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

[toro]

Can't the mods do something and put spoiler tags on these things? Sheesh. Anyway, I decided to play ATOM RPG, but this is definitely on my short list of games to play next.

I've put spoilers on most of my posts. Did you see anything I should hide?

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Can't the mods do something and put spoiler tags on these things? Sheesh. Anyway, I decided to play ATOM RPG, but this is definitely on my short list of games to play next.

RPGCODEX does not scale to your level faggot

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can't the mods do something and put spoiler tags on these things? Sheesh. Anyway, I decided to play ATOM RPG, but this is definitely on my short list of games to play next.

I've put spoilers on most of my posts. Did you see anything I should hide?

I see plenty of crap to hide, but all of them are fluent postings.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Stealth and crossbow skills are coming along nicely, but melee is lagging behind.

A whole party with crossbows. Does it work? You do know that you fight better with lower weapons when you have newbies, right? You start with toothpicks, then you move to rangers, and only after you leveled more you can choose oldworld or eagle's cross. Those expensive crossbows take too long to reload at the beginning. You need to be trained first.

 

[Elim]

Also you will kill your team!
The reason to not go to Eagle's Cross crossbows directly is because of the Precision Shooting skill. Nothing sucks more than having a grunt shooting your "main character" into the head.


Edit: Precision Shooting is the skill to lower the chance of accidentaly hitting your own guys. And...it does only level up when you hit your guys. So Toothpicks>all until like 60+ or so. Still, shooting into melee is not that healthy.

 

[Saduj]

If the whole party has long range crossbows then the idea is you’re not shooting into melee because you’re taking enemies out at range. I don’t have the discipline to do it but sounds like it works for him.

 

[Beastro]

Oh, forgot a newbie tip: If you're in a fight with animals and KO one, immediately loot it even if you plan not to take anything (just put the hide or meat back on the body).

Doing so kills animals and thus will keep them from getting back up in the fight.

Stealth and crossbow skills are coming along nicely, but melee is lagging behind.

A whole party with crossbows, does it work? You do know that you fight better with lower weapons when you have newbies, right? You start with toothpicks, then you move to rangers, and only after you leveled more you can choose oldworld or eagle's cross. Those expensive crossbows take too long to reload at the beginning. You need to be trained first.

Old World Mk1 are good for their lower reload time against massed groups chasing you. It's what I used on my main guy for the breakout.

Massed crossbows is prolly your best bet early on. In fact, they're kinda OP given how easy it is to disengage from fights and the way melee combat works, which is unlike other games that give the meleer an advantage by sticking to range character when close.

The only issue with mass crossbows is that the AI isn't as dumb in most games and deliberately divides themselves between characters, so you'll have at least one guy chasing everyone of yours, and it can get confusing risking the chance of someone stopping and getting beat on. Athletics is crucial to crossbow kiting and I wouldn't do it without 35+ or so. Sadneil's was about that and he was on the verge of being overtaken most of the time forcing other, faster characters to fall back and gain aggro/stall the enemy so he could get ahead.

Also you will kill your team!
The reason to not go to Eagle's Cross crossbows directly is because of the Precision Shooting skill. Nothing sucks more than having a grunt shooting your "main character" into the head.


Edit: Precision Shooting is the skill to lower the chance of accidentaly hitting your own guys. And...it does only level up when you hit your guys. So Toothpicks>all until like 60+ or so. Still, shooting into melee is not that healthy.

It's not too much of a problem if you keep an eye toward placement. In my whole breakout/fighting retreat I never once tagged my own guys, but I always made sure to offset my main guy firing or the guys running away so the bolt didn't go flying past them.

If the whole party has long range crossbows then the idea is you’re not shooting into melee because you’re taking enemies out at range. I don’t have the discipline to do it but sounds like it works for him.

Enemies close quickly and a lot of places have terrain to screw with things. I'll take a look at them eventually, but I have a feeling they're more of a specialist, sniper tool given their ineffectiveness at closer distances. You could try kiting at long range, but the way the camera works I think that would be more trouble than it's worth.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Eagle can't fit onto your guy or any smallish backpack that comes with no major negatives while the others can and allow you the room to swap out a better main hander wep like a sabre.

That reminds me: What are the duel wielding mechnics in the game? Like are there any malus' that come with it like in most games? Most big weps can't fit into your inventory, but you could swap a crossbow out, move your sidearm and another sidearm in you inventory to the main slot duel wield if you want to melee.

