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

[Deleted Member 22431]

I tried to set up weaponsmithing but without a source of iron plates, the products are worth less than the materials with my low skill. Ah well.

I heard that the weapons you made, even the high level weapons, are worse than the most expensive you can buy.

I couldn't make then in my research bench level II, for some reason. I did the research of weapon crafting level I, but the game doesn't acknowedge that. Bug?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I couldn't make then in my research bench level II, for some reason.

Worked for me. I didn't research any crafting until I got the second bench. Even if you can't craft the best gear, it's better than the nothing or junk I have now. I just want to see all the things the game has to offer.

Nice thing about the town is obviously the guards run out to help my miners if they get attacked, and I don't care if they get KO'd because they don't carry food. One miner limped back into town with a gimpy arm but it got better.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I started building a base north of the Hub. Holy Nation shows up and says it is "prayer time," chastises me for not having my prayer book, and forces me to go through a long dialogue sequence. Okay then.

If they keep the bandits away I'll pray all they want.

E X A C T L Y.

The machinists do the same thing to keep them at a distance. I know because one of them confessed this to me.

If they think they will intimidate me in my own outpost they got another thing coming.

 

[Zombra]

Question, did they ever get storefronts working? I was all excited to set up a shop and sell stuff to passersby.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Question, did they ever get storefronts working? I was all excited to set up a shop and sell stuff to passersby.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/0/540731691164017470/

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Question, did they ever get storefronts working? I was all excited to set up a shop and sell stuff to passersby.

I thought it would let me sell weapons at a retail markup but no dice. You can run a restaurant or bar though.

 

[Zanzoken]

In my experience you only need to automate mining, they will auto-haul to the nearest storage on their own. You do need the storage however.

I set up in Squin and started auto-mining copper while training and researching my team. I tried to set up weaponsmithing but without a source of iron plates, the products are worth less than the materials with my low skill. Ah well.

Weaponsmithing is harder to get going in the beginning, so I usually start with armor. You can get skins for free from animals and process them into leather, then craft into leather armor. Grab a Scorchlander or two for smiths and you'll be cranking out good quality in no time, and as a bonus, the skills you gain making light armor transition seamlessly to heavy armor if you decide to go that route.

Specialist quality armor is worth lots of money, which will afford you the ability to buy iron plates and shift your focus to weapons. You need steel bars to craft the highest quality, which are more expensive, but I believe you can get pretty far up the tech tree with just iron. By that point you'll have gear on par or better than most factions in the game.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Where can I recruit scorchlanders? Haven't seen any yet.

 

[Zanzoken]

The main flaw of the game is the griding, because you need to do the same tasks over and over to improve. It's a learn by use system that reminds you of Oblivion, and this is not a compliment.

....

My advice to anyone on the fence about the game is don't pigeonhole your character in doing one repeative task before you explored the game world a little bit. It kills the interest. Try new things and take risks. If the many mechanics don't compensate the griding part, the game is not for you.

It's true that there will always be times when you need to grind, but as you get more experienced with the game you'll figure out shortcuts. For example, I was able to develop my new character from a Slave with no money or skills to a reasonably wealthy and competent Thief in 5 to 10 hours of gameplay. And although I have around 200 hours of playtime total, I wouldn't really consider myself a Kenshi expert. The game is just that deep.

Your advice is spot on though. I think a lot of people don't know what to do in the beginning, so they pick at a copper node for a few hundred cats a day and think that is all there is to the game. But making money really isn't that hard, and with that you can join the thieves and train to steal, or make use of mercenaries to help you get early combat experience. The opportunities are there for the taking once you know where to look.

 

[Zanzoken]

Where can I recruit scorchlanders? Haven't seen any yet.

If you are in Squin then check the Waystation west of town. I always run across at least one there, usually two.

I know you can also get one for free in Mongrel (she's a unique), but that's a pretty good hike and make sure you have enough athletics to outrun the fogmen.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Ran to Mongrel, hired Shryke, Crumblejon, Beep, and INFINITE WINGWANG

 

[curry]

I had very low expectations and the game managed to blow my mind. I'm simply amazed how much fun this completely shit-looking game turned out to be. Highly recommended!

 

[Talby]

I'm doing pretty well so far. I recruited two extra people in the Hub, and made some early money mining copper to buy food and equipment. I made the mistake of building a small house outside town before I realized you can buy the destroyed ones in town. Not a big deal as building materials are not too expensive. I will make another trip to the other town, Quin (?) to stock up more and get a shop running in town.

 

[toro]

Damn. I'm installing it.

 

[Alienman]

Music is great too. So good I bought the soundtrack on Steam. But you can find it here:



"Main theme" is fantastic. Other songs are good too, but works much better in the actual game, since it only plays snippets of them. That Ry Cooder-esque pling plong when you are wandering through the desert. Love it.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

made some early money mining copper to buy food

I did this too. In Squin, you can also steal some food in the bar. The cheapest route though is to attack animals that are moving alone or in pack, and then run to the gate to let the guards kill them for you. You will collect a ton of raw meat, which you can cook using a campfire that costs nothing. This will provide you with abundant source of dry meat. No need to buy food for a long time.

On second consideration, 4 people was really not enough to start a town with, although a bunch of "Nomads" showed up and started patrolling the area, there is just too much labor. I'm going back to an earlier save to build up more recruits.

IMO the best investment you can make early on is on people, cooper store and pack bags. No armour, no research, just people. You can hire even more people with the money they make, and so on. In no time you will have a team of 10 or 20 people. Power in numbers. There are also some special companions that want to join you for free. In Squin you will find a female shek warrior offering her services.

