maces, could be really efffective against unarmored/ poorly armored enemies
Dude! Maces are good against armor, not the opposite!
@Dioxine: I think the hammer could get something new, yes. I'd even go so far as to say it should. Not because it is not powerful enough (lol) but because I just feel it's wrong for it to still shine even against hi-tech weapons. It's still just a demolition hammer!
My suggestion for the hammer: Thunder hammer
To go with the electro-sword.
Similar damage, I'd say lower starting power, better melee to power scaling meaning better damage for high melee gals (it's more tricky to land a telling blow and time it with the power/electro-field burst).
As a side effect, it drains the target's TUs on top of better stun damage (concussive+electro field = good stun). The "TU drain" makes enemies less likely to react back at you. One of the main disadvantage of the hammer compared to melee is that since it is a "gun", it causes reaction fire, whereas real melee weapons don't. By having the thunder hammer drain TUs, you improve on the hammer by helping survivability of the user. (I don't use hammer against strong foes with strong guns, because many times they get my gal if the first hit isn't enough to kill).
Even better if you can tweak the explosion radius + falloff (I think you can in Extended?) so that it does max ~60 damage (ie average power = 40, actual = 20 to 60) 1 tile away from the point of impact. (I will work on a "electro-splosion" recolored animation if you do that). Doesn't add much except cool destruction in certain terrain, and maybe the ability to kill unarmored enemies, but it would make it stand out. It would also restrict its use to armors with better than 60 under armor (= juggernaut), otherwise you damage yourself and drain your own TUs.
As for adding a "can opener" mace to the game, I think it could work. I'd say:
- Need primitive weapons ("invented" along the spear as the total opposite weapon)
- Takes a pipe and scrap metal to make a mace.
- Lower or similar power to a cutlass ( depends more on Str, less on Melee, which also means it will cap lower since Str cap is lower than Melee cap, but Str is easier to train), but concussive type
- Lower accuracy: With an added dependency on Str (stronger = better control of a heavier weapon)
- Higher TU/Stam cost (they are cumbersome weapons)
- Ignores.. say 25% of armor?
By no means a no-brainer upgrade, but good to have if you expect to face dudes in medium (personal) armor. Doesn't really work on power armor, but better than a cutlass. Not all enemies have high enough armor and it's not outright superior to warrant entirely replacing swords, but it's annoying enough to have your cutlasses bounce and get shot point blank. So it'd be good to have the extra little hitting power for insurance by bringing 1-2 mace gals in the boarding party. I'd expect the sword gals to kill more (they get less tired so get to strike more, also they hit more), but upon seeing a PA-dude, would likely send the maces to kill, so they'd get more armored dudes.
