Got myself established. Now what?

[Edmund Greyfox]

Day 85 of my first game. Have 23 pawns, a base built North of Squin, and I'm pretty much self sufficient. Have completed all the research that can be done from books bought in the store, and have started training up a few chars using prisoners. I'm also able to take out hungry/dust bandit attacks with no problem, and even wiped out a Ninja raid when half of them decided to gather around my food storage instead of fighting.

All in all i feel like I'm in a pretty good position, but I'm struggling to decide what i should prioritize next.

Training a bunch of pawns on prisoners makes sense, but the process seems really slow (it's taken me 8+ hours of real time to train one char up to around 40ish melee/defense, 30 toughness and dex and 25 dodge using 4 prisoners (3 ninjas and a dust bandit boss). Pretty much all my other pawns have attack/defense in the low-mid 20's and toughness of 15-20. I'd really like to speed things up, but really don't want to have a ton of prisoners to feed. Any of you with a lot of experience have any advice to share on the subject?

Going out looking for engineer/ancient books also seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure if I'm really prepared for that yet. How many pawns do you need to take along for those trips, and what sort of stats should they have?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

If you have someone who is acidproof there is an ancient workshop of the coast of vain (small island cluster, nearest one is the workshop) which usually has some ancient science books and engineering research and just needs someone who can evade or fight beak things (due to travelling through vain) and either hacksaws/tools or good lockpicking skills.

The Grid also has a set of similar workshops where there is only a few beak things that may cause issues, its the grid like area southeast of The Swamp. Recommend sending at least two or three guys to that one as there can be a fair amount of loot even if you only get the important stuff.

The Floodlands also has some books to obtain and relatively safe as long as you can outrun a broken skeleton or fight them, above the floodlands is also an ancient lab filled with ancient science books and cannibals... lots of cannibals. A decent fighter (ideally not an edible one) can make short work of them and gain a lot of xp, but you can get a fair few books without fighting them or really being all that sneaky.

Narko's Trap on the border of the HN and Iron Valleys has AI cores and other tech items, however you either need to sneak past the Paladin Guardians (who attack non-allied forces on sight) or fight 50-60 stat Paladins. The lab there has two security spiders which can be avoided quite easily or you can lure a paladin or four into them dealing with two issues. You will want a bunch of folks to loot that place fully as it is quite the bounty.

Other than that just go exploring, avoid the southeast corner though as the Southern hive is hostile and not the only serious threat down that way (Elder Beak Things, Sniperbots and
many more) 40ish MA/MD is enough to tackle regular Beak Things especially if you grab good armour. Other points of interest are World's End and Scraphouse, you can get high tech books from those by paying or stealing.

[['w']]

Second time I play Kenshi, first run was ~250hrs and I saw maybe 1/8 of the map, many ancient temples, burned me a little, multitasking this with my mainbase.

I savescum, run with 4chars at the start, okayish at ~10chars, going from town to town and earning some money while recruiting all unique npcs and try to get 1-2 bonedogs (at the end ~3-5) and 1 bull (at the end ~3), ~12-20 recruits

My best char is ~35stats, maybe 6 of them ~24stats. I try to get leather armor that protects arms stomach, got a headmod ~cheaty where you can wear a gasmask and a helmet with it (tiny gasmask or helmet in the beltslot)

First time I had ~12 black dragon ninjas (some raid bosses) recruited and tora the fearless, via imprisonment mod, while ~60 stayed at the hills of squin.

This time only ~6 had better stats, ~20-30, rest only at 1-10. Playing with 2 attack slot mod, more just overruns me, even this is was at the beginning very difficult against the fogmen.

I try to lockstun my enemies with the dogs, coming from behind

mech spiders I can only take 1-2 at a time and will have 1-2 days downtime with 2-5 guys afterwards, maybe 8 mech spiders per ancient buidling?

try to get at least normal quality (even worse at the start)->
armored rag skirt -> drifters leather pants -> samurai legpants
mercenary leather armor -> sleeveless duskcoat
armored face plates /fogmask & rattan hat / iron hat
leather turtleneck
drifter's boots

this time I don't want to stay at a base (leaving skeletons with prisoners - too much micromanagement with holy nation going havoc if they spot me with them), even though things will take far longer, I want to go on a run with everyone.

