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

[PlayerEmers]

One question, is there a way to automatically see what NPC you can interact with.

Nope. There is only the ALT key for building signs and objects. Highlighting objects is good in town when you want to steal stuff, outside town is useful for looting stuff from dead people and animal nests.
You need to hover the mouse over every NPC to check who you can talk to.

But something worth noting about npcs: the majority of interactible npcs are inside buildings (shops and special buildings such as police, faction headquarters and bars) or very close to the entrance of buildings/cities. The only few exceptions (that I can think of right now, might have forgotten a few) of npcs you can talk to outside of buildings are roaming merchants, npcs that want to threaten you (and guards that check your backpack for ilegal stuff), mercenaries that sometimes can be spotted outside bars and a few npcs that you can recruit (which have unique names).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

There is no wrong way to play Kenshi, everything is viable. At least eventually.

Sometimes I forget people play Kenshi without building a base.

Running around solo and light armor runs the risk of getting knocked out in two hits and being carried off by cannibals or being enslaved. Though that can still be fun in it's own way and is arguably Kenshi's most unique gameplay experience.

My advice is in response to all the turbo-leveling strategies most people tend to post, which are desperately tedious and un fun IMO. A heavy armor squad obviates the most common risks and just lets you play the game normally. Also in my current game my main squad is half heavy armor and half crossbows, without the armor I'd kill all my own guys with friendly fire.

One question, is there a way to automatically see what NPC you can interact with.

Nope. There is only the ALT key for building signs and objects. Highlighting objects is good in town when you want to steal stuff, outside town is useful for looting stuff from dead people and animal nests.
You need to hover the mouse over every NPC to check who you can talk to.

But something worth noting about npcs: the majority of interactible npcs are inside buildings (shops and special buildings such as police, faction headquarters and bars) or very close to the entrance of buildings/cities. The only few exceptions (that I can think of right now, might have forgotten a few) of npcs you can talk to outside of buildings are roaming merchants, npcs that want to threaten you (and guards that check your backpack for ilegal stuff), mercenaries that sometimes can be spotted outside bars and a few npcs that you can recruit (which have unique names).

Yeah, it's only worth checking for people to interact with inside bars. Shopkeepers are obvious as are police stations and faction VIPs. Everyone else is background noise.

 

[Kruyurk]

But something worth noting about npcs: the majority of interactible npcs are inside buildings (shops and special buildings such as police, faction headquarters and bars) or very close to the entrance of buildings/cities. The only few exceptions (that I can think of right now, might have forgotten a few) of npcs you can talk to outside of buildings are roaming merchants, npcs that want to threaten you (and guards that check your backpack for ilegal stuff), mercenaries that sometimes can be spotted outside bars and a few npcs that you can recruit (which have unique names).

Some friendly NPCs can be found outside town, usually they look like small diplodocus in bands of 4-5, you can spot them from a distance with their long necks. BruceVC, If you talk to them, they can tell you some very useful information about the area you are in, and even give you hints about hidden loot.

 

[TheDarkUrge]

Is this game any good? I've been tempted to try it for a while.

Yeah it's pretty good. Even if you dont like the combat or basebuilding there's a lot of stuff to just wander into that's pretty neat. You can definitely have fun just sneaking around and trying not to die.

 

[BruceVC]

But something worth noting about npcs: the majority of interactible npcs are inside buildings (shops and special buildings such as police, faction headquarters and bars) or very close to the entrance of buildings/cities. The only few exceptions (that I can think of right now, might have forgotten a few) of npcs you can talk to outside of buildings are roaming merchants, npcs that want to threaten you (and guards that check your backpack for ilegal stuff), mercenaries that sometimes can be spotted outside bars and a few npcs that you can recruit (which have unique names).

Some friendly NPCs can be found outside town, usually they look like small diplodocus in bands of 4-5, you can spot them from a distance with their long necks. BruceVC, If you talk to them, they can tell you some very useful information about the area you are in, and even give you hints about hidden loot.

