Small Research Bench
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The Small Research Bench is the starting point for those wanting to access new types of technologies and buildings. While quickly replaced, it is necessary to advance your factions technology level (e.g. Tech Level II ) which will unlock other better Research Benches . Researching from multiple benches is possible and gives diminishing returns on the speed of research with every new bench used in the process.
Note: The Small Research Bench cannot be upgraded into Research Bench II .
Kenshi Guide
The Research Bench (in progress)
This guide is my tribute to Kenshi. I attempt to be as comprehensive as possible in regards to the mechanics of them game as well as strategies to play effectively and have fun.
Welcome to the Desert!
Greetings, wanderer! As soon as you choose an origin story and appearence for you (and perhaps your friends) you may be dropped near a bar in the city of Brink, near a camp full of cannibals, or hungover with slavers coming for you. You’ll have noticed the rather daunting amount of information has popped up on your screens. Rather than explain everying I’d suggest you hit ESC go to your options and read your control settings. If a keybinding seems interesting to you, press it and see if what pops up is useful to you. There’s also a helpful set of instructions in the bottom right of your screen to the left of the running man icon.
Making Cats
This refers to the process of making money in Kenshi, not the breeding of felines. Once the game starts you’ll notice that you have no money and everything you want costs money. As in many games, the most efficient way of making money at first is selling looted equipment. You loot equipment from the fallen at low risk and sell it at 100% profit. Pretty unglamourous. You’re essentially forced to be a bargain hunter at KO’ed & Dead’R’Us. Let’s assume you
Started out as the hobo with the broken arm . In this case you have no money and nothing of worth. You have two options. The first is roaming the wilds and luring bandits (Preferably Rust Bandits) to the nearest settlement. Once there, you hide and avoid combat unti everyone has been knocked out. If the Dust Bandit Boss had a bounty, you can turn him in for a profit. He’ll also have some good plate armor, a sabre, and some stylish shorts for you to loot. Each bandit has a heart protector to sell for 500 cats per piece. Kaching!
Your other option is to venture out to the nests of some of the beasts in Kenshi. This can be much riskier since a pack of dogs or beak things can easily kill your poor naked hobo with very little effort. My advice is to wait until the beak things go to sleep at night. Then, you can sneak in and collect the swords and leather that gather around their nests. Some of these will be quite heavy, especially if they’re high quality items. You’ll want to be careful to get out of there before they wake up because the last thing you want is to be caught overloaded with gear by a swarm of hungry beaks.
Once you have enough money to buy a backpack, you can begin a life as a trader.The two traders backpacks, medium and large, are fantastic for carrying large quantities of materials from city to city. Be careful not to weigh yourself down to the point that you will not be able to outrun bandits on your way to the next town! My personal rule of thumb is to buy everything in a town under 90% and sell in the next for over 95% You can pick whatever values you want, but I like to have my turnover of goods to remain quite high. This will be your fastest source of income. Once you have enough money you can start hiring new people and outfit them with backpacks and double your inventory! Eventually, you can start traveling in large caravans that can clear out all the bargain items from every store in the town. Using this gameplan you can go from broken hobo to Ballin’ hobo in no time at all.
Healthier Living in the Wasteland (Damage and Armor Explained)
The health and damage systems in Kenshi is complex and wonderful. I’m going to try to explain how it functions as best I can.
Health Your health in Kenshi can be thought of in terms of a system of body parts. Each body part has a value from -9999 to 100 that describe the working condition of that limb. For example 100 is a perfectly functional arm and -9999 is an arm that a leviathan has been jumping on until it is mushed and destroyed but somehow still floppily attached. You have 4 critical parts that must remain above not be damaged below 0 if you are to remain concious. You will also lose concious if your vitality level (Blood) drops below zero.
You will fall unconcious if: 1) Your Head/Chest/Stomach are struck to a value below 0 2) You bleed out and your Blood value drops below 0 3) You’re wearing Shackles and you are struck by an opponent
You will die if: 1) Your Head/Chest/Stomach are damaged to the value of -100 2) Your Blood value drops to a number greater than your maximum positive Blood Value
Your arms and legs can be damaged all the way to -9999. In most cases, your character will not survive since almost every blow does a certain amount of damage to your Blood. In most cases, damage that severe cannot be treated by any medical means. Even after medical treatment that destroyed limb will continue to cause your character to bleed eventually resulting in loss of conciousness and in most cases death. Your best bet for a character with a destroyed limb is to put him in a bed and hope for the best.
Unconciousness When you first start the game, you will eventually be knocked unconcious. When you are knocked unconcious, your character will be given a certain length of time before he will wake up. While he’s unconcious he can be picked up or looted. If picked up, your character will lie limp, and will not be able to perform any actions until put down. Your Toughness attribute will designate your KO point, KO timer, and the speed with which you recover. If you had a Toughness of 84, your KO point would be -84. That means that as long as your Head/Chest/Stomach didn’t get damaged below -84, your character will be able to wake up. If your Head/Chest/Stomach did get damaged below -84 then you slip into a recovery coma until all of those critical parts reach 0. If, when your KO timer runs out, your Blood is below 0, then you will enter a Bloodloss Coma and you will remain that way until your Blood reaches 0.
Above your health bars will be an overall health status Possible Statuses:
Normal – Healthy Slightly Wounded- Minor Damage Wounded- Moderate damage, probably bleeding Bleeding- Wounded with worrisome bleeding Limb Trauma- An arm or leg has taken extreme damage Crippled- Your Right Arm has reached 0, and you can no longer fight Unconcious(time)- You’ve been knocked out for (time) seconds Dying- You’ve been knocked out, won’t wake up, and will die unless treated Blood Loss KO- You were Unconcious and when (time) ended your blood was less than 0 Recover Coma- You were Unconcious and when (time) ended your Head/Chest/Stomach was below your KO point.
Stun Damage and Cutting Damage You will notice that when you recieve damage to a body part that bar will be split into three different colors. The first section in green will be the health condition of the limb. The second section in red will be the damage done to the limb by cuts. When treated, this red section will become yellow. The last section in black will be stun damage done by blunt weapons. This stun damage heals more quickly than the cut damage but cannot be treated by Medical supplies.
Toughness and Better Living One of your first questions might be, “I don’t really like bleeding out in the desert, how can I avoid that?” Well, little Timmy I have some great solutions for you! 1)Get hit some more. 2) When you get knocked out, return to the fight to get get hit even more! The primary way to avoid death in Kenshi will be your Toughness statistic. Your toughness will determine how much damage you take. When you first start a game, your toughness will be very low (0 to 10). You will have between -50% and -40% damage resistance. This works out like this:
(Raw Damage)-(Raw Damage*Damage Resistance)=Total Damage If RD is 30 and your damage resistance is -50% then: (30)-(30*-0.5)=45
You are take an additional 15 damage because you are nancyboy. Eventually you will reach greater levels of manliness. When your damage resistance reaches 0% you will take exactly raw damage. At higher levels you will become so tough that blows from your enemy no longer damage you as badly as they used to.
Wearing Your Helmet The second way to keep safe in this dangerous sandy world is to wear armor. The quality of an armor will determine the amount of raw damage it will reduce and convert into bruising and bleeding. Armor has many qualities, but the main one you’ll want to look at is Cutting and Blunt Protection as well as the Coverage of the armor. Coverage determines whether or not a strike will be blocked by the armor at all. If an armor has a stomach coverage of 50% then exactly half of strikes will be caught by the armor and the other half will land directly on your flesh. The %Stun damage modifier will decide how much cut damage is converted into stun damage. The armor damage reduction done will factor in like this:
Raw Cut Damage – (Armor Cut Reduction * Raw Cut Damage) = Overall Cut Damage
(Overall Cut Damage – (Overall Cut Damage * Stun Modifier)) = Total Cut Damage Overall Cut Damage * Stun Modifier = Total Blunt Damage
The calculation for Stun damage is more straightforward:
Raw Blunt Damage – (Armor Blunt Reduction * Raw Blunt Damage) = Total Blunt Damage
These final damage numbers are finally modified by your Damage Resistance before the green numbers show up on your screen.
Many weapons cause both Cut and Blunt damage so it’s best to be prepared. When you can afford it, I would suggest a Holy Chest Blate, Chainmail, or perhaps a Longcoat. You can decide the armor combinations that suit your style of play best.
Get Strong Your Blood level is determined by your Strength Statistic. A stronger swordsman in Kenshi is packed full of blood and can remain in combat longer before bleeding out. If you train your strength higher, you have a greater chance of survival and you can move more rapidly with heavy armor and inventory.
The Fragment Axe (Weapon Damage Explained)
This section will explain how Raw Damage is calculated. In a battle between two equally skilled (Same Attack and Defence) warriors the deciding factor will be the weapon chosen and the warriors familiarity with that weapon.
Katanas being the exception, weapon damage is broken into Cut and Blunt damage. Cut damage will require healing and will often inflict damage directly to the opponents Blood. Blunt damage cannot be healed and does no damage to Blood.