So it was going up North / NorthWest and circling back to my base, beak things are super dangerous, even had a gigantic one once with my better run. no way I will take them on, there is a town in SE which will be overrun by those and everyone will die if I try to get into this territory with weaker guys.

Taking a lot of building materials / iron plates (building multiple mounted crossbows in the middle of nowhere for ambushes) / sleeping bags / cloth (camps) and medicine with me

acid proof equipment is sometimes very very helpful

PS: saving and reloading seemed to spawn more enemies, snowballing away, extremely dangerous

PPS: Micromanagement with too many dogs running around like crazy with limbs in their snouts while they should fight can be a hassle

[bunny de fluff]

Those ancient science books and engineering books are usually guarded by a kind of spider, you don't usually beat them, not without a team of highly capable fighters. More often than not, the spiders will rush out of the building, put everyone to sleep , and then you crawl onto the beds to heal, and then loot the place. I would say around 10 guys, more is better (depending on your food)

[['w']]

I always try to aggro only 1 to 2 of them, by sneaking towards them, then backtracking to a saver spot to kill them

[bunny de fluff]

@ClownWithoutACircus: depending on op team level, one spider can knock them all unconscious, can take away some limbs too. Only one way to find out : ) You can aggro the spiders of the whole building outside, just use one guy to sneak inside the building but do not aggro them, while seeing every level, use another guy very far from the building to aggro them (just keep stopping his movement so that he stays there sneaking)

[['w']]

Luckily at the last two spots I didn't draw them at once. Thx for the warning

[delekhan82]

My actual run has a quite weak party (the strong round 30 in stats) but i managed to loot the ruin northwest of Crabtown cause the spiders followed my party out and on a certain point didnt follow anymore but also did not run back..........3 crossbow guys and the rest is history.......
Might be that works in other ruins too......kinda unfair but thats kenshi :D

(IF you wanna be there as weak as i am, send a fast runner to get an Alliance with the Crab people........with stats as mine you need one allied faction there )

[['w']]

Or you can hire mercs? If they leave you can always rehire them on the spot or?

[delekhan82]

Originally posted by ClownWithoutACircus:

Or you can hire mercs? If they leave you can always rehire them on the spot or?

Not sure but i already did that before.......problem was, i met enemies, then another group of enemies and so on.
Also wasnt helpful those guys ran half a mile just because some guy they had just beaten stood up........made it barely to the next city after all with more than half my party downed and getting carried by some crippled who somehow still were awake :D

Now Crab People like me, that takes out a lot of danger (trying to build my base there xD )

[['w']]

Yes I had this against cannibals, my guys all ran indo the camp, followed them instead of staying outside.

Savescummed so much until I realized that I have to set them all to passive and micromanage the fights, and then the shrieking bandits attacked.

both factions modded, really insane and funny, but those dogs they just keep playing with the severed limbs.

crab island was where I ran into an elder thing, right at the bridge to the island and it murdered everyone, so... reloaded, and that happened with my first run.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by bunny de fluff:

Those ancient science books and engineering books are usually guarded by a kind of spider, you don't usually beat them, not without a team of highly capable fighters. More often than not, the spiders will rush out of the building, put everyone to sleep , and then you crawl onto the beds to heal, and then loot the place. I would say around 10 guys, more is better (depending on your food)

Define highly capable fighters please.

From what I'm seeing the next major step is going for the science/engineering books, but that I'm probably going to need to spend a fair amount of time training first. I'll also need to do some more recruiting so i can take a group of 5-10 out and still have a full squad to defend my base. Of course that's also going to mean feeding more people, so i'll need to expand my farming and maybe add another cooking person.

