considering melee verb selection. In exchange, the spear has noticeably more AP (+14%) and costs 25 materials less. This makes the spear numerically superior, but that is not the full story.

Longswords can either Cut or Stab, while spears can only Stab. Cut damage has a chance to "cleave" through body parts. This increases damage per swing by 140%, but its damage is split between body parts. The spear can only stab: its damage is weaker, but always concentrated on one body part. The cleave will cause pain shock faster, due to increased damage. Generally, pain shock is much more likely than body part destruction.

If a cut happens to reduce a body part to 0 HP, it is more likely to be destroyed. But since cleaving will spread out damage in the first place, Cut remains less likely to destroy larger limbs (like the arms and legs). Also, stabs are more likely to hit internal organs. However, both of these factors tend to be less important than the aforementioned cleaving.

Overall, which option is better depends on expected targets:

At normal to excellent qualities, longswords are often better (definitely more consistent) for fighting against unarmored humans, lightly armored humans, and light mechs like scythers and lancers. This is due to the increased damage from cleaving. Spears would be better for fighting against armored enemies, like centipedes, due to the higher AP.

A masterwork plasteel spear / sword is able to one-shot body parts like head and neck, though not the torso. The masterwork spear will more consistently one-shot human enemies, as the damage won't be spread out. Empirical testing suggests that the longsword remains better against unarmored targets.^{[More testing needed]} Spears still have more AP, so are better against armored enemies.

It's worth noting that the spear faces competition with the mace as a cheaper, anti-armor weapon.

Comparison to maces

The spear shares a niche with the mace, as both offer better Armor Penetration (AP) than the longsword, gladius, or knife. Compared to the spear, the mace requires fewer crafting materials, is best made of uranium rather than plasteel, and is unlocked with Smithing research rather than Long Blades. Before armor, spears deal +12% more damage than a mace of equal quality. Maces are good against armor despite having low AP, since most enemies have very little Blunt armor.

At normal quality, a plasteel spear deals more damage than a uranium mace until fighting enemies with 68% Sharp armor. This is before considering quality; at higher quality, the spear only gets better. For example, if both weapons are excellent, then the mace only starts to become better at 78% armor. For reference, centipedes have 72% armor. So while a mace would be stronger against flak vests (when hitting the vest) and power armor, spears are noticeably better against unarmed foes, and roughly equal against armor up to centipedes'. Enemies with power armor aren't very common.

This assumes plasteel vs. uranium. If both weapons are made out of steel, then the mace becomes relatively better against centipedes and plate armor and the like. Also remember that maces are cheaper, and that uranium is generally used less than plasteel.

Notes:

Once you reach masterwork quality, the plasteel spear's AP gets very high. No enemy, short of the empire's absolute best soldiers, has enough armor to justify using the mace. The spear is roughly equal against most power armor (a few % DPS worse), but can ignore all of a centipede's armor for the full 112%-of-mace damage.
This comparison does not account for the strong melee damage gene. With strong melee damage, the mace comes out ahead due to overkill mechanics (see below).

With strong melee gene

With the strong melee damage gene, the comparisons change.

High quality longswords can now one-shot the torso. Legendary plasteel swords can one-shot the torso even in a cleave attack, assuming it split between 2 parts.
When an excellent plasteel longsword (or better) does a cleave attack, its damage so high that it causes pain shock in a single swing.
Meanwhile, the spear can only ever hit a single body part. If a 62 damage spear hits a 25 damage arm, the arm is destroyed and 37 damage (over 60% of the attack) is wasted. If a sword cleaves, much less damage is wasted. Blunt weapons like maces and warhammers will hit the parent part if it would overkill (e.g. destroying the arm will damage the shoulder for remaining HP).
Strong melee damage also boosts the AP of longswords. But due to the quirks of the game, it does not boost the AP of spears. Longsword AP becomes nearly identical to the spear.

This results in high quality swords with the damage gene being virtually better against all targets, short of tough pawns. Against humanoids, a sword can either (1-shot torso/head or cleave to pain shock), while a spear can only (1-shot torso/head). Against mechanoids, the cleave damage results in the sword coming out ahead regardless.

The masterwork steel longsword given at the start of the The Sanguophage scenario reaches both relevant thresholds. With your sanguophage, it can one-shot through a torso stab and one-shot through cleaving pain. This longsword is actually stronger per-hit than an excellent plasteel longsword, and likely better than any weapon you'll be seeing for a while.

