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

[The_Mask]

This "review" feels like an incomplete let's play, rather than a review. But it's cute. And feels like it's coming from his heart, so...

 

[Bastardchops]

 

[Fedora Master]

Irks me to no end that you can grow weed and brew moonshine but not consume either.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Also, good mods? For now it feels like game is perfectly balanced - mod for faster exp gain isn't needed, all comes naturally.

You should need only a few mods for Kenshi: a better map (there are several possibilities), Let's Talk (more comments from squad members), and more world-state changes (Reactive World or the newer Living World).

And the Black UI

This seems quite nice too https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/224

Sounds like Increased grind mod...

 

[Van-d-all]

For now it feels like game is perfectly balanced - mod for faster exp gain isn't needed, all comes naturally.

The game is barely balanced at all. It may seem hard early on, because you start with nothing and even trash mobs can mop the floor with you, but once you set up base production you'll notice how absurd return ratios are. There sure is some "fluff" balancing like food being super expansive, but since resources are infinite, finding the right item to sell at the right place is pretty much like printing money. Hell, you can just linger around a combat zone

Spoiler

like Drin

and live off looting corpses for ages.

That said, there's plethora of mods trying to address the issue, but everyone seems to focus on a different thing, as such I wouldn't recommend any one of them. Just play the game as you do, and address issues as you find them, quite likely you'll just modify them yourself. FCS (the editor) is quite wanky but easy to learn and change virtually anything you want. In a way, what makes this game so great, is that like in Rimworld, you can just tweak it little by little as you pour your time into it.

Ultimately, once you get comfy (or bored) with the vanilla you can try Genesis, it's a major overhaul so features are hit or miss, but overall I like it (after 300h of ~vanilla) because it ads some interesting sub-factions along their equipment and some actual world consistency like farms, peasants (outside Holy Nation that is) and other basic society elements.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

buy books from a guy
look at them, nothing I can do with them
sell books back to guy
have 140 more coins than I started with

hmmmm

 

[mondblut]

Sounds like Increased grind mod...

Sounds like

Spoiler

mod.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

For now it feels like game is perfectly balanced - mod for faster exp gain isn't needed, all comes naturally.

The game is barely balanced at all. It may seem hard early on, because you start with nothing and even trash mobs can mop the floor with you, but once you set up base production you'll notice how absurd return ratios are. There sure is some "fluff" balancing like food being super expansive, but since resources are infinite, finding the right item to sell at the right place is pretty much like printing money. Hell, you can just linger around a combat zone

Spoiler

like Drin

and live off looting corpses for ages.

That said, there's plethora of mods trying to address the issue, but everyone seems to focus on a different thing, as such I wouldn't recommend any one of them. Just play the game as you do, and address issues as you find them, quite likely you'll just modify them yourself. FCS (the editor) is quite wanky but easy to learn and change virtually anything you want. In a way, what makes this game so great, is that like in Rimworld, you can just tweak it little by little as you pour your time into it.

Ultimately, once you get comfy (or bored) with the vanilla you can try Genesis, it's a major overhaul so features are hit or miss, but overall I like it (after 300h of ~vanilla) because it ads some interesting sub-factions along their equipment and some actual world consistency like farms, peasants (outside Holy Nation that is) and other basic society elements.

Why bother with setting up production if you can just steal stuff from worlds end weapon shop and get infinite money? Its not like you can produce anything better than is sold in shops. In fact, the stuff you produce is worse...

 

[Van-d-all]

Why bother with setting up production if you can just steal stuff from worlds end weapon shop and get infinite money? Its not like you can produce anything better than is sold in shops. In fact, the stuff you produce is worse...

To mass produce masterwork equipment for the entire party and take over the world, what else?

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Why bother with setting up production if you can just steal stuff from worlds end weapon shop and get infinite money? Its not like you can produce anything better than is sold in shops. In fact, the stuff you produce is worse...

To mass produce masterwork equipment for the entire party and take over the world, what else?

But you get better quality equipment faster if you just rob World's End and buy stuff at robot town/secret robot merchant in the river. The only reason I considered building a base is shooting some enemies with harpoons, though I never got to it...

 

[Van-d-all]

But you get better quality equipment faster if you just rob World's End and buy stuff at robot town/secret robot merchant in the river. The only reason I considered building a base is shooting some enemies with harpoons, though I never got to it...

I mean in a way that actually seems earned aka playing the game. And stealing shit from Armour King is pure cheese, might've just Cheat Engined it.

 

[The_Mask]

The game is barely balanced at all.

I know. Isn't it great? :D

 

[mondblut]

But you get better quality equipment faster if you just rob World's End and buy stuff at robot town/secret robot merchant in the river. The only reason I considered building a base is shooting some enemies with harpoons, though I never got to it...

