Building my first base

[jurek]

I'm a Kenshi newbie and I need some general tips about building it:P I have like 8 people with stats around 30 and I wonder how to start. Where should I build? What should I build first? Will raiding bandits steal items from my chests?

[[MNI] Kisune]

Well i am also pretty new (around 10 hours) but i did manage to set up a base with even weaker guys (11 with stats around 10 and some are lower)
For me i just locked for a place with a few copper and 1 or 2 iron deposits (Build in between squinn and the hive village above it)
Then i prospect and lock at wheter i have a area where i can get stone and if there is watter and build there
For the starting i went for the stone processor the stone mine and a house with research.
That allows me to get some storage going so i can automate the copper and iron mining while i have 2 duded mining stone and 3 creating building material out of it
Bandits (and other factions) Seem to take stuff from your storage or shop if they can take you down (or you aggree to pay for safety)
But if you maybe get some mercs (they are quite cheap 1k per day) and tell them to deffend your outpost you should be able to fight off all the bandits (not sure about factions)
My town is going for 7 days i had faction visits (or well Tribute gatherings) Dust bandit attacks and visits from the band of bones and exept for the faction i just fougt them off

[Vyrex]

Best base early on would be in the cannibal area north from Worlds End left of fishing village is pretty good. Cannibals are weak you should be able to kill a horde of scrawny cannibals quite easy. And you dont have to pay tribute to any of the 3major factions. Bandits only steal food and nothing else.

[[MNI] Kisune]

O after getting the stone processing going i think its best to work towards production of metal plates and if you decide to build in a arid area get some of the wheat since it is the only plant i currently know off that grows there

[Azunai]

first order of business would be to get both building materials (stone mine & processor) and iron plates (iron node for mining + iron processor) production going. almost all of the buildings require one or the other (or both), so if you can produce those 2 on your own, you can build almost everything without buying further construction mats.

getting food production going may also be worthwhile. should be enough to have 1-2 of your guys handling the farms and cooking equipment to feed all of them.

depending on biome, you can grow greenfruit, rice or cactus and you can also grow wheatgrass (i think that stuff grows in all biomes?). the combination of bread and one of the other fruit results in better food (basically tier 2 food) that will have decent nutrition value.

you can also grow cotton or hemp (check biome fertility which is better suited for your location) to make fabrics that are required for first aid stuff and light armor (and later also for weapons).

once you have all of that going, you can produce food and medical supplies and you can craft weapons from the iron plates and clothes from the fabrics to get the skill levels of your crafters up . once you unlocked some better stuff you can also make a decent profit from selling excess weapons and armors. early on they will be garbage quality and will be less valuable than selling the fabrics/iron directly.

but its an investment. after you unlocked some more tech, you can craft quite decent stuff for personal use and make a nice profit from selling off the spare stuff

[jurek]

Thanks for the answers. What's the best area to start building except cannibal area?

[[MNI] Kisune]

Azunai one quick question i would have is how do i make food out of cactus?
is it only with bread and once you have some research into cooking?

[RasaNova]

Some great advice above. I'd add that you should expect to lose whatever you build the first time. Not that you will, just don't get too attached. You WILL be attacked by an overwhelming force, and it's up to you how to deal with that. Packing up and running is a perfectly viable option, you can always come back later and will have time to build up more and hire mercenaries til then.

Originally posted by товарищ:

Thanks for the answers. What's the best area to start building except cannibal area?

I like the Swamp, down south. Lots of nearby places to sell, the Hounds are criminals but actually helpful to be allied with, and resources are great. Just watch out for the spiders, they can ruin your day quickly.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by MNI Kísune:

Azunai one quick question i would have is how do i make food out of cactus?
is it only with bread and once you have some research into cooking?

Chew sticks are the base food for cactus, with dustwiches being the breaded varient. (like veggies/food cubes, meat/meat wraps)

[KellyR]

I built in the desert, northwest of Heng.

