How many of you use skill training mods?

[Striker]

I am trying to understand how I can possibly skill up to 100 in fighting skills with just fighting other npcs. I also looked up the most popular mods and found strength and dex training dummies for rated 5 out of 5 stars and are very popular. So basically how many of you use training mods, and if you do, how do you justify it?

Thanks

[bunny de fluff]

Why do you even need justification using mods? Just use it or don't LOL

[Striker]

I am basically looking for ideas on how to play the game in the most fun way for me. So far I have made a custom start where i begin with 1 character nearly maxed out skills and a bunch of money. My jobs is to watch over my recruits. I have a story for it an everything. So basically just getting ideas on whether to include training mods.

[Pyrrhus]

I have some skills training mods like for strength up to 50 and dexterity up to 29, but not that up to 100 fight level. I think training on dummy up to 100 is too extreme. But it's your game, your decision.

The problem with training 100 in fight skills, you still need to raise toughness too. Easier to raise both by fighting with NPC instead of training fighting skills alone on a dummy. Also dummy doesn't raise your weapon and defense skills which fighting against NPC does.

[Ông_Già [VN]]

Hey, mahu, training is for the weak, just basic training and diving in for the winner. Throw your party into opposite tribal and see, have fun !

[Hans]

I would suggest not getting the training mods, but to each their own. I experimented with it for a bit in my first game and ultimately decided I didn't like them and started over on my second game, which I'm still playing.

However, I do like the weight training mod because raising your strength takes FOREVER and the only way to do it in vanilla is to overload your character with iron and walk in circles. That's dumb, so I appreciate the weigh lifting mod. I've had a character using a heavy ass fragment axe in game for 200 days and I still haven't managed to get past 75 strength, and that's even with running him into a huge group and putting him on block for an extended period of time. Meanwhile, several of my original crossbow and katana users are comfortably into the mid-80s in dexterity.

[Humble]

Well, that's good for party you don't want lost limb and want winning more often.

[Zee_]

Getting any particular skill to 100 is a nightmare. In my currently longest game, which is a little over 2 years long now, I haven't gotten a single character to 100 in any skill or stat. The highest I've managed is 99 strength for a few characters, and that was with basic strength training methods (have someone carry traders pack full of iron ore while carrying a corpse and have them march back and forth forever). Due to diminishing returns, once you manage to hit 99 in any particular stat or skill the gains are so slow to come that its nearly impossible to hit 100. I've had a single character marching back and forth across my base for nearly a year straight now, they're at 99(65%), its taken 2 months for them to get up 1% (from 99(64%)).

Highest stats I've managed without training is toughness, where I've gotten 2 characters to 95 through regular combat.

Thank goodness for the Ashlands, before they were added, once a character's skills and stats got into the mid 80s it was hard as heck to get them higher, you basically needed to fight leviathans non-stop for minimal gains.

As for ways to train characters without mods... well I already mentioned strength. For weapons skills and toughness capture some prisoners and make a fight club/training arena. Have your characters fight them one-on-one, heal them between fights and both the prisoners and your characters training with them will increase each others' skills. Give your training dummies/prisoners and the characters you want to train good armor and weak weapons to make the training sessions last longer. Its still going to be a bit of a slog, but prisons/training arenas are the method many use for combat training of new recruits in relative safety.

[happy]

I have the strength and dex training mods...but never used them, I always forget there are active^^

i'm happy with a strength of 35 and that comes quite naturally.

[Germania516]

I only use mods for looks and stories,you know to add more depth to the game but I am against mods that let you train skills easily,give you more money,and alter the game where it's so faraway from vanilla.

If the slavery can be more exciting with a mod I am all for it,and a especially with the recruit anyone mod that let's you recruit your own slaves or fighters,so that is cool. If you do capture a Holy that is a sentinel sure his skills will be advanced over novice so that is realistic.

I think making your own money without free money,having gear from the start that is the level to your character,and not using a weight bench or chest to spam your strength and lockpicking skill is the best way to play. It's not so rewarding when your skills go up too easy.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Excelsior:

... So basically how many of you use training mods, and if you do, how do you justify it?

I used the Strength Training mod, the one with the weight bench. I didn't want anything too overpowered or "cheaty." I justified it by realizing that it basically kept my people "doing something" before I had a base built.

