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

[Saduj]

Is it worth to start anew - how do you think?
I forgot which places I visited and what I did.
Mmm?

If that is the case, I would start over. IMO, exploration is the best part of the game. If you can start a new game without remembering where/what everything is, that would be ideal.

 

[Mauman]

Sweet summer child.

Question.

What dark magic to you use to keep your computer from spontaneously going aflame when going over your community?

 

[mondblut]

Sweet summer child.

Question.

What dark magic to you use to keep your computer from spontaneously going aflame when going over your community?

They aren't all clustered together. I like building castles

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Dark mod and the mod that bumps up squad size are mandatory for me. Just increasing it to 50 so you can have up to 2 full squads is a big improvement. With the default it never quite feels like you can get a self-sufficient base and a solid adventuring team going at the same time, but perhaps that's intentional?

Sweet summer child.

WTF do you even do with that many guys. Are there even 700 regular NPCs in the game?

 

[mondblut]

Dark mod and the mod that bumps up squad size are mandatory for me. Just increasing it to 50 so you can have up to 2 full squads is a big improvement. With the default it never quite feels like you can get a self-sufficient base and a solid adventuring team going at the same time, but perhaps that's intentional?

Sweet summer child.

WTF do you even do with that many guys.

I like building castles

And each has a bunch of naked strippers poledancing beside the garrison. Gotta use some of those hungry bandits piled up against the gates.

Are there even 700 regular NPCs in the game?

Nah, but slave camps provide infinite recruits until you hit the 256 limit. Then Recruitable Prisoners and Player Slavery are the answer (+ executable hack).

Basically, I turned my Kenshi into modern-day Stronghold (the D&D one, not the modern crap). And I like it that way.

 

[Saduj]

Anyone ever play the Reavers or Kral's Chosen starts? Wanna know if there is reactivity in the game that makes staying with these factions interesting in any way. From what I read about world states, I believe there is a way to elevate Kral's Chosen leader to head of Shek Kingdom even if you aren't aligned with him. Wondering if these factions take over territory based on your actions in game or acknowledge what you're doing in any other way...

 

[Mauman]

Anyone ever play the Reavers or Kral's Chosen starts? Wanna know if there is reactivity in the game that makes staying with these factions interesting in any way. From what I read about world states, I believe there is a way to elevate Kral's Chosen leader to head of Shek Kingdom even if you aren't aligned with him. Wondering if these factions take over territory based on your actions in game or acknowledge what you're doing in any other way...

Those are mod starts aren't they? I'm not familiar with them but the Reavers start sounds like it'd be awesome.

You start as a slave fighter, forced to fight lest your overseers go all 40k Commissar on you. If you survive, then YOU get to be the slave driver.

That'd be a great evil play-through.

 

[Saduj]

Anyone ever play the Reavers or Kral's Chosen starts? Wanna know if there is reactivity in the game that makes staying with these factions interesting in any way. From what I read about world states, I believe there is a way to elevate Kral's Chosen leader to head of Shek Kingdom even if you aren't aligned with him. Wondering if these factions take over territory based on your actions in game or acknowledge what you're doing in any other way...

Those are mod starts aren't they? I'm not familiar with them but the Reavers start sounds like it'd be awesome.

You start as a slave fighter, forced to fight lest your overseers go all 40k Commissar on you. If you survive, then YOU get to be the slave driver.

That'd be a great evil play-through.

I just checked and they are not part of the original game. The only mod I had installed is Living World so that has to be where they came from. Given the goal of Living World, it should be safe to assume they added some world states to support these starts....

I briefly tried both yesterday. For the Reavers, it starts in a Reaver outpost pretty much right after you've graduated from being a slave. You have an iron bar and shoddy grade Reaver gear. Nobody was telling me what to do but there were a couple of Reaver Whelps in the outpost I could recruit. You can also ask patrolling Reaver squads to come support you. There was a quartermaster in the outpost I could trade with for food. Game starts with player faction allied with Reavers and having -100 relationships with the other local raider factions. It would make most sense if all other major factions were -100 too but I didn't play long enough to encounter any so I can't say that is the case.

Very early game seemed pretty easy as you can hang out by the outpost and get some decent gear from victims that wandered too close to the outpost. I was getting Catun weapons and Standard grade armor right off the bat. Reaver Whelp recruits also start with stats in the mid-teens, which is better than most recruits. Still seems like venturing out will be tough. Any squad of Skeleton Bandits or Crab Raiders is going to mop the floor your noob party even with a Reaver squad supporting. IF all other factions are also hostile towards you, then you'll never be able to trade outside of Reaver camps (that have nothing good). Never being able to go to Armor King or the Scraphouse is a pretty big deal. I'm definitely going to try this and really hope that game enforces permanent outlaw status.

