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

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Im not sure if I will try to build a city, maybe I will. But right now Im really enjoying my current activities

You can initiate the research aspect of Kenshi prior to starting your own settlement, which will give you more options for base-building when you decide to pursue that option.

 

[PlayerEmers]

I thought you could not get someone with those stats on your party. I saved him from the cannibals so guess saving people from slavery/canibals/skin bandits have different rules.

Anyway, I ditched him because im still running hivers only (and some slave skellies to take care of base shenanigans and act as trader with the normal hivers).

Been roaming around on the northern side of the map, getting stronger fighting canibals, bersekers and shrieking bandits. Most of my 17 hivers are cloose to hitting 40 combat stats. I think in a couple of days im going to head south, take some supplies to mount a base and assault the hivers bases.

 

[Fedora Master]

Why make it look like shit though?

 

[PlayerEmers]

Why make it look like shit though?

I've lowered the graphics (also using mods that lower textures even more) mostly to min/max battery life on the steam deck (doing this entire hiver playthrough on the deck). I've seen plenty of users here dislike cel shading, but I like it on kenshi.

 

[huskarls]

jesus christ, imagine some brazilian playing kenshi on his gameboy - i guess outside his home on a favela step or a bus

 

[Kruyurk]

jesus christ, imagine some brazilian playing kenshi on his gameboy - i guess outside his home on a favela step or a bus

He is playing Super Mario on the gameboy, Kenshi is all around him.

 

[BruceVC]

I played Kenshi for 100 hours but then I decided to stop. The reason for this is I am not really into building cities and simulation games

And a huge part of the point and design of Kenshi is building a city and all the mechanics around this

I really enjoyed what I played, I explored large parts of the game and completed several bounties and I raised my melee skills to 55-65 for most of my party

But end of the day if you not going to build a city then the exploring becomes monotonous and so does the scavenging for items because the ruins are all more or less the same . I ended up with 500K Cats but nothing to really spend it on because I had already bought or found most of the best equipment

Its not fair for me to give this game the very popular and globally influential " BruceVC game score " because if you not going to embrace and participate in the core design of the game then you cant objectively rate the game. It would be like playing a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game and saying " I dont play games where you have to explore "

In summary, great game for what its designed to be but end of the day its not for me. But I dont regret playing it at all

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

But end of the day if you not going to build a city then the exploring becomes monotonous...

Become powerful enough to fully explore the Ashlands, thus revealing a significant portion of the setting's backstory, before abandoning the game.

 

[BruceVC]

But end of the day if you not going to build a city then the exploring becomes monotonous...

Become powerful enough to fully explore the Ashlands, thus revealing a significant portion of the setting's backstory, before abandoning the game.

I tried that but end of the day Kenshi is still a game where its primary design and point is to build a city

Is there anyone on this thread who played Kenshi without building a city?

The main problem with just exploring is the skills advancement mechanics become repetitive because you need to fight stronger enemies, get wounded and then you advance skills. Because you dont advance if you fighting easy enemies

So I ended up winning hard level battles in those high level areas but my party always gets understandably wounded and then its the same thing to heal, I have to sleep to heal quickly

And its fun the first 50-60 times but then it becomes monotonous. I can see how this repetition wont apply in the same way with building cities and getting involved in faction battles because the combat is about conquest

And I like and appreciate lore and finding lore but I have to be high level to explore the Ashlands and to do that successfully I need to be high level which goes back to the grind of raising my skills and the sleeping\healing mechanic

 

[PlayerEmers]

Is there anyone on this thread who played Kenshi without building a city?

I dont build a city most of the time because I find city building and management annoying in this game; even with a few mods that supposedly helps colony building and npc AI related to colonies dont help me much to enjoy that aspect in the game. I just buy buildings on existing cities when I want to research or craft stuff.

Also completely understand how you feel about the the repetitiveness of Kenshi. The main hooks of the game are discovering the world, learning from it, roleplay on it and grind your way to the top. The first 3 hooks are severly limited. Eventually you will run out of stuff to discover, learn and play with. The knowledge check honeymoon will end and you will pretty much have nothing else new to make out of.
In the end, the only hook left for the game is grinding for skills and money.

 

[BruceVC]

Is there anyone on this thread who played Kenshi without building a city?

I dont build a city most of the time because I find city building and management annoying in this game; even with a few mods that supposedly helps colony building and npc AI related to colonies dont help me much to enjoy that aspect in the game. I just buy buildings on existing cities when I want to research or craft stuff.

Also completely understand how you feel about the the repetitiveness of Kenshi. The main hooks of the game are discovering the world, learning from it, roleplay on it and grind your way to the top. The first 3 hooks are severly limited. Eventually you will run out of stuff to discover, learn and play with. The knowledge check honeymoon will end and you will pretty much have nothing else new to make out of.
In the end, the only hook left for the game is grinding for skills and money.

