Medieval Weapons

Gear

The mace is a melee weapon that does a moderate amount of blunt damage, and has a moderate cooldown. As a blunt weapon, mace attacks don't cause bleeding (unless a body part gets destroyed), and generally fares better 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.

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

Analysis

Maces are the strongest blunt weapon that can be crafted by your colony without the Royalty DLC.

The mace is best when made with uranium, due to the metal's blunt damage multiplier.

Blunt weapons are often seen as "anti-armor" weapons, due to the tiny amounts of Blunt armor that most enemies have. In this role, the mace faces heavy competition with the spear. This is because enemies with especially strong armor are quite rare in practice.

Comparisons

Comparison to spear

Before considering armor, spears deal more raw damage. A steel spear deals +12.4% more DPS than a steel mace of equal quality. A plasteel spear does +10.4% of a uranium mace. While spears fare worse against armor, they have high AP. A plasteel spear has 55% AP on its only "Sharp" attack, meaning it ignores all Sharp armor below 55%.

So 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.

Maces would remain better against flak vests and power armor. Of these, the flak vest only matters if you actually hit the vest, which only covers the torso and neck. Power armor, as mentioned above, are rare on enemies in practice. In contrast, spears are noticeably better against unarmored & lightly armored targets, and roughly equal against centipedes. As spears are more useful against more targets, without compromising performance against medium armor, they are often a better weapon in practice. (If you happened to fight a lot of power armor enemies, maces would come on top).

The big advantage of the mace is that it's cheaper. It costs 25 material less. They are unlocked with Smithing rather than Long Blades. Uranium is cheaper than plasteel, and much less useful in the early- and mid-game.

This comparison falls off at Masterwork quality or higher, but it's not because of armor. Instead, it's due to the overkill mechanics of both weapons.

The spear, as Stab damage, can only ever hit a single body part. If a 42 damage spear hits a 25 damage arm, the arm is destroyed. Overkill damage, i.e. 17 damage (40% of the attack), is completely wasted.
The mace, as Blunt damage, will spread damage if it causes overkill. If a mace destroys the arm, it will damage the shoulder, too.

This results in the mace better against humans, and the spear being better against centipedes.

Comparison to longswords

Like the spear, the longsword is a sharp weapon. Steel longswords are about 13.6% stronger than steel maces. Plasteel longswords are 12% stronger than uranium maces. Additionally, longswords have the advantage of the Cut damage type, which does bonus cleaving damage. But pawns tend to have much lower Blunt armor than they do sharp. This results in armor being the main determinant in this comparison.

The exact breakpoints vary on quality and material. In general, a normal plasteel longsword can beat a normal uranium mace against targets wearing just flak jackets or flak pants, as well as unarmored pawns. Armor pieces like flak vests and power armor reduce the longsword to the point of being worse than the mace.

Blunt damage has a few minor advantages, which is listed in the Blunt weapon page.

Comparison to other blunt weapons

Clubs

Compared to its neolithic 'ancestor', the club, the mace is 10 units more expensive, has a greater damage per hit, and swings just as fast. However, maces are impacted by quality, while clubs aren't. A poor or awful mace will be worse than a club of the same material. In contrast, a good mace will clearly outperform a club.

Warhammers

The warhammer costs 3x the materials and requires Long blades researched. However, it isn't conventionally stronger. The mace is actually 102.7% stronger, in raw DPS, than the warhammer. The warhammer has slightly more AP, but a uranium mace already has such high AP that no (reasonable) enemy can resist it.

The warhammer's big advantage, is that it swings slower, but with a stronger hit. This makes it more likely to destroy body parts. The effect of this heavily depends on quality and damage output.

At normal or good quality, this is almost irrelevant against humans, as warhammers don't have enough damage to destroy vital body parts. The mace performs similarly, but is 3x cheaper, so the mace comes out ahead.

But at masterwork and legendary quality, the uranium warhammer's damage matters a lot more. It has enough damage to consistently 1-shot or 2-shot humans. The mace would take 3 hits to down from pain, meaning the mace takes more time to actually kill. The differences are further exacerbated with the Strong melee damage gene.

Against non-humans, where the warhammer no longer 1-shots enemies, the mace would technically come out ahead. However, the spear and longsword would deal even more damage. A legendary plasteel spear in particular has enough AP to completely ignore the armor of every non-human in the game.

Attack table

Medieval Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Medieval Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.%	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected < operator.

^{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

Beta 19/1.0 - Damage buffed.
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

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

Medieval Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Medieval Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.%	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected < operator.

^{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 as the Short Sword.
? - Renamed to Gladius from Short Sword.
? - Buffed from 15 point and edge damage to 16.
Beta 19/1.0 - Damage buffed, cooldown slightly increased..
1.5.4062 - Received a new texture.

