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

Ascetic

Novice
Joined
Oct 30, 2019
Messages
2
It's been a while but in my most recent Holy Nation playthrough, I set up a bunch of smaller, self-sustaining military outposts in different regions to create a training pipeline that was efficient and low-maintenance without being straight up cheese. It allowed me to basically "promote" a recruit from one outpost to the other as they got stronger and outgrew (low XP gains) the previous outpost.

So, first of all, the Holy Nation territory is by far the best location for starting recruits. Not only is it safe, it has the two best enemies for early training: river raptors and starving bandits.

- River Raptors are great for early combat skill training because while they're decently strong, they are super slow and don't block. Just swing, hit, move, swing, hit, move, and watch your melee attack grow. You can even hit multiple at a time if you're kiting a group. They do cause serious damage, so you may go down eventually and will want someone waiting to rescue you, but they won't eat downed members and again, they're slow as shit so you can outrun them easily with decent speed.

- Starving Bandits: These travel in large packs, use blunt weapons, and only steal food when you go down. Just run into a group of them, fight until you're down, and then... and this is very important, force your character to get back up. By getting up as a single injured fighter in a group of enemies, your toughness will skyrocket. And during the actual combat, you'll get your combat stats up.

Note: Some people will tell you to just block when doing this, but you actually want to injure some of the bandits because then they'll stand around your body for a while bandaging each other up, which gives you more time to get up (and get the surrounded XP bonus).

Before actually training combat, you want to have a decent level of the physical stats, strength and speed. If you're just starting out, I think Stack is a good place for this. Mine ore next to the walls, sell it, buy one of the little huts in town and build a ore collector inside, buy a backpack and fill it with ore, equip it. Now you can automate a character to mine ore and carry it back and forth to the ore collector, leveling up their speed and strength in the process. Just make sure to add a little more ore to the pack as they get stronger. Another way to speed this up is to pick up an injured bandit and just carry around their dead body while you mine.

I like to aim for 50 to 60+ strength and speed with this. Unfortunately, strength is kind of difficult to gain through actual combat and exploring, and it's a very important stat, especially for certain weapons.

Once that mark is hit, they can move on to combat training with the above mentioned enemies. All of the above combined can get you a character with a pretty strong foundation with minimal grinding.

When river raptors and starving bandits stop giving decent XP, you can go move slightly southwest and start fighting dust bandits. Or, if you have a strong enough party, go on campaign to fight cannibals or fogmen. With my recruiting pipeline, I'd send a few rookies there with a couple veterans to back them up. From there, I like Vain, which has:

- Gorillos: High combat stats and don't travel in packs, won't kill you if downed; great for getting intermediate level combat training.

- Beak Things: They're infamous for how dangerous they can be, but they're actually really weak 1v1 because their attack animation is easy to block. Just don't let them outnumber you.

Once you get about 60 to 70 in combat stats, it becomes really difficult to level up efficiently. Most enemies are too weak to give you XP, and the stronger enemies are either not numerous enough or are crazy dangerous. This is where a lot of people start getting into really cheesy stuff.

In my last game, I was experimenting with Skin Bandits for this, but I accidentally killed their leader and wiped them out lmao. You don't necessarily need crazy high stats if you have a larger party, but I like to stick to 5 to 7-ish and even with everyone at like 65 to 80 in combat stats you're still not really strong enough for the absolute top tier enemy groups.
 

PlayerEmers

Educated
Joined
Sep 15, 2023
Messages
338
Location
Brazil
Once you get about 60 to 70 in combat stats, it becomes really difficult to level up efficiently. Most enemies are too weak to give you XP, and the stronger enemies are either not numerous enough or are crazy dangerous. This is where a lot of people start getting into really cheesy stuff.
IronHQ is the best safe place for leveling endgame characters. Skeleton bandits are not the strongest (45~55 combat stats) but they have big numbers (number disavantage xp boost) and its rather safe (minus the rare sniper bots that can show up in the area) to fight them since skeleton bandits and all random patrols in the area do not kill downed people (scavangers might steal from downed people tho).

If you wear the right items, you can level your characters to 80~85 with no worries and no xp gain debuff.
-Attack training: tin can (-5 atk), samurai armor (-8 atk), large backpack (-10atk/dfc) and a sabre (-4 atk). -27 melee attack and -10 melee defence.
-Melee training: armored hood (-2 dfc), armored rag (-5 dfc), big backpack (-10 atk/dfc) and a guardless katana (-6 dfc). -23 melee defence and -10 melee attack.

Just remember to not finish them off and maybe even heal the downed skeleton badits for training later. Also dont kill/imprisoned their leader because just like killing the skin bandit leader, they will get replaced by the sourthern hive.
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
I like the fact of being a non-entity at the beginning, it forces you into a different style of play to basically every other RPG. Baiting stronger foes into each other and looting the corpses is fun, especially because you have competition for the loot.
 