I spent much less time trying the Kraal's chosen start. Seemed very similar except there weren't as many -100 factions to start. Even Shek Kingdom only starts at something around -25.

 

[Saduj]

Played the modded Reaver start for a while. I made it to Black Scratch and, unfortunately, I was not attacked on sight. Would be much cooler if all non-Reaver factions were hostile.

 

[Technomancer]

Played the modded Reaver start for a while. I made it to Black Scratch and, unfortunately, I was not attacked on sight. Would be much cooler if all non-Reaver factions were hostile.

They probably just used vanilla faction rep. In base game, Reavers are hostile to Skeleton Bandits, Skin Bandits, Crab Raiders and United Cities. Black Scratch belongs to Tech Hunters.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/233860/view/3339997189637264466

A new chapter of localisation for Kenshi 2​

Kenshi 1’s translation was managed by Lo-Fi’s Lead Writer - Nat, and our Japanese Localisation, PR and Community Manager - Meg (now also Localisation Lead). The pair are now using their experience with Kenshi 1 to improve and perfect the Kenshi 2 localisation process so that non-English speakers can enjoy the game as it was intended.

In this month's community update, the two share insight behind the much-improved technique behind Kenshi 2’s translation and our future development plans for non-English players.

“The most frustrating challenge in managing localisation is not being able to speak the languages yourself to verify the quality and how it's going. You're completely at the mercy of trusting other people to know what they're doing or that they’re actually putting care into it. And it was hard to fully monitor this on top of my other work,” says Natalie, who had a particularly difficult time trying to manage the localisation of Kenshi in 8 different languages whilst writing the game.

“There are also so many complications with writing for Kenshi; I have to train new writers for so many months to get into good ‘Kenshi habits’, to understand how wordswaps fit together grammatically, to check sentences flow together nicely (procedural dialogue can fit together extremely clunky due to the many alternative combinations), even just drilling in Kenshi’s themes and consistencies. Kenshi writing is a whole other level of thought process - only half of it involves actual creativity, the other half is Kenshi-specific brain aneurysm level of technical weirdness.

It's hard that I can't check these things myself and properly train our translators to the same level. So I’m really glad to have Meg with us for Kenshi 2, she has more dedicated time and is actually working alongside the other translators ‘on the front line’ herself to communicate these issues and work more closely with them.”

Note the above grammar mistake caused by incorrect use of wordswaps. We’ve recently incorporated a ‘results generator’ in the FCS (an in-house development tool) which displays all possible permutations of written sentences. Lots of new technical features have been added to help solidify the workflow and reduce issues like this one.

Kenshi Post Mortem

We've been able to keep a tab on everything that didn't go so well for Kenshi 1 and use that newfound knowledge and understanding to set the foundation for Kenshi 2. The most important lessons we learned during Kenshi 1’s localisation were context and cohesion. Translators are essentially writers of the game in their own language. They're making decisions that they, the native speaker, are most equipped to judge, for example fitting names to their own language - do they translate literally? Do they keep nouns phonetically similar or perhaps create punchier words?

Cohesion

Kenshi 2 is still under development, so if a translator fails to understand the atmosphere or how something is used in the game, they can easily misinterpret meanings and tones. Localisers must also properly be able to reflect the themes and information intended and understand the game design and intended experience behind writing i.e. what we're trying to make the player feel, what we're trying to hint at or encourage them to do.

At many points translators are dealing with game-changing actions the player can make, and as writers, we need to really clarify the repercussions and weight of those player decisions. If a translator isn’t aware of the impact of certain lines, a game has the potential to become really frustrating with the player missing out on big opportunities or being heavily punished for things they didn't understand.

Essentially, the player's gameplay experience and fun carry much more weight than just fancy words and nice writing. We’re now working much more closely with translators and involving them in the development process with frequent catchups, workshops and Q&As, as opposed to localisation being an afterthought added at the end of development. This time around, we are starting translation alongside development.

Context

We didn’t plan to localise Kenshi 1 initially; it was already a huge development project for the 4-6 people involved. It only really occurred to us that we might want to translate the game into other languages when we first started to see it become popular in other regions around Europe and when players began making their own translation mods. Essentially, the localisation process was slapped on towards the end and handled by a bunch of outsourced companies, so we hadn’t laid the proper groundwork for documentation.

We now have a brilliant new internal wiki which is visually accessible and easy to use for other members of the team that’s easy to keep updated (lore evolves and changes constantly over development).