 

[oscar]

The escaped slave start is fittingly gruelling. Having a lot of fun with it compared to the wanderer or sword-background. Getting out of that Holy Nation slave quarry was a nightmare. Ended up going fuck it and left the second character there to tie up the guards giving my first character enough time to escape. Bros still stuck labouring there while I've become a wealthy thief..

The battle was far from over even once you're out of the camp though. My shaven head and lack of clothing meant Holy Nation guards could ID me as a runaway so had to avoid all their towns and head south. Was a damn near run thing of starvation before I arrived at the Hub. I only managed to stay alive by sneaking into Holy Nation farmsteads on the way at night and robbing their houses for scraps of food. Even then my guy collapsed a few times. Still when I made it I'd gotten to about strength 15 and 20 athleteics. from hauling all high tech loot from the ruins nearby the prison camp (though it damn near cost me my life with the slow movement speed and additional food demands of all that encumbrance).

Arriving in town with 15k worth of loot let me join the Shinobis and buy myself some good ninja gear. Beat up some bar thugs and training my skills.. One day I'm gonna return to that prison camp and liberate my bro whose stuck there toiling!

 

[Talby]

made some early money mining copper to buy food

I did this too. In Squin, you can also steal some food in the bar. The cheapest route though is to attack animals that are moving alone or in pack, and then run to the gate to let the guards kill them for you. You will collect a ton of raw meat, which you can cook using a campfire that costs nothing. This will provide you with abundant source of dry meat. No need to buy food for a long time.

Thanks for the tip, this worked like a charm. Would you say buying a house in Squin is worthwhile? I have a small place in the Hub but the shops in Squin is much better stocked, plus more guards. It's also getting dangerous doing supply runs from one to the other because of bandit patrols.

Spoilered screenshots of a little adventure I had;

Spoiler

So I got into a bar fight and beat some dudes, and found they all had bounties. So I started hauling them to Squin to see if they would pay me for bringing them in. Problem is they were all mortally wounded. So, I drop one and tell my medic to heal him up just enough to survive being carried to Squin for the bounty. Only he wakes up as I drop him on the ground.

This fucker is naked and hours from death, and he wants to keep fighting.

The balls on this motherfucker. He's naked, unarmed, has a horrible gut wound and his left arm is broken and flailing around the place.

Oh, and it's 4 vs 1. I told three of my men to stand down and let him duke it out one on one. He went down on the first swing. If nothing else, he had guts.

 

[vazha]

Squin is a really easy place to start. Get money by mining and picking fights with bandits and critters that wonder by. You won't be able to beat up anything at first but you can run back to town and let the guards win the fight for you. Sell everything you loot until you have enough money to buy a longhouse. It's a lot cheaper to repair a damaged house than to buy an intact one.

Now get some recruits. You want a greenlander for research and a couple of scorchlanders for crafting. The rest I usually use Shek. Build a research bench and start with storage and leatherworking tech. Take the skins from any garru and goats you kill and convert those to leather, then convert the leather to light armor. This will increase your armor crafting pretty fast -- you want to get it to 80 so you can build top tier armor -- and also generate a lot of money as the quality of gear increases.

You can train your recruits in attack and strength without putting them in danger. There are training dummies in the police station for attack and you can build strength by filling a person's inventory with iron ore and having them carry someone (either an ally or a dead body). I usually train attack to about 12 (you can go to 15 but it's prohibitively slow) and strength to about 35.

Once you 6-8 guys with their basic training completed and some weapons, you can start trying to fight some. I recommend not equipping any armor -- you want to take damage because this increases toughness, which is quite important. Start with the easiest enemies and work your way up, and run back to town for help from the guards when you are getting wrecked.

I'll stop there since this post is getting lengthy. This strategy is quite conservative, takes some time, and isn't always the most interesting -- but you can use it to develop a solid team and resources while learning the game. After a few hours you will be strong and well-equipped enough to handle yourself out in the wild, and from there the game really opens up.

Thank you good sire. People like you make Codex a better place.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Would you say buying a house in Squin is worthwhile? I have a small place in the Hub but the shops in Squin is much better stocked, plus more guards. It's also getting dangerous doing supply runs from one to the other because of bandit patrols.

Yep. You can have camping beds to let horribly wounded people heal, training dummies for new recruits, a safe place to store expensive stuff you don't want to sell in the moment, etc.

So I got into a bar fight and beat some dudes, and found they all had bounties. So I started hauling them to Squin to see if they would pay me for bringing them in. Problem is they were all mortally wounded. So, I drop one and tell my medic to heal him up just enough to survive being carried to Squin for the bounty.

Did you got them bounties or what? The only place I know that pays for bounties is far away in the united cities, but I didn't collect any. I think I'm the only know who didn't get into a bar fight.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Music is great too. So good I bought the soundtrack on Steam. But you can find it here:



"Main theme" is fantastic. Other songs are good too, but works much better in the actual game, since it only plays snippets of them. That Ry Cooder-esque pling plong when you are wandering through the desert. Love it.

This one is my favorite.



The art is not bad either.

 

[Talby]

Did you got them bounties or what? The only place I know that pays for bounties is far away in the united cities, but I didn't collect any. I think I'm the only know who didn't got into a bar fight.

Unfortunately no, the police at Squin wouldn't give me the bounty for them. (no dialogue option or anything) I'm guessing it's because the men I captured were wanted in the Hub, and the Squin authorities didn't care, but IDK.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

How did you get into a bar fight, Talby? It's a dialogue option that triggers the conflict?

 

[Talby]

How did you get into a bar fight, Talby? It's a dialogue option that triggers the conflict?

Yeah, there are a few thugs in the Hub bar, and if you choose an aggressive dialogue option they'll fight you. It counts as them attacking you, so guards will join in and help and you still get to loot them after.

 

[toro]

This game is hard to love.

Spoiler

This was a gang....

... and this was the result.

After I've sold their equipment I bought this.