When Should I Make an Outpost?

[klirko]

I have 4 guys and a bonepup, one with stats in the 60s, one with stats ranging from 8 to 17, one with stats 10 to 13 and the last guy is Burn, the free skeleton follower with basically all 15 level stats.

So is that a good place to settle down with an outpost? We can fight off hungry bandits with ease, we fought and won against cannibals, 60 stat guy can fight an entire Holy Nation war party in Bast by himself and the bonepup is a good support little guy.

[angrytrex]

I would recommend making an outpost when you have closer to 25-30+ people. With a party of 5, you can roam so effectively that you'll do better just having facilities in the various cities you visit.

[cqqks]

When food supplies become a problem.

[キールス]

Anytime you want really. You don't actually have to defend your base unless if you have a farm so you can just wait out an attack from an enemy that is beyond your capabilities until it blows over.

I would recommend prioritizing researching and building walls and turrets first though. Put everything inside your walls(eg farms, mines, forge, etc) after enclosing the area that you want to build in so that you do not need to worry about defending them later.

[klirko]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Anytime you want really. You don't actually have to defend your base unless if you have a farm so you can just wait out an attack from an enemy that is beyond your capabilities until it blows over.

I would recommend prioritizing researching and building walls and turrets first though. Put everything inside your walls(eg farms, mines, forge, etc) after enclosing the area that you want to build in so that you do not need to worry about defending them later.

I'll do that, but where is a good base location? I was thinking in Holy Nation territory, but uh... that won't work anymore. Now I am thinking about the Northern Coast, it looks like a very good area, but I haven't seen that many minerals to mine. It is also close to the Flotsam, Worlds End, Bast (HN vs UC province), and it has a lot of bandits/cannibals for training

[Jork]

This is my favorite base location for starting out. It's close to the Hub.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149593

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149475

Really nice spot, has all your iron/copper nodes and can grow wheatstraw/hemp/cactus.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149713

I grew it all the way to that stage and still have room to expand.

Holy Nation has never bothered me here. I'm not hostile with them but they never try annoying me with Prayer Day. They might invade you if you're hostile with them, not sure.

Shek Kingdom will be a thorn in your side though. I just fill them with harpoons when they come knocking. Alternatively you can just agree to let them in when they first confront you. They only loot food from you that's contained within Food Storages (general chests are safe)

[klirko]

Originally posted by Jud Crandall:

This is my favorite base location for starting out. It's close to the Hub.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149593

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149475

Really nice spot, has all your iron/copper nodes and can grow wheatstraw/hemp/cactus.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1987149713

I grew it all the way to that stage. Lots of room for growth and expansion.

Holy Nation has never bothered me here. I'm not hostile with them but they never try annoying me with Prayer Day.

Shek Kingdom will be a thorn in your side though. I just fill them with harpoons when they come knocking. Alternatively you can just agree to let them in when they first confront you. They only loot food from you that's contained within Food Storages (general chests are safe)

Hmm I will try there maybe.

What part of the settlmement should I build first. buildings or walls?

[Jork]

Originally posted by Meatwad:

Hmm I will try there maybe.

What part of the settlmement should I build first. buildings or walls?

I always build walls first, then a ramp on each side, then turrets with 2 turret gunners ASAP, but that's just me.

If you decide to build here, make sure you do NOT build your walls any closer to the roads than you see in my picture. If you push it forward too much, you will get people teleporting onto your walls and getting into your base. I had to rebuild my front walls twice because of this but this no longer happens now that I pushed it back far enough.

Also it's a good idea to do a double gate system like in my screenshot. Often during raids, enemies attack in such high number their collisions push each other through your first gate which is extremely annoying. Double gate system is the only workaround.

Once your walls are built, make sure you ctrl+shift+f11 also to rebuild navmesh to prevent weirdness. Anytime you build a lot of new stuff it's always a good idea to use that function.