Not only can translators use our wiki to understand the background of the world and its cultures, but we can also use it to explain any regional speech styles, specific slang, personalities, key facts and relevant recurring names or themes in the game. Adding bios for all of the characters is also extremely helpful to a translator: Their gender, personality and role in the story - good or evil, for example.

We also have more organised naming systems which immediately give a bit more context and order to the items being worked on. We have lots of design documentation and guides, and, biggest of all, we have translation notes! These are notes that the writers can leave directly attached to items, dialogue strings and even GUI data that will display within the translation mode of the FCS. This includes things like overall context summaries, levels of formality, specific wordings that reflect deeper meanings, deliberate misspellings/mispronunciations, puns or humour which might get lost in translation.

If a translator is not seeing the atmosphere or purpose of how something is used in the game, they can easily misinterpret meanings and tones. The more information you can provide on context for your translator, the better. It has become a part of our everyday process in our writing tasks to 1) Update the wiki and 2) Leave notes on everything we write.

Team

We kicked off the first round of localisation with our original Kenshi 1 translators Paola (Spanish), Marie (French), and of course Meg (JP), which began in January. We plan to start others this year too, now that we've all worked hard in ironing out the initial kinks and teething problems (for example: lost data, missing translation notes, data export issues and crashes in our software).

Meg, who recently completed the revised Japanese translation of Kenshi 1, has now taken a role of localisation lead, training/supporting other translators while she works on Kenshi 2. Meg’s experience with Kenshi 1 was unique in a way that she herself is an avid Kenshi player who spent countless hours playing and watching Kenshi videos, and that she worked on re-translation of Kenshi 1 after it was translated multiple times by modders and other translators.

By retracing the mistakes made by her predecessors, she was able to suggest requirements that help improve the process of localisation that are now incorporated into Kenshi 2. It also helped that she knows Kenshi well, both as a player, and as a part of the community as a Japanese Community Manager. For more details on the challenges she faced translating Kenshi 1, read her interview on Game*Spark (in Japanese).

“I got involved in Kenshi 1’s translation after the game was released, so I was familiar with the world and the majority of the dialogue. There was also a wonderful Wiki created by fans both in English and Japanese to refer to.

By getting involved in Kenshi 2’s localisation from the development stage, it allowed me to communicate some thoughts and suggestions that could make the world of difference for translators. With internal wiki, translator notes, and improvements in FCS, the experience of translating Kenshi 2 is now similar to (or even better than) translating fully completed Kenshi 1, thanks to the writing and technical teams that kept localisation as one of the core considerations in the development.

It has also been great working with Paola and Marie from the early localisation stage. It provides us with the opportunity to share the issues that are incorporated in the notes and improvements in FCS. We are sharing whatever difficulties we are facing, however small they might be, with writing and technical teams, knowing that any answers we could find now could help other translators as they come along in the future. “ - Meg

Case Study - Catcrawlers

To demonstrate how the first three languages are being translated, here’s the sneak peek of an excerpt from Kenshi 2’s “Catcrawlers Handbook '' along with our translators’ comments. This was a particularly challenging task, as Catcrawlers don't exist in the real world and translating relies heavily on the translator’s imagination. The book also contains many made-up phrases that are created specifically for Kenshi, making the prose generally quite difficult to understand in the first place. Translating the Catcrawlers Handbook also required consistency between both Kenshi 1 and Kenshi 2, as the game appears in both eras.

English - Original
“The first rule of Catcrawlers: Don't try to play Catcrawlers. No, you've gotta breathe Catcrawlers, feel it in your bones. Don't even attempt to tug those digits 'til you've charged those wedgers, because you sure as hell can't lick a SPADE 'til you've understood the stone die on a spiritual level. Yes, the depth of Catcrawlers will be beyond most in these outlands. So, let's get started...”

Spanish
"La primera regla del Arrastra-Cat: No intentes jugar a Arrastra-Cat. No, tienes que respirar Arrastra-Cat, presentirlo, intuirlo cual corazonada. Ni se te ocurra tirar de esos dígitos hasta que hayas cargado esos nipeludos, porque fijo que no puedes lamer una COPA hasta que hayas comprendido que la piedra muere a un nivel espiritual. Sí, la profundidad de Arrastra-Cat llegará mucho más allá de estas lejanas tierras. Así que pongámonos manos a la obra…"

“Translating Kenshi is always a lot of fun but also can be hard work. Luckily the writers have always been very accessible and gave many tips, context and explanations about complicated, made up language, onomatopoeias and other stuff that comes out of their minds.
I made up a word to translate another made up: nipeludo for wedger. It's a word that I use in my own world and now a present to Kenshi players in Spanish.” - Paola


