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

[Zanzoken]

If you have access to hydroponics then the Floodlands is a super easy place to settle.

Unlimited water and wind energy and the only raids you have to deal with are cannibals.

 

[Salvo]

When is a good time to settle?
I have a crew of 7 with attack and defense around 15-20, but they cannot handle much (1 on 1 vs bandits or starved bandits is the most they can do), so it doesn't seem like a very reasonable move to leave now, but I'd like starting on my own walled city ASAP.

Buy maybe one or two pack bulls for hauling your building materials around and whatnot; you can settle very quickly that way if you know a few basic buildings. They also come in handy when you are overwhelmed by large crowds of enemies, like fugmen. Watch those limbs fly all over the place.

Long shit.

Spoiler

Also, I would recommend running around in the UC desert for a few more days if you think your lads are a bit squishy. It's a pretty good place for early and mid-game, especially the W-NW edge where the desert meets cannibal country. There are some ruined settlements there and the Samurai and the Holy Nation constantly clashed when I settled there in my first game. Cannibals also turned up occasionally. It's easy to get strong there when the UC constantly save you from being carried away for dinner.

One spot worth considering for bases, albeit tricky to get to early on. There's a very fertile and resource-rich little valley in the south-eastern Fog Islands. I think you can actually see the greener spot clearly on the game's map, high up in the hills and above the fog. I made a small base there with 10 men and one pack bull. Built a wall to block some entrances, made two gates, and several farms in the middle of the valley, and then kept rescuing new recruits from the fogmen poles. There's iron, copper and plenty of wind around the edges. One major downside was that getting to Mongrel for emergencies can be a running battle.

Here's a late-game picture of parts of the base. It's a tight fit alright, but there was enough space for an arena back there.

Tell me about Pajeet. Why does he wear the mask helmet?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Tell me about Pajeet. Why does he wear the mask helmet?

Preparing well in advance for the invention of motorcycles.

 

[thesecret1]

There's a neat place by the large lake in the outlands – iron, copper, stone, water... only negative is low fertility for everything except cactus. Raids are common and brutal (reavers and grass pirates), but that's where the lake comes in handy – if you can't deal with them, just swim away a bit and they won't pursue. Additionally, in order to not have to run away all the time, you can kill a couple reaver ironclads and dress up in their gear – 100% disguise chance even if you have zero relevant skills. Reavers then leave you alone, fight any enemies, and should you get hurt by grass pirates or whoever, they will actually come over and heal you

 

[mondblut]

A couple of important points: first, try to always build on the border of two biomes. First, two different biomes give you access to different crops. Second, you can collect water from the more water-rich biome to water the crops in more arid one. Most importantly, wind strength is calculated individually per biome, and by building your turbines at two different biomes (let alone three) you will never run out of power. My capital has been partly relocated and rebuilt thrice, but always hugged the border of Vain and Border Zone near Okran's Gulf, covering nearly all crops and even meat from wandering beak things.

Second, do not build on important roads. Press shift-f12 (I think?) to look at the road network and try not to block it with fortifications. Blocking roads may cause AI pathfinding issues and also occasionally result in your peeps teleporting a long way outside the perimeter.

 

[Baron Tahn]

There is a great position southeast somewhere if your up for a fight. Cant remember exactly but its a raised prairie mountain pretty much right on the coast. Got everything and great for a fort. Trouble is the crab raiders, who will make your settlement part of the ongoing crab clan round robin and attack constantly. Skeleton raiders in the hills just south of there and a small crab village just across the valley to the west if that helps

 

[Galdred]

I ended up settling near the swamp, at the northern swamp/arid border because I had most of my stuff at Squin.
I built 3 layers of walls, but my own workers seem to be more hampered than the AI by this...
It is a shame because it felt cool (even though the gates all get breached in no time).

Do you usually take a pack animal to your scavenging party?
I end up having a lot of stuff I want to carry, and it could help establish a small "fire base" if needed.

 

[Fedora Master]

You should always have pack animals with you, with a little time and training they become dead 'ard in their own right.

 

[mondblut]

Do you usually take a pack animal to your scavenging party?

I had a few until I run out of party slots (that's 256 party slots, not 30...). Bulls are cool, but since you can't equip them with good stuff or power-train them, they have to go back.

 

[Galdred]

Do you usually take a pack animal to your scavenging party?

I had a few until I run out of party slots (that's 256 party slots, not 30...). Bulls are cool, but since you can't equip them with good stuff or power-train them, they have to go back.

How do you usually multitask base management and the foraging party? I find it very hard to do in combat? (I usually have to go back to a previous save to either park the foraging party to a "safe" place, or direct everyone at the base to the walls, and hope for the best.
What usually happens is that my single sentry doesn't manage to stop any party, and the other characters keep working, until the dust bandits or whoever else take over my unmanned crossbow turrets and turn them against my characters if I don't micromanage the defenses :D

Is there a way to get some characters to man the turrets as soon as an opponent appears, and go back to work afterwards?
It sometimes happens, but more or less randomly.