Original Short Sword sprite
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

The longsword is a melee weapon that does a large amount of damage, has a long 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.

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

Analysis

The longsword has the highest base DPS out of any melee weapon in Core RimWorld.

In the Royalty DLC, they are surpassed by the monosword and other ultratech weapons, though those can't be crafted by your colony. A masterwork plasteel longsword beats a normal persona monosword and excellent monosword, at least before considering AP.

Comparisons

Comparison to maces

The longsword is naturally compared to the mace - the mace is the strongest craftable Blunt weapon in Core RimWorld, while the longsword is the strongest Sharp weapon. Maces cost 50, half as much as the sword. They require only Smithing research, rather than Long Blades. In addition, blunt weapons are best with uranium, while sharp weapons are best with plasteel. Uranium is a cheaper material, and generally less useful throughout the game.

In terms of raw damage, the longsword has +14% more base DPS than the mace. However, most enemies with armor will have much more Sharp armor than Blunt armor. For example, a flak vest has 100% Sharp armor, but only 40% Blunt armor. While the mace has less AP, most enemies have little blunt armor, resulting in an "armor-piercing" effect.

Breakpoints for when each weapon is better vary by quality and material.

In general, a plasteel longsword beats the same quality uranium mace against unarmored humans and lightly armored humans, such as flak jackets without the corresponding vest. The sword is also better against light mechs like scythers and lancers.
The uranium mace would do better against flak vests and all sorts of power armor, as well as larger mechs like centipedes. For example, a normal uranium mace deals +20.6% DPS to a centipede when compared to a normal plasteel longsword. (In raw DPS, before intricacies documented below)

Similar comparisons can be made between steel longswords vs steel maces.

Damage and AP are easily the most important factors for performance, especially at lower qualities. Regardless, this comparison can get significantly more complicated, even without factoring material cost. These details are documented below.

Sharp vs Blunt

There are a large amount of mechanics surrounding the damage types of the longsword and mace. For their "Best" attack, maces deal Blunt damage. Longswords deal either Stab or Cut damage. Best attacks are the most likely to hit (75%); for sake of simplicity, "Mid" attacks are ignored. They are listed in rough order of importance.

Cut damage deals bonus damage. Specifically, if a Cut damage activates a cleave, then total damage is multiplied by 140%, then split between body parts. This means that a Cut attack inflicts more pain on a pawn, causing pain shock. Pain shock is the most common way to down / kill enemies in combat. Even with painless mechanoids, dealing enough HP of damage will cause a pawn to die, even if you never destroy a vital body part.

The chance to cleave is 40%. This improves sword DPS by 116% on average, and the sword already is better in terms of raw DPS.

Spreading the damage between body parts may prevent outright destroying body parts, which could be more devastating than extra damage.

Blunt weapons have superior overkill damage mechanics. If a Stab would destroy a body part, then any further damage is wasted. If a Blunt attack would destroy a body part, damage is spread to the parent part. In other words: if a sword would stab off a finger, the mace would smash the finger and damage the arm in the process.

Meanwhile, Cut damage has a chance to cleave an opponent. If cut damage happens to get a part to 0 HP, then it is much more likely to destroy it. The mace remains superior - it is more likely to cripple/destroy larger body parts whilst not wasting damage.

Overkill is unlikely to matter for weapons below masterwork quality. Plasteel / uranium weapons at excellent quality will barely be able to destroy larger body parts, like the arms, in 1 hit, meaning overkill damage is almost nonexistent. Lower qualities won't be able to destroy large parts in 1 hit. With lower qualities, overkill is only relevant if a body part is hit twice in a row. This is much less important than DPS and the pain it inflicts.

Blunt weapons can stun enemies, though the chance is small. If a blunt weapon hits the torso or a equivalent body part (a scyther's thorax, a centipede 1st body ring...), then the target has a chance to be stunned for a short time. This is completely independent from EMP and mechanoid adaptation. Stun chance depends on the target's health scale and the damage done. A normal uranium mace hitting a human would have a 2.7% chance to stun per hit to the torso.

Blunt weapons can also stun if they hit the brain. But a uranium mace of at least Poor quality will always one-shot a human brain (unless it is fully negated by armor, in which case it wouldn't stun).

Sharp weapons cause bleeding. However, bleeding is unlikely to help the player, since melee engagements are usually over long before combat penalties due to blood loss can kick in. This may even be a disadvantage, as it makes it harder to save prisoners and causes infections.

Attack table

Medieval Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Medieval Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.%	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	Expression error: Unexpected / operator.	*Expression error: Unexpected operator.**	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected >= operator.	Expression error: Unexpected < operator.

^{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.}