Kenshi - open-ended sandbox RPG set in a desert world

[Deleted Member 16721]

This sounds like it has some interesting emergent gameplay, i.e. you make your own stories of survival and terror in the crazy land you're in. I saw mention of skeletons and am wondering if there's a wide variety of units you can have. Other monsters maybe?

 

[Emmanuel2]

I saw mention of skeletons

Spoiler

The "skeletons" referred to in the game are actually just robots btw

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

You can install robotic limbs on any race which will have more hp. They usually have malus to athletics/stealth/thieving, but some other bonuses too.

You forgot to mention that they need to lose a limb and cost a fortune.

Bleeding isn't a huge problem with decent armor and toughness

Bleeding is a huge problem because it tears right into your HPs, make your characters's unconscious and can decide how many people you have standing in a battle. Armour doesn't make you imune to bleeding. Being a skeleton does.

Skeletons can't wear any headgear, shirt or boots. Late game enemies can do close to 200 damage per hit. High end armors will have 70-80% damage reduction. So without armor they will probably have less effective hp than sheks...

Which was done for balance reasons because they are OP. Heavy armours are expensive and cumbersome. They compromise your athletics and make you fight like a turtle in batlle. It takes a long time before you have the strength to use them properly. Of course, by this time a skeleton already has so much toughness and block that armours are negligible. Toughness and block beat armour.

Notice your train your thought. You started this discussion saying that skeletons are not good to fight because they are expensive. Now you are saying that other species are better because they can also have huge HP with expensive robotic limbs and more protection with expensive armour.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

This sounds like it has some interesting emergent gameplay, i.e. you make your own stories of survival and terror in the crazy land you're in. I saw mention of skeletons and am wondering if there's a wide variety of units you can have. Other monsters maybe?

Yes, you have things like Hives, which are good workers.

You can find all races here.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

You can install robotic limbs on any race which will have more hp. They usually have malus to athletics/stealth/thieving, but some other bonuses too.

You forgot to mention that they need to lose a limb and cost a fortune.

Bleeding isn't a huge problem with decent armor and toughness

Bleeding is a huge problem because it tears right into your HPs, make your characters's unconscious and can decide how many people you have standing in a battle. Armour doesn't make you imune to bleeding. Being a skeleton does.

Skeletons can't wear any headgear, shirt or boots. Late game enemies can do close to 200 damage per hit. High end armors will have 70-80% damage reduction. So without armor they will probably have less effective hp than sheks...

Which was done for balance reasons because they are OP. Heavy armours are expensive and cumbersome. They compromise your athletics and make you fight like a turtle in batlle. It takes a long time before you have the strength to use them properly. Of course, by this time a skeleton already has so much toughness and block that armours are negligible. Toughness and block beat armour.

Notice your train your thought. You started this discussion saying that skeletons are not good to fight because they are expensive. Now you are saying that other species are better because they can also have huge HP with expensive robotic limbs and more protection with expensive armour.

Stealing stuff from weapon shop in world's end nets you ~80k, selling cpu units and other stuff from ruins can also bring you huge amount of money. So 18-30k isn't really that much. Losing limbs is easy and safe with peeler.

Once you get into 50+ toughness and strength bleeding stops being a huge issue. I am not even sure a character in 40's can really die from bleeding, given they have a decent armor. Armor doesn't technically makes you immune to bleeding, but it does in practice, since you get knocked out sooner than you you get dangerous levels of bleeding. Plus weapons which cause severe bleeding (aka katanas) are weaker against armor (which blocks more slashing damage than blunt).

They are ultimately worse in lategame due to being outclassed by sheks with good armor/robotic limbs and they are more annoying in early game due to maintance (running to skeleton beds can get annoying if you main force are skeletons). Also high stats don't help against splash damage in chaotic group combat (but I guess it can be avoided with better tactics).

I wouldn't say they are bad, but those are few points you have to consider while playing skeletons.

