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

[Beastro]

You build the base one, then you have to research the next tier of tech, then upgrade the bench to the next higher one.

Same thing you do with the dummies to make them better.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What do you mean by build up the research benches? I have 2 outposts and a research bench in each one, but I can't research much of anything. Do I need blueprints?

You have to buy books and put them in the bench, then spend them to start the research.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Didn't realize I needed books. Thanks fellas. The research shall begin.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Got ya. So research until I can build training implements, then wait until I decide to build a base sometime down the line for things like smithing.

I had one person (Izumi) researching as much as possible, while my squad of adventurers continued as normal other than leaving rare items (ancient science books, engineering reseach, AI cores) at the research bench. That way, when I finally decided to build my own base, I was able to take advantage of advanced technologies such as automated mining and hydroponics. Of course, this is probably a less 'authentic' Kenshi base-building experience than starting a base with primitive technology and then researching technological advances as your base gradually expands.

And does someone sell backpacks?

Aside from the travel stores already mentioned, the Shinobi Thieves sell Thieves Backpacks with 60% encumbrance reduction and almost no penalties. It's best to have one equipped on every party-member so that you can easily haul large quantities of loot.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Okay, so I hit a bit of a road block. 5 member party, small outpost, and the Dust Bandits show up. They say 2000 cats every other day or they're going to loot my outpost. They just attacked when I said no and barely survived. Not sure what I'm going to do. My plan was to research Cooking, start a farm and cook up Cooked Vegetables with the greenfruit, but the yield is 10% which makes me worried. Will that be enough to feed 5 people? Was thinking a large farm which requires 40 greenfruit. But now with these bandits and my team is pitiful in terms of combat, what to do...

 

[Beastro]

Got ya. So research until I can build training implements, then wait until I decide to build a base sometime down the line for things like smithing.

I had one person (Izumi) researching as much as possible, while my squad of adventurers continued as normal other than leaving rare items (ancient science books, engineering reseach, AI cores) at the research bench. That way, when I finally decided to build my own base, I was able to take advantage of advanced technologies such as automated mining and hydroponics. Of course, this is probably a less 'authentic' Kenshi base-building experience than starting a base with primitive technology and then researching technological advances as your base gradually expands.

And does someone sell backpacks?

Aside from the travel stores already mentioned, the Shinobi Thieves sell Thieves Backpacks with 60% encumbrance reduction and almost no penalties. It's best to have one equipped on every party-member so that you can easily haul large quantities of loot.

Small ones are good starting out as they have no penalties, bigger ones once you get your martial up to counter the -2.

Bigger ones are good cus they can store larger weps like two handers that don't fit in you inventory.

 

[Beastro]

Okay, so I hit a bit of a road block. 5 member party, small outpost, and the Dust Bandits show up. They say 2000 cats every other day or they're going to loot my outpost. They just attacked when I said no and barely survived. Not sure what I'm going to do. My plan was to research Cooking, start a farm and cook up Cooked Vegetables with the greenfruit, but the yield is 10% which makes me worried. Will that be enough to feed 5 people? Was thinking a large farm which requires 40 greenfruit. But now with these bandits and my team is pitiful in terms of combat, what to do...

I'd advise buying a house in a townn and working research up there.

 

[Tovias]

Okay, so I hit a bit of a road block. 5 member party, small outpost, and the Dust Bandits show up. They say 2000 cats every other day or they're going to loot my outpost. They just attacked when I said no and barely survived. Not sure what I'm going to do. My plan was to research Cooking, start a farm and cook up Cooked Vegetables with the greenfruit, but the yield is 10% which makes me worried. Will that be enough to feed 5 people? Was thinking a large farm which requires 40 greenfruit. But now with these bandits and my team is pitiful in terms of combat, what to do...

You could always make some money and hire mercenaries to watch your outpost

 

[agris]

The codex has convinced me.

From my reading, it looks like basebuilding is mostly a time+money sink, as is crafting - except for armor? If i want to minimize the time and money sink involved with building a base and crafting, while maximizing the usefulness (defined as crafting useful and hard-to-buy & fiind items), is buying a home in a city and focusing on making armor the best route?

 

[agris]

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

I'm using a bare minimum of mods, because I'd like to think I learned my lesson after F:NV.

• Dark Vanilla UI
• Nice Map [Grid + Zones + Zone names]
• More Names
• Minor Mesh fixes
• Minor Mesh fixes - Alt
• Diverse Fauna

Everything else I looked at touched too much in terms of balance, or introduced bugs (like the 1000 stack of items mod). I'm not gonna touch "rebalanced bandits LOL" with a 17 foot pole.

edit: also the experimental branch, version 1.0.9, is really just a bugfix version at this point. It seems that most in the community are using it, and I haven't heard of any issues.