And I did explore or discover almost every ruin or ancient site and I know this because eventually all the maps you find say " you already know about this location ". And I travelled to most unusual regions with the exception of Ashlands because of the high level requirement

You have summarized my views accurately. The exploration excitement is finite but I can see how the city building and faction conquest is a big part of the game for the thrill of conquest

But I do think its a really good game and worth playing

 

[PlayerEmers]

I can see how the city building and faction conquest is a big part of the game for the thrill of conquest

Yeah, waging war against facctions and wipping them out can be some fun (also discovering the consequences of killing important npcs, triggering diifferent world states, specially with mods like Living World that adds/fixes world states) but it will be more or less the same thing for all the 3 major facctions.

But I do think its a really good game and worth playing

Despite all the flaws, there really is something to it that makes us like the game. We can all hope that they fix most of the flaws and add more in-depth mechanics on kenshi 2.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Started a new game last night. Makar (Greenlander Human male) and The Strangler (Shek Male). 60 days in and I've been training toughness and strength like crazy. I kind of wanna see how long I can do the slave thing for before I just start dominating everything.

 

[goregasm]

Started a new game last night. Makar (Greenlander Human male) and The Strangler (Shek Male). 60 days in and I've been training toughness and strength like crazy. I kind of wanna see how long I can do the slave thing for before I just start dominating everything.

I use the UWE mod, and some others. Haven't played in a bit, but I started as a poor greenlander in UC territory, got imprisoned by them for being poor in less than a day, then got sold into slavery at one of the mines nearby that the mod adds.

Escaped and made my way to Holy Nation territory to join up with them.

Was a different type of slave start from the usual HN one, that start can get stale if you have done it before, or just like the faction like me, with the UWE mod my character got brought to different mines, sold to different sub factions, and transported in UC territory with other prisoners under armed guard, lots of ambushes on the way etc before I escaped.

That mod adds in a ton of interesting shit like that, but wouldn't recommend unless you have a decent pc as it's pretty intensive in cities and such.

 

[kangaxx]

Crikey that's roughly 3x the number I expected. Is there a levelling 'malus' to having a full party, i.e. is it shared equally among party members or "each person gets the full amount"?

Tag me in this thread when you want to start playing Kenshi

I can share some newbie and beginners tips and insights I have learnt. Most people on this thread have been playing Kenshi for years and they very knowledgeable about mechanics and design but that also means they unintentionally unaware of the newbie learning curve and they wont necessarily talk about those things because its obvious to them

I'm probably going to give it a go this eve, if you have any non-spoilery pearls of wisdom.

 

[BruceVC]

Crikey that's roughly 3x the number I expected. Is there a levelling 'malus' to having a full party, i.e. is it shared equally among party members or "each person gets the full amount"?

Tag me in this thread when you want to start playing Kenshi

I can share some newbie and beginners tips and insights I have learnt. Most people on this thread have been playing Kenshi for years and they very knowledgeable about mechanics and design but that also means they unintentionally unaware of the newbie learning curve and they wont necessarily talk about those things because its obvious to them

I'm probably going to give it a go this eve, if you have any non-spoilery pearls of wisdom.

Great choice

It can be strange in the beginning because there are no real quests so you might think " now what "

But my advice is stay in the starting regions while you learn combat, mechanics and advance skills

You have to fight and get wounded to really become an effective fighter. You will need people to join you and you can find one or two people who will join you without expecting money which can be in a shortage in the beginning. I found one NPC outside one of the starting towns who joined me for free and he helped me a lot in the beginning

But you can mine copper and iron and then sell what you mine as an initial source of revenue. But try to mine close to towns so you can run away if you get attacked by a large or powerful enemy group. Let them chase you back to the town so the guards them kill them and then you can loot from them

Keep us updated around your experiences

 

[kangaxx]

Thanks boss, looking forward to giving this a go.

 

[BruceVC]

Thanks boss, looking forward to giving this a go.

Another newbie tip, you will find training dummies in police stations that you can train on but the police mustnt see you but the dummys are normally on the second floor and you just stop if someone sees you and then you carry on training when they walk away

You can raise your melee attack to 15 this way or you just use normal combat. And using training dummys is not an exploit, its a legitimate way to raise skills because it has a threshold

 

[PlayerEmers]

Crikey that's roughly 3x the number I expected. Is there a levelling 'malus' to having a full party, i.e. is it shared equally among party members or "each person gets the full amount"?

I forgot to reply this post and looks like people forgot to mention a few things. While there is no malus for having a full party, theres a few things to consider:

-XP is boosted if your current squad is fighting enemies that have number advantage. Dont know exactly how much the bonus is, but the bonus xp is bigger if the number difference is significant. Having 1 or 3 guys fighting 10 or more give a great boost. 10 of your guys fighting 15 enemies also gives some boost, but not as big.
-XP gains are tied to how strong/weak the people fighting are. If a noob with 10/10 melee attack/defense is fighting enemies with 25/25 stats, his XP gains are great. If its the other way around, the XP gains are severily impacted. Theres a big xp debuff if you are fighting lower level plebs (if im not mistaken, you get up to 90% less xp fighting people 25 levels bellow you)

tl;dr is fighting with number disavantage and fighting stronger people give better xp gains. Fighting weaklings give less xp (up to 90% reduced xp if the level difference is too high).
You will always gain xp, but eventually you will need to move on and fight stronger people/get outnumbered to avoid xp reduction.

theres also a few tricks with this

The xp gains are tied to your current stats. If you hinder yourself by wearing equipment that lower your attack/defense stats, your XP gains will be affected. If you have 20/20 stats and fight an equal opponent, wearing equipment that lower your stats by 10 (a big backpack for example) will buff your xp gains because you will now be fighting a stronger oponent.
So if you want to train your people quick and safe by only fighting 5/5 plebs, you can if you wear the right equipment.

