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

[tindrli]

The real enemy in Kenshi has always been the horrendous performance.

can you post your PC specs?

 

[Perkel]

Started playing it for the first time. Honestly i am pretty fucking amazed. Looks like game from 2001 graphic wise but game has such thick atmosphere that 100 other games don't it. I love how world is realized how utterly alien it is and yet familiar. Honestly so far i don't see any negatives. I have like 20 hours and i don't really see any issues and i still uncover cool stuff in it.

Kind of didn't want to play it due to weeb smell but so far setting is amazing.

So far died like 5 times probing me to restart each time. Started a camp and mining operation to create iron plates but quickly got fucked by Dust Raiders.

What i love the most about are the systems interactions. Watching carravans duking it out with someone and then beast join fry as well. Attacks on cities etc. Combat system is also pretty good.

 

[Fedora Master]

The real enemy in Kenshi has always been the horrendous performance.

can you post your PC specs?

i5, RX580, 16gb RAM

I don't have Kenshi installed so I can't check the exact average FPS.

 

[Arulan]

What i love the most about are the systems interactions. Watching carravans duking it out with someone and then beast join fry as well. Attacks on cities etc. Combat system is also pretty good.

Kenshi is a gem of emergent narratives by means of its interacting systems. This alone is worth singing its praise, but the setting is remarkably interesting as well.

 

[Ironmonk]

kenshi is the best kind of RPG we can get in this day and age... no dialogue (or VERY minimum) equals to less/no woke shit on my games.

 

[mondblut]

kenshi is the best kind of RPG we can get in this day and age... no dialogue (or VERY minimum) equals to less/no woke shit on my games.

I take it you haven't been in Flotsam village or Spring.

At least you don't get to roll over enemies as a limbless stump, you need to be "fixed" with prosthetics first, which in 2021 is ableist af and literally kills disabled genderfluid BIPOC folx.

 

[mondblut]

What i love the most about are the systems interactions. Watching carravans duking it out with someone and then beast join fry as well. Attacks on cities etc. Combat system is also pretty good.

The magic wears off quickly once you realize that all this shit is only happening because you are around. Emergent narrative my ass.

Bonus points when it results in a key political NPC going missing forever after his town's scuffle with a caravan, breaking one of the precious few things in the game which are closest to having "quests". I am looking at you, Bayan!

 

[Ironmonk]

kenshi is the best kind of RPG we can get in this day and age... no dialogue (or VERY minimum) equals to less/no woke shit on my games.

I take it you haven't been in Flotsam village or Spring.

At least you don't get to roll over enemies as a limbless stump, you need to be "fixed" with prosthetics first, which in 2021 is ableist af and literally kills disabled genderfluid BIPOC folx.

I don't think I visited Spring, but Flotsam is small and you can destroy the village if you want (it seems the cannibals take it over).

 

[mondblut]

I don't think I visited Spring, but Flotsam is small and you can destroy the village if you want (it seems the cannibals take it over).

I know.

Spoiler

Point being, the game goes out of its way to present le feminazi revolucion as good guys (misgendering intended) and the Holy Nation as ebul raycis misovaginist patriarchy (and retarded religious nuts, to add insult to the injury). In fact, it uses its lore to punish you mechanically for siding with them (no robots, prosthetics and non-humans allowed).

Can I have muh ebul raycis misovaginist patriarchy without religious nuttery and with robots plox? I can live without hiver scum.

 

[The_Mask]

Yeah, but the whole thing with the HN is that their territory is placed in a central area with little environmental issues.

If you don't have a straight white male in the group, you are cut off one of the better areas of the game, and exploration becomes a bit more tedious. (especially if you start in the Hub).

For example, if you want to go from east to west, and you have HN hostile, you either go Cannibal Plains (lol) or you go the LOOOOOONNNNNGGGG route: Hub, Hive territory (hello Beakers) and then the Fog. And if you wanna dodge the Fog, it's better, but you have to go all around the coastline, through Deadcat territory and around... my ass... that's a long trek (mostly because you have to use a Hiver caravan as cover).

 

[SerratedBiz]

The real enemy in Kenshi has always been the horrendous performance.

can you post your PC specs?

i5, RX580, 16gb RAM

I don't have Kenshi installed so I can't check the exact average FPS.