Getting the Meitou Katana and Longsword mae me realize they comliment each other well DWing given that they cancel out each others penalites a for the most part.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Eagle can't fit onto your guy or any smallish backpack that comes with no major negatives while the others can and allow you the room to swap out a better main hander wep like a sabre.

The main thing about Eagle's Cross is the massive range and damage. If a group is coming to get you, you get to put a few enemies down before they get near you. The other advantage is that you can use it to provoke a group into a fight from a safe distance, etc. It opens all kinds of interesting possibilities when it's properly used.

 

[Zanzoken]

Stealth and crossbow skills are coming along nicely, but melee is lagging behind.

A whole party with crossbows, does it work? You do know that you fight better with lower weapons when you have newbies, right? You start with toothpicks, then you move to rangers, and only after you leveled more you can choose oldworld or eagle's cross. Those expensive crossbows take too long to reload at the beginning. You need to be trained first.

I have trained all of my characters on Specialist grade Oldworld MkIIs from day one. They do take longer to reload, but IMO the faster reloading on weaker bows doesn't make up for the power and accuracy of the MkII. You don't get more than two or three shots at the beginning of the fight, so you want to hit hard and thin the herd. An MkII will stop a bandit, cannibal, or fogman dead in their tracks with a hit to the head or body, and can blow an arm or leg clean off. The amount of blood loss it causes also makes it a quite effective weapon against beak things.

It does require a lot of micro to properly kite and avoid friendly fire, especially now that I have 7 characters. I usually start them off in a line, then if a fight drags on I draw them out into a circle, which is kind of counter-intuitive but seems to work well. I will probably try out the Eagle's Cross at some point, but idk if it's really the best choice as an all-purpose crossbow for adventurers.

 

[Beastro]

I'm going with Mk1 to Mk2 personally. The lesser reload is more useful working up the skill than the but extra range and damage.

Even then a good Mk1 hit took half the health off of a thralls chest.

Toothpicks are good for following guard around to take pot shots or grinding on enslaved bandits.

 

[toro]

Long post.

Spoiler

As I said before my party of noobs went to Stack and made a scandal. One went to jail ... and my Faction reputation with Holy Nation went to -53.

I did not like it but I'm close to them therefore I've sent the noobs to the Swamp. Found a Holy Pacifier and paid the price.

No pictures: Then I decided to explore around the Swamp area. Complete clusterfuck because the noobs weren't prepared to deal with the Blood spiders. It took a couple of hours to get out of there.

Next area was called Shem (East of the Swamp) where I had to deal with Beak Things.

Trigger warning: Please don't be retarded like me. Don't send noobs to the South-East of the map. They will get slaughter like the caravan in the picture below.

Managed to reach a town called Flats Lagoon. 1st time I see a Masterwork weapon in a shop ... and I was broke

This guy warned me about the Ashland and I decided to take his advice. No East! ... for now.

Well, my other option was to go North because: East was probably too dangerous, West was the Swamp and South I already visited once.

Lucky me. Now I know what you all were talking about the Tower of Abuse

I've managed to down one of the bosses but my party had no chance of winning the battle. I had to turn back.

Well, the game said Fuck you! You are going to suffer for being a retard. I don't know what I was thinking.
Edit: The Pack Bull was doing 160 damage to multiple skeletons. Without him the entire party would have been toast.

What an absolute shitshow! I had to use Sneak to try to stay alive until Flats Lagoon. They were barely walking from so much "Bone"-ing.

The cherry on top of the shit cake: Blood spiders showed up for one magic act. The danger of losing one one party member was real.

But then the Pack Bull saved the day!

No pictures: I've managed to get everybody safe in the Flats Lagoon. It's a really nice picture.

But now it was time to unleash the Legion!

Forgot to mention that while the noobs were retarded the veterans were crafting Heavy armors for everybody ... therefore now everyone has the same set of armor (Black Platted Jacket !?).

Went back with the entire army and kicked some skeleton asses. No one went down.

Looted the second boss. Third Meitou weapon I acquired and it was a perfect match for Liff (Polearm).

Found a special NPC which promptly joined my army ... because he is a robot who doesn't ask for food.

No Pictures: Found 3 AI Cores and many Ancient Books. Pretty good haul.

Then I pushed North and I've reached some outpost surrounded by these.

Basically the Tower of Abuse is located in a huge region called Venge with firestorms and now I was in a region called Grey Desert.

I was very close to the Deadlands. In fact I had to cross the Deadlands if I wanted to return to the Hub.