 

[Beastro]

Slave start, or getting enslaved on purpose, is the way to go to work up thieving skills. By the time I left my lockpicking was 70+ and stealth over 50. It also is a great place to work up assassination like I did, beating up on slaves locked in cages. You can find the roof of a building with a few in cages, then spend the whole day bouncing between them KOing them jumping into a cage if a guard walks up. I might just get my guy re-enslaved one day to work on assassination and martial arts, but I'd like to get some skellie guys first to do work while he's locked up. I figure making the a spot for them to work on shit while he's locked up would be a good idea and leave playing the slave that becomes a slaver for another time.

Getting enslaved seems to be a good way to get Shek's on your side. I found out that those groupies I got were from feeling slaves locked in cages and all were Sheks.

I too have found stealing from shops the best route. Was able to get my Shinobi membership and some gear from them that way stealing in Squin and selling in the Hub. Also practiced my fighting and strength on the hungry bandits that are often fighting others between those towns and it's easy to send your guy in to take pot shots, then run away when they notice you while grabbing a corpse and running it to whatever city you're heading too is a nice way to get strength up as you're doing something else.

I'm still struggling to work up my melee stats and Dex. Melee combat skill goes up working on the training dummies, but the specific weapon type skill doesn't seem to. I guess if I'm not missing something like the start of my game I can also go looking for hungry bandits fighting to work em up. Think I'll go peek around Admag next.

Got my guy a Swamp Ninja Mask last playtime, so that combined with my default posture is making him look very Snork-like:

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I am interesting in trying getting enslaved by reavers at the beginning of the game.
Seems like high chance of death, but if it works - you could gain lots of points in martial arts/dodge since they make their slaves serve as meatshield during patrolling. Plus you spend more time walking around, so getting overburdened to train strength seems more effective than in Rebirth. The only problem is that they often seem to forget to heal downed slaves (probably because they get engaged in combat themselves)... Anyway, just let your computer run for a day without your supervision and get superbuff pcs without having to do anything.
Have anyone tried this before?

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Stealing stuff from weapon shop in world's end nets you ~80k, selling cpu units and other stuff from ruins can also bring you huge amount of money. So 18-30k isn't really that much.

So the fact that repair kits were more expensive than first aid kits was not really issue, which makes your first point about skeletons being expensive moot.

Losing limbs is easy and safe with peeler.

It's incredbly hard because you need to get beat up to the point you lose a limb, but you need to survive all the same. All that considering that you don't have any control over the actions of your oponents.

Once you get into 50+ toughness and strength bleeding stops being a huge issue.

Of course, by that time you already spend one hundred hours or more playing the game. It doesn't change the fact that with skeletons you increase your toughness faster, because you can endure injuries and recover faster.

I am not even sure a character in 40's can really die from bleeding, given they have a decent armor. Armor doesn't technically makes you immune to bleeding, but it does in practice, since you get knocked out sooner than you you get dangerous levels of bleeding.

You still ignoring the fact that armors make you slower, encumbered. Besides, skeletons are not edible. You don't have to worry about being eat by a beak thing when you get unconscious.

They are ultimately worse in lategame due to being outclassed by sheks with good armor/robotic limbs

So they are worst after 100 hours + of gameplay. Who gives a fuck.

and they are more annoying in early game due to maintance (running to skeleton beds can get annoying if you main force are skeletons).

You have plenty of skeleton beds everywhere. You have those beds in the hiver village, for example. Besides, it takes really long until you see the effects. I never use one bed until now. I didn't need it.

I wouldn't say they are bad, but those are few points you have to consider while playing skeletons.

The main thing about skeletons is that they are low maintenance.

 

[RoBoBOBR]

All those tasty stories ITT made me buy this game, and i like it plenty. Started as a wanderer, got money by selling loot off corpses that local guards provided, trained a bit in shinobi compound (at first i was training there while not being a member, so had to stealth and stop the training when people could see me, but eventually got the 10k needed and joined). Stole some food, but for now can't figure out the pickpocketing. Plan to solo for a while, being stealthy and martial-artsy, eventually i'd like to replace every part i can with a cyber one.
Performance is sorta OK, though mostly it's under 50 fps, what setting affect it most? Got a good GPU, but somewhat mid-range CPU (i5-2500K).