Buying full sets of very specific masterwork/edge 2 equipment for 256 600+ characters, while probably doable, must be awfully boring. At least making those can be automated.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

But you get better quality equipment faster if you just rob World's End and buy stuff at robot town/secret robot merchant in the river. The only reason I considered building a base is shooting some enemies with harpoons, though I never got to it...

Buying full sets of very specific masterwork/edge 2 equipment for 256 600+ characters, while probably doable, must be awfully boring. At least making those can be automated.

Edge 2 aren't worth buying. I equip my team with edge 3 (bought/stolen) than go hunting for legendary cross level equipment. Its faster than making a base which can produce edge 2, but it does feel like cheating.

 

[mondblut]

Edge 2 aren't worth buying.

You can't make edge 3, hence...

I equip my team with edge 3 (bought/stolen) than go hunting for legendary cross level equipment. Its faster than making a base which can produce edge 2, but it does feel like cheating.

You probably don't have too many characters

 

[Zanzoken]

The game's economy is completely trivialized when you realize...

Legit spoiler. Don't read unless you are already experienced with the game.

You can extract an infinite amount of iron ore from iron nodes, for free.

You can then hammer that iron ore into armor plates.

With proper research, you can then use those armor plates (along with a bit of fabric) to make heavy armor. Once you have someone who can make Standard quality or better (which doesn't take long) they can routinely produce items worth hundreds / thousands of cats.

All of this can be done from the safety and comfort of a town, like Squin for example. You just need to first make enough money to buy a house and the research materials needed to start making heavy armor.

Within just a week or two of in-game time you can have a squad of 7 people -- one smith, two plate beaters, and four miners -- cranking out Heart Protectors around the clock for infinite money.

I am sure there are other approaches that are just as effective. This is just the first one I came up with when I was learning the game, and it's quick and reliable enough that I never bothered with anything else. You can set it all up in a single 3-hour play session if you know what you're doing.

That's why it's hard for me to play Kenshi now, after so many hours invested. You have to consciously refrain from utilizing all the easy exploits (i.e. LARP) or there's no challenge.

 

[Delterius]

i wonder if this can work

1 . make a quick super assassin character via the stealth exploit from being a slave
2 . kidnap one of the overpowered super samurai noble elites
3 . drop them naked and unconscious
4 . pay 100k for 'em and reload until they join you

(semi)instant super fighter man joins your party?

 

[mondblut]

i wonder if this can work

1 . make a quick super assassin character via the stealth exploit from being a slave
2 . kidnap one of the overpowered super samurai noble elites
3 . drop them naked and unconscious
4 . pay 100k for 'em and reload until they join you

(semi)instant super fighter man joins your party?

There is a hardcoded cap of 25 on stats for a slave to be recruitable, can't say for sure if it's an average or to every stat. Stick to reaver slaves. Or get recruitable prisoners or player slavery mods.

 

[Fenix]

Steal is piss easy, so I avoid that, ratiaonale is "I don't wan't to damage my repo with thee guys".
In that skleton sity I spent whole 150K and only bough 1 weapon - edge3 palcross, the rest are books&blueprints.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Yeah, when I played for the first time I wanted to run a stealthy character. After few hours I realized it's so easy to get crazy rich just by robbing all the shops over and over again every night. Would be cool if they introduced some sort of "additional guards" for at least few days after robbery or something, but stealth is so broken anyway that at some point you can steal under their noses so it wouldn't matter in a long run.

 

[polo]

Yeah, stealth is stupidly op. Quite useful to kidnap strong guys for training tho.

 

[Saduj]

In my current game with Living World mod, I turned Valamon in to the United Cities. Crab Raiders took over the Ark. Southern Hive took over the Reaver camps. Reavers were gone for a few months in game time.

Recently, they started spawning again - seemingly with more frequency than they did before I captured their leader. If I rest my characters overnight in Black Scratch , the guards get worn down by constant Grass Pirate and Reaver attacks to the point where they start getting knocked out. I've checked out the Ark and the Crab Raiders still seem to own it. But there was a weird static group of Reavers right outside The Ark that just stood there doing nothing until I killed them. The old Reaver camps are empty, having been purged of Southern Hivers a while ago.

Does anyone know what causes this? I'd be impressed if it was something along the lines of their having an new leader or Valamon escaping. But seems more like an annoying bug.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I'm sure those mods get updates from time to time with enemies escaping or respawning. Kind of like a leaderless band of ravagers or something now.

 

[Saduj]

Went to Brink to see if Valamon was still in jail and he was gone. Went back to the Ark and some of the static Reavers were still there. Sure enough, one of them was Valamon - I just didn't notice last time. He had a fresh bounty on his head and a 2nd Meitou longsword. Maybe this is a part of the mod that hasn't been fully fleshed out.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Hmm. I wonder if everyone can escape? Or did you perform some sort of world refresh / export?