Got lucky and found a Workshop.

Then I discovered the Black Desert city where I recruited another robot.

Found the scraphouse or scrapyard store:

They were selling AI Cores and so much stuff that I went insane. I've sold all the loot from the Tower of Abuse and that Ancient Workshop and I've managed to buy all the blueprints. This store is obscene.

No pictures: Bought one AI Core and went straight to Hub. The East of Deadlands it pretty chill as in a starter area with few bandits and wolves. Nothing my guys could not handle at this point.

Reached Hub. Finally I was able to craft EdgeType weapons!

In the end I went berserk with research. Paid the full research cost for 3 branches: Core, Smiting and Training. And partially Industry.

Liff is probably still researching as we speak
The robots are mining Iron.
Hobbs is crafting chain armors.
And the noobs are exploring the Vain area.

And that's it for today.

Note to self: If I ever play this game again then DON'T make your outpost near the Hub, DON'T pay for companions and buy a Pack Bull asap.

 

[Saduj]

Oh, forgot a newbie tip: If you're in a fight with animals and KO one, immediately loot it even if you plan not to take anything (just put the hide or meat back on the body).

Additionally, you can loot while the game is paused. Helps cut down the amount of time you spend around dead things, which is good because dead things attract predators. Early on, many of my victories would turn into a shit show because I was spending too much time rearranging inventories so I could loot every last scrap off the defeated enemies.

 

[Beastro]

You can also run in range and swap gear doing that, like passing off healing kits.

 

[toro]

And my journey is over

Long post.

Spoiler

Let's start on a positive note: Sunset in Kenshi

First Edge Type 1 weapon from Master Liff.
Note:
Edge Type 1 require Smiting between 75 and 85.
Edge Type 2 require Smiting from 85+.
To reach Smiting Level 85 is a fucking grind nightmare.

Animal orgy. Beak things fucking with Spiders.

While the crafters were doing their shit, I decided to take the noobs and explore the Crater.

I'm pretty sure this area is an in-game joke: 4 labs out of 6 were empty

Then I decided to explore the area under the Crater. Found a Lost Armory with robots.

The loot was not impressive this time.

I continued to explore the area ... which I think it's called the Shun.

It's probably the best area for early-game exploration (as many Ancient Books can be found).

Meanwhile Master Liff got lucky

Another sunset in Kenshi.

No pictures: Lots of grinding for craft resources.

Even Master Hobbs started to craft Masterwork Grade stuff.

Well, it was time to prepare the team for one last adventure.

They all have the same equipment except Heft and the robots which cannot wear hats.

Well, it was time for the last adventure: reaching the Ashlands! ... which I did by going in straight line.

First stop was a town called Mourn (perfect for making a base, but at this point I was not interested in developing bases anymore)

Then I entered one area called Sonorous Dark.

The special NPCs have started to chat.

Found a new beast.

I was getting close to the Ashlands.

Found the real Legion

Finally in Ashlands

Went to the first AshDome and clean-up the place.

Soo got rekt

Well this is the point were I saved the game and quit. There is no point in continuing because the challenge is gone and I prefer to quite while I still have a favorable view of the game.

Yeah, there are stronger enemies, there are new areas to explore and so on ... but once your party is pretty solid then the game starts to lose its charm pretty fast.

Unfortunately the game systems fail to scale beyond the basic survival systems and basically the game experience is divided in 3 phases:
- The Survival phase which is the best portion of the game. The harsh world and the early game difficulties are absolutely brilliant. In some cases your survival story will stay with you for years.
- The Base Building phase is quite bland. The idea is to build a self sustaining automated base but in reality, you will have to micromanage the shit out of it.
- The End game phase is completely lackluster. At some point you will stop running from Beak things and you will start harvest them for meat and skins. That's the point were the challenge is starting to dwindle.

I was using Steelbars for weapons and armor. The game was so retarded that both crafters stopped in front of the Steelbars storage box because the game did not know which one of them should take the steelbars and in which quantity. I had to manually put the steelbars in their backpacks.

By the end of the game you will be able to take over entire cities but the game will fail to recognize your agency over them. In most cases taking over a city means just less available traders in the world.

