[Hobbes]

Why? Were super strength combat axe trogs everywhere in 5e? Cuz the panther cannon punch is a thing in that version too.

Firearm damage in 5E was higher relative to melee damage.  6E Unarmed damage scales up much faster compared to Firearms and Melee weapons.

5E Soak was cheap.  6E Soak is really hard to get.  6E the bonus to Soak comes with a Bonus to Unarmed damage, so it's a low to non-existent opportunity cost to pick up bonus Unarmed damage in 6E for Mundane Combat characters.  (Because they were buying the bonus to Soak dice anyway).

Also Muscle Replacement got cheaper in 6E, so Str got cheaper.  And you can start with the Augmented Max at Char Gen. 

Dermal Deposits, low karma cost for a +1 Unarmed DV.  6e option, not available in 5e.  (5e Chrome Flesh has some similar options though, but cost Essence.) 

I suspect there will be more Unarmed builds at Missions tables than previous editions because it's simply better mechanically to punch things in 6E.  And builds that punch things were pretty popular anyway.

[Xenon]

The real (if not only?) problem is that there is a high chance for a high-strength character to get substantially worse by picking up a melee weapon.

But the root cause here is not that melee weapons does not scale with strength, the root cause is that unarmed combat scale too well with strength.

For example; Melee weapons would be perfectly fine if unarmed combat had a fixed base DV of 2 ;-)

[Leith]

The real (if not only?) problem is that there is a high chance for a high-strength character to get substantially worse by picking up a melee weapon.

But the root cause here is not that melee weapons does not scale with strength, the root cause is that unarmed combat scale too well with strength.

For example; Melee weapons would be perfectly fine if unarmed combat had a fixed base DV of 2 ;-)

I wonder if fhat was the original intent. With how badly edited the book is it would not surprise me.
But also, an elf w/ 2 str can hit w/ a baseball bat and cause concussions and broken bones. A troll w/ 9 str can hit w/ a baseball bat and cause concussions and shattered bones, which is no different than what he'd do with his hands. The problem is, how come the mechanics of the game say the troll does less damage with the bat than with his hands? How strong should a troll be? How much of an impact does str need to have on damage? Damage is a complete abstraction but strength gives us realworld examples of what the number means.

Side note: bone augs dont seem like the best ROI for defense. Reaction and initiative boosts will keep you from taking any damage or reduce net hits which also reduces damage. Once you get that locked in then you start looking at bone augmentation with whatever essence you have leftover. IDK if that will matter to people who wanna play Giant Troll With A Giant Axe, but...

[Noble Drake]

But the root cause here is not that melee weapons does not scale with strength, the root cause is that unarmed combat scale too well with strength.

For example; Melee weapons would be perfectly fine if unarmed combat had a fixed base DV of 2 ;-)

Fun and related anecdote: after initial play sessions of SR6 one of my players asked about Strength and how it didn't influence the damage of his character's sword attacks. He thought not involving strength was "stupid" so I set about making up a house-rule that made things make sense, resulted in a little more consistency across melee attack forms, and also made sure that melee weapons and punches weren't doing anti-vehicular levels of damage... plus it had the side effect of making it so that most characters would always increase their damage by using a weapon.

I don't remember all the details off-hand, but the rule basically set unarmed DV base to 1S and applied a boost to melee damage the same way as cyberlimb hardening (I think... whichever thing it was that gives a higher DV if your strength is 7+ or whatever).

He hated it.

[Michael Chandra]

He hated it.

Be careful what you wish for
'Cause you just might get it
You just might get it
You just might get it

[Hobbes]

Side note: bone augs dont seem like the best ROI for defense. Reaction and initiative boosts will keep you from taking any damage or reduce net hits which also reduces damage. Once you get that locked in then you start looking at bone augmentation with whatever essence you have leftover. IDK if that will matter to people who wanna play Giant Troll With A Giant Axe, but...

Soak dice are rare and precious things in 6E.  And are your second chance to reduce incoming damage.  Typically you're picking up Reaction from whatever initiative booster you're taking, the Reaction increase is nice but secondary to more Minor Actions.  A Samurai build really isn't going to be choosing between Wired Reflexes and Bone Augmentation based on how much damage reduction they'd expect. 

[Lormyr]

Hang on - someone with strength 4 can walk around carrying 159 kg without penalty?! That's... that's a heck of a lot.

And someone with Strength 1 is taking stun damage walking down the street carrying 11 kg? That's not just weak; that's enfeebled. You can be well below average strength and carry that weight around without being at risk of collapsing. This renders Strength 1 characters all but unplayable.

In my experience very few games have encumbrance math that is even moderately realistic, but that is the math we have to work with.

While I personally would still use it (only because I tend to be a by the book kind of guy), I'd still much rather see the value of focusing on Strength increased as opposed to incentivizing it by overpenalizing dumped stats.

However, if you put Strength to 1, you can be easily overwhelmed in grappling combat

To me, this is the only valid argument for why one should not dump strength. Grappling is savage in this edition.

But that said, it is also very easy to build a character that the grappler will just never hit, so there is always that. Full defense, block, dodge, combat sense, ect. are good ways to ensue you most likely avoid the one attack you don't want to land.