Oh I get the joke, I assume you mean beak things

I have had some bad encounters with them already, I killed 2 of them and then I was annihilated by 3 more. So I will avoid them until later

 

[ERYFKRAD]

But something worth noting about npcs: the majority of interactible npcs are inside buildings (shops and special buildings such as police, faction headquarters and bars) or very close to the entrance of buildings/cities. The only few exceptions (that I can think of right now, might have forgotten a few) of npcs you can talk to outside of buildings are roaming merchants, npcs that want to threaten you (and guards that check your backpack for ilegal stuff), mercenaries that sometimes can be spotted outside bars and a few npcs that you can recruit (which have unique names).

Some friendly NPCs can be found outside town, usually they look like small diplodocus in bands of 4-5, you can spot them from a distance with their long necks. BruceVC, If you talk to them, they can tell you some very useful information about the area you are in, and even give you hints about hidden loot.

Oh I get the joke, I assume you mean beak things

I have had some bad encounters with them already, I killed them 2 of them and then I was annihilated by 3 more. So I will avoid them until later

Nix dude.

Spoiler

He's talking about the totally real humans who are not robots in any way or form.

 

[BruceVC]

Another great design of the game is how the Devs created such different geographical regions with there own unique characteristics and you can see this when you explore and travel like I have been doing

And then the faction control just enhance this around there specific lore

I have been to the Fog Islands and discovered Mongrel which I like, the deserts of the NE and then last night I came across the Deadlands and the Black City and then you face the danger of acid rain

But its really well done around different and unique regions to experience

 

[BruceVC]

There is no wrong way to play Kenshi, everything is viable. At least eventually.

Sometimes I forget people play Kenshi without building a base.

Running around solo and light armor runs the risk of getting knocked out in two hits and being carried off by cannibals or being enslaved. Though that can still be fun in it's own way and is arguably Kenshi's most unique gameplay experience.

My advice is in response to all the turbo-leveling strategies most people tend to post, which are desperately tedious and un fun IMO. A heavy armor squad obviates the most common risks and just lets you play the game normally. Also in my current game my main squad is half heavy armor and half crossbows, without the armor I'd kill all my own guys with friendly fire.

Absolutely, there have several posts around avoiding exploits to raise skills because they will destroy the fun and I agree with that

The way Im doing it is the fun and organic way. I have a 7 man party and I raising my combat skills in normal combat and I realize that when some of your party members get knocked unconscious thats builds toughness

And the best thing about my approach is I can see my combat effectiveness noticeably increasing because I am winning battles that use to kill me ..bandits dont scare me as much anymore

I have also joined the Shinobi faction and Im training lockpicking because I see myself looting to gain wealth. And I like there discounts on items I use

 

[kangaxx]

What's the max party size? Can I hire my own mini private army?

 

[PlayerEmers]

What's the max party size? Can I hire my own mini private army?

Vanilla is limited to 30 controlled characters but there are mods that increase the limit.

 

[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"?

 

[darkpatriot]

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"?

Only in the natural sense that with more people fights won't last as long and each individual does less fighting. It is a raise stats by use progression system rather than exp and leveling system (even though individual skills have exp and levels).

When there are more experienced fighters and less experienced fighters mixed together, the more experienced ones also tend to do more of the fighting since they are quicker to attack. So weaker characters get less chance to fight and will gain skill slower than they would otherwise.

 

[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

 

[Galdred]

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"?

It's more of a learn by doing approach, so having more party members would mean that each of them gets to hit the opponent less, so it is shared in a way.

 

[mondblut]

What's the max party size? Can I hire my own mini private army?

Mini? 30 vanilla, 256 modded, unlimited cracked. Who said Kenshi is not a Total War game?

 

[mondblut]

It's more of a learn by doing approach, so having more party members would mean that each of them gets to hit the opponent less, so it is shared in a way.

Just build more skeleton beds with more crippled training dummy robots to put in, dummy!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

When there are more experienced fighters and less experienced fighters mixed together, the more experienced ones also tend to do more of the fighting since they are quicker to attack. So weaker characters get less chance to fight and will gain skill slower than they would otherwise.

Eh, I have a combat team of 21 guys in my current game. I regularly added newbies with all 1s alongside the veterans without leveling them first, and now they are all roughly the same stats.

Again, there's no need to engage in separate training or focused powerleveling if you don't want to. I don't even use training dummies; waste of time.

Armor, armor, armor. That's all you need.

