Breach axe

Breach axes are melee weapons that trade general efficacy for extra damage against buildings, and is commonly carried by tribal breach raids.

Note: Although classified by the Ideoligion Weapon Preferences as a 'Melee Piercer' weapon along with weapons that predominately deal sharp damage, it only has attacks that deal blunt damage. It is unknown if this categorization is a bug or intended behavior.

Acquisition

Breach axes can be crafted at either a fueled or electric smithy once the Smithing research project has been completed. They require 50 Stuff (Metallic, 500 for SMVs), 5,000 ticks (1.39 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 3.

They are also carried by breachers during Tribal breach raids.

Summary

Like its mechanoid equivalent, the thump cannon, the breach axe does significantly more damage to buildings than to pawns on average. The head attacks of breach axes deal Demolish damage which has a 10x damage multiplier against passable buildings and a 7.5x multiplier against impassable buildings such as walls. Thus, for base damage before quality modifiers, the head attack deals:

Passable buildings: 75
Impassable buildings: 56.25
All other targets: 7.5

Note that only the head's attack has the multiplier. As this multiplier is not taken into account when choosing which attack to perform,other attacks without the multiplier can still be chosen when attacking buildings and the resulting DPS versus buildings is not simply 7.5x or 10x that when used against pawns.

For the purposes of armor calculation, all attacks by the breach axe are considered Blunt damage.

Analysis

Although relatively weak against pawns, it is dangerous against buildings. Generally this specialization makes it more effective when used against the colony than by the colony. Typically colonists do not need to destroy buildings rapidly and raids of tribal breachers, while not as dangerous as their counterparts from other factions, will still use the axe to level buildings and poke holes in defenses fairly rapidly.

A niche use for players may be against mech clusters, where the ability to access them in the early game and high building damage can aid in rapidly destroying turrets in a few strikes. At high qualities and with the right material, this can even kill the large turrets in a single strike.

Another potential use is for ideoligion with the Melee Piercers set as Noble weapons, providing a blunt weapon option that grants mood buffs instead of penalties.

Its performance outside of these niches is lackluster however, thoroughly outperformed by the mace, which has similar costs and research requirements. Even the club is superior to all but very high quality breach axes of the same material

As all attacks performed by the breach axe do blunt damage, uranium is the ideal material.

Material table

Material	DPS^[1]	AP^[1]	Handle (Poke)					Handle (Blunt)					Head (Demolish)					HP	Value [ExpandCollapse]
Material	DPS^[1]	AP^[1]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	HP	Value [ExpandCollapse]
Bioferrite Breach axe	5.67	10.35%	8.1	2s	11.7%	4.05	12.5%	8.1	2s	11.7%	4.05	12.5%	6.75	1s	9.9%	6.75	75%	200	83
Golden Breach axe	6.3	11.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	7.5	1s	11%	7.5	75%	60	5015
Plasteel Breach axe	7.09	10.35%	8.1	1.28s	11.7%	6.33	12.5%	8.1	1.28s	11.7%	6.33	12.5%	6.75	0.64s	9.9%	10.55	75%	280	490
Silver Breach axe	6.3	11.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	7.5	1s	11%	7.5	75%	70	520
Steel Breach axe	6.3	11.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	7.5	1s	11%	7.5	75%	100	113
Uranium Breach axe	8.59	17.25%	13.5	2.42s	19.5%	5.58	12.5%	13.5	2.42s	19.5%	5.58	12.5%	11.25	1.21s	16.5%	9.3	75%	250	335

^{Assuming Normal quality, for the effect of other qualities, see Quality.}

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Note: This is the actual base average derived from the melee verb system updated in 1.1.2610, it may sometimes disagree with the listed value in the in-game infobox.
It may also change depending on the stats and the melee verbs available to the wielder
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Chance for attack to be selected, assuming only the weapon's attack verbs are considered. It may change depending on the melee verbs available to the wielder

Version history

1.3.3066 - Added.
1.3.3200 - Changed breaching axe's damage multiplier versus walls from 1 to 0.75 (so their damage versus walls drops from 75 to ~56).

Weapons