Ascetic

Novice
Joined
Oct 30, 2019
Messages
2
Once you get about 60 to 70 in combat stats, it becomes really difficult to level up efficiently. Most enemies are too weak to give you XP, and the stronger enemies are either not numerous enough or are crazy dangerous. This is where a lot of people start getting into really cheesy stuff.
IronHQ is the best safe place for leveling endgame characters. Skeleton bandits are not the strongest (45~55 combat stats) but they have big numbers (number disavantage xp boost) and its rather safe (minus the rare sniper bots that can show up in the area) to fight them since skeleton bandits and all random patrols in the area do not kill downed people (scavangers might steal from downed people tho).

If you wear the right items, you can level your characters to 80~85 with no worries and no xp gain debuff.
-Attack training: tin can (-5 atk), samurai armor (-8 atk), large backpack (-10atk/dfc) and a sabre (-4 atk). -27 melee attack and -10 melee defence.
-Melee training: armored hood (-2 dfc), armored rag (-5 dfc), big backpack (-10 atk/dfc) and a guardless katana (-6 dfc). -23 melee defence and -10 melee attack.

Just remember to not finish them off and maybe even heal the downed skeleton badits for training later. Also dont kill/imprisoned their leader because just like killing the skin bandit leader, they will get replaced by the sourthern hive.
Interesting. Honestly I think I just chose the Skin Bandits because they send raids and I'm at war with skeletons. But I'll have to try the Skeleton Bandits now that they're wiped out, they seem to have similar stats anyways.
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
I bought a map to Mongrel and headed out, having a blast beating up fogmen, farming prince heads and levelling up my gear with the inexplicably good vendors in the town. As this is my first actual playthrough (ignoring the test character who got killed) I've gone with a small squad of ninja thieves. Not sure I can be bothered with base building though, the team still isn't super strong and I doubt it could prevent an attack by any serious foe.

Edit: Am I fucking over Mongrel by staying too long? The guards seem able to handle the attacks that presumably spawn because the town is "loaded" by the game, but I'm sure eventually they'll be whittled down. Still not entirely sure how that mechanic works.
 
Last edited:

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,584
I bought a map to Mongrel and headed out, having a blast beating up fogmen, farming prince heads and levelling up my gear with the inexplicably good vendors in the town. As this is my first actual playthrough (ignoring the test character who got killed) I've gone with a small squad of ninja thieves. Not sure I can be bothered with base building though, the team still isn't super strong and I doubt it could prevent an attack by any serious foe.

Edit: Am I fucking over Mongrel by staying too long? The guards seem able to handle the attacks that presumably spawn because the town is "loaded" by the game, but I'm sure eventually they'll be whittled down. Still not entirely sure how that mechanic works.

I've never had it overrun but I've heard it can happen. There are lots of guards and they are very strong. But what happens is that guards chase after fogmen and eventually one gets separated and then whittled down until it gets knocked out and eaten. If that happens enough, the town can get overrun.

As you've noticed, there's a point in the game where Mongrel is the most useful town in the game. Easy money, mid game equipment, lots of recruits, etc. I try not to waste time there but I always end up spending a lot of time in the area and I've never seen Mongrel even close to being overrun. So it could happen but it isn't really something to worry about.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,931
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
I bought a map to Mongrel and headed out, having a blast beating up fogmen, farming prince heads and levelling up my gear with the inexplicably good vendors in the town. As this is my first actual playthrough (ignoring the test character who got killed) I've gone with a small squad of ninja thieves. Not sure I can be bothered with base building though, the team still isn't super strong and I doubt it could prevent an attack by any serious foe.

Edit: Am I fucking over Mongrel by staying too long? The guards seem able to handle the attacks that presumably spawn because the town is "loaded" by the game, but I'm sure eventually they'll be whittled down. Still not entirely sure how that mechanic works.
Its interesting but you adopting a very similar strategy to me, I spent lots of time in the swamps and Mongrel and also in the desert in the NE part of the map. Most of my game was spent exploring, completing bounties and finding ruins. They have the most amount of loot and items you can scavenge and then sell

I built a base in Worlds End but I never built a city or anything similar. But a base in a strategic area where you spend lots of time is convenient for storing items and resting

I just rented a building and then built beds and training dummies and a research bench. Thats what I mean by my base
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
Yeah I bought a house in Squinn and set up a research bench and beds, but I'll probably end up moving to a location with better access to gear, money, research stuff etc. My squad can still potentially lose to a full compliment (10+) of Dust Bandits so I still have to be careful.

I got a couple of recruits from Mongrel that I'll set as researchers/workers, but I don't want my main squad to go above six. I can see the micro becoming annoying if it does.

Many funny moments in this game. Last night I was attacking some Dust Bandits and things weren't looking good because I had underestimated their numbers. But to the rescue, for no discernable reason, a pack of Garrus charged in and slaughtered the enemy, leaving me completely untouched. I was zoomed in and didn't see it coming at all!
 

Mauman

Scholar
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
1,230
I got a couple of recruits from Mongrel that I'll set as researchers/workers, but I don't want my main squad to go above six. I can see the micro becoming annoying if it does.