The Raw Damage from a weapon is simply
(Blunt Weapon Quality * User’s Weapon Skill) + (Cut Weapon Quality * User’s Weapon Skill) = (Raw Blunt Damage) + (Raw Cut Damage) = Total Raw Damage
Therefore a Fragment Axe with (0.5 Cutting, 2.9 Blunt Quality) wielded by a user of 10 Heavy Weapons skill will deal
(0.5 * 10) + (2.9 * 10) = 5 + 29 = 34
The Total Raw Damage caused by this swing is 34. They way the numbers will appear is 5+29
Most katanas have 0 blunt damage and will therefore do only Cut Damage which will appear as a single number.
It appears that all weapons will inflict a Raw Damage minimum of 15. Some weapons also function differently, having minimum damage numbers that are different than expected.
These numbers are a rough guide to approximately how much raw damage you’d be blasting out. If you’d like a more accurate one, simply pause your game in the middle of combat and hover your cursor over your strength and dexterity stats. Your raw blunt damage will appear in strength and your raw cutting damage will appear in dexterity.
A quick summary:
-Your statistics and attributes- Strength: Determines the speed with which you can swing a heavy weapon Dexterity: Determines the frequency of attacks with light weapons Weapon Skills: Determines your damage with a specific weapon type Melee Attack: Determines the probability that your attack will land Melee Defence: Determines the probability that you will block an incoming attack
-Weapon qualities- Cutting damage: Multiplied against weapon skill to determine Raw Cutting Damage Blunt damage: Multiplied against weapon skill to determine Raw Blunt Damage
Skill training
One of the best parts of Kenshi is that the only way for a character to get good at anything is to work at it.
As a note, I’d like everyone to realize that all the attributes and skills that you see displayed on your information page are rounded up to the nearest whole number. Every single one of your skills has an extended value like 87.345234… that is cut off, not rounded. Once that number hits 88.00000 it shows up as 88 on your page. If it feels like a skill is leveling up very slowly or even imperceptibly I can assure you that your character is getting stronger and smarter as your game goes on.
Attributes Strength Strength is an interesting one, and among the most lifelike stats i have seen in any game as of yet. First off, strength will increase the amount of stuff you can carry before you start getting encumbered(slow down in movement). It also allows you to wield heavy weapons faster. There are two very sensible ways of training your strength. First up, you would never guess…it is to carry heavy stuff around. This is the only way to train strength when you are at peace with the world of kenshi. Backpacks help with this, since it gives you more space to put more stuff. The second way is a bit more tricky. Using heavy weapons in battle can also train your strength quite well. By heavy, i mean your weapons weight in comparison with your current strength. It seems that in combat, only your weapon weight adds to the strength gain, and not just overpacking yourself. Thus you have two seemingly opposite ways of training the same thing. Choose wisely. (your characters body tone will also grow more muscled the higher your strength is)
Toughness In a world where everything wants to knock you out and loot your corpse an important question is how hard you are to kill. Bear this in mind when picking your fights. The Caravan Guards of the Trader’s Guild are well armed and well trained. But these guards are untested and soft. Their low toughness attribute means that despite their shiny gear, they take a higher damage percentage and succumb to the embrace of death more quickly. Training your toughness can be a tricky thing. Your toughness levels up at three times faster when you fight with deadly injuries (Head, Chest or Stomach are below 0). If you get attacked while your sword arm is crippled that leveling moves up to five times faster than average. The amount of damage you sustain at a single blow also influences how large the boost to your toughness is.Likewise, these deadly wounds come from skilled warriors. You gain a greater toughness bonus from fighting enemies that outclass you greatly. Combining all these together, you would gain the greatest toughness boost if a great warrior or beasts strikes a high damage blow and knocks you out while you sufer from a host of mortal wounds and a broken sword arm. You are probably going to die. But if by some miracle you survive, you’ll gain a massive jump in the amount of punishment you can sustain next time. This makes maximizing your toughness increases a precarious balancing act between hitting your character with as much as he can possibly take without going over his limits and killing him. This is why it’s advises to travel in groups or have rescuers nearby when attempting to give a “Jolt” to your toughness level.
Dexterity Dexterity increases your attack and block speed when it comes to lighter weapons. Getting your sword to where it needs to be is vital in both your offense and defense. The best way to train dexterity is by attacking with light weapons like katana. Note that i said ATTACK, blocking does not increase your dexterity, only successful hits do. This means that a smart player will place his katanas in such a position where they will take minimum attacks against them. Less block time = more attack time. Your dexterity is not gonna train when you are surrounded by 5 foes. Though sabres and hackers do train dexterity, they do not do as well as katana. Katana have naturally fast attack animation, added to that the duel chop which counts as 2 hits if succesful(2 hits at nearly the speed of 1 1/2) and you have a dexterity training machine.
Combat skills Melee Attack Melee Attack is the other side to a successful attack. Where strength/dexterity influences speed, melee attack will influence how much your attacks get through the enemy guard. Both speed and percision is needed in order to land a perfect hit. Landing successful hits will increase Melee attack. Note that unlike strength and dexterity, hits need to be successful in order to increase this skill.
Melee Defense Melee defense works along with strength/dexterity to create a successful block. First your sword needs to be in the right place, and then you need to block the proper way. This is where melee defense come in. It is best trained by successful blocks. You can put a character on block in order to train this, or you can just let it gradually go up as you fight.
Weapon skills Weapon skills increase with your damage with the various weapons in Kenshi.It does not increase your speed with these weapons or your ability to block. This skill is best leveling up in conjunction with either strength or dexterity. There are natural combinations that flow well together. For example, your katana will level up your dexterity quickly. As you improve in dexterity and katana skill you will find that your character strikes quickly and lands most of his blows with better and better damage. On the other hand, if you give a soldier a hacker/heavy class weapon he’ll get stronger. He will gain the muscle to swing his massive blade. Since weapon speed with heavy weapons levels with strength the speed with which you may swing will increase over time.
I would advise that you pick a type of weapon for each character and stick with it since higher dexterity levels don’t increase the swing speed of heavy weapons just as higher strength levels don’t give you the skill to wield a katana.
Thievery skills Stealth- Trained by going stealth near near enemies. Best to train near nests, since they may not always attack you.
Athletic skills Athletics Athletics determine how fast you can run. It is trained by…running. The more you run, the faster you become.
Trade Skills For the trade skills, the best way to train is to plop your character down at a research bench/farm/etc., and focus on other characters. If you only have one character and don’t like playing with squads go AFK. Watch an episode of Dr. Who on Netflix and leave your game up. if you leave your game unattended you should be sure that your characters can defend themselves if need be or are in a safe location. I’ve had occasions where I checked my squad and I was missing some people because of a couple sand ninja raids sometime during an Adventure Time marathon. I also like to put different hats on my characters to designate what they’re training in. A farmer is wearing a straw hat. A researcher is wearing square goggles. A weapon/armor smith is wearing a tin can (It looks a lot like a welding mask) and labourers are wearing bandannas.This way I can switch them out occasionally to keep them well rounded at different tasks.
Now trade Skills begin at 0 with an efficiency of 0.25. This means that your character will work at 25% efficiency at their job. A job that would generally take 3 hours, will instead take 12 hours because you haven’t learned how to do the job effectively yet. Once you reach 75 in a trade, you will achieve an efficiency of 1, or 100% efficiency. Congratulations! You’ve become skilled at a job! Any increases past 75 will give you efficiency higher than 100%. Eventually, you will start to reach diminishing returns. After 6-15 real life hours, you will find that a character has merely increases his farming skill from 90 to 91.
Wonderful Valuable Backpacks
I am heavily biased, but I believe that backpacks count as among the greatest inventions of mankind ever. In Kenshi, your character has an inventory space of 8 by 10. This gives him 80 square units of storage space. It’s width also forces you to carry large weapons, like planks, fragaxes, and toppers. Fitting the most items you possibly can into a bag is a game of tetris in which you start from the bottom and fill in every single slot that’s available until you can’t possibly get any more into that bag. Here are your options for bags.
Shopkeeper’s Backpack “A bag designed for shopkeepers. Not really ideal for travelling around with.” -Weight: 50kg -Value: 5000 -Trade Value: 750 -Encumbrance reduction: 0% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.5x -Combat skills effect: -10 -Item size: 5×4 The biggest, baddest, baggiest bag. This bag gives you a 20 by 20 area allowing for storage of 400 square units. This bag will allow you to store an amazing assortment of items at great cost. You can fit two fragment axes end to end in it! This bag was 50kg and has no reduction in encumbrance. You will feel the full weight of every item in this bag. It also incurs a 50% combat speed and -10 combat skills penalty. You will strike and block at half your usual speed with reduced skill. It is advised that even the most skilled players take the bag off before combat because it doesn’t weigh any less in your inventory anyway. You can only get this backpack by knocking out a merchant and looting it off his body. In appearance it resembles a Trader’s Backpack medium.