I started with only 3 people (Including my character) and a pack bull. No fighters at all. No good armor or weapons. It was around 2 in-game weeks of play, so day 14ish, as soon as I'd bought what felt like sufficient building materials, iron plates, and food.

Didn't even know about prospecting, just settled on a spot where I could have both a copper and an iron deposit inside my walls. Luckily was fertile enough for cactus and soooort of for strawheat (47% or so).

Built a Storm House in the approximate center of the area between the two deposits and the nearest spot I could put a stone mine and get a 100% yield (They formed kind of a right triangle).

Immediately built the stone mine and processor, and had two of my characters working on mining stone and turning it into building materials, and had the third person mining copper for money so we could buy more food when needed.

One of the two guys working on building materials would take breaks to build each wall segment as I built up enough building materials.

Anytime anything threatening came by, I ran my guys away. Most threats would wander off after a time. Starving Vagrant types tended to go inside the Storm House and just stay there, so I just let them. My guys came back and kept working until the walls were complete. Then I built the iron processor and had one of my two miners go work on that instead of stone.

Then I built a mounted crossbow in front of the storm house, put one guy on it, and had the other guy poke his head into the storm house and run back out, drawing one or two bad guys out at a time, and the turret user would perforate them. Any time too many of them came out, the pack bull would help out and make short work of them.

Lather, rinse, repeat, and finally the base was secure.

Started a cactus farm and a wheat farm, and upgraded to tech tier 3 so I could upgrade the walls to tier 2, and put turrets on them.

Haven't really had serious problems since then.


Edit: On loading a save from when I was just getting started, I realized I actually only had two people and the bull when I got started. Eh, whatever. Same basic deal. One person on building material production, the other on copper mining to pay for food and such.

This is the base when I first got it encircled with walls:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1702339998

Yes, I did it terribly, this is literally my first time playing the game.


And this is the base now:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1702340160

I ended up redoing some of the walls, mainly to get better turret coverage of the gates, and also to make them more continuous for walking on. They had big gaps in places after upgrading the fences, due to the terrain slopes.

[flu007]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Originally posted by MNI Kísune:

Azunai one quick question i would have is how do i make food out of cactus?
is it only with bread and once you have some research into cooking?

Chew sticks are the base food for cactus, with dustwiches being the breaded varient. (like veggies/food cubes, meat/meat wraps)

Just to add: the research which unlocks chewsticks and dustwich is "desert cooking," level 2 research.

[Rocksalt]

Originally posted by товарищ:

Thanks for the answers. What's the best area to start building except cannibal area?

I wouldn't call it the best, but from my first play through the starting area between Squin and the Hub. Why? It slowly ramps up difficulty with raids to where Band of Bones eventually show up. I found out my squad size was too small. I could handle the starting Bandits but later when the Bones showed up, I had to vacate and rest up at the thieves guild in Hub before getting my base back.

If there's any lesson in that, difficult areas will need a fair amount of trained followers. Also you need to figure out how to get food. Steal for cats to pay for it or learn how to farm.

[Λ E O N]

Originally posted by Vyrex:

Best base early on would be in the cannibal area north from Worlds End left of fishing village is pretty good. Cannibals are weak you should be able to kill a horde of scrawny cannibals quite easy. And you dont have to pay tribute to any of the 3major factions. Bandits only steal food and nothing else.

This is a great suggestion for new players, right to the west of the fishing village, in the coast, you got copper and iron, fertility and the ghost town close to your completely empty for you for extra starting cash. The World's End town, fishing village and the flotsam village close to you for build/sell anything. Easy to kill cannibals, extra loot, friendly cannibal hunters, flotsam ninjas and other people around helping you and some hive caravans around. It's a great place.

[Ragnaman]

Dont build things too big on first time, just plop things down in close proximity.
I'd recommend you actually buy a big house in Heng (the city where is the Trader HQ). There set up shop:
1 armourer
1 weapon smith
1 scientist
Craft armour and weapons and sell them (you start making profit at 40-50 skill),
Research stuff with scientist.
This way you get your levels up for your gear crafters and your scientist (good for prospecting later, but not mandatory).

