is squin a viable place to build a home?

[Mr Robert House]

its the only place marked on my map, i cant defeat anything in a fight but i have 10k caps from mining and looting things that other people have killed. i currently have the money, some heals and food, and some utterly useless equipment which im going to sell so i can run faster.

i cant build my own base since i cant defend myself but squin has 5 guards at each gate, and a mining spot near each one. even if i get knocked out i should be close enough to the guards for them to finish the bandits. so my plan is:

go back there ( at the hub right now looking for a backpack)
buy a crosbow since i have literally a negative chance to hit (somehow) with mellee
buy a house and fix it up and get a companion to mine for me
keep mining with my slaves/ companions and get more people on board while i build the armor and weapon producing thingy
then build training dummies and manufacture armor to go kill some bandits
then i should be able to make my own base

is that broadly how this game is supposed to go? i havnt seen a single person with stats as bad as mine, and everyone seems to travel in groups so i cant see any way to avoid having to mine at the start. is it the only honest way to make money?

[crispy D pancakes]

At the start you are the weakest person in the world. Mining is a good way to start off making money. You can also kite those groups of bandits to gate guards and then loot, just be careful because some nations will enslave these bandits. I find the Hub the best place to kite bandits as the guards dont care if you loot them. Skill up your sneaking and try some robbery, break into shops at night and steal what you can, can be risky tho. Also you can pay the shinobis in the Hub, the big tower and then use their facilities to train up, they'll also offer you a 50% discount on trading , so buy off them but try not to sell to them.
Squinn has a few long houses I think you can buy, the Hub has a lot more tho.

[letalis001]

Ill give you some tips. for one. remember your character isnt a god. so my suggestions would be keep your 10k and since you are a single person, wear light clothing, and start training up your stealth skills and athletics. because those skills maxed out make you able to get away from almost any situation, even if you are captured and enslaved. you could use that 10k to invest in a membership with the shinobi thieves, they have facilities in their tower that would allow you to train up your lock picking and assassination skills. why fight when you can sneak up to a bunch of people in the cover of darkness and knock them all out, then take their stuff for a tasty profit? :)

Then, after you have made a lot of money, you can buy a place in town, build a research bench and hire some dude to run it, and go on stealing sprees for the books and materials you need for that research, and once you have a good amount of research, then concern yourself with building an outpost.

In Kenshi, you only keep what you can defend. bear that in mind. if youre a thief that relies on cunnning rather than force, youll find that you can afford what you need later to bring that force.

[yippeekiay]

In my last playthrough I did everything in Squin. Over 300 days went by before I decided to build an outpost. Squin was more than viable to get my research done, train, cook and make new weapons/armour etc. while other guys explored for research & loot etc.

I managed to squeeze in an awful lot of machinery & storage into 2 buildings which was more than enough for my needs. I think there was 1 or 2 more I could have bought too. Can't remember as a few months since I last played.

Only downside would be food until you can build hydroponics but to be honest there was plenty to grab on my explorations looting from animals, plus the bar in Squin had enough. Then there was the Garru's that passed through Squin regularly who often aggro'd the guards, free meat for me lol.

At the start my guys were mining the copper node & 2 iron nodes just outside so nice & close if you need to run back. My copper node was flanked by several bandit camps which constantly respawned but after a few big battles with them my guys were more than capable of fighting them without getting much damage anymore. Don't forget, all the loot from them sells nicely at the many shops in Squin along with the loot from other factions running through or attacking Squin.

Note though, in my playthrough there was very few guards remaining by the time I moved to my own outpost as they tend to chase anything for miles & sometmes don't come back as they got downed/died. I think there was 2 guards left in Squin when I left.

[crispy D pancakes]

Originally posted by yippeekiay:

Note though, in my playthrough there was very few guards remaining by the time I moved to my own outpost as they tend to chase anything for miles & sometmes don't come back as they got downed/died. I think there was 2 guards left in Squin when I left.

So guards don't respawn when killed?

[yippeekiay]

Not in my Squin they never. I ended up protecting the town until I moved on but everytime I go back it still only had a couple of guys with none at either gate.

[Mr Robert House]

i should clarify that i dont want to play as a thief (maybe ill recruit someone to be a thief later) i might pay to join the shinobi thieves to allow me to sneak attack the hungry bandits and generally be stealthier. that sounds amusing, and i think i can train my sneak by just following them around at night, theyll probably end up losing a fight to guards anyway so either way ill get something.

is ranged combat a good idea later in the game atall? i was planning to have my character do mining but then have them be a master weapons crafter, researcher and leader so dont really want to risk them in melee. also i cant train my melee skills yet without serious injuries so i was thinking shooting at people guards are fighting may be a good idea to have atleast 1 good combat stat.

[Mr Robert House]

the guards not respawning might be a problem, i might start healing them after fights too

[crispy D pancakes]

Originally posted by Mr Robert House:

the guards not respawning might be a problem, i might start healing them after fights too

early game it shouldn't be an issue later game you wont need guards to protect you.

