Is cloth manufacturing a way to go?

[Rogue The Avali]

For starters at least. I'm still horribly lost as to what I'm supposed to do. Not to say that's a bad thing. Managed to rebuild a shack in The Hub. Got my♥♥♥♥♥handled to me like a dozen times, been hunting, saw a Nomad Caravan being wiped out in the middle of a city, (thanks for all the leather and animal backpacks!), you know, probably the typical stuff. Haven't lost a limb yet, although without my companions I'd be worm food many times already. Bless you, Ruka.

Well anyways, I'm researching looms, clothining manufacturing, can probably research cotton farms, and start some serious and proper production. And Iron Plate production, which will probably help. Also saw something about building material production?

So, should I focus on that, or abandon ship?
Here's my "base" at the moment. Any direction in specific I should go, or just explore, and figure out stuff on my own?

Oh, another question. How do you guys deal with fps drops? Is there some magical solution, or just deal with it?

Also I'd like to point out, that I bought a game like a week ago, and today's the second day I managed to play it for extended period of time. Basically my first time here, so please forgive me my ignorance if I did something wrong etc.

[Muscarine]

What do you mean something wrong ?

You can't really do wrong, if you wish to focus on cloth manufacturing then by all means, do that.
As long as you're having fun doing so then it's a success.

If i can give one advice, trying to be optimal at all costs is pretty detrimental to the Kenshi experience.
So if you see yourself as a clothing specialist and you feel fine in the Hub, then here you go.

The question you might want to ask yourself is how big you want to grow.
If you plan to control your production from start to finish then you'll need more hands and land to grow cotton or hemp with.
If you wish to stay small then you can simply trade for fabrics and then process these into clothing.

Note that settling outside of towns early on is a very arduous task, so if you go for leaving the Hub i recommend you hire a squad of mercenaries to cover your defenses while you get more comfortable.

[dszombiex]

You can't have farms in a city though.

[cougar206]

It looks like you are off to a good start actually. And yes you have probably done many thiings "wrong", but that is Kenshi especially when you are new to it.

Early on you can mine copper for money. It is good to work your athletics skills up on your characters so you can outrun dust bandits and the like. Watch out for gear that has athletics penalties and don't travel encumbered. Once you can outrun the bandits you can kite them to the gate guards at Squin for example and loot them when they are downed. Dust bandits have good early game loot.

By the way on the HUD at the lower left, just above where it says attack there is an up arrow. Click on it and another pane opens up that has valuable info on it. I suggest you play with that open and learn about speeds that characters (yours and others) move at. Also you can see the strenght and athletic gain %'s and learn how to use them to your advantage.

The trouble with the idea of cotton farming at this point is that you can't yet defend yourself yet. If you have to buy cottong to make fabric, or just buy fabric you won't easily find enough to make clothing manufacture very profitable at the Hub. Other places have more resources and so it can work, the Hub just isn't a great spot for it.

If you can find a Katanna blueprint which can be at the Hub or the Rebel Base then making Katannas can be quite profitable. Not so much at the very first, but as as weaponsmith skill goes up a bit it quickly becomes quite profitable. You will want to research higher weapon grades as soon as possble, makes a big difference.

Research in general can unlock possiblities. Try to get to research level 3 soon. You will need a larger building to make a level 2 research bench though. But at level 3 you can unlock two thing that can help make money. One is a plate beating station where you can turn 4 Iron Ore into 1 plate armour. This turns 360c of ore into 504c of plate armour, profitable but not a huge deal, but your train armorsmithing skill at the same time. You can also unlock a leather tanning bench which turns skins into leather, again with the side benefit of raising armoursmithing skill.

Once you can get armorsmithing skill to 40 then you can quite profitably make leather armor. Traders Leathers seem most profitable to make early on, they aren't good for wearing (bad coverages), but good for selling. But at the Hub it will take some running around to other cities to aquire the materials you need to make the leather armor.

There are so many ways you can do things in Kenshi, there simply isn't a right way. You can try these ideas, and I'm sure others will offer others you can try.

[L127-49]

Originally posted by dszombiex:

You can't have farms in a city though.

You can use Hydroponic farms. If your tech level is researched far enough.

[killer tomato]

Originally posted by L127-49:

Originally posted by dszombiex:

You can't have farms in a city though.

You can use Hydroponic farms. If your tech level is researched far enough.

Which require water -> which you can farm inside a town so we are back to step one (yes i know there are mods out there)

[ipsos]

Originally posted by killer tomato:

Which require water -> which you can farm inside a town so we are back to step one (yes i know there are mods out there)

Some cities (like clownsteady and blister hill) have rain occasionally which you can collect. It's pretty unreliable, though. I wouldn't recommend trying to take advantage of it in general.