Trader’s Backpack Large “A specialist bag for traders. Allows better stacking of large items within a smaller space, particularly trade goods. Not designed to wear during a sword fight though. -Weight: 8kg -Value: 5000 -Trade Value: 750 -Encumbrance reduction: 50% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.8x -Combat skills effect: -10 -Item size: 5×4 A utility bag. This bag gives you a 10 by 14 area allowing for storage of 140 square units. The difference with this bag is that it allows you to stack trade goods (to a certain limit). Therefore this bag can store more trade goods than even a shopkeeper’s backpack. It’s fantastic for making trading runs between towns.
Large Backpack “This backpack is huge. Don’t even think about fighting with this on your back. This thing weighs a ton just when its empty. Do you seriously think you can fill it full of iron or something and be able to lift it? Let alon carry it across the desert? Go get a smaller one.” -Weight: 8kg -Value: 3000 -Trade Value: 450 -Encumbrance reduction: 50% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.8x -Combat skills effect: -10 -Item size: 5×4 A large roomy bag. This bag gives you a 12 by 20 area allowing storage of 240 square units. This is probably the best bag overall for carrying the greatest variety of items with the smallest penalty. For a while, it may be too heavy for starting characters, but once you strength passes 20, you should be alright.
Trader’s Backpack Medium “A specialist backpack for traders. Allows better stacking of large items within a smaller space, particularly trade goods.” -Weight: 4kg -Value: 2500 -Trade Value: 375 -Encumbrance reduction: 50% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.9x -Combat skills effect: -5 -Item size: 5×4 Surprisingly useful. This bag gives you an 8 by 8 area allowing storage of 36 square units. Thirty six square units of stackable trade goods is amazing. If you’re starting out as a trader, this should be one of your first purchases.
Medium Backpack “A medium sized backpack, with good weight distribution, so you can handle more weight. It will hinder you a bit in combat though.” -Weight: 4kg -Value: 1500 -Trade Value: 225 -Encumbrance reduction: 50% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.9x -Combat skills effect: -5 -Item size: 5×4 A well rounded backpack. This bag gives you a 10 by 14 area allowing storage of 140 square units. This is a useful, very viable option for most characters. It’s the first backpack that allows for the storage of heavy weapons when not in use, reducing their drag on your character.
Small Backpack “A small and light backpack that will help you carry extra supplies, and can be ditched in an emergency. The comfortable weight distribution allows you to carry a lot more weight and will only slow you down very slightly in a fight.” -Weight: 1kg -Value: 750 -Trade Value: 112 -Encumbrance reduction: 50% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.95x -Combat skills effect: -2 -Item size: 3×3 A small gym bag. This bag gives an 8 by 8 area allowing storage of 36 square units. You can carry a spare change of clothes in this bag. It’s nice and small and you can go jogging with it.
Garru Backpack “Backpack designed to fit Gars” -Weight: 16kg -Value: 3000 -Trade Value: 450 -Encumbrance reduction: 80% -Athletics effect: 1x -Combat speed effect: 0.8x -Combat skills effect: -4 -Item size: 5×4 These backpacks can only be used by Gars. They have little lanterns on poles on them. You can loot them off gars and they stack trade goods just like Trader’s Backpacks.
Hiring and Recruiting
In Kenshi, we have quite a few options at our disposal when it comes to adding numbers into the equation. In this section i will cover both hiring protection from other factions and recruiting members to your faction in different ways.
Hiring is a form of bulking up on your military numbers without actually adding anyone to your squad. You will need to pay a daily fee for hired troops. At the current stage we can hire mercenaries or Adventurers guild members.
Mercenaries: Mercenaries can be hired for two purposes. Bodyguard duty, in which they will follow and protect you, or outpost defense, in which case they will defend your outpost for you They have looting rights, meaning they will loot the enemies after the fight is over.
What you pay: Bodyguard fees go about 2000 cats per day, for a maximum of 2 days, where as outpost defense will cost you 1000 cats per day, paid in 2 day intervals with a maximum of 8 days.
What you get: All the mercenaries in the shop, including the captain. That translates to 1 30 stat captain, usually 1 or 2 20+- mercenary heavies and 1-3 20+- mercenaries along with that. (5+) There might be 1 or 2 weaker 5-10 stat guys among them, but the strength of the others make up for it. You can click on them to see their stats before you hire though. I suggest you do that to see if it is worth it.
Adventurers guild members: These guys are wandering heroes who roam the map, and have a tendency to show up when you least expect it (many times when you most need it. When met on the field they will take your side, even healing your troops after the fight.
What you pay: Adventurers guild members require a 1000 cat daily payment.
What you get: You get a single wandering hero with great gear and a combat ability that can rival a samurai lord. The strongest fighters on the map stand among this group. They have an average stat of 40+ for the most part, and can solo a Dust bandit squad with no problem. Very much worth the 1000 cats daily.
Recruiting-
Recruiting refers to adding a controllable customize-able member to your faction, who will work and fight under your command. They work exactly the same as your starting character in every single way. Currently you may recruit a variety of new members from the bar or from a prison cage.
Bar- You may find certain recruit-able characters standing around in local bars. You may find a few different kinds.
Like-minded fool: The like-minded fool is probably the weakest thing on the map. It costs a 1 time amount of 700 cats, owns shorts and a rusted weapon, and has 1 of each stat.
Medic/Scientist: The medic is no better in terms of combat that the like-minded fool, however they do come with insane amounts of medic and science stats, making them excellent field medics or scientists. They cost a 1 time amount of 2500 cats, and come with slightly better gear than like-minded fools.
Engineer/Laborer: The engineer is slightly better in combat if only because of the 9-10 strength they start with. Along with this stat increase, they also have great engineer stats, making them build faster, and good laborer stat, helping their speed in most job related tasks. They cost a 1 time amount of 2500 cats, and come with slightly better gear than medics, including a shoddy grade leather shirt.
Sell-sword: The sell-sword is decent in combat, coming with 10 stats to each combat oriented stat. They cost a one time amount of 2500 cats, and come with better swords.
Sword-master: The sword-master is quite good in combat, coming with 15 stats to each combat oriented stat. They cost a one time amount of 5500 cats, and come with good swords, sandals and a straw hat.
Infinite Wingwang: Infinite Wingwang is a comic character, and there only spawns one of the on the map(sometimes none i hear). He will make you believe he is the best fighter on the kenshi map, worth 100 000 cats. You can bargain him down to 5000 cats though. For 5000 cats, he is a bargain. The spawned stats seem to not be set, but normally it is above 20 in all combat related stats, and then he will have one of the weapon stats as high as well (normally sabres) He comes with drifters leather gear and a good sword. Easily a match for an above average sand ninja.
Prison cage- The other way to recruit new characters is by breaking them out of a prison cage that is not owned by you. How they get there doesn’t matter, so you can even put them there if you please. You will want to talk to them first if possible, else just go ahead and pick the lock on the cage. Once it is locked they may get out of it (or stubbornly refuse) and follow you around for a while. Then they will thank you for setting them free, and after that they will either leave you and go do their own thing, or join your squad as a new character. (Note:sometimes the outcome will change when you save and reload the game)
Sand ninja jounin/Dust bandit boss: Sand ninja jounin and some Dust bandit bosses are good pickups, since you not only collect the bounty on them when you put them in the cage, but if you manage to recruit them you get a powerful new character. Of course out of the two the sand ninja jounin is more desirable.
Sand ninja: Sand ninjas also deserve a mention here. Even though they do not give you a bounty, their stats are good enough to be of great use in your squad. Their stats are better than Dust bandit bosses.
Slaves: You may also recruit a slave whenever you find them. lock-pick their shackles and their cages(if they are in them). Note that escaped slaves will have a slave tag on them. Anyone who recognizes them as a slave will try and recapture them. You may disguise yourself in order to not look like a slave and decrease the chance of being recognized. (ninja rags work wonders here) The slave tag has a time on it which resets every time the slave is recognized. If you hide him from all eyes for the count down of the timer however, the slave tag will be removed.
Other mentions:
Dust bandits and hungry bandits are possible to recruit using this method, but in all honesty their stats are not desirable and they are hardly worth it. Perhaps if you need more men and are low on cash they may be worth picking up.
The following characters i consider bugs, however i will mention them as they are also recruit-able. Barman, Goods Traders(armor, weapons…anything else. though they will not bring their shop with them) , all guards apart from shop guards. All police apart from the Chief, adventurers guild members. Samurai lords are technically possible, though it is highly unlikely. The higher level ones among these seem to be predetermined. They act the same way no matter how many times you reload.
Combat Tactics 1: Attack forms
As the first part of the combat tactics section, i will explain what this is all about. Combat tactics will be split into 4 sections. This one, Attack forms cover attack animations and things to look out for in regards to this. Along with this come one or two other ideas when picking weapons for certain purposes.
I decided to add this section as a part of combat tactics, because understanding how weapons work is an important part in picking which weapons you need for whatever you want to be doing. You must also understand that there are highly specialized weapons that have off the charts power in certain scenarios, but come with weaknesses. There are also very balanced weapons out there for more basic purposes. the weapons themselves will be covered in a later section, but for now we will be focusing on Attack forms/styles.
