They're not made for fighting, they're made for chopping grass and shrubs and being cheap.

This is true for generic irl machetes, and our generic machete should probably have reduced damage / less durability, but at least for our machete in-game it is described as being based off of the OKC 1-18, which is described as a "Military Machete."

The combat machete / qt combat machete are specifically described as being:

"customized and rebalanced to improve its performance as a weapon"
"customized, rebalanced and tempered to dramatically improve its performance as a weapon."

So these aren't generic machetes anymore, they're closer to 'zombie choppers' that some irl cutlery companies produce. If we want to actually have an end-game weapon in the SHORT_SWORDS category, we might want to reflavor the combat machetes to be totally different things, rather than modified gardening machetes.

I think it's totally fine for machetes to fall short of dedicated swords in combat capability.

Even with the adjusted damages, the qt combat machete still falls short of all the other qt swords in that DPS list, and the combat machete is around the same damage as a bayonet or sword cane, which seems reasonable.

My suggestions:

1. Change the current machete to be based on more of a more generic, grass-cutting, store-bought variety. Reduce its damage, remove the STURDY flag, change its length/weight to whatever generic reference we pick, update the description.

2. Change the acquisition of the combat machete to be either hand-forged from scratch, or as a rare drop in some locations (feral preppers and prepper houses come to mind), since the current recipe of super glue and grinding doesn't really make sense to make a machete more combat-capable. Base this machete off of the okc 1-18 or some equivalent 'zombie chopper'. Update the description to reflect how much different it is from a normal machete.

3. Keep the tempered steel combat machete as a high-fab crafting exclusive. Replace the description to distance it from the garden variety of machete.

4. Reduce/remove bash since these are lighter than most swords, possibly compensate with higher cut.

I'll rethink this and possibly re-approach it.

based off of the OKC 1-18, which is described as a "Military Machete."

Just because it's military doesn't mean it's a good weapon???

"customized and rebalanced to improve its performance as a weapon"

You're only getting so far by tempering bad steel and adjusting the profile of a machete, it's still a machete. It's a thin profiled broad blade made of a metal alloy that is optimized for not weapon usage.

they're closer to 'zombie choppers' that some irl cutlery companies produce.

Which are themselves cosplaying as weapons.

If we want to actually have an end-game weapon in the SHORT_SWORDS category

We don't, a short sword is fundamentally not an end game weapon, and machetes sit below the real short swords.

to be either hand-forged from scratch, or as a rare drop in some locations

You're missing the point here, if you extensively resesign a machete to be a capable short sword, it's no longer a machete. If it's still a machete, it's not a sword. If it's a sword... it's a sword, which we already have.

Please just drop it, machetes are a dead end. If you want a sword just use a sword.