French
“Première règle de la Course aux Cats: N'essaye pas de jouer à la Course aux Cats. Non, il faut que tu la respires, qu'elle coule dans tes veines. Ne tente même pas de mélanger des doigts avant d'avoir balayé les boulettes, parce que jamais de la vie tu n'arriveras à lécher un CARREAU avant d'avoir compris le lancer de dés à un niveau spirituel. Oui, la subtilité de la Course aux Cats sera inaccessible à la majorité sur ces terres sauvages. Alors, commençons…”

“I love the creative challenges of Kenshi translation, because it makes our brain stretch and is always interesting! One of the most challenging (and fun) aspects is the translation of made-up words and imaginary things, as you have to stay true to the meaning and effect from the original text, while being creative and steering away from literal translation…Catcrawlers Handbook is a great example of this balancing act!

One of my objectives when translating this text was to stay true to the spirit of the original: that is, a text that sounds like a serious handbook for a game, but is actually full of nonsensical and silly (sometimes slightly rude) gibberish. I found a website with the lexicon for card and casino games, and mixed some of these more serious words with nonsensical ones to create associations, actions and images that were as funny and absurd in French as they were in English.

For example, “lick a SPADE” has become “lécher un CARREAU”. I’ve kept the idea of licking something which was funny, but changed “spade” to the French word for “diamonds”, which is both a playing card suit and the word for “window”, keeping the double meaning and creating a comical image (the French word for “spade" didn’t offer this). - Marie

Japanese
「キャットクローラーの第1のルール：それはプレイしないことだ。キャットクローラーに心身を預け、直感に導かれる。幻の石を求めて『鋤』で深掘りする虚しさを実感するまで、それは無理だと心得よ。その奥義の境地に達するまで、勝負をつけるなど、もっての外だ。このへき地の遥か彼方よりもさらに奥深いのがキャットクローラーなのだ。それでは始めよう...」

“It’s not possible to play with words in Japanese in this paragraph, so I translated more freely to emphasise the meaning. The second sentence is broken down into two, and as we can’t capitalise words in Japanese SPADE is expressed with『』. Overall tone is typical of any old world handbook you’ll find in Japanese. “ - Meg


Grab Kenshi at a whopping 60% off in the Steam Summer Sale



For those of you that already own Kenshi
- thank you, we’re humbled to have made our way into your lives. We’re often asked by fans how you can help us out. Honestly the best thing you can do is to spread the good word of Kenshi, and right now simply tell a friend or two that we’re on sale on Steam at 60% as part of the Summer Sale.

For those of you who who don’t own Kenshi just yet
- lookee, look look! SALE innit.

 

[Junmarko]

Moll is the leader of the Flotsam Ninjas. She has a large (50,000) bounty on her head that you can turn in to the Holy Nation - If you try to turn her in as a woman or non-human, the inquisitor will have you arrested as well, assuming this must be a trick of Narko.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

So I've been playing this for quite a bit recently. Enjoying it in a lot of ways, but what the fuck is wrong with the hunger and farming systems?

I have a few people in my squad which literally eat non-stop and immediately get hungry. I have to do a massive mining run or something to buy enough food to feed everyone, and then 2 minutes later out of town, half the squad is hungry again.

Most foods you can buy have like 15-30 nutritional units, and the hunger bar is like 200-300 units? Doesn't seem realistic at all and makes feeding them a constant hassle.

Started a base, and tried a few farms. Worked on a Wheat farm for hours, ground it into flour, baked it into bread, after days of work, one load of bread was produced. Wtf? If farming was this shitty, our ancestors would've stayed hunters.

 

[Ironmonk]

Kenshi: Food Production Guide

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Real annoying is when they eat only at halfway hunger, which means if they're eating crap foods it's really not gonna do much to keep them sated.

 

[deuxhero]

I've run into an issue where my crafting minions stationed in town try to steal materials when they run out. Is there an easy way to avoid this?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I've run into an issue where my crafting minions stationed in town try to steal materials when they run out. Is there an easy way to avoid this?

Ignore crafting and artifice as the byproducts of civilization that they are.

 

[Mauman]

I've run into an issue where my crafting minions stationed in town try to steal materials when they run out. Is there an easy way to avoid this?

Have your thief minions take everything not in a container.

They won't take things in containers far as I'm aware.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Avoid crafting. Level your guys enough, and either buy a dilapidated tower in the Grey desert from tech hunters or build a base there. Do it right on the border with the eye and invaders won't make it.