I literally never had it slow down once, and my computer is worse than yours (i3, 1080, 8gb RAM).

 

[oscar]

Not really, seems like a weird projection on your behalf. Holy Nation region seems like the nicest on the whole map. Lots of nice peaceful green farms. Paladins heal and give you food if you're in need without asking anything in return. Pretty much the only place on the map you can freely roam without being mugged or enslaved.

Compare this to the other major power of the setting (United Cities) who are shown as insanely corrupt (guards plant drugs on you then make you pay a bribe to turn the other way) hedonists who will enslave people literally for the crime of being poor.

Religious xenophobic (pretty damn justified) human supremacists > Hyper-individualistic slaver plutocracy

I think the game pretty clearly implies the Holy Nation provides the best life for the common man.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah i like factions so far.

As for main "baddie" Holy something i actually like them. I would join them if not for my wants to establish empire and nuke everyone else. So far i sit in hub with few homes bought and outfitted with some machines for training/researching/trying out stuff. I have 4 people now one of which has like 60 in crossbows. My guy researches stuff for future village, dude with crossbow and one other dude who is anti-slavery mine copper ore near hub and newest recruit is trained with weapons and runs around with bunch of rocks and without them to get strenght and athletics, she also cooks food and does some tailoring/smithing.

Plan is to get 1-2 more guys and some bodyguard or two set up walls and create choke point with walls and harpoons on them. I also tried to find some training weapons but i don't seem to find any so my guys are shit in defense and everything else.

Due to hive falling out with Holy Order Outcasts they fucked their 3 caravans and i kind of helped myself in midst of battle so i am stocked on building materials and iron plates.

 

[Delterius]

If you talk to skeletons they will pretty much say that the problem with the Holy Nation is that every other lord phoenix tends to have extremely bad ideas and once implemented those can't ever go away because of theocracy. The okranites hate the robots and those guys will still say it's the only faction founded with good intentions.

They conquered Bast, which up until that point had been the second greatest agricultural region in Kenshi and instead of, you know, harnessing a pliable population which already felt liberated from their noble asshole masters they torched the place and sent the survivors to Rebirth to build a huge fuck off statue IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Their armies suck donkey balls. I have seen 3 battalions of Holy Army paladins being destroyed by a single Samurai unit in Bast and it's all down to equipment. Paladins are badly equipped and everyone else in the Holy Nation fight with metal sticks. There's a reason you can't get better quality weapons in Holy Nation shops than "repurposed". The only reason they haven't been destroyed is by their sheer numbers. The Shek managed to destroy the Hub despite being retarded. Hell, I have seen Okran's Shield deserted because one iron spider and one rogue skeleton happened to come across it. Holy Nation is the one faction in Kenshi with the means to provide for all its subjects but it'd rather waste labour and allow its crops to be devastated by beasts in the Pride while its northern and southern flanks are populated by dissidents.

Otoh the Empire is in hard decline. If Holy Nation soldiers tend to help you (if yer the right race and gender) the samurai tend to help 30% of the time. And they'll murder-rape-enslave you the other 70%. And there's cause to say this wasn't always the case. Every Empire in Kenshi rose from the collapse of the previous one. There had been a time when the Empire could likely justify its northern and southern halves, which today are separated by so much wasteland and hostile factions. The fall of Bast, the red rebellion, the death of the previous Emperor and the ascension of an even more inconsequential faction of nobles means that the Empire can no longer provide even for its free citizens. The southern cities are at constant threat of massacre by wild life and the Great Desert is dotted by rebellious farmers, surrounded by freedom fighters. Affiliation with the Trader's Guild is the one thing that can stop a productive citizen from being turned into a slave. The Holy Nation might have a pest problem and be surrounded by threats, but the Empire is cut in pieces by them. The United Cities are in a death spiral, everyone is out for themselves and the citizens can only barely unite even when it comes to oppressing their own slave class.

Finally, the Sheks right now are going through a rare moment of thinking things through. If it lasts they might conquer the world. Wouldn't hold my breath though.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I love it. The decline and decay of the setting makes it fantastic for one party to really change the world.