I don't want to spoil the game for anyone but here are some hints on how to enjoy the game the most:
- Don't skill/train your stats. You are basically skipping the best part of the game when you are unprepared to deal with the world. I never did it and my end game stats where ok (even with 3 complete noobs in the party)
- Don't hire too many NPCs. Ideally each new companion should be meaningful to your story. In any case don't go more than 8 (max 12 if you cannot contain it).
I hired too many NPCs and to be honest, at some point, I started to care less about them (but not enough to let them die).
Before I had Liff - the smith, Hobbs - the tailor, Molly - the katana wielder, Mu - the crippled, The Wall - the mule while later game I had an amorphous mass of characters (like in a RTS).
- Don't make your base around the Hub. There are a lot of locations which are much more suited for development. Explore the world before you decide to settle down somewhere.
- If you want to research things the best way to do about it is to have one guy in a town which can do the research non-stop while the rest of the party explores the world. Once you are done researching then you can basically put your base wherever you want. Otherwise you will lose a lot of time like I did. Or you can make your base in the middle of the Cannibals
- Keep in mind that grinding is required in order to reach the Edge Type weapons or the Masterwork armors.

I've done a lot of rookies mistakes but I'm glad I've played this game and for almost 95 hours I lived in Kenshi.

The game is special. It's brilliant, broken and addictive, all at the same time.

That's it. Thank you Codex for pointing me towards this great game

 

[Beastro]

- The End game phase is completely lackluster. At some point you will stop running from Beak things and you will start harvest them for meat and skins. That's the point were the challenge is starting to dwindle.

I disagree. That's when you start fucking around finding funny shit to do.

I saved and quit last night about to break into Blistering Hills and steal the Phoenix's Meitou Pally's Cross.

Getting ready for bed the thought occurred to me: Robbing Emperor Tengu of the United Cities while sleeping, his KO chance was 25% with my 30-40ish Assassination compared to the 0% with the Shek leader, Esata. If Phoenix is the same chance as Tengu, I could kidnap both him and Tengu and start doing funny shit with them, like dump both of them on an island and see if they'd reenact the Defiant Ones or just beat the shit out of each other being inveterate enemies.

Or I could do pranks, like sneak the Phoenix into Rebirth and dump him in a cage dressed in rags and shackles looking like any ordinary slave.

Or I could build a walled arena and go about collecting the various famous names and faction leaders to pit them against one another as gladiators for my own amusement, or to just work my toughness and melee skills up fighting them one on one. That makes me wonder if you need to feed prisoners or they die, or if they're like you being enslaved where your hunger won't go below 115. Regardless, the robots are good to fuck around with as living practice dummies.

There's all sorts of things you could do like that, it's up to you, but I only wish there was inbuilt reactions to the sort of things I was thinking up above.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm still playing this but I concur that there doesn't seem to be much point after you reach a certain level. I have a self-sustaining base but I need research books and blueprints to make anything. Meanwhile, no activity is more lucrative than robbing the weapon store in World's Edge over and over again.

Ultimately I think the decision to not have any kind of quest hurts the game. Or even just something like faction wars in Mount and Blade. It ultimately feels a bit hollow and pointless. It's quite an achievement for an indie game but too experimental. Sometimes things are done the way they are for a reason.

 

[Beastro]

Zero chance KOing the Phoenix with my Ass skill. I'll have to work it up.

Meanwhile, no activity is more lucrative than robbing the weapon store in World's Edge Black Desert City over and over again.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I'm still playing this but I concur that there doesn't seem to be much point after you reach a certain level. I have a self-sustaining base but I need research books and blueprints to make anything. Meanwhile, no activity is more lucrative than robbing the weapon store in World's Edge over and over again.

Ultimately I think the decision to not have any kind of quest hurts the game. Or even just something like faction wars in Mount and Blade. It ultimately feels a bit hollow and pointless. It's quite an achievement for an indie game but too experimental. Sometimes things are done the way they are for a reason.

There are faction wars. You just need to bring faction nemesis to the faction(or get high reputation some other way,I think that should work too), like bugmaster to sheks, then faction leader will call you ally and propose to start a war.

 

[Beastro]

Loaded up on some recruits. Got three of the five unique hiver dudes and a random bot for a fourth of them, named him Twiki the Methbot thanks to watching Buck Rogers recently.

Think I'll be done with recruits once I get Ray and Espher, maybe eventually get Yamdu and Seto handing in the right leaders. Once I get everyone I'll start looking to clear shit out and get into some silliness.

 

[Zanzoken]

I am on the way to making these bitches into decent ninjas.

I decided to build a hideout / training ground out in the wilderness, and chose the Floodlands. Simple digs, but it has everything we need to survive.

Spoiler

Spoiler

So far the only raids have been by cannibals. I am sure they haven't been happy with the results.