 

[darkpatriot]

When there are more experienced fighters and less experienced fighters mixed together, the more experienced ones also tend to do more of the fighting since they are quicker to attack. So weaker characters get less chance to fight and will gain skill slower than they would otherwise.

Eh, I have a combat team of 21 guys in my current game. I regularly added newbies with all 1s alongside the veterans without leveling them first, and now they are all roughly the same stats.

Again, there's no need to engage in separate training or focused powerleveling if you don't want to. I don't even use training dummies; waste of time.

Armor, armor, armor. That's all you need.

That's because higher level stats take longer to raise, so they do equalize somewhat at higher levels. So that gap might express itself as a difference of 1 and 50 at first, but will normalize to like 60 and 65 later on. Which isn't a huge difference. I don't advocate for the need for any training at all either, just play and have fun.

In my experience they they never do catch up fully though, but that is also because I switch people over to new weapons once they get skilled enough in one. My more experienced guys have several more weapons learned than the newer guys, putting them quite a bit ahead of them.

 

[Kruyurk]

It would be nice if veterans could train novices, for example sparing for combat skills or some sort of apprenticeship for crafting.

I don't know if that is planned for Kenshi 2, but it would be really cool if more interactions between your characters were possible. Right now it is limited to patching up and carrying injured teammates, but these kind of interactions really make your group of people look like a team. Same with the occasional party banters.
This could apply outside of combat but also during combat, as fighting as a group is different from doing it solo.
I am dreaming out loud, most probably none of this is planned, but I think a way forward for party-based RPGs is more interactions between characters, done in a systematic way. RimWorld does this, with every character having an opinion of others.

Another thing that would fit Kenshi really well would be simulating fear/morale. I want to see a group of bandits flee in terror when they realize you don't mess with the calm fedora nerd with a katana. Sweet revenge on the bullies at last.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

My grand Kenshi 2 Wishlist:

Combat
-Add more variety to weapon categories. All weapons should work like martial arts, learning new moves as it levels up
-Make weapon types more distinct. Something like Katanas get the ability to block arrows with a defense roll, or hackers get a chance to deal extra limb damage, etc. Not five different flavors of 'bonus damage to animals.'
-More stances. Gain speed at the cost of accuracy, or armor pen at the cost of speed.
-Weapons could have unique stances, like Iaijutsu for katana, disarm for jittes, trip for polearms, etc.
-Coup de grace stance/modal. Character walks around and finishes enemies. Slow and leaves you vulnerable. Enemies could use this too so you would have to focus those guys down asap. Thought this is sort of against the idea of "losing is not the end" design style, I really hate guys getting up over and over again while I'm looting.

Economy/Simulation
-I'm not keen on having weapons and armor degrade but I'm surprised they don't already. Players shouldn't be able to find one sword and use it forever, unless it's a Meitou
-Selling weapons and armor should not make you rich. Something more like the Underrail system, where shops only buy what they can sell. A heart protector is trash armor, no matter how well made. The price should reflect that.
-AI squads should protect their loot and get mad if you try to take it
-Ancient tech should be worth more. Artifacts should have unique effects and uses that would make selling them tough. Kinda like how artifacts work in Stalker. Good source of money but also valuable character upgrades.
-Shops should have some kind of economic rating. Stealing from a store repeatedly would lower the rating, eventually closing it. Patronizing a shop over time could improve its stock quality
-Allow players to own and run shops, or the player could become a shop's supplier. Other guilds would not like this. Low end stores could only support low end stock at first (you don't sell Gucci at wal-mart). A higher level shop would be at risk of greater theft/rivalry.
-Stores should have caravans. Caravans could have their own companies/guilds, and a plausible (if not fully simulated) supply chain. If the player loots the regular caravan going to a city, the shops should suffer.
-Let the player run a caravan. Deliver goods/slaves from one town to another. Deal with bandits along the way, or rival companies.
-Let the player run a slave business. Capture, sell, train, etc. The player would have to deal with anti-slavers, slave escapes and revolts, and possibly other factions trying to free their people
-Squadmates should demand wages and become more expensive as they become more skilled. It should be challenging to run a full base of free people and not resort to slave labor.