So with no further ado, lets start learning that knowledge that will lead us to do much with little, instead of little with much.
ATTACK FORMS
Duel chop- The duel chop is two fast consecutive attacks performed by katana class weapons. These attacks are very difficult to block, if a character fails to block the first chop, the second will come before he can recover causing a double knock-back,which makes it very difficult to be ready for the following attack, whether it is a duel chop or a single chop, making it possible to keep hitting the opponent for quite a few times before he can get a chance to fight back.
Weapons that can perform the duel chop: Katana, Light katana, Wakizashe, Ninja blade, Nodachi, Topper
My input: This is a powerful attack that can be devastating in a 1v1 fight, but with all attacks it has drawbacks. When facing multiple opponents, the duel chop can open you up to an attack from an opponent other than the one you are attacking. Because your attack is taking a bit longer than usual, you might not make it back in time to block. My personal favorite weapon in this list is the light katana. it is as effective as a katana, but as fast as a wakizashe or ninja blade. Because of this i feel that it can reach the opponent for both chops easily, while still being able to get back to block in time (well mostly)
All-star swing- The all star swing is a really powerful heavy weapon specific swing that resembles that of a baseball bat hitting the ball from New York to London. You can feel the power through the animation. What makes the All star swing so powerful is that you can hit all surrounding foes with a single swing, knocking all of them back and giving you a chance to start up another swing.
Weapons that can perform the All-star swing: Flat Topper, Plank, Frag Axe
My input: This is a really nice attack if you can get it off. You can interrupt so many foes and free up some of your squad members to recover through a single well placed All-star swing. The problem is the most effective All-star swing weapons are also slow and clumsy. The animation of the attack is slow and easily interruptible. Because of this you really cannot rely on a really effective All-star swing in a straight up fight. You will either enter a loop of beating the foe (until he manages to block or until your weapon follows another animation instead) or you will enter a loop of getting hit over and over until you fall, unable to block due to the weapons weight. The Flat Topper does better early on due to its low weight. You will get more hits off, but the damage will be minimal.
Side slash- The Side slash is an attack that may hit multiple foes at once, depending on weapon reach. When this animation occurs while you are in combat with more than one foe, it is always a great thing since it will knock them back, giving you a breather.
All weapons have some form of this, though sabre class weapons tend to do this better than katana class weapons. The Topper deserves some special attention as well, since its reach puts it on sabre level when it comes to this.
My input: This is like music to my eyes when a nice Side slash hits its mark. It is much faster than the All-star swing, though disruptive to a lesser extent. An important thing to note is that due to its speed it has no real weakness due to delay, making it a much more solid weapon than a katana or a heavy weapon. Sabre class weapons tend to shine when it comes to the Side slash since they have less attack animations than other Side slash performing weapons, with the outcome having a higher chance of a Side slash occurring. Add to this their reach compared to most katana class weapons and their increased single hit damage, and you will soon see why a Sabre side slash almost needs its own section. Because of this reason the Ringed sabre is arguably the most effective 1 man army weapon to wield.
Non lethal knock- The non lethal knock is not really an attack you can see through animation, rather it is the lack of animation. It is designed for the purpose of keeping your opponent alive, and because of this is best done with low damage blunt weapons.The iron club is generally the best weapon for this purpose, but you can use pretty much any low tier weapon for a similar effect.
Desirable weapons: Iron club, low damage weapons(for example rusted blades)
My input: Keeping your opponent alive is advisable if you want to collect a bounty, sell or recruit them. Other than that it can be used to extend fighting time, training dexterity, attack and defense. That is about it. It is not advisable in a serious fight.
Blunt bash- The one hit wonder. The blunt bash uses a large blunt damage to try and incapacitate your opponent in a single hit. Most armor types excel against cutting damage, but blunt damage is a tricky one. Therefore using high blunt weapons avoid most armor reduction, making it a much surer method of dealing damage. You may even come to the 1 hit knockout quite soon.
Desirable weapons: Heavy club, frag axe
My input: This is a top tier strategy. 1 hit knockouts would be something to be feared, however to get to the point where your character can do it (even clumsily) takes a lot of time. There are two reasons for this.
1. Because you want maximum damage, the higher the damage the more effective this will be. Therefore the faster you get max research on your weapon-smiting, the better for you.
2. The weapons that can pull this off just so happens to be the two heaviest weapons out there, and they only get heavier the more advanced they get. We are talking about 64kg for the edge 5 heavy club, and 58kg for the edge 5 frag axe. This means you need a large amount of strength and dexterity to even wield these weapons properly.
Combat Tactics 2: Abilities/Stances
ABILITIES AND AGGRO
Aggro is an important part of kenshi, and understanding how to manipulate it to get the desired outcome will immensely increase your survival rate.
First up, in a fight, attacking an opponent will draw more aggro than defending against him. This means that if you are continually blocking, your opponent might leave the fight if one of his group is in danger. Knocking an opponent out will cause an aggro spike for a few seconds. This is pretty much the highest aggro out there, so when you knock someone out, it is normal to see some opponents leaving what they were busy with and running towards you. This is basic aggro, but there are abilities given to us to manage aggro better and actually take control over it.
First up, i will explain how your character will act when none of these stances are activated. So basically, they will not initiate combat nor chase down opponents; however, the moment one of them is attacked, they will all spring into combat.
Apart from normal stance, we have a few kinds of abilities or stances that we can perform with each character individually or with the whole group combined. They are:
Block: Block is a stance in which your character will not attempt any offensive strikes, but rather focus solely on defending himself. While in this stance the character gets a bonus of +20 in the defense stat. This along with the fact that your character wont open their defense to attempt an attack increases the survive-ability of your character immensely, making him able to take on many foes at once for a good amount of time, perhaps even indefinitely.
Strength:Low aggro, very high defense
Passive: Passive is a stance in which your character will not attack under any circumstance, not even to protect a team member. The character will defend itself and even kill, but will not move around the field of battle. This means that you need to check up on them, because after they are done fighting their opponent, unless they are attacked again they will stand idly by and watch your troops fight and die.
Strength:very low aggro (when not in combat), high micro
Chase: Chase is a stance in which your character will run towards any hostile troops and initiate combat. The character will also follow aggro, running toward the highest aggro opponent even while in combat, often running from an opponent in the middle of the fight to attack another one.
Strength: Follow aggro. Low micro (you can pretty much click attack and watch the blood spill without lifting another finger)
Taunt: Taunt is an ability…i guess. Basically how it works is your character would shout offensive things about the opponent’s mother, making said opponent want to kill him…i guess. In its purest form it generates a high amount of aggro. This means you are inviting an outnumbered battle, facing many foes at once.
Strength: very high aggro
Sneak: Sneak isn’t really a combat ability. Basically it helps you move unnoticed within hostile territory. It may help you to get to your unconscious characters to heal them up before they die. It is useful in prison-break situations, and once thieving becomes a thing it will probably be useful for that too. You can also use it to get closer to where you want to be while scouting, but once the fight starts it is pretty much useless.
There are other things you can do in combat like bodyguard, which will put priority on defending whatever your character was set to bodyguard(Note: this pretty much acts like the chase stance, only the bodyguard will attack the person who poses the biggest threat to the one they are protecting. Medic is another one, which if you set it as a job, said character will run around bandaging your men.
List of aggro generation from highest to lowest:
Initiation (note: if you initiate combat with 1 character, until combat starts he will have generated the highest amount of aggro. It doesn’t matter whether the rest of your team is taunting, the initiator will be the first one in the fray. If you are initiated upon it works similar. Whoever was initiated upon is going to be the first one in combat) Knockout (knockouts tend to have minor aggro spikes, sometimes that would make a unit or two switch target to whomever gave the knockout blow) Taunt Attacking (affects the unit being attacked to a higher level than taunt, though when it comes to bystanders aggro generation is less than taunt. there are some instances where aggro generation will go higher than taunt for units directly next to the attacked unit, but this does not seem to happen all the time) Being successfully hit (sometimes when a unit gets hit, some of its opponents will come running to finish it off. Im not sure whether it works along the same line as dogs sniffing blood since it is not a sure thing. Perhaps it is just some NPC buggyness)
Blocking does not generate aggro, nor does passive when out of combat.
Note: Awkward things may happen for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes NPCs seem to act outside of aggro, but that is perhaps 10-15% of the time. For the majority of the time they follow the rules you set for them by how you use these stances. There are occasions though, where an opponent may run towards and attack a character while said character is not fighting and on passive stance. Chance of this is increased by how close you are to them.
(Just a thought, so right now, the NPCs are either slightly buggy when it comes to how it seems they were supposed to work, or another theory may be that aggro is calculated almost in bar form, When the bar hits its peak, max aggro against a unit may cause the change of target, but only the devs would know the truth of this)
Combat Tactics 3: Classes/Specializations
In this section i will cover weapon and armor combinations for specializations in specific roles. I will break down the combinations into four groups. Tanks, 1v1 specialists, Heavy weapon specialists and General purpose fighters. Each of these can be used for specialized tasks which i will talk about here.