 

[Tovias]

The codex has convinced me.

From my reading, it looks like basebuilding is mostly a time+money sink, as is crafting - except for armor? If i want to minimize the time and money sink involved with building a base and crafting, while maximizing the usefulness (defined as crafting useful and hard-to-buy & fiind items), is buying a home in a city and focusing on making armor the best route?

If you just want an armorsmith then grab some Scorchlander and plant it on a town to craft armor forever. The good thing about armorsmith is that, unlike weaponsmith, it has many steps and ways to be trained, like tanning leather, hammering armor plates and so on. Just make sure you have enough money to afford the materials and that you have a decent ammount of General and Technical shops near by to buy materials like iron plates, leather, cloth and steel bars. For you to craft iron plates and steel bars would require an actual outpost.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

How do I buy a house in town (Stack)? I didn't see the option, and how much do they cost?

 

[Ironmonk]

http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/Stack

left click on it and click over the price tag (left bottom panel) and if its a ruined building, you need to right click and select Repair (you need building materials for that)

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Weird question but, does it matter where I place an outpost to if I get accosted by Dust Bandits? I found this really safe spot up in the mountains in the Border Zone near the abandoned Holy Mines, but I'm wondering if they'd find me even up there. Is it an automatic thing or does location count?

 

[agris]

fluent do you ever try to find answers by any means other than posting? like, using the rest of the internet?

 

[Tovias]

Weird question but, does it matter where I place an outpost to if I get accosted by Dust Bandits? I found this really safe spot up in the mountains in the Border Zone near the abandoned Holy Mines, but I'm wondering if they'd find me even up there. Is it an automatic thing or does location count?

The location of your outpost defines who is gonna come knock your door. Although I've gotten one or two Dust bandits raids from all the way down to the High Boneyard. I suggest you avoid major faction territories like the UC, HN and Shek Kingdom, since at least Dust bandits are easy to deal with in comparison to an inquisitor crusade or a samurai band.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

fluent do you ever try to find answers by any means other than posting? like, using the rest of the internet?

I'm afraid of doing that for running into spoilers. I just like barebones answers, and usually threads are packed with metagame info and stuff I don't want to see...

 

[agris]

and usually threads are packed with metagame info and stuff I don't want to see...

and yet here you are

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Well it's easier to do it this way. Don't hate me, I like asking questions in these threads because bros answer them quickly and concisely. Google searching this stuff is like wading through the mire.

 

[Ironmonk]

I didn't built any structure outside of cities, so I don't know and I think this was a mistake on my part.

Because I tried desperately to reach hydroponics and not build an outpost, so I ended up raiding many libraries and ruins and by that time my crew is already over 25 members, with the loot I got from these places plus stolen gear in Black Desert City I'm at 500k and I can just buy food, even if its expensive and it will not impact my funds at all.

Because of that I have been thinking in abandon this playthrough and start a new one.

And I would start with the Nobodies start, one human and the other 5 all skeletons (they don't eat and there is only a few you can hire), so I can leave them leveling jobs since the beginning and I would build a minor outpost just to level smithing (1 guy mining, 1 guy making Iron Plates and 1 guy making weapons) and maybe farming and if I get raided and plundered, no problem.

While its true that a high level thief can easily steal high-quality weapons from store, at least in my case, most of those weapons weren't the weapons I would like to equip my crew and taking this into consideration, homemade smithing doesn't look so bad.

At Tech Level 3, you can research Plate Armor (need 1 Engineering Research though) and with a plate beating station, you can transform raw iron into armor plating, so you wouldn't need to hunt for animal skin at this point.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

How do you repair the shack in town? I bought it, it's a busted down shack, but I don't see an option for repair. I have a building material in my inventory but no options for repair...

 

[Ironmonk]

hold right-click

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Don't hate me

 

[Tovias]

How do you repair the shack in town? I bought it, it's a busted down shack, but I don't see an option for repair. I have a building material in my inventory but no options for repair...

Right click the shack, it should show a tool tip saying "Repair building"

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

My group of 5, the Wanderers (of the Survivors faction) now live in a cozy small shack in Stack. The copper resources are even closer to this exit of Stack, which is nice, but now I have to save up and hopefully get enough muscle to retake my previous outpost, which had a Storm House almost built. I'm just wondering if I head up high in that Border Zone area if the bandits will leave me alone. I'll make sure to try when I have at least enough money to either pay them off or hire muscle.