Knife

For the uncraftable jade variant, see jade knife.

The knife is a primitive melee weapon, it that does a low amount of damage, has a short cooldown, and deals sharp damage. As is typical with any sharp weapon, knife attacks cause bleeding, and generally fares poorly against armor when compared to blunt weapons. Due to its low cooldown, knives are skill-friendly weapons; even if a pawn equipped with a knife misses their attack, another attack will follow not long after.

Knife will deteriorate with the usual conditions...

Acquisition

Knives can be crafted at the crafting spot, fueled smithy or smithy with 30 Stuff (Metallic, 300 for SMVs) and 1,800 ticks (30 secs) of work. It can also be purchased from any outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or obtained from outlander and pirate raiders drops.

Analysis

Knives are low-tier melee weapons with a slightly below average damage output, but are cheap and fast to produce. The fact that you can make knives at a crafting spot makes this weapon very desirable in the early game, especially in hard scenarios, like Naked Brutality. If you have no decent crafter, the knife is a good option, as no weapon will be high-quality and you will level up a crafter more quickly.

That being said, the gladius offers significantly better performance for little more in the way of resource costs and more time to craft. When you have a colonist with good crafting skill (crafting level > 7 or so) and can build a fueled smithy or electric smithy, then this is the moment to upgrade to the gladius or Longsword, and have a good chance to produce excellent or better quality weapons.

A plasteel knife* can be as good as a steel longsword (of roughly equivalent quality), dealing less damage per hit but with less cooldown between attacks. Overall this yields a little more DPS but with lower penetration, making it good in the early game against "softer" (unarmored) targets and for colonists with low melee skill but great potential (e.g. skill < 6 but with passion in melee, and/or the brawler trait. (Or for those with a low shooting skill with no passion, and so little prospect to improve there).

(* like the normal-quality one start your three colonists start with if you crashlanded)

Against armor, a knife actually performs slightly better than its gladius counterpart, probably owing to the shorter cooldown. That being said, a stone club still performs considerably better than either. When talking about plasteel, the knife continues to outperform its steel gladius equivalent, but the steel club is still better here.

Material table

Material	DPS^[1]	AP^[1]	Handle (Blunt)					Blade (Cut)					Point (Stab)					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 Knife	9.12	22.26%	8.1	2s	11.7%	4.05	12.5%	15.6	1.5s	23.4%	10.4	75%	16.9	2s	26%	8.45	12.5%	200	39
Golden Knife	5.6	13.63%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	9	1.5s	13.5%	6	75%	9.75	2s	15%	4.88	12.5%	60	3005
Plasteel Knife	9.77	19.06%	8.1	1.28s	11.7%	6.33	12.5%	13.2	0.96s	19.8%	13.75	75%	14.3	1.28s	22%	11.17	12.5%	280	285
Silver Knife	6.25	15.23%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	10.2	1.5s	15.3%	6.8	75%	11.05	2s	17%	5.53	12.5%	70	305
Steel Knife	7.23	17.63%	9	2s	13%	4.5	12.5%	12	1.5s	18%	8	75%	13	2s	20%	6.5	12.5%	100	64
Uranium Knife	7.48	20.04%	13.5	2.42s	19.5%	5.58	12.5%	13.2	1.815s	19.8%	7.27	75%	14.3	2.42s	22%	5.91	12.5%	250	192

^{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