Shovel spears
Shovel spears or a shovel being used as a spear works surprisingly well as a weapon. I started out using a stone shovel which looks sort of like a spear. Then worked my way up to iron ones.
Using a shovel as a spear looks better and gives the player more options.
When the shovel is used as a weapon, you have a slightly better range than any other may melee (non ranged) weapon. So you can stay out of a zombies attack and better at avoiding getting hit.
This is best used against crawlers zombies and snakes. Up until now there was no real way to fight against snakes since it was nearly impossible to hit them with a ranged weapon and attacking them with a melee was exposing you to get hit both badly and repeatedly. The best thing you could do was to avoid them.
For walking zombies. I find that it is best to aim for the neck since this is more likely to stun them. Plus you have a good chance to hit them in the head.
The tradeoff is that like the stone ax, the shovel is a tool and does do as much damage as a spiked club but it's slightly better ranged makes up for it. Naturally an iron or even steel shovels would work better do to the material used.
As with all weapons, the player needs to practice to get better but it has a short learning curve and it won't take long for the player to pick up.
On the down side, the shovel is not the best to be used against aggressive animals like the boar, since they have a different type of attack of ramming the player. I tried it once with a stone shovel and got my ass handed to me by one very quickly and got gored to death. I only tried this once with a stone one and may have faired better if I used hit and run tactics. Instead of going head to head with one. Lesson learned.
Can be more useful in Alpha 17 since improved AI makes zombies more effective at attacking.
So to summaries, shovels used as spears:
Have the best range of all melee weapons.
Have a different angle of attack.
Better at taking out crawlers.
Much better at taking out snakes by far.
Better at stunning walking zombies if you aim for the neck.
Help you even more in next Alpha.
Not good for attacking animals like boars.
Have only average entry damage.
Note: Steel shovels not tested.
Let me know what you guys think.