 

[Perkel]

So is there any essential mods list out there ?. I just got kind of pissed that i made shop and apparently Kenshi npcs don't buy anything other than basic stuff like food/ale and medicine. They don't buy anything else.

 

[Perkel]

25 hours on my clock. So far imho it is one of the best games i have ever played. I need to find decent reshade and stop it from chugging everytime i go somewhere.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

There are some great mods out there, but still I think simplicity works best. The mods that add some world reactiveness to the game, by way of factional changes, etc. are usually best. Overall, I love crafting my own story with it.

 

[Zanzoken]

So is there any essential mods list out there ?

The only mods I would consider absolutely essential for all players are Dark UI and some kind of map mod.

A world expansion mod (i.e. Reactive World, Living World, etc) may also be worth a try, although I haven't spent enough time with any of them to make a recommendation. And if you are having performance issues, there are mods that can help with that, although personally I never had too much trouble there.

There are other mods that I would consider essential for me, but I've got hundreds of hours logged in the game. They probably wouldn't be appropriate for someone just starting out.

 

[agris]

don't do the larger squad mods Perkel it kills the difficulty, speaking from experience.

 

[Perkel]

There are some great mods out there, but still I think simplicity works best. The mods that add some world reactiveness to the game, by way of factional changes, etc. are usually best. Overall, I love crafting my own story with it.

I see that there are like 4-5 different ones and they are not really comp with each other:

- Reactive World - seems to be most popular - focused on changing game state
- Living World - more sandboxy
- Kenshi Kaizo - less reactive world but a whole lot gameplay fixes and enchancements
- Universal Expansion - just more cities and stuff

I really don't know which one to pick

don't do the larger squad mods Perkel it kills the difficulty, speaking from experience.

Playing ironman so...

 

[The_Mask]

So is there any essential mods list out there ?. I just got kind of pissed that i made shop and apparently Kenshi npcs don't buy anything other than basic stuff like food/ale and medicine. They don't buy anything else.

There are many mods out there, but money shouldn't be an issue to you, really. Setting up a vendor is there to keep the sentinels of the town you chose alive, because they're hard coded to get hungry, and have limited healing resources (after you chose to settle there).

Even on that seemingly shallow level, Kenshi is better than most RPGs out there. haha

 

[Perkel]

Well started again. This time i picked slave start. Didn't know what to do really at first but now i have one char with 60 in assasination, 50 in sneak and both have like 50-60 lockpick. I am pretty sure AI is way to easy to exploit by just into cage on your own. Moreover guards don't seem to mind if i will escape 1000 times. I think there should be some "crime" system where if i run from cage or something i will get punished and the more you do that the worse punishment gets until death.

Moreover there is a bug where you put guard in cage and other dudes will put slave collar on him and he will be working as slave from now on. So about half of slave camp are now ex guards working as slaves. I probably could run away easily now but i think i will do it when i will organize few breakouts to see ex guards fighting with guards.

As much as that bug seems like a bug i tend to believe that other guards just know that and they just assume guard is stupid enough to get mugged by slave thus they have no worth as member of that society lol.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Not a bug man.

 

[Perkel]

Managed to run away from slave camp. My glorious idea to do prisoner bustout failed miserably.

Turns out that out of nearly 20 prisoners i was busting out only 2 of them wanted to actually get out. Rest of them shouted "what are you doing", "They will cut down my food rations" etc. From those 2 one just bolted away and second one started to actually follow me destroying my plans for stealthy way out in midst of chaos.

Since that fucker managed to piss me off i used him as battering ram to open a way. Basically with 2 of my characters i had great stealth and i was well fed, on other hand that dude was starving and didn't have much skills. I sneaked near gate and set myself up on two sides of gate. That fucker came close got spoted and guards started to chase him back into slave camp. Meanwhile my dudes stealthy got away. Just after gate exit one dude spoted my 1st char and bolted after him. Things didn't look that good since he had like 20mph speed and my dude only 19. I used other character witch had 21 to faint an attack used taunt option and managed to get him on my second char which was faster. Thus 1st char got away and went into hiding while second one just outrun dude.

After a while group stands before The Hub. Almost naked and starving after trekking good while. Both my chars have like 60 in stealth and lockpicks, one has assasinate on 60 and other one thieving on nearly 60. Seems like i have ninja team on my hands.