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.}

Version history

0.7.581 - Added
1.1.2610 - Implementation of new melee verb system. Previously, spears were more likely to use their shaft rather than their point. This now results in spears having higher DPS than what the game's infobox states.
1.5.4062 - Received a new texture

Texture prior to 1.5

Weapons

Melee | Neolithic: Breach axe • Club • Ikwa • Knife (Jade) • Spear

Medieval: Gladius • Longsword • Mace • Axe • Warhammer

Ultra: Eltex staff • Monosword (Persona) • Plasmasword (Persona) • Zeushammer (Persona)

Improvised: Beer • Elephant tusk • Thrumbo horn • Wood

Ranged | Neolithic: Greatbow • Pila • Recurve bow • Short bow • Flamebow

Medieval: Nerve spiker

Industrial: Assault rifle • Autopistol • Bolt-action rifle • Chain shotgun • Heavy SMG • Launcher (EMP, Incendiary, Smoke, Toxbomb ) • LMG • Machine pistol • Minigun • Pump shotgun • Revolver • Sniper rifle • Hellcat rifle • Incinerator

Spacer: Charge lance • Charge rifle

Consumables: Doomsday rocket launcher • Triple rocket launcher

Throwables: EMP grenades • Frag grenades • Molotov cocktails • Tox grenades

Mechanoid: Heavy charge blaster • Inferno cannon • Needle gun • Thump cannon • Beam graser • Charge blaster turret • Hellsphere cannon • Mini-flameblaster • Mini-shotgun • Slugthrower • Spiner • Toxic needle gun

Structures: Autocannon • Mini-turret gun • Mortar (Weapon) • Uranium slug cannon • Auto-mortar • Inferno cannon (Turret) • Light charge blaster • Mini-slugger • Tactical turret gun

Related | Body part weapons: Prosthetic arm • Bionic arm • Archotech arm • Power claw • Field hand • Drill arm • Venom talon • Venom fangs • Knee spike • Elbow blade • Hand talon • Flesh whip

Integrated weapons: Grenadier armor • Phoenix armor

Shiv

For the uncraftable jade variant, see jade knife.

Knife

One of mankind's oldest manufactured objects. The knife has taken many forms, but the concept has always remained the same: A handle for holding and a sharp edge for cutting.

Base Stats

Type: Equipment – Weapons

Tech Level: Neolithic

Weapon Class: Neolithic

Mass: 0.5 kg

Ranged Combat

Mode: Melee

Melee Combat

Mode: Melee

Melee Attack 1: Handle
9 dmg (Blunt)
13% AP
2 seconds cooldown

Melee Attack 2: Blade
12 dmg (Cut)
18% AP
1.5 seconds cooldown

Melee Attack 3: Point
13 dmg (Stab)
20% AP
2 seconds cooldown

Creation

Crafted At: / /

Required Research: Smithing

Work To Make: 1,800 ticks (30 secs)

Work Speed Stat: General Labor Speed

Stuff Tags: Metallic

Resources to make: 30

Technical

Has Quality: True
weaponTags: MedievalMeleeBasic, NeolithicMeleeBasic

The knife is a primitive, sharp melee weapon. It deals a low amount of damage, but has a short cooldown, making it friendlier to unskilled users.

Acquisition

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

It can also be purchased from any outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or obtained from outlander and pirate raiders drops.

A plasteel knife is given at the beginning with Crashlanded scenario, while a unique jade knife is given at the beginning with Lost Tribe scenario.

Analysis

Knives are low-tier melee weapons, being cheap and fast to produce.

Crashlanded

In the Crashlanded scenario, you receive a normal quality plasteel knife. This is roughly as strong as a normal steel longsword, and stronger than most other steel weapons of normal quality. Compared to the longsword, the knife attacks faster for less damage per hit, and is marginally worse against armor.

The quick attacks also help colonists with low melee skill, who might want to train melee due to a passion or a trait like brawler.

Naked Brutality

As you can make knives in a crafting spot, they can be useful in Naked Brutality and other low-resource scenarios. But, if you have at least 2 Crafting, short bows should be go-to weapon. As a ranged weapon, the short bow is generally better for combat, and it lets you hunt 0% manhunter animals without getting hurt (even docile animals will retaliate if struck in melee). If wood isn't available (e.g. in an ice sheet or desert), you might have to make a knife, as they can be made out of steel.

In terms of melee weapons, Clubs are your direct crafting spot alternatives. Clubs have 2 advantages over knives: they can be made out of wood, and they have no quality. While a steel club is worse than a "normal" quality steel knife, they are better than a poor or awful knife.

Considering metals other than steel: a plasteel knife (normal or better) is better than any club, and a uranium club is better than a uranium knife.

Crafting knives

You could make knives in order to train Crafting skill, but as clubs can be made of wood or stone, they are generally the better option. Once an electric smithy is available, plate armor requires more work and can be made out of wood.

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.}

Styles

Ideoligions allow the selection of styles which then change the texture of the certain items and buildings when constructed by the colony. These style variants can be crafted if the colony has the selected style, or can be looted from raiders from factions with the requisite style.