Tanks- Tanks are the armored ones among us. Their strength is the ability to soak up lots of damage before falling to an enemy onslaught. Because of this their most prized attributes will be strength, toughness and block. You need toughness because you will be able to take more hits before finally hitting the sack. You gain a % of natural resistance with toughness, also your KO point increases(making you last longer and get up faster if you do get knocked out) You need Strength because the more strength you have the more armor you can wear. also it will increase your blood, which will allow you to last longer as well. Add to this a high block stat, and they might not get hit at all, and if they do, they will be very hardy anyway. When it comes to gear you will want a sabre class weapon, horse choppers at first, but swap it for a ringed sabre as soon as possible, as these are the most defensive weapons. For armor the important thing is to never go over your weight limit. You want to be weightless so that your sword speed does not get penalized above the needed amount. At first you want armor that doesnt penalize you on combat at all. Chain armor types coupled with heart protectors do a decent enough job, while for headgear you dont want penalties either. My two early-game suggestions are bandana/chainmail, or or bucket zuken/chain shirt/ninja rags. You want to eliminate any combat penalties while adding as much protective qualities as possible within your weight limit.
Strengths: Long lasting on battlefield, can keep multiple foes busy(at bay) Weaknesses: Slow stat gain when it comes to dexterity and toughness. Rarely any stat gain in the attack department. Weak in 1v1 combat.
Desired stats: 20+ strength, 25+ pre-trained toughness(because it is very hard to train toughness if you dont get hit, which is the goal for this specialization), 10+ dex, 10+ natural defense
1v1 Specialists- 1v1 specialists are all about speed. Their purpose is to execute single targets as fast as possible. they need dexterity, katana and attack. You will want to use katana type weapons with attack bonuses, since the main damage dealers will be a combination between the duel chop and blood loss. My personal favorite for this class is the slim-katana as it has insane blood-loss and attack bonuses. for gear you want the lightest possible cloth gear. You don’t need defense since the idea is to kill a single opponent without getting hit at all. combat bonuses work wonders for this class.
Strengths: Very efficient in 1v1 combat. speedy stat gain when it comes to dexterity, attack and katana. Weaknesses: Weak against multiple foes when being targeted.
Desired stats: 15+ dexterity, 15+ attack, 20+ katana
Heavy weapon specialists- Heavy weapons specialists make use of weapons of mass destruction with long reach and large area of effect attacks. Their purpose is to damage, and more importantly knock back multiple opponents at once. Aside from their massive destructive power, they are very vulnerable in a face to face fight, even against a single opponent. The reason for their weakness is their slow attack animations along with the extensive weight of their preferred weapons. You don’t want them in the fray, and if they do end up there you want them to be able to get out as fast as possible. Because of this you want a high strength and athletics stats so that they can effectively wield their weapon and get out of danger in time. For gear you NEED sandals as it gives athletics bonuses. The rest need no athletics penalties…nothing. Oddly enough this means heavy weapons experts should not be wearing armor. Ninja and assassins rags do well on them because of the bonuses.
Strengths: Can hit large numbers of foes at once. Weaknesses: Very weak when being targeted. Not very durable.
Desired stats: 20+ strength, 40+ athletics, 15+ dexterity
General purpose fighters- These are basically characters wielding balanced weapons with no large penalties. They should also avoid the weaknesses katana style weapons and heavy weapons bring. Sabres, long cleavers and club type weapons do well on them, but they are not limited by them. They also do well with pretty much any gear, and can fit most roles. They are the jack of all trades, master of none units. They can be used effectively enough in most situations and make a solid backbone to your squad. Gear wise it all depends on what you want from them. Some of them may lean towards secondary tanks, and others may lean towards more general purpose damage dealing characters. Others may be the perfect balances soldier. its not a bad idea to start off with exclusively general purpose fighters and later on switching them up to full other roles.
Strengths: versatile all purpose troops. Good for bodyguard duties, since you don’t always know what to expect and what you may need. Weaknesses: not specializing in anything means there is probably a better class to do whatever you will be ding with this one.
Desired stats: 15+ of the stats that work best for what role they lean towards. (if heavy club wielding, you want 30+strength)
Advanced Combat Tactics: The Battleplan
In the final section of the combat tactics section, we will gather all the puzzle pieces we have so far, and find the best ways to put them together to meet our needs. In combat tactics 1 we learned about attack forms/styles certain weapons display, along with the strengths and weaknesses they are designed with. In combat tactics 2 we talked about the different abilities/stances that are available to us and what they are good for, and in combat tactics 3 we combined weapons and gear to create proper candidates for different roles our characters may need to fill. Now it has all come down to this, the Advanced combat tactics, in which we will put them all together to make a group that may look weak on paper, but which can do so much more than their stats would have you think. Together we will prove that kenshi is not just a grind for power, but an intricate tactical system that we can make our own.
First i will mention the importance of the passive stance. While on passive stance, your characters will not follow the flow of the fight. They will not follow high aggro targets, nor run to the defense of their team mates. They will go exactly where you tell them to go, and once they have done that, they will do wait for your next order. This is a bad idea if you plan to just click and have them fight, but if you pay attention, it allows you to control every aspect of the fight which may keep your characters alive for much longer. For this reason i always have my key figures on passive.
PICKING THE BATTLEFIELD
The first part of any battle, is picking the right location for it. Fight the enemy on your terms. The terrain does not look the same everywhere, and the same dangers aren’t everywhere. For instance, you do not want to be picking a fight right next to a dog nest, since halfway through the battle half a dozen dogs may join in the fight. Most of you already do this, choosing to fight in towns or near enough to them to be able to run away. You can also alter the attributes of certain areas of the map through wall segments, or even a possible mounted crossbow if you’re brave enough to risk shooting your own men. One of the most important tools to place the fight where you want it, is the presence of a Tank in your team. Used correctly, these guys can place the fight at a specific location, and keep it there.
If you are initiating the aggro, use your tank(s) to do so. the reason for this is because they will be attacked first because of aggro generation. Then add taunt to that in order to keep the aggro on them, and away from your other characters. Now you have centralized the fight, but unless your tanks are on passive, they will move around to defend their team mates, which will put them in danger of getting caught out. My recommendation is to keep them (or him) on passive. This will keep him still and keep the fight around him. Now, your tank(s) will be facing all your foes. To decrease the risk of being overwhelmed, we are also gonna activate block, which will add 20 to their defense, and reduce the risk of getting hit immensely. What you get is a character surrounded by overwhelming odds, able to stand for a long time because hes defense is off the charts good. But you are not doing damage…not yet anyway. So, what to do next?
STARTING THE SLAUGHTER
So how this works, is if one of your characters attack one of the foes, that one will turn its attention towards the attacker, creating a 1v1 fight next to the crowd. This is where your 1v1 specialists shine. Keep them on passive also to avoid them attacking multiple targets. Sometimes your first one will be unlucky and attract 1 or 2 extra foes who were close by. This is why i would suggest running 2-3 1v1 experts in your team so that the others may pick 1v1 fights with the ones who followed your first one.
Now you have a crowd of enemies who will slowly get picked off 1 by 1. if this works out well three 15 stat level characters may take down a 8-10 man dust bandit crew, possibly without a friendly knockout.
But what if the group is bigger? Well, then you need bigger weapons of course. This is where a heavy weapons specialist may come in handy. make sure your 1v1 experts target the strongest opponents to keep them away from what happens next. This one will be on passive also, as he is an important member as well. What do we want out of this frag axe? To inflict massive area effect damage, knocking lots of units back and generating lots of aggro, freeing up your tank to perhaps go on the offensive too. This is more of a luck shot. What you can do is move your heavy weapons specialist close to the foes bunched up around your tank. Then let a hit fly. If you are fast enough your attack will land before the targeted foe can react. If you are fast enough and a little lucky (i say a little cause with a plank or frag axe its pretty much a 50/50 situation) you may get a heavy slash/baseball bat shot out, hitting multiple opponents at once with the desired outcome we mentioned earlier. Note that you will need to keep your heavy weapons expert relatively safe afterwards. if he is lucky he might get yet another AoE shot out. If you managed to free up your tank to turn block off and attack, he may even get a smaller AoE hit off with his ringed sabre. If not however, i suggest either getting your heavy weapons expert out of there fast, or having 1-3 support characters body-guarding him (my recommendation would be general purpose troops) to intercept incoming forces who would mean him harm. they may keep the opponent off him and free him up to get some more shots off.
Sometimes you would want to give your tank a breather. To do this you need to turn taunt off on him, and turn it on on someone else. The effects take a while, but eventually the group around him will move to the new taunter. Very useful when you want to go heal your tank.
So now you know a few ways to use specialized troops, and how to effectively use the abilities/stances. This is just a single unit composition and a single battle plan. The tools are there to form many more. I’m sure there are plenty i haven’t thought of yet. So go my children. Go and master the world of kenshi!