Many cities sell fabric or enough cotton/hemp that you can make fabric yourself and make a lot of money turning that fabric in to armor (bandanas). You don't need to farm it yourself. Don't bother trying to do all that in the Hub, though. Move to Squin.

[Muscarine]

I don't understand you guys, that whole mine copper at 3x speed and pull bandits to the gate guards and; stay inside 4 walls until you researched hydroponics™...
It's a killjoy is what it is.

I get that it was basically one of the only things to start with 4 years ago but now ?
Start off the way you want, it's fine that it's your thing, but don't drive every newcomer to boredom when there's so much more to discover.

[McFlurry Butts]

Originally posted by dszombiex:

You can't have farms in a city though.

Yes you can, but it's a late game thing.

[iokimg]

There are wells in a lot of cities you can loot without it being a crime.

It's a good way to start strength training.

[Rogue The Avali]

Hub I'm mostly using as a research station right now. Been busy running away from raiders, and trading. I was hoping to find a nice wet place to set up a farm, and all the stuff, but yeah, no way of protecting it yet. I guess I'll save some more cash, buy a bigger house in the other town, and set up a weaponsmithing operation there.

[Frankske]

I'm still very new to the game myself, just a few weeks ahead of you.
And if you want to play the game in a non-combative way, i can't say anything to that since it's not what i'm doing.
But what i do want to point out is: don't be too afraid of fighting hostile npc's. Combat = combat experience. When one of your dudes goes down in a fight, he's not dead. He's just knocked unconscious. And more than likely: with all his limbs attached. A limb is only lost when it goes to -100, not when it goes to 0.
Just be smart about which fights you fight, and how. Keep one dude in a safe spot to heal up your other dudes when the fighting is over. Fight where there's friendly guards around who will win you the fight anyway. And then steal the hostile npc's gear and sell it.
Hostile npc's are not looking to kill your dudes. They're looking to knock them unconscious and steal their food. They won't steal their gear. They won't hang around to kill them off.

[Calheb]

I'll try to be concise:

- Is good to have a shelter in the Hub, but if i you want to start a bussiness like cloth manufacturing, it'll be easier if you go to a city, Squin is pretty close to the Hub (Stack is close too but they would not like your group having a Shek). Admag is further away but even better for a manufactory bussiness because it has more shops to supply you.

- A loom is most practical if you have your own cotton farm, otherwise you better buy the fabric.

- You can make "building materials" with a stone mine and a stone refinery.

- If you build anything in the open (with the exception of camp stuff) it'll count as a settlement and you will be subject to attacks and taxes. This includes Stone mining, iron refinery, cotton farms, etc. I think it's easier to stay in a town and get a lot of research done before starting a base, but nothing stops you from starting it right away



I think that's all, have fun out there and don't get caught by beak things.

[Rogue The Avali]

So really wait with settlement building till I can get some proper shop established, got it.

Another question that was bothering me. I really shouldn't bother with healing bandits, right? I was hoping I could recruit some that way, you know, tend to their wounds, feed em, etc, but I guess without a cage, cuffs or anything of that sort there's no reason to do so? Other than Ruka practising her first aid skill. When they wake up, they usually attack you straight away, if not, they run in some unknown direction.

[Muscarine]

Originally posted by Stranger:

So really wait with settlement building till I can get some proper shop established, got it.

Another question that was bothering me. I really shouldn't bother with healing bandits, right? I was hoping I could recruit some that way, you know, tend to their wounds, feed em, etc, but I guess without a cage, cuffs or anything of that sort there's no reason to do so? Other than Ruka practising her first aid skill. When they wake up, they usually attack you straight away, if not, they run in some unknown direction.

No, you can totally get out and settle early even if it's just a shack and a small spot of stuff you grow.
It'll just be harder, and you will most definitely need to hire mercenaries (or similar like cannibal hunters) to defend yourself while you grow. So you'll need cats, about 12k for 8 days.
Mercs are in the high 40s with decent and versatile gear, they can handle themselves extremely well against most of what the gamewill throw at you, granted you didn't start a war with any major faction.
Plus you will get to train your own people in combat thanks to their support.
And since they're considered your allies, they will patch you up after the fights if by any chance all your characters are down.

Make sure you have some kind of milestone save right before you start building because mistakes from just not being familiar with the whole outpost management thing can be a huge setback when your budget is strict.

There is one very good reason to patch up enemies after a fight, it's to prevent losing relations.
For example i got into a fight with some Band of Bones Sheks, but i haven't decided yet where i stand with them.
So after the fight i healed them all up so nobody died : no relation hit.

[Pig Boy]

I'm the foremost bandana merchant in Stack. Let's do lunch.