 

[Beastro]

Damnit I'm running into a save bug where it won't save my game. Won't even exit it either, have to close it through the task manager.

Uploaded my logs to a lofi thread dealing with the issue, but I hope this doesn't hound me.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Anyway, just let your computer run for a day without your supervision and get superbuff pcs without having to do anything.
Have anyone tried this before?

I accidentally fell asleep once when I overburdened my dude and had him follow some UC patrollers. 20 to 70 Str easy.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Stealing stuff from weapon shop in world's end nets you ~80k, selling cpu units and other stuff from ruins can also bring you huge amount of money. So 18-30k isn't really that much.

So the fact that repair kits were more expensive than first aid kits was not really issue, which makes your first point about skeletons being expensive moot.

Repair kits aren't an issue, skeleton repair beds are. Not only regular beds are almost in every location - you can bring mobile regular beds with you. For skeleton beds you have to run to very specific places.

It's incredbly hard because you need to get beat up to the point you lose a limb, but you need to survive all the same. All that considering that you don't have any control over the actions of your oponents.

You don't have to do this is you use a peeler. Just remove equipment, put character into peeler and remove him after they lose their limbs. Use first aid kids afterwards. Whole operation takes 10 seconds and have 100% success rate.

Of course, by that time you already spend one hundred hours or more playing the game. It doesn't change the fact that with skeletons you increase your toughness faster, because you can endure injuries and recover faster.

With skeletons you will have to constantly run to skeleton repair beds. With humans every bed will suffice, so it's not clear which is faster. I'd say regular humans...

You still ignoring the fact that armors make you slower, encumbered. Besides, skeletons are not edible. You don't have to worry about being eat by a beak thing when you get unconscious.

High quality medium armor doesn't make you that much slower. Masterworks padded jacket has like 0.9 effective athletics or close. Same goes for headgear and shirts (dark leather shirts provides like 50% bonus to resistances with 0 penalties and 100% chest coverage).

So they are worst after 100 hours + of gameplay. Who gives a fuck.

Depending on what you do it may be 1000s of hours or 10 hours. Getting your thieving to 40 can be done in an hour, getting money for masterworks armor/limbs is another hour or even less afterwards. It's like 120k to get armor from armor king, cross3 weapons and limbs from black desert town, which is roughly 2 runs on world's end weaponshop. Anyway, it's not about the time spend, but about the content you want to do. You will need buffed up characters to deal with Ashlands. Getting you skills and stats to appropriate level takes 10 times more time than getting 4 masterworks limb replacements.

 

[a Goat]

You don't have to do this is you use peeler.

Where do i get one?

 

[PrettyDeadman]

You don't have to do this is you use peeler.

Where do i get one?

Skinbandits near ashlands. I am pretty sure you can use the ones in their base without them getting upset (unlike their skeleton beds). Plus if you are a skelly - you can buy schematic off their leader. Just dont get near them as a regular human unless you want to be put inside a peeler by force.

 

[Whisper]

Why this crap looking thing is so popular? Never heard of it before.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Why this crap looking thing is so popular?

From all of these comments I noticed a trend: Old Skool RPGs were difficult because they required persistence and hard work to figure out how to get to the end.

That's likely why.

 

[a Goat]

You don't have to do this is you use peeler.

Where do i get one?

Skinbandits near ashlands. I am pretty sure you can use the ones in their base without them getting upset (unlike their skeleton beds). Plus if you are a skelly - you can buy schematic off their leader. Just dont get near them as a regular human unless you want to be put inside a peeler by force.

Interesting. I've planned on making big hive colony(with some mods so I have endless stream of companions) with sort of MC-emperor kind of guy who's overpowered and part of it will surely require robotic limbs, I'll check this out.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Damnit I'm running into a save bug where it won't save my game. Won't even exit it either, have to close it through the task manager.