Things that tend to turn out bad
– Setting characters to bodyguard your tank. The outcome of this is, they will attack all the foes being kept busy by the tank, dragging them away from the tank and leaving him all alone on passive block mode (1 useless character with horrid offensive ability and no real purpose anymore)
– Initiating with a heavy weapons specialist, and to a lesser extent a 1v1 specialist. You don’t want these classes taking the starting hits. Chances are you may leave a 1v1 specialist in a horrid state, or get your heavy weapons guy knocked out quick(unless he has very high strength and dexterity and can swing his weapon before they start attacking)
– Turning block off on your solo tank when there are lots of foes about. Since tanks generally have horrid offensive ability there is rarely a reason to do this. This is however an easy way to get your tank killed too soon, followed by the rest of your squad.
– Taking on overwhelming odds. Self explanatory. If you are outnumbered 4 to 1, don’t fight.
– Getting initiated on. If they see you first, its gonna start bad, and if it starts bad there is a high likelihood it’ll end bad. The problem with getting initiated on is that you have no idea who they were targeting. Normally it’ll be the first one they saw, meaning the one that was closest to them when they initiated, and if that is not your tank you might be in trouble. I have two suggestions in such a situation. You may prevent it by having your tank walk a ways in front, but if you didn’t do that, put your whole squad on block, adding only taunt to your tank. Keep it this way until most of them gathered around your tank before you take the offensive initiative.
After running all over the lands of Kenshi you may get the urge to settle down. I generally use two criteria. “Do I like the look of the surrounding landscape/have room to expand?” You are going to be staring at this landscape for a very long time. You better like the environment. “What’s the natural wealth of resources in this location and how close is it to other towns?” If you don’t prospect an area before settling in, you might find that there is 1% fertility, 2% water, 10% iron and 5% stone. You can make that work, but do you really want to?
The best option for your first base is to begin with enough materials to build a stone mine and a stone processor. Once you have these two pieces of machinery up and running you’ll be independent from other towns and will no longer have to run back there to pick up more building materials. Generally, it’s then a good idea to build a small shack with a bed and research bench in it. You can build bases all on your lonesome, but it’s very easy to get swarmed and knocked out by bandits. Plus, the extra hands are useful to work different machines simultaneously.
Once you learn how to put up walls throw up a quick perimeter fence to keep those pesky beasts and bandits out! You may now AFK safely while your people keep hard at work.
Creature List: There are currently three different kinds of beasts in Kenshi. These beasts cannot defend against attacks but make up for it with higher health than most characters. They also have different growth stages which modifies their stats accordingly. You can hide in a building but that’s no guarantee that the beasties will go away.
Beasts have an age mechanic that is unique in Kenshi. They grow over time from Pup to Adolescent to Adult. At different stages, this maturity stat acts as a modifier to the values of the beasts other statistics. Pup: 0.25 – 0.39x Adolescent: 0.4 – 0.69x Adult: 0.7 – 1.0x
Beasts also have nests that contain the best weapons in the game: The fabled Edgewalkers Edge 5 blades. If you see a yellow item when you press ALT, you’ve just hit jackpot! Other items such as leather strips and med kits may also be found in nests. A special mention to eggs, which right now can only be sold for 2500 cats a piece. Still a nice bit of money if you can get it.
Dogs Roaming packs of dogs are some of deadliest opponents you will face early in the game. They move quickly, have over twice the health of most characters, and can bite with a speed that is hard to block. They’re also attracted to blood, so injured characters near their nests are liable to be swarmed. If you aren’t prepared you may want to try to enter sneak mode to get away from these beasts when you see them start to sniff you out.
Beak Things These warped giraffe-like animals have the fastest movement speed in the game. They gallop so quickly that it is impossible to outrun them. They are strong and can 2 hit kill a weaker opponent unless you’re decently tough and armored. Uniquely among the animals, beak things go to sleep at night, allowing you to walk among their nests without fear.
Leviathans These majestic creatures appear to be gigantic beetles. They move slowly through the deserts in a looping patrol. They are generally quite peaceful and will not attack unless provoked. When roused they go on rampages, easily wiping out entire towns and instantly killing unprepared opponents. They are not to be taken lightly. A man who can slay a leviathan should be regarded as the greatest of warriors. (easy leviathan kill strategy): If you really want to take one down but lack the melee combat skill you can rig up two MKII crossbows a fair distance apart, lure a leviathan to them and sprint back and forth between crossbows playing monkey in the middle with him until he bleeds to death.
Pack Gars A pack gar is a domesticated beast and therefore very different from the other animals you will encounter. A gar accompanies the Trader’s Guild caravans that roam from city to city. They wear backpacks that are filled with trade goods and also provide light to the surrounding area. These gars do not attack and will often run away if the leader of the caravan is slain. When galloping, gars may have the highest top speed in the game, surpassing even Beak Things.
Sizing up your foe
In this section, I will try and explain how to know suicide when you see it. Knowing when you can and cannot win a fight is of utmost importance. First, we need to know about all the powerful things out there and where we stand in comparison to them.
First i want to make a mention of the most awkward ones you will find…Drifters. Drifters are wanderers that range from half decent to the greaters warriors in the kenshi universe. Their stats range anywhere from 15 to 55. They have quite good gear and start out neutral to you. The large stat range make me unable to list them in any specific order of strength, since putting them practically anywhere in the list is true. They have a small chance of having a bounty.
Note: Obviously numbers count as well, but if you know where a single unit is on this list, you can with some accuracy guess the estimated total power of the group you will or will not be facing.
Now onto the list:
1. The strongest non creature character on the map is Lord commander Epson. He is a unique samurai lord spawn that comes with a stat ranging between 47-53. He carries a katana and wakizashe, along with samurai armor(including the helmit)
2. Just below him will be a normal samurai lord, with a stat of 37-43, carrying a katana and wakizashe along with samurai armor(without helmit)
3. Outpost guards come next. They have stats ranging between 35-45 and carry a nodachi (one of the more powerful weapons) and wear leather gear. They are pretty fast, the best of them even can be faster than a samurai lord, however they are less durable.
4. Police Chief’s are a unique character on this list, having strengths and weaknesses, but i believe it is because of those that this character deserves stop number 4. Their stats range between 31-39, and they wield an interesting weapon, the frag axe. This weapon can take down multiple weaker units at a time, though it falls short of lighter weapons in a 1v1 fight. They do have a backup slim katana(another amazing weapon, though rarely used) They also have police armor, which is amazing!
5. Next up is the first roaming unit. Sand ninja jounin are deadly fast. Good ones can best a Police Chief in a duel. They have stats ranging between 25-35, and carry a slim katana. These weapons are super offensive and do lots of bleed damage. They have cloth gear, but get some multipliers without much negatives. Build for attack, not defense, and they shine on the attack. They have amazing bounties on them, which make them prime targets…if you can kill them.
6. Now it gets a little tricky, butcays there are a few that can take the next spot. At the end though, i will have to give it to samurai. They have stats ranging from 27-33, and carry a katana and wakizashe, making them quite fast on the attack, while having great defense in samurai armor.
7. This is a tie between 2 identical units. Caravan and Shop guards both have 25-35 stats, both carry a ringed sabre, and both have plate armor. I put them in this spot over the next one simply because of personal experience. In sutuations these units find themselves in, they do better than the next one imo.
8. Police sergeants may deserve the number 7 spot, but i am just not that sure. They come with 25-35 stats, and carry a horse chopper (inferior to the ringed sabre) . They do have police armor, which is amazing though…so they may even be better than the ones above.
9. Finally we come to the Holy Paladins. They have 27-33 stats, carry a long cleaver and wear holy plate armor. They are not fast, though they are hardy, but they leave too many gaps in their guard to find a spot any higher than this.
10. Mercenary captains come next. They have 25-35 stats, carry a long cleaver and backup slim katana, and wear leather gear. The long cleaver leaves the same weaknesses ans the Paladins, though these are less durable.
11. Next up come Police. These guys have 21-29 stats, and may even have been higher up if not for their weapon choice. They carry heavy iron clubs. Its weight makes it a very clumbsy weapon to use. They have police armor though, which makes them able to take quite a few hits.
12. The outpost boss is a strange character. It has 35-45 stats, and one would think that this guy should be higher up the list, but no. He carries a large traders backpack, which gives it a -10 combat ability. He carries a horse chopper, which isnt the worst weapon out there, but it does not have any armor at all. Not the hardest unit to take down.
13. Sand Ninjas come next. They have between 17-23 stats, and wield a ninja blade. They also wear ninja gear, and are quite fast because of all these factors.
14. Oh the hated slaver! Slavers have 22-28 stats, they carry an iron club, arguably one of the weaker weapons. They also have leather/cloth armor and small backpacks. They are a pain yes, but not the most terryfying soldier to roam the lands.
15. Mercenary class guards are among the weaker guards. They have 15-25 stats, carry a horse chopper and wear leather armor. They do look quite cool tough…if that counts for something.
16. Mercenary heavy’s are gear heavy units, but they are simply too weak to properly make use of it. They have between 15-25 stats, and carry a long cleaver. They wear plate armor, which makes them quite durable, but it also slows them down just too much.