 

[mondblut]

How do you usually multitask base management and the foraging party? I find it very hard to do in combat? (I usually have to go back to a previous save to either park the foraging party to a "safe" place, or direct everyone at the base to the walls, and hope for the best.

I hardly ever look at the bases nowadays, except for an occasional check to make sure nobody fell from the wall and is about to die from starvation at the gates. Then again, my foraging company can easily butcher unattended anything short of a leviathan either. Grinding makes perfect, ya know

Is there a way to get some characters to man the turrets as soon as an opponent appears, and go back to work afterwards?
It sometimes happens, but more or less randomly.

You know you can script characters a queue of jobs by shift-clicking, right? And when manning a turret is anywhere in the script, they drop everything and man the weapons whenever the gate is attacked. It's best to put turret last in the queue, because that's something they can always do, thus the jobs further down the list will never be done. If you feel generous, you can put a dedicated turreter or two (skeletons, unless you use a mod to disable hunger on turrets, otherwise the retards never go to eat and starve to death on the post).

Good fortification design is king, ofc. Check this killer hanging wall overlooking a ravine, built without touching the editor with naught but a generous use of undo.

 

[Galdred]

Thank you mondblut ! I didn't know they would go man the turret if they were at any place in the queue. I assumed they would only go there when all other higher options were blocked.

Now I need to find enough skeletons to garrison my walls (my current tally is one. I need to mount an expedition to find the storyline ones, but that still won't be much).

Btw, is there a way to automate feeding prisoners? I almost left mine to starve.
The food in their backpack usually runs out before I remember to refill them.

 

[mondblut]

Thank you mondblut ! I didn't know they would go man the turret if they were at any place in the queue. I assumed they would only go there when all other higher options were blocked.

At peace, yes. But when the gates are attacked, they drop their usual chores.

Now I need to find enough skeletons to garrison my walls (my current tally is one. I need to mount an expedition to find the storyline ones, but that still won't be much).

Skeletons are very rare. Unless you abuse import, you can reasonably expect 5-7 all over the world, discounting the uniques. There are only a few specific bars you can encounter them at, and no potential slave recruits.

Btw, is there a way to automate feeding prisoners? I almost left mine to starve.
The food in their backpack usually runs out before I remember to refill them.

Not that I know of. I lost a plenty of prisoners to starvation neglect, including Bugmaster himself.

 

[toro]

Skeletons are very rare. Unless you abuse import, you can reasonably expect 5-7 all over the world, discounting the uniques. There are only a few specific bars you can encounter them at, and no potential slave recruits.

Check the Deadlands.

 

[mondblut]

Skeletons are very rare. Unless you abuse import, you can reasonably expect 5-7 all over the world, discounting the uniques. There are only a few specific bars you can encounter them at, and no potential slave recruits.

Check the Deadlands.

There are no random recruits at Black Desert City, only Sadneil. The only bars random skeletons might show up appear to be Crab town, Shark, Mourn and The Hub, plus a few town overrides.

I suppose you could kidnap Black Desert City bar patrons and try recruiting them via slavery, as they are the only generic skeletons with stats below 25.

 

[Zanzoken]

Kenshi -- a game about figuring out how to teach the game to play itself.

 

[Darth Canoli]

This game doesn't belong in this section of the forum, this is a RTS-sandbox-survival.

Also, it's one of the dumbest shit i ever played, how to combine all the worst genre ever created and still make money ... From a marketing point of view, they're masterminds.

No wonder Fluent shilled that shit ...

 

[Saduj]

The only bars random skeletons might show up appear to be Crab town, Shark, Mourn and The Hub, plus a few town overrides.

I've seen them in World's End, Flat's Lagoon and one time in the bar of either Eyesocket or the southern Slave Market.

A while ago, I tried doing an all-skeleton party so I did the "five nobodies" start and made them all skels. Was only able to find five additional skeletons. I didn't know they spawn in Crab Town too, maybe that is where the rest were hiding....

 

[mondblut]

The only bars random skeletons might show up appear to be Crab town, Shark, Mourn and The Hub, plus a few town overrides.

I've seen them in World's End, Flat's Lagoon and one time in the bar of either Eyesocket or the southern Slave Market.

True, World's End recruit lists include skeletons as a possible random race. There are also many lists with no race specified at all (usually present in empire, tech hunter and slaver bars), but the possibility of someone of those being there and ending up a skeleton is pretty low.

 

[Ontopoly]

This game doesn't belong in this section of the forum, this is a RTS-sandbox-survival.

Also, it's one of the dumbest shit i ever played, how to combine all the worst genre ever created and still make money ... From a marketing point of view, they're masterminds.

No wonder Fluent shilled that shit ...

Maybe survival and sandbox but RTS is an amazing genre.

 

[Galdred]

This game doesn't belong in this section of the forum, this is a RTS-sandbox-survival.