Bases
-Factions should expand and build their own outposts, fight each other over outposts, and destroy or occupy outposts. Losing your base to a faction should either have them occupy it and gain its benefits, or level it.
-Unique lords/named squads (ala Mount and Blade) the player can work with/against
-Escalating raids. The player should not be able to sit behind their walls in total safety forever. Right now you pretty much have to voluntarily piss off the local faction to get bigger raids. The faction's tax demands should become more onerous over time and/or they should straight up demand you hand over the base because they can't have such a powerful rival under their noses.
-Other non-base attacks. Enemies could lie in wait and ambush you as you travel.
-Enemy bases should have their own supply caravans you can intercept to weaken them (random squads should have actual food in general).
-Food should not be so easy to make, farms should be bigger and less productive, produce should spoil over time.
-More resources and more complex crafting chains. I should not be able to build a giant windmill out of a few hunks of copper. Productive buildings should degrade over time and require maintenance.

World
-I like the world size but it needs more points of interest. Actual dungeons, bigger ruins, bigger city complexes, etc. More interesting (and dangerous) places to find and explore
-Foraging, hunting, and tracking available as skills
-More weird stuff like acid rain and sky lasers
-More joinable factions like the Shinobi thieves with similar benefits
-Factions should have open bounties or marques, like paying you for every squad of a rival you destroy
-More ways to get past walls and into towns.

QoL
-Improve UI. Highlight NPCs with dialogue. Give a heads up when squads are near (this could be tied to stats)
-Let me open everyone's inventory at once, transfer items quicker, easily share food/medpacks/ammo etc.
-A way to auto-resupply characters with food/medpacks/ammo

 

[BruceVC]

My grand Kenshi 2 Wishlist:

Combat
-Add more variety to weapon categories. All weapons should work like martial arts, learning new moves as it levels up
-Make weapon types more distinct. Something like Katanas get the ability to block arrows with a defense roll, or hackers get a chance to deal extra limb damage, etc. Not five different flavors of 'bonus damage to animals.'
-More stances. Gain speed at the cost of accuracy, or armor pen at the cost of speed.
-Weapons could have unique stances, like Iaijutsu for katana, disarm for jittes, trip for polearms, etc.
-Coup de grace stance/modal. Character walks around and finishes enemies. Slow and leaves you vulnerable. Enemies could use this too so you would have to focus those guys down asap. Thought this is sort of against the idea of "losing is not the end" design style, I really hate guys getting up over and over again while I'm looting.

Economy/Simulation
-I'm not keen on having weapons and armor degrade but I'm surprised they don't already. Players shouldn't be able to find one sword and use it forever, unless it's a Meitou
-Selling weapons and armor should not make you rich. Something more like the Underrail system, where shops only buy what they can sell. A heart protector is trash armor, no matter how well made. The price should reflect that.
-AI squads should protect their loot and get mad if you try to take it
-Ancient tech should be worth more. Artifacts should have unique effects and uses that would make selling them tough. Kinda like how artifacts work in Stalker. Good source of money but also valuable character upgrades.
-Shops should have some kind of economic rating. Stealing from a store repeatedly would lower the rating, eventually closing it. Patronizing a shop over time could improve its stock quality
-Allow players to own and run shops, or the player could become a shop's supplier. Other guilds would not like this. Low end stores could only support low end stock at first (you don't sell Gucci at wal-mart). A higher level shop would be at risk of greater theft/rivalry.
-Stores should have caravans. Caravans could have their own companies/guilds, and a plausible (if not fully simulated) supply chain. If the player loots the regular caravan going to a city, the shops should suffer.
-Let the player run a caravan. Deliver goods/slaves from one town to another. Deal with bandits along the way, or rival companies.
-Let the player run a slave business. Capture, sell, train, etc. The player would have to deal with anti-slavers, slave escapes and revolts, and possibly other factions trying to free their people
-Squadmates should demand wages and become more expensive as they become more skilled. It should be challenging to run a full base of free people and not resort to slave labor.