Base variant
Horaxian

Version history

0.7.581 - Added
1.5.4062 - Received a new texture

Texture prior to 1.5

Weapons

Melee | Neolithic: Breach axe • Club • Ikwa • Knife (Jade) • Spear

Medieval: Gladius • Longsword • Mace • Axe • Warhammer

Ultra: Eltex staff • Monosword (Persona) • Plasmasword (Persona) • Zeushammer (Persona)

Improvised: Beer • Elephant tusk • Thrumbo horn • Wood

Ranged | Neolithic: Greatbow • Pila • Recurve bow • Short bow • Flamebow

Medieval: Nerve spiker

Industrial: Assault rifle • Autopistol • Bolt-action rifle • Chain shotgun • Heavy SMG • Launcher (EMP, Incendiary, Smoke, Toxbomb ) • LMG • Machine pistol • Minigun • Pump shotgun • Revolver • Sniper rifle • Hellcat rifle • Incinerator

Spacer: Charge lance • Charge rifle

Consumables: Doomsday rocket launcher • Triple rocket launcher

Throwables: EMP grenades • Frag grenades • Molotov cocktails • Tox grenades

Mechanoid: Heavy charge blaster • Inferno cannon • Needle gun • Thump cannon • Beam graser • Charge blaster turret • Hellsphere cannon • Mini-flameblaster • Mini-shotgun • Slugthrower • Spiner • Toxic needle gun

Structures: Autocannon • Mini-turret gun • Mortar (Weapon) • Uranium slug cannon • Auto-mortar • Inferno cannon (Turret) • Light charge blaster • Mini-slugger • Tactical turret gun

Related | Body part weapons: Prosthetic arm • Bionic arm • Archotech arm • Power claw • Field hand • Drill arm • Venom talon • Venom fangs • Knee spike • Elbow blade • Hand talon • Flesh whip

Integrated weapons: Grenadier armor • Phoenix armor

Gladius

A short sword of ancient design. Good for stabbing or slashing. It's light and nimble, which sometimes lets it beat bigger, heavier weapons.

Base Stats

Type: Equipment – Weapons

Tech Level: Medieval

Weapon Class: Medieval

Mass: 0.85 kg

Ranged Combat

Mode: Melee

Melee Combat

Mode: Melee

Melee Attack 1: Handle
9 dmg (Blunt)
13% AP
2 seconds cooldown

Melee Attack 2: Point
16 dmg (Stab)
24% AP
2 seconds cooldown

Melee Attack 3: Edge
16 dmg (Cut)
24% AP
2 seconds cooldown

Creation

Crafted At: /

Required Research: Smithing

Skill Required: Crafting 3

Work To Make: 12,000 ticks (3.33 mins)

Work Speed Stat: General Labor Speed

Stuff Tags: Metallic, Woody

Resources to make: 50

Technical

Has Quality: True
weaponTags: MedievalMeleeDecent

The gladius is a melee weapon in RimWorld that does a moderate amount of damage, has a moderate cooldown, and deals sharp damage.

Acquisition

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

Gladii can also be purchased from any outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or obtained from outlander and pirate raiders.

Analysis

Surprisingly enough, gladii are worse for DPS than a knife of the same quality and material, despite the game stating otherwise. Knives are cheaper and don't require Smithing research. Why is this?

The melee verb selection system, introduced in 1.1. Each weapon has multiple attacks, or verbs, with some better than others. The game's infobox incorrectly calculates the likelihood of each attack (it uses RimWorld 1.0 values). For example, the knife is assumed to use "Bad" attacks more often than it does in practice. With this in mind, knives have a "true" DPS of 7.23, rather than the gladius' 7.13.
The impact of Cut damage type. A gladius is half as likely to do a Cut attack as a knife. Whenever a Cut attack is rolled, it has a chance to cleave. When a weapon cleaves, it deals 140% damage, spread throughout body parts.

While cleaving reduces the chance to destroy body parts, it deals more pain, which gets enemies into pain shock faster. Pain shock is the most common way to disable enemies in combat, much more likely than body part destruction. Even mechanoids, who don't feel pain, can only lose so much HP before dying in combat.

Stab has the advantage of superior damage to internal body parts. However, gladii won't instakill the heart at most reasonable qualities, and the chance of hitting the same organ 2 times in a row is miniscule. Cut is a more reliable way to disable enemies in combat.

The gladius does have +5% more AP, but this is a tiny value, insignificant in practice. The knife comes out ahead against any realistic enemy you'll fight. Knives also have the advantage of attacking faster, which can train melee skill, and is slightly better for low-accuracy attackers in general.

The plasteel knife you get at the start of the Crashlanded scenario is better than an excellent steel gladius (and below).

Trivia

A gladius is the classic Roman centurion's shortsword. Along with the ranged pilum, it is one of two Roman weapons in the game.

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.}

Styles

Ideoligions allow the selection of styles which then change the texture of the certain items and buildings when constructed by the colony. These style variants can be crafted if the colony has the selected style, or can be looted from raiders from factions with the requisite style.