Also, it's one of the dumbest shit i ever played, how to combine all the worst genre ever created and still make money ... From a marketing point of view, they're masterminds.

No wonder Fluent shilled that shit ...

You don't have to play survival until you want to (having only an adventuring party of 6-8 works well too).
It is clearly a Sandbox, like Mount and Blade: It allows you to play the way you see fit, and to take on whatever faction you feel like.
Granted ,it has a lot of issues (bad pathfinding, lots of crashes, lots of exploits, characters getting stuck. It can also take as long to wait for your game to load than to do a complete playthrough of some other games, annoying leveling system... ), but it is one of the only games that succeeds at making you feel like you are leading a small warband/community, and building your own castle (MnB too, but you don't select the wonky design).

As for not being an RPG, it is a bit like Jagged Alliance, Battle Brothers and Mount and Blade in this regard, but it is certainly a murderhobo simulator. Also, you can kill any NPC, but there are no children.

 

[Galdred]

Btw, is there a way to automate feeding prisoners? I almost left mine to starve.
The food in their backpack usually runs out before I remember to refill them.

Not that I know of. I lost a plenty of prisoners to starvation neglect, including Bugmaster himself.

I guess I'll use spiderbots for training then, and maybe some captured skeletons. At least, they don't run into these issues (and a robot trainer makes a bit more sense than a prisoner).

 

[mondblut]

I guess I'll use spiderbots for training then, and maybe some captured skeletons. At least, they don't run into these issues (and a robot trainer makes a bit more sense than a prisoner).

You do need captured skeletons anyway to grind attack and weapon skills. Cut off their limbs, drop them onto skeleton beds and start whacking till your dudes drop from hunger. Or until the cripple is knocked out, which happens rather soonish until his toughness rises high enough from beatings.

For training toughness and defense, well, it appears enemy skills play no small role in the amount of training you get from being whacked by them, so I always used named bosses as sparring partners. The pair from Tower of Abuse and the Foreman from spiderbot factory are good strong robot dummies.

 

[Galdred]

I guess I'll use spiderbots for training then, and maybe some captured skeletons. At least, they don't run into these issues (and a robot trainer makes a bit more sense than a prisoner).

You do need captured skeletons anyway to grind attack and weapon skills. Cut off their limbs, drop them onto skeleton beds and start whacking till your dudes drop from hunger. Or until the cripple is knocked out, which happens rather soonish until his toughness rises high enough from beatings.

For training toughness and defense, well, it appears enemy skills play no small role in the amount of training you get from being whacked by them, so I always used named bosses as sparring partners. The pair from Tower of Abuse and the Foreman from spiderbot factory are good strong robot dummies.

Spiderbots cannot move from a robot bed by themselves, so no need to cut their limbs, but on saving/loading the game, they reset their state, so my captive spiderbot escaped and started murdering my base workers while my A-team was away looting vaults :D

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Finally got this the other day after playing Endzone: World Apart made me want to play an RTS city builder.

So far the experience is to continually get beaten. I've obviously gone out too early to start a settlement but I thought hey, get some walls up and gates and crossbows and that should hold off the hungry raiders, right (also, I thought this was that great game everyone said you could play anyway you like)? Only to be attacked by progressively tougher bandits. It seems every new technology I unlock and build, only attracts tougher parties of bandits. Like literally facing only starving bandits but the minute those walls go up? Desert raiders. Literally less than five minutes after the wind turbine went up, Dragon Ninja somethings which I'd never seen before. It's happened enough that it's obviously a game trigger.

It's kind of killed it for me. Because it means the only way to play is to wander around with a small squad, getting my head smashed in so my "toughness" increases, eventually beating small bandit groups, leveling up until a certain point, THEN starting a small outpost. Making sure I level up the characters before I do the next tech push. And meh. I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

Oh, and no warning alarm like "Raiders are in the village!"? I've lost count of the number of times I've literally scrolled back after some trading only to find my gate torn apart, bandits running through my little outpost, and every character that was left in town KO'd. It's literally all over in seconds unless you're scrolling around the map like a mad man looking for the next group of bandits, or triggering latent OCD by constantly flicking back and watching the gate.

And no gate mechanic. Gates seem to either be open or closed. As yet no control to have someone open the gate and let friendlies through - it has to be done manually. Which is odd for a game where my guys are almost too keen to run off on their own to perform a task.

Loading times are too long too. Just scrolling around the map or moving between groups of people in different places (some off trading while the rest stay home) triggers unnecessarily long loading times which just makes keeping an eye on base even more of a pain in the ass.

I can't see how I'd "be a caravan trader", or anything else, without getting ganked constantly or doing anything else other than basically targeting the combat mechanic and focusing on that at all times. Step 1: Run guy back and forth until athletics is high enough he can out-run all groups. Step 2: Bash dummy. Step 3: Get head bashed in until you skill-up. Rinse and repeat. Ugh.