Bases
-Factions should expand and build their own outposts, fight each other over outposts, and destroy or occupy outposts. Losing your base to a faction should either have them occupy it and gain its benefits, or level it.
-Unique lords/named squads (ala Mount and Blade) the player can work with/against
-Escalating raids. The player should not be able to sit behind their walls in total safety forever. Right now you pretty much have to voluntarily piss off the local faction to get bigger raids. The faction's tax demands should become more onerous over time and/or they should straight up demand you hand over the base because they can't have such a powerful rival under their noses.
-Other non-base attacks. Enemies could lie in wait and ambush you as you travel.
-Enemy bases should have their own supply caravans you can intercept to weaken them (random squads should have actual food in general).
-Food should not be so easy to make, farms should be bigger and less productive, produce should spoil over time.
-More resources and more complex crafting chains. I should not be able to build a giant windmill out of a few hunks of copper. Productive buildings should degrade over time and require maintenance.

World
-I like the world size but it needs more points of interest. Actual dungeons, bigger ruins, bigger city complexes, etc. More interesting (and dangerous) places to find and explore
-Foraging, hunting, and tracking available as skills
-More weird stuff like acid rain and sky lasers
-More joinable factions like the Shinobi thieves with similar benefits
-Factions should have open bounties or marques, like paying you for every squad of a rival you destroy
-More ways to get past walls and into towns.

QoL
-Improve UI. Highlight NPCs with dialogue. Give a heads up when squads are near (this could be tied to stats)
-Let me open everyone's inventory at once, transfer items quicker, easily share food/medpacks/ammo etc.
-A way to auto-resupply characters with food/medpacks/ammo

Great list of ideas. I can already agree with some of your suggestions and Im only 55 hours into the game

Some of the points you mentioned are addressed with mods but you talking about Kenshi 2 vanilla game

 

[mondblut]

My grand Kenshi 2 Wishlist:

All that effort and no mention of fucking FORMATIONS individually per squad? Or teaching dumbfucks NOT to shoot their eagle's cross when a friendly is standing directly in front of them?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

All that effort and no mention of fucking FORMATIONS individually per squad?

Oh yeah, forgot that one. Drag-formations ala Total War is a must.

 

[PlayerEmers]

started a new run, this time around im doing a hivers only run (exiled hiver start)

i usually go with the flow/actually roleplay and dont metagame much, but since im recruiting only hivers, the first thing I did was go straight to stern desert for enslaved hivers (i also think its easier to find recruitable hivers on UC bars, not sure if its coded that way or im always lucky to find at least 1 or 2 hivers there)

i think my main goal is to dethrone the southern hive queen, kill king and make my home on the south and maybe pay a visit to the hive that exiled my original hiver "Sneed"
(also no ranged weapons because you can cheese so much shit with xbows)

this time i installed a few mods that fix and add world states, so i can mess around with the other factions too just to see what happens

 

[BruceVC]

Im 60 hours into Kenshi and its time for my first detailed " newbie Kenshi review "

Firslty Im loving the game and its highly recommended. You just need to learn mechanics and what the game is and what it isnt

I was considering quitting after 2-3 hours because I didnt really understand the design, mechanics and point. When people say its " open-world and sandbox " I misunderstood what that really means and how effectively that is a part of the game

But you can choose a myriad of different roles, professions and activities and this applies to the decisions you make. So you can decide to be a slaver, bounty hunter, trader or get involved in factional wars. You dont have classes and whatever you decide to do there are several things you have to do and always be aware of and the 2 most important considerations are raising your combat skills and finding ways to generate money because everything costs money

Combat for me is the best and most rewarding part of the game, especially as you become more skilled and you can defeat powerful enemies

I am focusing on exploration and bounty hunting. I have a 12 man party and I have dedicated teams of 2 people to skills like lockpicking, crafting and healing. Everyone in my party can fight but not everyone is an effective healer

I have bought a property in Worlds Edge, I like the ethos and views of the Tech Hunters and they control this city. I also use this property for research, training and crafting, I havent really got into crafting in a detailed way but I imagine I will

My focus is finding ruins and looting them and then completing bounties.

The exploration part of the game often yields random, interesting and rewarding places to discover . I came across the hidden HQ of the Flotsam Ninjas, the creatures and forgotten ruins of the Leviathan Coast and other sites that make exploration worthwhile

In one ruin in one building behind a locked door I came across a high level NPC who I could have extorted for money but instead he joined my party and he has become an invaluable combat addition because his melee attack is 60 and my party was around 35-45. This is just another example of how exploring gives you Easter Eggs and outcomes that are very beneficial to your party

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