While it's true that dead enemies don't need to be stunned I found the ability to do so overall increased the efficiency of my melee colony considerably. In terms of overall combat performance - Well,pre-material-changes I was still massively in favor of maces due to their capacity to stun enemies. In terms of ' Most likely to kill opposition quickly' Spears/longswords are currently the most lethal as the Stab attacks they both have have a tendency to cause spontaneous death, both to humans and as mentioned centipedes particularly. Frankly punching is probably at least close to the least lethal way to inflict pain. If you want to avoid random lethal death definitely stick to blunt damage, the material isn't super relevant but obviously the less damage it does per attack the better off you are. Wooden maces are fine for prison breaks but they're really not intrinsically especially efficient by any means. In practice Plasteel may be preferable, not sure. over-kill is a gigantic waste of overall damage. I also need to do some testing - Uranium vs plasteel maces isn't as super clear cut as I'd like it to be - Uranium does more damage but swings considerably more slowly. Steel is better than wood for maces, plasteel is better than steel but only marginally. You can't make Maces out of Jade and Clubs no longer have quality modifiers. Uranium is currently the most efficient blunt weapon material with a 1.5x blunt damage modifier and a 1.1 cooldown modifier.

As of right now - Plasteel is still the best Sharp melee weapon material - It's got a 1.1x sharp damage modifier and a 0.8x cooldown modifier.

Rimworld best melee weapons