Uploaded my logs to a lofi thread dealing with the issue, but I hope this doesn't hound me.

I've run into the same issue with saving once but only once, so it's probably a semi-random, infrequently-occurring bug.

 

[Zanzoken]

Now that I've almost gotten my main character killed on two occasions, I think I am going to add another person or two to the party as backup.

I decide to increase the party size to three -- one of whom will be a doctor who can splint serious injuries -- and head back to the UCs to regroup and begin searching for new recruits.

In Stoat I find Izumi, who is a unique recruit with the medic skills I'm looking for, and at the bargain price of 2500 cats. I try to break into the Weapon and Ranger shops at night to steal her a katana and a crossbow, but security has tightened up and there are nighttime guards posted. Not sure if this was due to a patch or if the game is reacting to my previous crime sprees, although the latter would be a neat little feature.

There are no good bows to buy anyway, so I return to World's End and find the equipment I need. Flotsam Village is the next closest town so I head there and recruit another unique named Pia for 3000 cats. She lacks weapon skills but has above average Str and Dex, which will make her easier to train.

I wasn't necessarily setting out to do this, but I realize my party now consists of three Greenlander women, something I find kind of hilarious. We're a proper gang now, meaning it's time to ditch the "Nameless" label and adopt a new one, which comes to me almost instantly. I know you've heard of the Shinobi ninjas, the Trade ninjas, and the Flotsam ninjas -- but are you ready for -- the Waifu ninjas!

Spoiler

We need money, gear, and XP, and since Mongrel is prime for all three and not too far I away I decide to head back for another tour of duty battling the deadhive. I snapped a couple of action shots for your viewing pleasure, along with updated character sheets.

Spoiler

Spoiler

So we'll grind Fogmen for a bit, then head back out into the wilds to look for more artifacts and get revenge on a few of those bastard cannibals.

 

[toro]

... snip ...

Maybe you already explained it before but I got two questions:
1) How did you train STR so much?
2) What mod are you using?

 

[Zanzoken]

Maybe you already explained it before but I got two questions:
1) How did you train STR so much?
2) What mod are you using?

The only mods I use are Dark UI and Biome Map (no colour version).

I train Strength by filling a character's inventory with iron ore and making them run while carrying a dead body. It takes about 3 or 4 days in-game to reach level 40, which is where I stop. This is the only stat I power-level and the first task I do with each new recruit, because having low strength restricts a lot of other things and it improves rather slowly on its own.

 

[toro]

Maybe you already explained it before but I got two questions:
1) How did you train STR so much?
2) What mod are you using?

The only mods I use are Dark UI and Biome Map (no colour version).

I train Strength by filling a character's inventory with iron ore and making them run while carrying a dead body. It takes about 3 or 4 days in-game to reach level 40, which is where I stop. This is the only stat I power-level and the first task I do with each new recruit, because having low strength restricts a lot of other things and it improves rather slowly on its own.

Thanks.

My main damage dealers after 1 month of non-stop combat.

Spoiler

 

[Ironmonk]

If anyone is interested in trying the game before buying, there is a free demo

https://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/0/3561682879997243234/

I tried it a little and the limitations I could see are that you have only one start (as wanderer of human race greenlander) and I couldn't buy a pack bull from a vendor. Probably there are more, but I didn't play that much yet.

 

[a Goat]

Oh one important thing, don't play the game if you don't have SSD. Its just fucking unplayable without one

 

[Magitex]

Oh one important thing, don't play the game if you don't have SSD. Its just fucking unplayable without one

Works fine on my ancient mechanical with all graphics settings maxed.
Load times probably half a second or less for new areas, and it's still playable while loading.

I don't know about the older versions of Kenshi, or it's 12 years of development, but I can safely say this is a really good game in 1.0. It's just too bad we couldn't get a slightly more dynamic economy as I'm a sucker for selling copper like a mule.