Damage Equation

[Vroqren]

Hey again, I have recently started my most recent character, my Mercantile expert. It's working pretty well, considering I can buy all the skills I need. I'm planning on buying all the combat skills that I can that have a skill feat (Bows, Swords, Cleaving, Bludgeoning, Piercing and Thrown). I also plan on using all of the named weapons (All of them are weapon skills with a feat). Many of these feats have multiple great weapons I could use with them. So, I'm wondering which is really best. For example:

Cleaving Weapons:
Hexedge: Base Damage 8, Weight 5, Bonus +2 damage
compared to
Gloomwrought: Base Damage 6, Weight 4, Bonus +2 STR, +2 DEX, +2 damage
Clearly it one would say that Gloomwrought is better. But is it really? The base damage is lower. How much does that affect the equation? We can also add the best Axe one can hope to get as random loot, or store supplies.
Divine Ore Grand Axe: Base Damage 6 (+5), Weight 13.6, and any of a number of bonuses.

Another example is Bows: Which is best?
Warmoth: Base Damage 5, Weight 3, Bonus +3 Bows, +1 Poison Damage
compared to the best randomly generated one:
Divine Timber Great Bow: Base Damage 5 (+6), Weight (Insignificant), and a number of possible bonuses.

Sorry for the long winded explanation. My question, however, if this:
What is the damage equation in Book II?
How does each factor get modified to create a range of possible damages? Obviously the enemies stats play some part in the equation, but if you plug in the same numbers for all enemy stats, you can find out what the best weapon is for general purpose (disregarding enemy resistances and such).
Once again: Is there a known equation for damage, and if so, what is it?

Not only would I like to know this for m y own personal use, but I would like to have a list of 'best weapons' for each specific purpose in my walkthrough.

[BasiliskWrangler]

It starts with your character:

Thrown Weapons = STR + DEX (Strong arm, Steady arm)
Bows = DEX + CON (Steady arm, Steady mind)
Piercing weapons = DEX + SPD (Steady arm, Fast arm)
All other weapons = STR + SPD (Strong arm, Fast arm)

So, base damage is a diluted combination of the above Attribute scores, plus your Skill in the weapon category you are using. Your Skill score carries 2.5x more influence than your Attribute scores (I believe), but I don't have the exact calcs in front of me right now because I am not on that computer. I think others have figured them out fairly accurately.

This is the damage your character brings to the attack. Your weapon's Base Damage is applied on top of it. Add this all together and you have the Maximum Damage possible. The damage roll is a random function between (Max Damage) and (Max Damage / 2)

Things like plus damage, or extra damage (e.g. from fire) are applied after the damage roll, not included as the Max Damage amount in the roll.

[Vroqren]

Awesome, thank you very much. This will help me a ton, and hopefully others. I'll sum it up for the walkthrough.