Knife

For the uncraftable jade variant, see jade knife.

The knife is a primitive, sharp melee weapon. It deals a low amount of damage, but has a short cooldown, making it friendlier to unskilled users.

Acquisition

Knives can be crafted at the crafting spot, fueled smithy or smithy with 30 Stuff (Metallic) 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.

A plasteel knife is given at the beginning with Crashlanded scenario.

Analysis

Knives are low-tier melee weapons, being cheap and fast to produce.

Crashlanded start

A normal quality plasteel knife is roughly as strong as a normal steel longsword, and stronger than a steel gladius. Compared to the longsword, the knife attacks faster for less damage per hit, and is marginally worse against armor. The quick attacks also help colonists with low melee skill (< 6), who might want to train melee due to a passion, or trait like brawler.

Crafted knives

As you can make knives in a crafting spot, creating knives can be useful in Naked Brutality and other low-resource scenarios. But, provided you have 2 Crafting, the short bow should be your go-to weapon. As a ranged weapon, it is better for defense, and lets you hunt 0% manhunter animals without getting hurt (even docile animals will retaliate in melee).

In terms of melee weapons, Clubs are your direct crafting spot alternatives. Clubs have 2 advantages over knives: they can be made out of wood, which has nearly the same DPS as a steel club, and they have no quality. While a wood club is worse than a "normal" quality steel knife, they are better than a poor or awful knife. If there are other ore deposits around, a plasteel knife is better than the plasteel club, and a uranium club is better than the knife. Also note, that as blunt weapons, clubs are less likely to cause bleeding or decapitate limbs, which might make them worse in combat.

As soon as you have access to Smithing, the gladius of the same material is slightly more expensive, but significantly better in combat. Knives could be used to train Crafting skill, but as clubs can be made of wood or stone, they are generally the better option.

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