Can Neolythic weapons be as good as modern or sci-fi weapons in rim world?

[Wren]

Hello,

I like the idea of being a primitive tribe with both the DLC installed. However I'm concerned that any other weapon era type will out dps me. Anyone know if there is a huge difference between these three categories?

[Kangaroo Salesman]

If you made a neolithic weapon out of a op modded material yes, in vanilla no.

[whatamidoing]

Your options for neolithic weapons are basically recurve bows for ranged and knives/clubs for melee, and for armor you have nothing.

[glass zebra]

Weapon quality and shooting skill in Rimworld does a lot. Since bows are made of wood and produced quite quickly, you can get a higher quantity of high quality weapons in the same time compared to higher tech weapons (not fully true for armour though). Once you reached a point where you could get tons of high quality sci-fi weapons though, the sci-fi weapons will pretty much always win in their use case. High quality plate armour is decent too, but a high quality sci-fi armour will still beat it.

It really depends on your point of view here. 10 pawns in masterwork cataphract armour and with masterwork charge rifles will be stronger than 10 pawns with masterwork plasteel plate armour and masterwork recurve bows. If you instead deliver 20-30 pawns with neolithic / medieval weapons with a similar quality, it can look a lot better. If you have infinite time and material input and the same number of people, fully bionic people with future stuff is pretty much the best you can do. You also got a lot more choices for different niche superiority with modern weapons (dps isn't everything).

You can totally beat the game with tribals, but you will have to use numbers etc. to reach a similar power level. Since Rimworlds threats scale with wealth (bows and plate armour do not have a lot), a playthrough like that does not have to feel very inferior. You will probably notice the lack of choices very much though. Getting through enemy armour is also a lot harder without charge rifles or monoswords. You might often blunt tanky enemies to death or cover them in animals. Dryads can help a lot with this.

[ichifish]

I’ve never done a full low-tech run, but FWIW Pete Complete is doing an archonexus quest series now and is capping the tech of each of the three phases to Neolithic/medieval, then industrial/modern, then spacer (losing is fun 500%). I think he’s open to including single-use spacer tech like insanity lances, and he uses the VE Vikings mod for the recon-level Viking armor. As part of the quest he’s got to get up to 150k wealth, so it’s a good example of what can be done at that level in a wealthy colony. He relies on psycasting, bears, and dryads to back up the bows.

[gimmethegepgun]

Spears are technically neolithic weapons, and are one of the best melee weapons. Plasteel spears are no joke.

That said, crafting them requires 2 Medieval techs. But then again, crafting knives requires 1 Medieval tech.

Greatbows are also technically Neolithic, but their tech is Medieval (though they don't require Smithing to craft any more)

[nephilimnexus]

Originally posted by Kangaroo Salesman:

If you made a neolithic weapon out of a op modded material yes, in vanilla no.

Attomachinery sword FTW. Kill a mechanoid centipede in one hit.
Attomachinery clothing FTW. Get hit by a railgun and it just bounces off.

[Dreagon]

Considering masterwork greatbows get overpowered by basic normal quality guns like bolt action rifles, no.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Considering masterwork greatbows get overpowered by basic normal quality guns like bolt action rifles, no.

No they don't. A masterwork greatbow is considerably better than a normal quality bolt action rifle except for armor penetration and a somewhat shorter range.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

But then again, crafting knives requires 1 Medieval tech.

Have I been using a mod that stealthily makes knives craftable at crafting spots with no tech requirement this whole time?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

But then again, crafting knives requires 1 Medieval tech.

Have I been using a mod that stealthily makes knives craftable at crafting spots with no tech requirement this whole time?

Nope, I am just derp and wrong.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Have I been using a mod that stealthily makes knives craftable at crafting spots with no tech requirement this whole time?

Nope, I am just derp and wrong.

You made me check the wiki and it says smithing too. Guess it's just wrong again.

[glass zebra]

In the past shivs were neolithic and then there was the knife upgrade. Shivs were removed because they don't really fill a a niche that knifes didn't. Not sure if you actually needed to forge the knifes though.

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by ichifish:

(losing is fun 500%)

Yeah, ol' Pete is effing insane. Damn good at it, but still pretty insane. ;)