Charge lance

The charge lance is a heavy, single-shot ranged weapon in RimWorld which deals a high amount of damage per shot; slightly longer time between shots; long range and high overall accuracy.

Acquisition

Charge lances can be produced at a fabrication bench with a minimum crafting skill of 9 once the pulse-charged munitions research has been completed; from 60 plasteel, 3 advanced components and 60,000 ticks (16.67 mins) of work. Charge lances can also be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, as well as outlander settlements.

Although lancers use charge lances, they don't get dropped when the lancer dies. Therefore, there's no way to acquire charge lances from raiders.

Analysis

The charge lance deals the highest amount of damage per shot out of all non-explosive ranged weapons in the game, and therefore has gained quite the reputation for dismembering and outright killing people alongside the pila and sniper rifle. This is combined with the highest projectile velocity ingame, as well as excellent accuracy and a long range (though not as long as the sniper rifle's) - all being significantly higher than the charge rifle's. Stopping power is also good: high enough to stagger humans, as well as slightly larger creatures such as cougars and all insectoid variations.

As a result of its high damage, armor penetration is also good. This therefore makes the charge lance quite a solid weapon against more heavily-armored opponents such as mechanoids or lategame raiders.

Rate of fire is quite slow; slower than the bolt-action rifle and significantly slower than the charge rifle, but significantly faster than the sniper rifle. Damage output is rather poor at shorter ranges, middle-of-the-road at medium range and the highest out of all ranged weapons (barring the single-use rocket launchers) towards its maximum range - also consistently outperforming the bolt-action rifle. Also, similarly to the charge rifle, the charge lance is very difficult to acquire until lategame since it's expensive to produce and impossible to get from raiders.

In terms of usage in combat, the charge lance is best suited as a medium-to-long-range support weapon (especially against heavily-armored targets), or in field combat. The charge lance is also arguably the best hunting weapon in the game, with the only other competitive weapon being the sniper rifle.

Against an unarmored human, a charge lance 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 with a single hit; and destroy eyes and digits with a single hit. It'll generally take around 3 hits (~16.6 seconds average) to incapacitate that human from pain shock.

Overall, the charge lance is best paired with a careful shooter up to level 17, then with a trigger-happy shooter beyond that point.

Melee Combat

Tool	Attack	Damage Type	Power	AP	Cooldown	Likelihood	Base DPS
Overall	-	-	9	13%	2.00s	-	4.50
Barrel	Blunt	Blunt	9	13%	2.00s	50.00%	4.50
Barrel	Poke	Blunt	9	13%	2.00s	50.00%	4.50

Quality table

Bear in mind these values have been calculated based on the chart from the Quality page, the values might change in the future to accurate values from the game.

Quality	Beauty	Deterioration rate	Market Value	Accuracy (close)	Accuracy (short)	Accuracy (medium)	Accuracy (long)	Damage	Armor Penetration	Melee Damage Per Second	Melee Armor Penetration
Awful	-3	4/day	$1084	52%	68%	68%	60%	30	45%	3.6	10.4%
Poor	-3	3/day	$1219.5	58.5%	76.5%	76.5%	67.5%	30	45%	4.05	11.7%
Normal	-3	2/day	$1355	65%	85%	85%	75%	30	45%	4.5	13%
Good	-3	1.6/day	$1693.75	71.5%	93.5%	93.5%	82.5%	30	45%	4.95	15%
Excellent	-3	1.2/day	$2032,5	78%	100%	100%	90%	30	45%	5.4	16%
Masterwork	-3	0.6/day	$3387.5	87.75%	100%	100%	100%	38	57%	6.08	19%
Legendary	-3	0.2/day	$6775	97.5%	100%	100%	100%	45	68%	7.42	22%

Graphs

The below graph assumes an uninjured lancer using a Normal charge lance. All values from Alpha 17.

Version history

In Beta 19 it received a slight damage buff, a slight reduction in time to aim and increase in attack cooldown, leaving fire rate more or less the same. It also received a crafting recipe allowing humans to use them.

Weapons