At this point i haven't done a lot with armor because i was under the impression that you wanted raise your toughness quite a bit before you started using the heavier armors. All my pawns are in dust bandit gear, but have either a wanderers jacket or leather merc armor. Maybe half have wanderer leather pants and the rest are the armored rag legs from dust bandits. For weapons it's pretty much all katanas/sabres with 1-2 guys carrying planks. 7-8 also have a xbow, and a couple of those have gotten pretty decent stats with them (30-35). I've looked around a bit for polearms, but haven't found any for sale or the blueprints to make them myself. Side note: I've got something like 600K cats, so if i need to spend a bunch on gear it won't be an issue.

Since I'm looking at more training I guess i have no choice but to have more prisoners. Having 4 per guy being trained seems to be the current sweet spot, since i can fight 1 per day and have the first in the line just about healed by the time i'm fighting the 4th.

Edit: Since this is my first play through I'm trying to avoid mods. I've got nothing against them, but I'd like to understand the vanilla game before i start changing things with mods.

[delekhan82]

Its been a while for me that i fairly fought those robotspiders (round 4 years) but id not try to be fair until your stats are round 60 and up maybe........and good armor, they like to cut off limbs.
And believe me, having a party with enough limbs for half or less the partys bodycount is not always funny^^

Right now i prefer getting one fast guy in, running away until they stand still, then shooting them from a distance. Not fair but the one thing i can do for now^^

[bunny de fluff]

I do not recommend split team for new players, one team in base one team go to explore, no. Just go together, you will need everyone, at least in the early game.

[FlashXAron ☕ (Alex)]

To the OP, MAYBE it helps, what to do , when I tell you, what I have done (playing the last experimental version, with bug fixing mods and cosmetic ones)

I only walk around with my main char and his transport mule , to explore the whole map ... recrute some new and steal like hell and ally with as many as possible against the holy nation ... all others are at home base and playing tower defense against cannibals

I am already on day 250 or so, after allied with United Cities and Flotsam Ninjas and that I ignored the praying day, they sent one of that holy inquisitor , but teams from UC and Ninjas already have been at my home base ... so we captured him !

After that have done a Heist with my char to NW map part, where we stole our first AI Core and Ing. papers ...

After that thought to bring the Inquisitor to the Shek Nation, and exploring the SW part of the map- Shek didn't want to talk with me, as I am already allied with UC , so dropped that Inquisitor in their cage, what was luck, because the rescue party raided now the shek nation.

Explored and stole most of the ruins empty in the SW at the way home I also have stolen the Inquisitor back and gave him to the floatsam ninjas, who really hate him :-)

My City and tech improved with the new techs from NW and SW ...

Raided now the Cannibals myself with allied UC and Cannibal Hunters and looted the NE part of the map ...

Now I am doing a heist and loot run to the SE, which is by far the hardest, as every thing there is OP af --- my char and his mule are already at sneak around 90+ and lockpicking and stealing also

I always have ALLIED troops (as long as possible) AND mercs with me (recruiting always new ones when in a new city) ... they are only cannonfodder , so my char could steal and loot in the meantime ...

Found the city , where all blueprints of the world are collected, now I have them LOL (but there are more in the world , just for Info )

Seems after that , I will be able to research all Techs available in the game (in my bag are now more than 20 AI cores )
_________________________________________________________
BRIEFING (for Vanilla game)
So explore the map only with your main char (sneak, loot , stealing) sometime use a crossbow AND maybe better 2 !!! mules AND the use of allies and mercs/hirelings ... So STEALTH is your friend , I am now able to stand near a robot and steal everything around him and rob him naked , with very seldom reloading
and all others are at the home base (Vanilla game, as there are only 30 all in all)
and defend , building stuff

Still have to kill the second Inquisitor and that holy guy boss , is it Phönix I think ?
I think after the fall of the HN the main quest , somehow and sense of the game is over for me ...

[['w']]

just at an ancient outpost. placed two mounted mk2 crossbows and thx to the water, I can kill the mech spiders one by one