[Paragon]

Yeah this is pretty much early game Kenshi, unless you already have 100 hours in and know exactly what to do.

Squin is a good starter place, you can store your gear, own a few beds, and do some research in safety.

Ranged combat is always good, get a Ranger ASAP. It has a much lower skill requirement of 60 (compared to 80-90 for many) to use at 100% efficiency (fastest reloads, lowest deviation, etc) and can deal good damage while using easy to find and craft normal bolts.

To train melee you can join fights like you suggested or take a slave (kidnap a decent guy still alive after the Shek beating) and regularly beat him up (yes this is a thing). Give him armor and a defensive weapon to make him last longer. Make sure you can actually win.

Squin does not have much in the way for crafting, lacking foodstuff and leather, but you can set up a mining outpost easily enough. Being a master smith is still pretty far off.

[Scrubby Spammer]

I'd say Squin is a pretty nice town to get started in so long as you don't plan to produce much. You can do all of your research there, store your stuff there, and make an adequate barracks. It basically comes with free power and the central longhouse is usually right next to the trader and beside the bar

The roofs provide adequate training and storage space, and a good place to put sleeping bags and tents if you want to copy with some of the other buildings do instead of building beds. You could also put small wind generators and batteries on top of one of the buildings if the free power ever isn't enough.

Between the three longhouses you should be able to do all your crafting in Squin provided you don't mind buying the raw materials.

[Scrubby Spammer]

There isn't much in the way of water sources around Squin so once you get hydroponics you probably won't be using it there though.

[Scrubby Spammer]

Ranged Combat is a GREAT idea if you have a squad of 5 or more, think of how often the ranged attackers are your worst nightmare because you have like 5 guys on you and they're destroying you but you can't reach them. That's why you want them, so you can do that.

[Crv0z]

One of my issues is the death of guards in late game. I had a skeleton crew mining copper in Hub, and hours later all the guards died. Some more hours in and even the barkeeper died.Without the bar to sell food my operation broke down.
From what I know, these kind of attacks only happen if you have a player controlled character nearby, so as long as youre not in the city, the guard population is fine.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Mr Robert House:

...is that broadly how this game is supposed to go? ...

It can be the way it is "supposed to go." There are a variety of ways "to go," though. One thing is fairly certain - If you're going to build your own base then you need to prepare for that. You will want to have a goodly amount of research already accomplished, have a stockpile of materials to get you started, and have a decent number of characters with their combat stats around 30 or so.

Squin is a nice, very safe, place to base from. But, "safe" is not always good. It's very good in the very early part of the game as it does give you the chance to gather some resources, get some additional companions, get some minimal skills. But, you can not just let the Guards of a town fight your battles for you and there's a time when you may not be able to fight your own, so... what do you do?

I would say The Hub is a better place for you to base from. You'll certainly be able to mine more, but will be forced to eventually haul it to Squin to sell, which will do you some good. :) It's more dangerous than Squin, of course, because there really aren't any "Guards" except, perhaps, a few at the Bar. (The patrolling citizens/guards won't help you unless they, themselves, get targeted by whoever is beating on you.) But, there are the Shinobi there and you can join them for 10k cats. Considering that they sell all sorts of nice gear at half price, it's well worth the cost. Plus, you can count on them to assist you if things are going badly, though you may have to run to their tower to alert them. And, Wandering Assassins will assist you to a certain extent. Not always...

Going from starting out in Squin to moving to The Hub is a good "progression." You increase your risks, increase the chances of having to take on enemies with no "backup" and have to get used to traveling as you run ores to market in Squin and start exploring around The Hub, maybe broadening your market to Stack and visiting the Holy Nation. There's enough "risk" there to help you get your character's combat skills leveled up while not being eaten by Beak Things or left for dead out in the wilderness... Plus, The Hub has more buildings for you to buy than Squin, so you can engage in some crafting, store more supplies for base building, etc..

IOW, how things are "supposed to go" in Kenshi is largely about measures you take, or fail to avoid, to increase your risks so you can gain the most reward. You could play it safe in Kenshi and amass a fortune in cats, materials, crafted items, etc, and never level your character's combat skills much past those of a reasonably experienced Dust Bandit.... But, that would be a long, boring, slog of a playthrough, wouldn't it?

Safe is bad, a level of acceptable and ever-increasing risk is good. :)

PS - You can buy as many buildings are there are buildings for sale in any town and in multiple towns, so don't worry about committing yourself to any one spot. You can buy one building or all the buildings in Squin and then decide to move to a different town and buy all those up if you wish.

[Acetango]

Much like everyone else said, you start at the bottom of the food chain. Starving bandits will clobber you, so be opportunistic, and take advantage of situations. I hang around cities and loot criminals/fight them with the guards so I can get started.

While numbers are an advantage, mismanagement will get your friends killed. Try to minimize the amount of members dedicated to a single target, as anything else within a hit that isn't friendly will not only take the full damage, they do not have a chance to block the attack.