Also you get the same XP if you use crappy weapons, so you can use the worst quality version of a weapon and get the same xp per hit. This also means that you will get more xp from enemies, since it will take longer for them to die from your hits.

 

[kangaxx]

Getting a party seems like a long way off for me.

First character dead inside three days... humiliated by a wolf that casually wandered into town.

So I'm basically just mining until I can pay the ninjas right? Anything to have someone to revive me when I happen to stub my toe in the street.

Edit: OK so I want to lure bandits to their deaths in town and try and join in the fight when it's already won I assume?

 

[PlayerEmers]

Getting a party seems like a long way off for me.

First character dead inside three days... humiliated by a wolf that casually wandered into town.

So I'm basically just mining until I can pay the ninjas right? Anything to have someone to revive me when I happen to stub my toe in the street.

Edit: OK so I want to lure bandits to their deaths in town and try and join in the fight when it's already won I assume?

You dont want to fuck around with animals unless your character is very skilled (60+ stats if you are solo) or have a big party of decent fighters (30+ stats).
All animals in this game are op, having immunity to stagger and dealing good or crazy damage if you do not have toughness levels.

If you are looking for easy money and dont want to mine till boredom, baiting animals and bandits to gate guards is always the way to go, just mind your athletics to see if you can outrun them. This feels a little bit cheesy, but honestly kenshi is all cheesy, jank and grind. Do whatever you want.
Also trading (sake, cactus rum, hashish or buying things for dirt cheap on slaver camps) is very good too. There are specific facctions that pay or sell items for high and lower values.

 

[mondblut]

Getting a party seems like a long way off for me.

First character dead inside three days... humiliated by a wolf that casually wandered into town.

So I'm basically just mining until I can pay the ninjas right? Anything to have someone to revive me when I happen to stub my toe in the street.

Edit: OK so I want to lure bandits to their deaths in town and try and join in the fight when it's already won I assume?

Contrary to the hype claims that the world in Kenshi "does not revolve around you", it's literally the opposite - shit only happens when you are around. So go to a larger town, loiter around, and sooner or later some wandering caravan guard will give some policeman a funny look, and next thing you know, there's urban warfare all over the place. All you need is to loot bodies before they get up and rejoin the fray (which can repeat indefinitely). At some point I even kidnapped a knocked out caravan garru, locked it in a prisoner cage in my house, and it regenerated the trade goods stuffed in its backpack like every day. Sadly, that exploit got eventually patched out.

Or be a man and savescum while stealing from the stores at night. Don't listen to larping posers, cheesing is the name of the game.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tag me in this thread when you want to start playing Kenshi

I can share some newbie and beginners tips and insights I have learnt. Most people on this thread have been playing Kenshi for years and they very knowledgeable about mechanics and design but that also means they unintentionally unaware of the newbie learning curve and they wont necessarily talk about those things because its obvious to them

I'm probably going to give it a go this eve, if you have any non-spoilery pearls of wisdom.

The advice I gave BruceVC:

• Rather than attempting to raise your skills in an 'optimal' manner, find a relatively fun way of improving them.
• I suggest traveling between the cities in your starting area and recruiting a few of the unique NPCs, who have unique lines of dialogue (or monologue) and sometimes interactions with NPCs.
• You'll need to be quite careful in avoiding combat against overwhelming foes, until you've strengthened your characters by a combination of skill/attribute increases and better equipment.

 

[BruceVC]

Getting a party seems like a long way off for me.

First character dead inside three days... humiliated by a wolf that casually wandered into town.

So I'm basically just mining until I can pay the ninjas right? Anything to have someone to revive me when I happen to stub my toe in the street.

Edit: OK so I want to lure bandits to their deaths in town and try and join in the fight when it's already won I assume?

This sounds right, in the beginning you very ineffective and most things will kill you and you will find it hard to buy expensive or even normal things

What helps a lot is exploring and finding ruins that arent guarded by enemies, once you find ruins you can loot dozens of items and then you sell them and now you can afford better items

Also you could get lucky and in the NE in the desert you might come across a caravan which has been killed by enemies so you can loot that

But yes the idea is get the guards to kill the bandits and you can help out but I used that more for initial looting, not raising skills

The starting cities should have low level enemies in the rural areas but try to have at least 3-4 people in your party and animals can be very hard so avoid them initially

Also learn to run away because you have to raise your speed anyway because you will have to run away often until higher levels

 

[kangaxx]

I can see why this game is a cult classic.