17. Slave guards have 22-28 stats, they have amazing gear, but their primary weapon simply has the lowest damage of all weapons. The flat topper is not the greatest weapon out there at all. They wear samurai armor though, which isnt bad at all.
18. Dust bandit bosses can be formidable early on, and come with nice gear that one can make use of. They havw 14-16 stats, and weild a ringed sabre (a very good weapon to pick up early on) They wear plate armor, which can also be quite usefull. They also have a chance to have a bounty. Making them quick cash.
19. Dust bandits/training dummies are up next. They have between 7-13 stats, carry horse choppers, and wear heart protectors, an asortment of footwear and sometimes helmets. They are amazing to loot early on, since heart protectors sell for 500 cats each! And much of their gear may prove usefull.
20. You dont want to be caught by cannibals for obvious reasons. Luckily they arent the strongest soldiers, relying on numbers instead. These guys have 9-15 stats and have iron clubs…nothing more.
21. Hungry bandit leaders dont have much of an army behind them. They have 4-12 stats and carry horse choppers.
22. Hungry bandits have 1-5 stats. the very weakest ones out there. They are weird though. They spawn with ragged cloth clothing and a weak iron club, but prioritize looting, meaning you can find them with all sorts of things depending on what they picked up from earlier adventures.
Roles to take in Kenshi
You should always wear wooden sandals. I made this post after reading that many players begin the game and aren’t certain what they should do or how they should proceed. This game is a big sandbox and without direction it can be a little overwhelming. So this list begins with some of the professions and goals you could seek in the game. I would love some input, so anything anyone has to add I would be happy to through into the list.
1) Architect, There are a multitude of buildings, mines, and farms that you can construct. You can make cities and fortifications all across the map. Traders will come to visit you and enemies will be stopped at your gates. The best start for this style would be The Freedom Seekers
2) Bandit Kill everything. Steal everything. Sell what you can in the towns that don’t try to kill you as soon as you walk through the gates. You can raid alone or with a team of brigands. Though difficult, it may be possible to ally yourself with Hungry/Dust Bandits Best beginning: The Holy Sword or The Retired Captain.
3) Berserker A bandit has banditbuddies. A berserker has nobody. They don’t care about money, loot or glory. Just mindlessly throw your character at everything and see how quickly you can wipe out every city in the game.You will spend a lot of time unconcious or in jail. You may also die. That’s a given. A heavy weapon is recommended because heavy weapons are awesome.
4) Emperor The emperor functions as a builder mixed with a conqueror. Not only does he control all the cities on the map with squads placed at strategic points throughout the map, his citadel is expansive and his jails full of all who dared oppose him. This is a long term goal, I would abduct shopkeepers, plastic surgeons,and traders. You can then lock them in a prison and make use of their services. Done are the days where you have to go to them to do your business. You can keep all your prisoners in rags with shackles on.
5) Trading Empire This is an extension of The Wandering Trader beginning. Your goal is to amass as much wealth as you can. You do this by going from city to city buying low and selling high. You hire more traders to make runs between city to city.
6) Cannibal This is a difficult path to take. It requires you to wipe out all of the current cannibals and replace them. You will set up camp in their base and use their cooking pits. Preferably, you would dress in nothing but rag pants and knock people out with a club. But hey, you’re the cannibal, you can dress however you want.
The Greatest Gear of Kenshi
This section holds the best armors, best weapons, best overall stuff in the game.
Best Helmet
High Grade Police Helmet This helmet will get you in trouble with the local authorities. They’re anxious to discover how you came to be wearing some of their fallen brother’s equipment. However, this helmet more than halves 100% of the damage you take to the face. It also only reduces your combat skills by 1 despite offering full coverage. A High Grade Tin Can might offer greater protection, but at the cost of combat skill. I also haven’t found one yet.
High Grade Leather Turtleneck The epitome of style and protection, a high grade turtleneck will protect your vital organs and limbs with no cost to athletic, combat, or stealth. It’s amazing. A runner up would be High Grade Chainmail which gives better protection against cuts but isn’t stealthy.
This is kind of a toss up between play styles. The following are all respectable options High Grade Assassin’s Rags Assassin’s Rags offer a boost to your combat skills without any downsides High Grade Armored Rags
High Grade Holy Plate This armor offers the best survivability overall. You will not be killed while wearing this armor. It gives incredible defence to your vital organs and extremeties.
Armor Values
Note: Since none armor for instance Ninja GI does not have values, we will not be covering them in this section. It is important to note though that using such gear may not protect you in any way on paper, but by no means are they not viable. Having no values, means they also have no negative values, so for speed based characters it may be more viable than most other gear.
Light Armor Class “Allowing for unrestricted movement, light armor will neither reduce your speed nor inhibit your skill. Generally woven from cloth, light armor serves more to reduce the degree of your injury rather than turn away an opponents blade. “
Leather Vest “Undershirts provide a reliable second layer of defense.”
Leather Vest (High Grade Cloth) -Blunt Resistance: 0.24 -Cut Resistance: 0.38 (100% stun) -Harpoon Resistance: 14pts -Weight: 1kg -Value: 34,760 -Trade Value: 5,214 (Coverage) -Chest: 85% -Left Arm: 0% -Stomach 100% -Right Arm: 0%
Heart Protector (High Grade Metal Plate) -Blunt Resistance: 0.36 -Cut Resistance: 0.54 -Harpoon Resistance: 89pts -Stealth Effect: 0.62x -Weight: 3kg -Value: 26,225 -Trade Value: 3,933 (Coverage) -Chest: 50%
Chainmail (Standard Grade Cloth) -Blunt Resistance: 0.12 -Cut Resistance: 0.34 (40% stun) -Harpoon Resistance: 18pts -Stealth Effect: 0.4x -Athletics Effect: 0.94x Combat Skils Effect: -1 -Weight: 6kg -Value: 26,636 -Trade Value: 3,995 (Coverage) -Chest: 100% -Left Arm: 100% -Stomach 100% -Right Arm: 100%
Medium Armor Class “Straddling the line between protection and comfort, medium armor tries to offer the best possible defence without hampering your movement.”
Police Helmet (Faction) (High Grade Metal Plate) -Blunt Resistance: 0.54 -Cut Resistance: 0.61 (20% stun) -Harpoon Resistance: 89pts -Weight: 6kg -Value: 9,255 -Trade Value: 416 (Coverage) -Head: 100%
Heavy Armor Class “Offering the best defence against strikes, heavy armor will protect your flesh while sacrificing your mobility.”
Weapons Values
Note: weights less than 10kg at Edge 5 will not be included, since by the time you get those weapons the weight wouldnt matter anyway. The Edge 5 stats are those of an Edge 5 Edgewalker weapon. The Totally rusted Junk(TRJ) is well…the weakest version of that weapon.
Katana Class Weapons “Katanas are a common weapon, and their quality varies greatly. Most are scavenged goods with a history of owners and barely good for scrap. Masterworks are around however, and their speed and cutting power is unrivaled by any other blade.”
Katana “A standard katana, one of the fastest, lightest weapons around.”
Length:21 Bleed multiplier: 1.1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.32x Blunt damage multiplier: 0x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0x
Ninja Blade “A smaller, lighter katana popular with ninjas because they’re so good for stabbing.”
Length:16 Bleed multiplier: 1.2x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.25x Blunt damage multiplier: 0x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 1.6x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0x
Wakizashi “Smaller and lighter, and can get through armor a little.”
Length:16 Bleed multiplier: 1.1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.29x Blunt damage multiplier: 0x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 1.8x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0x
Slim Katana “A katana variation that has a slightly lighter blade, improving attack speed but sacrificing defense. Quite a deadly weapon in the right hands.”
Length:21 Bleed multiplier: 1.3x
Nodachi “An extended katana variant with increased reach and damage.”
Length:25 Bleed multiplier: 1.2x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.35x Blunt damage multiplier: 0x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2.2x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0x
Length:25 Bleed multiplier: 1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.35x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.002x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2.2x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0.16x
Sabre Class Weapons “A Sabre is a heavy blade designed for heavy slashing damage. The heavier blade makes them slower and more cumbersome, but stronger for blocking with and cutting through armor.”
Iron Club “A basic club. Better than nothing.”
Length:18 Bleed multiplier: 0.3x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.08x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.12x Weight:4kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 0.34x Blunt Damage multiplier: 1.6x Weight:32kg
Horse Choppers “More damage than a regular katana, at the cost of extra weight.”
Length:18 Bleed multiplier: 0.9x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.35x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.005x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2.2x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0.4x
Ringed Sabres “The best damage-dealer for cutting blades”
Length:22 Bleed multiplier: 1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.38x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.005x
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2.4x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0.4x
Hacker Class Weapons “Often considered a thug’s weapon, hackers are heavy axe-bladed weapons that do as much blunt damage as chopping damage, relying mainly on brute strength rather than skill. The crude blades don’t cause as much bloodloss, so victims tend to get maimed to death instead. Easy to learn, not much to master.”
Long Cleaver “A balanced damage dealer.”