Building your own outpost is kind of a pain in the ass with Kenshi's wonkiness but once all that is out of the way it's smooth sailing.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Meatwad:

I have 4 guys and a bonepup, one with stats in the 60s, one with stats ranging from 8 to 17, one with stats 10 to 13 and the last guy is Burn, the free skeleton follower with basically all 15 level stats.

So is that a good place to settle down with an outpost? We can fight off hungry bandits with ease, we fought and won against cannibals, 60 stat guy can fight an entire Holy Nation war party in Bast by himself and the bonepup is a good support little guy.

Probably not a good idea, yet.

There's no pressing reason for you to make a base right now, anyway. When you make a base, you're going to want to devote some of your characters to mundane tasks like farming, crafting, researching, etc... You don't have enough characters to be able to do that now and wouldn't benefit much from doing so until you had more characters.

I'd suggest ten characters with a good core group of defenders with 30+ melee stats. You also need to have a good deal of construction materials saved up so you can build at least the second level of walls as soon as possible as well as buildings and some good turrets. That also means you'll want some of your characters with some decent turret-related stats, too. (Though, they'll get some good practice anyway.)

I'd suggest exploring and finding more of the unique NPC characters to recruit. Level up your skills, get some good gear and weapons and several characters who are good with MKII Crossbows. Accumulate some cash, a bunch of construction materials/steel, all the plants you'll need for farming, stone, etc.. Then go build a base.

PS - Remember your future needs when looking for characters to hire. For instance, if you need a few farmers, hire on some greenlanders. Don't worry about training their combat stats really high or giving them the best armor/weapons. Instead, give them decent armor and a polearm or something to whack the occasional bonedog that makes it inside the gate while your combat troops rush to their aid. They will generally be "workers" not "fighters." Your front-line troops are too valuable to waste on mundane Base duties like farming, cooking, research, etc.

[Lastac]

There are locations which is easy enough for your team to settle in, but the better ones are usually in the tougher or high contested zones. Just hold off longer before you decide. And remember to minimally complete your research for walls and turrets before building a base.

Where you want to settle will depend on what you want to do. Just somewhere to rest your guys? Want to run a production centre? or have a self sufficient farm? Every place have some major flaw so you may want to settle on the edge of a biome to overlap 2 or 3 different zones. Look up the wiki for biome info.

[キールス]

The Foglands also has good defensible locations if you can manage to climb up on the many mountains it has. That is if you do not mind the constant attacks from the Fogmen.

You could also try settling in an already existing settlement like Squin/Hub. It is a bit expensive but it is not an issue when you have trade going on like crafting and selling weapons/armor or making electronics from raw copper then selling them to merchants.

It also doesn't need a big population to create, probably around 2-3 people if you want to setup an electronics work bench. Security is already provided by the settlement so defending your toons would not be an issue.

[KalkiKrosah]

I'm also new and am wondering about setting up an outpost. How many people should be gathered up before setting up an outpost?

[Jork]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

I'm also new and am wondering about setting up an outpost. How many people should be gathered up before setting up an outpost?

8-10 people is a good number for starting out. You don't need crazy amounts of people to get a basic outpost started. You can hire more people as needed once your outpost grows over time.

You will want to know how to make mounted crossbow mk2 (preferably with spotlights to mitigate the darkness debuff at night) and tier 2 walls before beginning though.

Hiring a band of mercs for your first few days is a good idea if you're extra nervous about getting attacked while you're trying to build.

Once you build your outpost, you also unlock a new option when talking to mercs where you can pay them to guard your outpost for an extended period of time. It isn't needed, but the option is there if you want.

[mk_thot]

Depends on where you're going to build. If it's around the Border Zone, then yes, but you might want to leave your 60's stat guy in the base plus another person (if you leave a base unattended and travel far enough away there's a bug where everything you've built *might* disappear completely). If your looking at areas in other areas of the map, then no. Also take into consideration what kind of things, if any, you want to produce at your base (building materials, iron/copper plates and ores, food, items, etc) you may want to recruit some more people for that.