If you have a mini base in town, you dont get attacked, and you can buy all mats needed for crafting.

I evacuated once my crafters were at 80 skill, 400k cats.
While they were crafting, i had my exploration squad roam and loot (mostly blueprints and research stuff i hauled back to town sometimes).

[sf]

if you are not that experienced in kenshi outpost building, or even if you are, I would suggest following Ragnaman's excellent post above (which is close to what I do in my latest games)

The main "advantage" in setting up a real outpost (not by buying/repairing town houses) is that you can possibly setup complete productions in one place, but I find it usually troublesome to manage unless you have a LOTS of recruits, and it may also constantly draw "unwanted attention" that may be troublesome to handle all the time.

Town houses have other advantages which I feel are overwhelming when you start out:
- cheap (requires a smaller scale than standalone outpost)
- free protection (from city guards)
- free power (though you may need to augment it sometimes)
- shops close by
- simpler economy (convert stuff to cats, then cats to whatever you need. only feasible when shops are close by)

All in all, consider townhouses as a way to easily start small with less risk and even after you build a real standalone outpost, the townhouses can still be useful as long as you keep at least one unit there.

Just for reference, this is a simple order of what I usually do before even considering building an independent outpost.

0. Manually mine ore (or other things, legal or otherwise) and sell for cats to build up enough starting funds enough to buy a house in town.

1. Buy a townhouse (Stack in my latest game as it is close to Hub) and setup things so that your characters mine the ore (iron and copper) and store them in your townhouse. Then sell them for cats. Build a food store and stock them up (dried meat may be most cost effective. you may want mods that make shop restock more often, or ones that balances hunger/food nutrients better as default is horrible)

It is actually a good way of training athletics (when you run to mine) and strength(when you haul ore back to storage). For a mix, try turning on sneak how and then to build up stealth. Before you knew it, your weakling recruits will be stealth running around like a ninja faster than they could originally run at full speed.

In addition, you can add mods that train strength from the mining (though the current one I use is a little unbalanced as it allows training up to 80's in a short time)

2. Try to recruit more people to mine ore and free up your main squad for further exploring/adventuring. That way you don't have to stuck to a management desk too long and forgot the smell of metal and blood. you will also not run out of cats even if your main squad is not doing anything profitable. The extra manpower are also investment for the future, if you have plans to build up a huge army for whatever purposes.

3. When you can afford. Add a research bench to start research, for techs that are immediately useful in town houses and also ahead for techs which will be useful for standalone outposts.

4. (optional) Setup leather armor production and produce a basic armor set for everybody while training up your armorsmith. sell the surplus when everybody is equipped or you start replacing existing ones with better quality versions. Just buy the fabric/leather you need from the ore sales. (you may want to hold off heavy armor as it requires a lot more space. unless you are setting up in Hub)

5. (optional) setup and train a weaponsmith similarly.

6. (optional) training facilities for people who are idling.

7. (optional) Go to other towns, recruit more people, setup more townhouses. Expand your Trade/Travel network. (it is easier to travel from place to place if you can just set the traveling unit to "follow" a unit at the destination. Make it a Job and it will be uninterruptible by anything except game's pathing bugs)

8. If you want to set up a larger multi-building town-base, consider the Hub. (only problems with the place is there are only 1.5 traders and no gate guards)


This will provide you with the basic things you need when you start to build your first standalone outpost:
- cats!
- resources!
- tech!!
- (trained)people!!!

[KellyR]

I really don't get why people talk about needing a ton of recruits, or hiring mercenaries, or even having combat skills before starting a base.

I found it trivial with just two characters and a bull, no combat skills to speak of at all. (Single digit at best).

Next game I'm planning to do the Freedom Seekers start and literally just go start a base on day 1, since they start with the materials for it...