Spoiler

I was surprised to run across a broken skeleton (50s stats) and managed to capture him for use as a training slave. This is a common strategy that people use with bandits, Holy Nation paladins, etc -- but I have always found it to be tedious due to how slow they heal. With skeletons though there is no such delay -- just repair and they are ready to get right back to it.

This guy has beaten the Waifus so many times it would make Ike Turner blush, and he feels like part of the family now. I might eventually have to install that recruit prisoners mod and see if I can add him for real.

Spoiler

Finally, a random scenic view from a cannibal hunt we went on. I know this isn't a beautiful game in terms of graphical fidelity, but I really like the art design.

Spoiler

Hope everyone has a great holiday and has lots of time to play more Kenshi.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

WAIFU NINJAS

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So is there a must have mod for this? For QoL side of things

Just bought the game and planning to play it along with ATOM over the end of the year

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I am on the way to making these bitches into decent ninjas.

I decided to build a hideout / training ground out in the wilderness, and chose the Floodlands. Simple digs, but it has everything we need to survive.

Spoiler

Spoiler

So far the only raids have been by cannibals. I am sure they haven't been happy with the results.

Spoiler

I was surprised to run across a broken skeleton (50s stats) and managed to capture him for use as a training slave. This is a common strategy that people use with bandits, Holy Nation paladins, etc -- but I have always found it to be tedious due to how slow they heal. With skeletons though there is no such delay -- just repair and they are ready to get right back to it.

This guy has beaten the Waifus so many times it would make Ike Turner blush, and he feels like part of the family now. I might eventually have to install that recruit prisoners mod and see if I can add him for real.

Spoiler

Finally, a random scenic view from a cannibal hunt we went on. I know this isn't a beautiful game in terms of graphical fidelity, but I really like the art design.

Spoiler

Hope everyone has a great holiday and has lots of time to play more Kenshi.

Remember to use crappiest weapons when training.

 

[toro]

I forgot to post these.

Spoiler

Ash Dome loot: 4 AI cores, 3 RE, 1 Ancient book and 1 Meitou Hacker.

 

[Beastro]

Went back to the prison. If I wasn't getting Espher out, I'd at least get the Warden's Meitou Jitte.

But how could I do that without damaging my UC faction, since the dude never seems to sleep?

Spoiler

Well I came across a certain locked tower that happens to be full of skellies that designate you master and follow you around protecting you but are not party members. So, I just drag em to the tower, get spotted and aggroed let the fun commence. Annoying problem was getting them there thanks to their aggroing to random wandering bands due to their poor stealth and my save bugging that happens the more often I save.

Eventually got them there. Fortunately, their sneaking seemed to get worked up as I was able to get all the way up into the tower with them.

Then I had the fun commence:

These guys weren't single shit bandits, mind you. They all had 40-50 in all stats.

I made sure to stand up right next to the Warden right as the bots were pooling around me, so I got a good few on his ass:

Despite having good armour (but no helmet) he eventually got nickle and dimed until he finally went down. I stripped him of his stick as well as his armour to try testing something:

Peeked down on the first level only to see that the gate guards had come up. They were busy beating on bugs and mercs, the latter of which they'd take up to the prison and stuff in cages leaving them all to bleed to death.

Running back up I noticed the Warden had woken up:

I sat around watching before I did my test watching the herd thin out. Decided to free some prisoners for laughs and got some bounty on me (but no faction hits):

After that I saved and imported my game ressing dead NPCs (since there's a bug where named ones in cages vanish and die if idle for too long or something). I gave Espher the armour I took off of the Warden (and a Helmet from another guy) before I let him out to see if the disguise would work.

It didn't. He got aggro at first sight so I reloaded back to the bot invasion and left them to their fun as I slipped out:

It's shit they I couldn't get Espher. Breaking him out he gets beat up right away regardless and if you KO him and take him out on your back he comes to and just runs around aimless not talking to you. I'll stick with my guys and maybe recruit another bot if I come across him to round out the bunch (or just wait for Espher to get fixed or something). I wanted to get Hivers as a bit of a handicap given their poor limbs that might also help me get some dismemberments to use the ton of robot arms I looted from DBC.

I'll check eventually to see if the NPC ressing restores the bot army. It's too funny watching to not do again. I could plant them in the Phoenix's throne room and then grab him if they can get him KOed for laughs. See if a Skellie taking him down underwater will drown him or stick him in Rebirth, etc.