Length:25 Bleed multiplier: 0.9x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.32x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.02x Weight:13kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 2x Blunt Damage multiplier: 1.6x Weight:31kg
Flesh Cleaver “A nasty weapon, designed for hacking through meat. The crude bluntness of the weapon means victims don’t bleed to death so often, they just get hacked and maimed.”
Length:17 Bleed multiplier: 0.5x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.13x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.016x Weight:6kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 0.8x Blunt Damage multiplier: 1.3x Weight:25kg
Flat Topper “A hybrid that mixes impact and cutting damage. A good beginners weapon.”
Length:23 Bleed multiplier: 1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.16x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.01x Weight:4kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 1x Blunt Damage multiplier: 0.8x Weight:15kg
Heavy Class Weapons “Most normal people struggle to even lift a full-weight heavy blade, and the require incredible strength and endurance to wield effectively. Beginners struggle with this weapon style and face a hard path ahead. As a result living practitioners are few and many men carry them only for bluff and posturing. The real masters of this weapon however, are men to be feared.”
Heavy Iron Club “A heavy duty club, for the budding heavy weapons enthusiast.”
Length:21 Bleed multiplier: 0.3x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.08x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.24x Weight:10kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 0.34x Blunt Damage multiplier: 3.2x Weight:64kg
Fragment Axe “A huge axe built to work like a sword. Stupidly heavy, but it impresses the ladies.”
Length:32 Bleed multiplier: 1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.095x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.036x Weight:18kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 0.6x Blunt Damage multiplier: 2.9x Weight:57kg
Plank “A hefty hacking weapon, with a good reach. A nice balance for those who find fragment axes too clumsy and blunt, the plank retains some of the extra deadly traits of a regular sword, while still remaining ridiculously crude.”
Length:30 Bleed multiplier: 1x
TRJ Cut damage multiplier: 0.25x Blunt damage multiplier: 0.024x Weight:10kg
Edge 5 Cut damage multiplier: 1.6x Blunt Damage multiplier: 1.9x Weight:38kg
Choosing the Perfect Weapon
Your choice of weapon in a battle decides whether you survive. For me, that means stick every weapon I own in a backpack so I can pick and choose depending on what I’m fighting.
Katanas A katana is a blazing fast weapon, delivering more strikes in faster sucession than any other weapon. However, it lacks defensive qualities and it’s combination strikes will cause it’s wielder to take hits.
Sabre The most versatile weapon in the game. If I had to pick a single weapon to take on my travels, it would be a sabre. Both offensively and defensively strong, a sabre can respond to block quickly while dealing an impressive amount of damage
Hacker Hackers are the intermediary between sabres and heavy weapons. They aren’t quite as good defensively
Heavy Weapon These weapons are best to deal with multiple foes. They specialize in blunt damage, beating through armor instead of cutting. They are quite slow to wield however.
Specializing VS Duel specs.
So there comes a time where one must decide; am i going to focus on 1 type of weapon, or am i going to skill up multiple weapon stats. When it comes to the question over which is better, like in everything else kenshi related, both are viable, yet have different purposes.
Before we decide what to do, we need to remember what weapon skills are for again. Weapon skills decide the base damage of the weapon you are weidling. As we know we start with a base damage of about 15. This allows us to do 15 base damage up until our weapon stats are higher than 15, then it takes on the weapon stat as base damage.
This means that if you have 75 katana stats with an edge 5 Edgewalker katana, which has a 2x multiplier, you will dish out 150 damage-opponent armor reduction. For this example, we also have 25 sabre stats and 12 heavy weapons stats. Now we pick up an edge 5 Edgewalker ringed sabre with a 2.4 cutting multiplier. This means we will dish out 60 cutting damage with that weapon, despite the cutting multiplier being higher than that of the katana. Now we pick up an edge 5 Edgewalker Plank with 1.6 cutting and 1.9 blunt multiplier. This will dish out aproximately 24+28.5=52.5 total damage.
We can see how stats work now. The less you have the less damage you do with that weapon type. So what is better, specializing in one weapon or in many?
Specializing in one weapon is a good idea as you will increase your damage output with one weapon type faster than you would with duel spec. This increases your total damage per second faster than duel spec. I recommend focusing on 1 weapon if that weapon can be wielded with one hand, since you will never draw a second weapon.
When it comes to heavy weapons however things change. If you lose an arm in battle, you will need a backup 1 handed weapon in order to continue fighting. This creates a problem when specializing in heavy weapons alone. The problem is that once you lose the ability to use your primary heavy weapon, your damage per second goes drops dramatically. So dramatic that i would argue your dps may be less with 60 heavy weapons stats and 1 heavy weapon, than with 40 heavy weapons and 40 katana stats, with 1 heavy weapon and a backup katana. So for 2 handed weapons the verdict is this…work on both a primary weapon stat and a secondary weapon stat.
Eventually, you may have the urge to tweak the mechanics of Kenshi to better suit your gameplay. Suppose you would like to have a larger maximum squad size or mod in a horde of evil samurai who soullessly roam the desert killing everything in sight.
That can all be done!
So we have been talking about a modding section within this guide, but have decided that for the sake of limiting confusion, we will be making a separate guide for that. You modding section, to keep with the incredibly inventive naming process we have come up with, will be named the Plastic surgeon.
We will also have a recipee section in which you may find some booze and exotic bread recipes, along with the best way to cook a beak thing. :p Note: Since i love making notes so much, i have to note that this is indeed a joke… well it was an attempt at a joke…im aware of the fact that it probably failed though, hence the soppy tone in my voice :/ well anyways…yeah, The plastic surgeon…find modding info there.
Originally posted by A normal person : im having trouble with it, it says i need a small house, i have it in a storm house and it didn't work in a small shack, i know this is an old thread but if you can reply it would really help.
Originally posted by anywhatshisname : You build it. Under the tech sub-menu when you click build things. You have to research Tech Level 2 in the research menu for this to unlock first.
Originally posted by Symatrix Hill : cut for brevity
Originally posted by Cattrina : Originally posted by Symatrix Hill : your right
Originally posted by Bomber : Originally posted by A normal person : im having trouble with it, it says i need a small house, i have it in a storm house and it didn't work in a small shack, i know this is an old thread but if you can reply it would really help.
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A Research Bench is a work station where a science oriented party member can study new technologies. At each increase in Tech Level players gain access to a new level of research bench capable of researching higher technologies. Any bench starting at level 2 and above can be upgraded to the next level by clicking and hitting upgrade button. There is no need to remove the old bench and build ...
So I'm a bit confused. I have tried to look up where I can buy or build my first research bench. There was supposed to be a blueprint for it but I have only been able to find the advanced versions of those so far. I have been looking under the research tab but haven't been able to find anything. It's probably right under my nose somewhere but I can't find it.
To build you hit the little button with the hammer on the right side of your screen. Once in that menu click the tech tab and there will be just one item you can select, a research bench. Build that in either a building that you've bought in a city or in a building that you build.
Subreddit for Kenshi from Lo-Fi Games, the revolutionary mix of RTS and RPG with a huge dystopian sword-punk world to explore. Choose to be a thief, a bandit, a rebel, a warlord or a mercenary. ... Id advise upgrading your research bench asap, it'll make research go faster and some research requires the higher level benches. Reply reply ...
Just add _Default Start to the research for the start) alternatively, you can just go to the research tab, look up the tech package they used and add the missing techs you need to that package. however you want to do it. If you're messing a downloaded mod, you'll need to extract it and load it in the editor manually and make a personal version ...
Subreddit for Kenshi from Lo-Fi Games, the revolutionary mix of RTS and RPG with a huge dystopian sword-punk world to explore. ... -Research "Tech Level 3" at a Level 2 research bench. -After this is complete, you can either build a new Level 3 bench through the build menu, or click the Level 2 bench and select "upgrade" on the bottom left UI ...
The Small Research Bench is the starting point for those wanting to access new types of technologies and buildings. While quickly replaced, it is necessary to advance your factions technology level (e.g. Tech Level II) which will unlock other better Research Benches. Researching from multiple benches is possible and gives diminishing returns on the speed of research with every new bench used ...
Legendary of Kenshi.mod Legendary of Kenshi - MC and MCA patch.mod Weapon_Kamui.mod Yoru2.mod Training Weapon Vendor.mod Wandering Traders fix.mod The Trafficker.mod Fist Weapons of Kenshi.mod Anti Stun for more Attack Slots.mod Rebel Swordsmen Clothing.mod Universal Wasteland Expansion.mod Diverse Mercenary Armor.mod Diverse Starving Vagrant ...
This refers to the process of making money in Kenshi, not the breeding of felines. ... Generally, it's then a good idea to build a small shack with a bed and research bench in it. You can build bases all on your lonesome, but it's very easy to get swarmed and knocked out by bandits. Plus, the extra hands are useful to work different ...
Yeah the research bench is too large for a small shack. But Storm house is enough. You probably will need to remove other items from the floor first, as it kinda takes all room by itself and if there are other items in the house, they are in the way. usei Shift +F12 to move the other items, save and reload. Then you should be fine.