Was it worth it? Actually, without a base, not really. The time it takes is less than the time it takes using the "haul rocks" method and you don't get the extra Stealth increases. Now, it absolutely IS worth it if you have a base and several people not doing much of anything but just being there avaiable to respond to a raid/situation. And, in that case, it makes sense to have a workout area and the like. Plus, you may not get as many unconscious bandits to lug around. They tend to get dead pretty quick at a decent player-base. (I never hauled corpses, only live bandits and I kept them fed the entire time, too.)

[Androzin]

First 8 or so characters I will level legit to high 80's and its a lot of fun. After more than that it just becomes tedious and annoying so I will use mods. I do use regulation so they are not just op I get them to early 30's and keep them there to level naturally.

[biochimera]

Only mod I use for training is the hard labour uses strength mod. Otherwise levelling strength is just stupid.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by Excelsior:

... So basically how many of you use training mods, and if you do, how do you justify it?

I used the Strength Training mod, the one with the weight bench. I didn't want anything too overpowered or "cheaty." I justified it by realizing that it basically kept my people "doing something" before I had a base built.

Same.

I also have a more idles/poses job that adds placemats for various poses as well as adding some Training mats. E.g. there's Push-ups for STR(to 25), High Knees for DEX(to 30) and stuff like that. They are nice for when you get some pleb recruits with 1s in everything. IMO, I just want people to have "fighting stats" so they can actually do something other than get hit -> unconscious the 30+ times it takes until they finally have stats that let them contribute to a fight.

[Booba]

I just subscribed to the strength-training mod but haven't gotten around to actually building one yet. I justify it as a quality of life improvement. The game's own mechanics allow for strength building outside of combat, the mod just makes it less chore-like for me to get it done. Presumably.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Morphic:

Originally posted by Morkonan:

I used the Strength Training mod, the one with the weight bench. I didn't want anything too overpowered or "cheaty." I justified it by realizing that it basically kept my people "doing something" before I had a base built.

Same.

I also have a more idles/poses job that adds placemats for various poses as well as adding some Training mats. E.g. there's Push-ups for STR(to 25), High Knees for DEX(to 30) and stuff like that. They are nice for when you get some pleb recruits with 1s in everything. IMO, I just want people to have "fighting stats" so they can actually do something other than get hit -> unconscious the 30+ times it takes until they finally have stats that let them contribute to a fight.

There is a lack of "behaviors" in Kenshi that I sometimes find annoying.

For instance, while my crew is lounging around The Hub, after having researched everything and just having a small group running a caravan for cash and building materials, before I build a base, the characters that have leveled up and are ready to go just... do nothing.

I get it. I know that I'm supposed to be ordering them to "do something" if I want... "something done." But, what can I order a character to do if there is nothing for them to do other than just stand in one spot?

"Sit" as a Job.

That's really it. They can actually do that behavior. Though, if they don't have enough food it's possible that they can starve to death if there is not a food resource close by. (A character Sitting in the Rebel Bar near The Hub has to have food on them, else they may not know enough to run to The Hub to resupply from the player-owned food bins, there.)

Sure, they could "Guard" another character, but that mechanic is... Well, honestly, it's not even worth being in the game at all. They can't "Guard" an NPC, either. It doesn't work. "Follow?" Have characters follow other characters? Maybe, but then it breaks, too, and they get stuck or they stand idly by while their follow-target gets killed to death.

The point being, and just my opinion, there are only two things that characters do. They do what the player directly orders them to do and they usually react to being directly, only directly mind you, attacked.

So, I have a large number of characters in The Hub standing at each gate entrance, "acting like" Guards, but not really. :) I built a lot of Strength benches just so I could have the other characters do something that I didn't have to order directly and monitor, myself. (Like carrying rocks/corpses/sneak/moving... or whatever.)

PS - I really like the game for its exploration value and setting. I even like the combat, the skills and the equipment and weapon animations, unmodded! For true! It's pretty darn awesome in those respects. The visuals and ambience for all the unique regions is great! But, the rest of it? Honestly? It's pretty bad. The AI-like "Behaviors" are one of the things that fail, repeatedly, along with quite a number of issues involving things that are not "explore and fight."