Don't farm, don't build, don't research. Adventure and raid.

 

[Joggerino]

Avoid crafting. Level your guys enough, and either buy a dilapidated tower in the Grey desert from tech hunters or build a base there. Do it right on the border with the eye and invaders won't make it.

Don't farm, don't build, don't research. Adventure and raid.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It's kinda messed up but I love that location. Last few times I've built a base it's been there.

And of course I recruit all the best characters.

 

[Hag]

Or simply retire to the Leviathan Coast and enjoy a peaceful life with abundant food, little raiders, beautiful scenery and the occasional Leviathan drunkenly stumbling upon your settlement and wrecking havoc.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

While you can debate about the benefits of hunter-gatherer lifestyle vs agricultural one, in any face to face conflict historically, farmers absolutely destroyed hunters. This is mostly due to 2 factors:

1. Population size - farming can support many degrees of magnitude larger population than hunting/gathering, which obviously leads to more soldiers, more resources, more technology, etc.

2. Specialization - because farming is so bountiful, a small portion of the populace can support everyone, leaving everyone else to pursue more specialized roles conducive to societal power: dedicated military, governmental bureaucracy, scholars and scientists, etc.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I've fallen into the ruinous life consuming trap that is Kenshi again. I thank God that this game is so uneven and janky, or else I'd never stop playing it.

I've tried most playstyles, but never went solo. I'm trying to make it as challenging as possible, as that's the only thing I can enjoy anymore.

Here are my house rules, with some observations:

• Solo (that means no recruits, pets or mercenaries)--this is the only way to make the game "dangerous", since no one is coming to save you. You have to watch your Toughness knockdown threshold carefully.
• Ironman--goes without saying.
• Death chance set to 3--this makes you and everyone else bleed faster. Watch out for bladed weapons if your Toughness is low. Racial bleed rate matters a lot and this happily makes Hivers more viable.
• Attack slots set to 3--the maximum is 5, but while this makes it more difficult for the player, it also means you'll see heavily armed samurai and paladins getting taken down by riff raff. I think 3 is a happy medium.
• No stealth or "assassination"--this doesn't make much of a difference once you become fast enough to outrun everything but Beak Things. I'm guessing it could make slavery a bigger deal in the beginning, which hasn't happened to me yet. I got captured by slavers once but I bid my time until they were ambushed by bonedogs and made a run for it. Had to run all the way across the Holy Nation with slavers and paladins after me. Fun times! Iron spiders are a lot more menacing without stealth, so I'm leaving ancient labs for later.
• Darker nights--I use a mod for that. Kenshi's bright nights might look cool, but I only care about pain. With no stealth, I have to be very careful when camping outside. I had quite a few jump scares already with those Tech Hunter skellies who like to traipse around in the dead of night in the middle of fucking nowhere.
• NPC render distance set to 1500--I've seen no one talk about this, but one way to increase difficulty is to lower this slider in the Graphics tab. This way you can't scout far ahead for dangerous things or see the damage indicators in the distance when there's a fight. Set it low enough and you'll be as blind as regular NPCs.

I'm still cheesing my way through with micromanaging fights, kiting enemies so the guards deal with them (this is way too much fun to give up), powerleveling stats, etc. Powerleveling, in particular, simply removes tedium from the game, as I don't want to fight a million identical bandits. There's basically no way to avoid exploits in Kenshi, you just learn play it in your own special way, doing some things and avoiding others due to personal taste.

All in all, I still find the game too easy. Some starts are hard, yes, but after you unfuck yourself from whatever horrible situation you find yourself in it's mostly smooth sailing. I find running speed to be the most game breaking aspect. After 60 Athletics nothing will bother you anymore, except Beak Things, but if you've played the game enough you'll know where they are. I'm scratching my head thinking of alternative ways to make the game more challenging (without more grind).

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

While you can debate about the benefits of hunter-gatherer lifestyle vs agricultural one, in any face to face conflict historically, farmers absolutely destroyed hunters. This is mostly due to 2 factors:

1. Population size - farming can support many degrees of magnitude larger population than hunting/gathering, which obviously leads to more soldiers, more resources, more technology, etc.

2. Specialization - because farming is so bountiful, a small portion of the populace can support everyone, leaving everyone else to pursue more specialized roles conducive to societal power: dedicated military, governmental bureaucracy, scholars and scientists, etc.

Too bad the funniest part is that Agriculturalists were always inevitably conquered by pastoralists as the ruling classes continued in their pastoral tradition by fighting on horseback and raising cattle while their subjects ate gruel.