This game (especially with mods) does pretty well with automation. I had a city of like 80 people and they mostly took care of things on their own. Farmers farmed, cooks cooked, crafters crafted, and gunners kept watch at the walls to gun down anyone stupid enough to approach my gates all while keeping themselves alive and fed. There were occasional hiccups, but nothing I couldn't handle easily.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,931
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
Yeah I bought a house in Squinn and set up a research bench and beds, but I'll probably end up moving to a location with better access to gear, money, research stuff etc. My squad can still potentially lose to a full compliment (10+) of Dust Bandits so I still have to be careful.

I got a couple of recruits from Mongrel that I'll set as researchers/workers, but I don't want my main squad to go above six. I can see the micro becoming annoying if it does.

Many funny moments in this game. Last night I was attacking some Dust Bandits and things weren't looking good because I had underestimated their numbers. But to the rescue, for no discernable reason, a pack of Garrus charged in and slaughtered the enemy, leaving me completely untouched. I was zoomed in and didn't see it coming at all!
Yes the random AI outcomes can create some desirable results

There is a area called the Leviathan Coast in the NW and there are lots of ruins there and the standard enemy in ruins is robotic spiders which can be deadly at lower levels or if they attack in numbers

But what I did is use aggro to get the spiders to chase me outside where these Leviathans\dinosaurs roam and then I ran close to the dinosaurs and they ended up killing all the robotic spiders for me so I could loot the ruins :lol:

Its a good strategy but you dont gain any skills for combat which is needed for long-term survival and combat effectiveness so I only did that once or twice

The best strategy to kill the robotic spiders is to draw them out from the building one or 2 at a time because combat is manageable until you get to higher level
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
kangaxx


Have you dedicated one party member to the Medic job permanently. Its very convenient because that party member will automatically heal people?
No, I have people heal themselves after battle. The person I'd have doing it is my ranged DPS and I would rather he did that. Maybe I'll look at putting a weaker melee fighter as auto heal then..
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,931
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
kangaxx


Have you dedicated one party member to the Medic job permanently. Its very convenient because that party member will automatically heal people?
No, I have people heal themselves after battle. The person I'd have doing it is my ranged DPS and I would rather he did that. Maybe I'll look at putting a weaker melee fighter as auto heal then..
Find and hire someone who has high field medic\healing and dedicate them to healing only. They dont need to fight so put them in passive mode

You can talk to NPC in towns and find out what there skill specializations are but medics for your party can be found in Eyesocket, Slave Markets, Black Scratch, Flats Lagoon, Smugglers Bar, any Waystation, and World's End and they have a high field medic skill. I had about 11-12 people in my party and one person only for dedicated healing. It makes big difference after combat because they start healing the wounded automatically

https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Medi...is a randomly,any Waystation, and World's End.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,931
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
Don't they try and heal people mid battle and end up getting killed though?
Sometimes they do that but I would keep them at a distance and there seems to be a range around auto heal?

But when the battle was over I would bring them closer and they just automatically started healing
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
This game is brilliant. My group have recruited a small sub-team dedicated to getting fit and running drugs from the swamp to fund our other activities.

I think the sequel will be a rare first day purchase for me, whenever they release it.
 

Cohesion

Codex made me an elephant hater.
Patron
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
1,324
Location
Moscow, Russia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
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 :salute:
Sounds like Ultima Online: Renaissance guide.
 

Kruyurk

Learned
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
486
I'd definitely suggest fixing the pathfinding in the sequel. Why does my runner think swimming through an acid lake is a good idea?
This was a big problem during the game development. The main developer, who spent many years working on it solo, spent a whole year at some point to fix the pathfinding. Obviously it is still janky.

There is this mod to fix it, with two versions.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2424904535
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2631086548
 

Fatty

Augur
Joined
Nov 17, 2011
Messages
143
Location
Gladstone
Thanks, that's helpful. Do Kenshi mods usually play nicely with existing saves?
Generally, yeah. At most you would have to Import instead of just loading your save, after adding or removing a mod. The description of the mod should suggest whether an Import is necessary. Kenshi is one of a very short list of games where I can add or remove mods on the fly.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,931
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
Thanks, that's helpful. Do Kenshi mods usually play nicely with existing saves?
I installed about 20 mods right from the beginning that included the Pathfinding mods

I installed them directly from Steam and during the game I had very few issues, the information page on each mod will tell if you can install them during the game and most of the time you just need to import save games if you install new mods

https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Menu#Import


The biggest issue I had was GPU usage, I have a high end but older, 4 years, graphics card and that was constantly running at 90% and I could hear the card from my case

I loaded some mod fixes designed for this problem and that helped but the GPU high usage is a well known issue for Kenshi and certain graphics cards
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
I actually went for the pathfinding mod and it's helped a lot. I'm not touching the rest of the game because I want to see it "as intended", and I'm guessing the AI pathfinding is more bug than feature. My drug running operation has definitely benefitted!
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,673
Location
atop a flaming horse
I managed to kite an entire nest of Beak Things into that slave market Eye Socket, then used the confusion to kidnap and imprison the noble. Pretty sure this isn't intended, but hilarious nonetheless!
 

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