Is stealing still OP?

[Dr4g]

Hey fellas, last time I played kenshi was many months ago, and I remember back then sneaking into armories and weapon shops and stealing their items and reselling them was a very OP way of making ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of money. is that still the case or is it more well balanced?

also is it any easier/harder to train your recruits to hold their own in fights in the early game?

thanks.

[Muscarine]

Originally posted by Queek Headtaker:

The Balance Is included on the Player Ability to restrain himself if you save scum of course it is op

Yea pretty much this.
I can make hundreds of thousands of cats by not even looking at my armorsmith, spare for making sure he's not running out of materials.
That buys me pretty much everything i've ever wanted.

On the other hand, i can also micro an experienced stealth/thief/assassin and grab what i need for free. Takes a lot more management though, and contrary to smithing, the early experience is pretty chaotic with a lot of running away, bounties and whatnot.

Armorsmithing just takes armorsmithing, thievery though to get full benefits out of it needs good strength (40-50), high stealth/thievery/assassination (80) to be consistently reliable.
So if you don't save scum or exploit some random training strat, it takes a while.

I think people generally confuse thieving being so good with the fact that some of the shops in Kenshi really aren't a joke. Some shops apparently specialise in selling worthless crap, but the right ones can get you fully fitted in yellow grade just like that.

Your masterwork OWB MKII is also not gonna help you if your crossbow user has 10 crossbow skill, in fact it's gonna penalize you.

Either way, 30-40k for a yellow grade weapon or armor is chump change once you get your economy rolling, which using the armorsmith example meant two in game days of crafting clothes once i decided to get into armorsmithing.
Or i could sell grog too, at 1.2k a pop. I mean i don't know how people got the idea that thieving is broken if they don't save scum, being a trader is even easier.

Raiding ruins is easily 100 to 200k worth of robotic stuff to sell too.
Plenty of options.

If anything the underlying "issue" is that shopping heavily outweights the benefits of scouring ruins for high grade gear, since pretty much anything you ever wanted you can find at a merchant.
Wether you pay for it or steal it tbh the difference is marginal.

[Drakkungen]

Got super lucky and was able to get away with stealin' my robo-limbs for a while... finally got caught. lol

[Black Raven]

I do think stealing need better balance.

Shops need more guards, and react to anyone seen 'sneaking' regardless of if they stole anything.

The shop storage chest should be in restricted area.

If a place has been robbed once, the next morning it should go on vigilante state, where guard get posted on door and check bags for stolen gear.

If town getting a lot of thefts then town guard should become vigilante, randomly searching people.

Searching your bags is not 100% chance being caught but chance.

Wearing stolen gear also should have small chance that somebody recognises it. (Hey that's my sword!)

Getting caught stealing should also affect faction reputation.

And finally if player get caught but escape with big heist, then perhaps bounty hunters will be hired to hunt you down.

[Ruin]

Originally posted by Queek Headtaker:

The Balance Is included on the Player Ability to restrain himself if you save scum of course it is op

No need to save scum, just be smart about it... Steal static objects, while out of view, to build up your thief skill to about 20-30 (won't take long), or simply research and build thief training boxes (20 skill with no risk), at which point it should be high enough to start grabbing stuff out of containers...

Only steal those items with high percentage chances, and be ready to run if you fail...

Save scumming is really not neccesary... It just speeds up the process... Sorta... Maybe...

But to answer the opening question... Yes... It's still shockingly OP...

[Hollywood]

Yeah I mean it's realistic, good thieves in a world without proper safety/law enforcement tend to make a ton of money. The only thing unrealistic is that the chests all respawn loot every night, but that's good with me because it's not like RL where there are a millions of places to steal from.

[Adohleas]

Stealing is medicore unless you save scum. WIthout save scumming, your likely going to be caught constantly and in a lot of battles. On top of that, if you are stealing from a town, your reputation deteriates and you get bounties placed on you by that faction. So again, stealing is only OP when you save scum.

[Zourin]

Stealing is fine. In fact, it's pretty much assumed. Who's SERIOUSLY going to pay 20,000 credits for a blueprint or 15,000 for a finished peice in a world where a living person can be bought for a day's worth of barely edible food. Living 'above board' is a novelty approach when everyone's looking for ways to live under it (and be jerks about it at the same time). Barkeepers and shopkeeps make fortunes and live comfortably off the back of unpaid slaves with their overpriced goods and stockpiles of creature comforts.

Pack mules and traders are for resources you want. Thieves are for resources you need.. Blueprints, armor, weapons, research books, and food.

[Ruin]

Originally posted by Adohleas:

Stealing is medicore unless you save scum. WIthout save scumming, your likely going to be caught constantly and in a lot of battles. On top of that, if you are stealing from a town, your reputation deteriates and you get bounties placed on you by that faction. So again, stealing is only OP when you save scum.

Not if you do it right... First off, use the theif training boxes to get your skill to 20, then start with static world objects whilst out of view, and then start looking to grab objects from containers with 100%, or near to 100% chance...

Don't immediately go for the expensive stuff, as it's always hardest to grab, start of slow, and skill up (like everything in Kenshi), and, eventually, you'll be robbing store holders of their pants in broad daylight...

If you do get caught... Run... And keep running... You're generally safe, as long as you don't get arrested, which means sprinting all the way out of town...

Drop your loot if you have to, you can come back for it... Just, what ever you do, don't let the guards catch up with you....

It might also be worth while to steal from shops you don't want to trade with in the beginning, such as food shops, so that you don't lock out possibly buying items legitimately, should you get caught...

Also starting off by trying to steal from the smaller border towns is also not a bad move, the ones in the swamps are a good option I've found...

Stealing can be utterly OP, even without save scumming... It just requires a bit more effort, and to be smart about it, and not just sit there like an idiot and get arrested...

Originally posted by Zourin:

Pack mules and traders are for resources you want. Thieves are for resources you need.. Blueprints, armor, weapons, research books, and food.

You can legitimately purchase these, again, just gotta be smart about it... Clearing out a few Dust Bandit camps around Squin will easily net you 20,000-30,000 cats, as each Dust Bandit has about 1k worth of gear, give or take, and they respawn pretty regularly...

Hit the garru and goat herds for leather and meat, and you can become pretty self-sufficient this way...

Have someone back at camp tan the leather, and turn it into armour to sell, or equip your team (bought the Mercenaries leather plan, and now my entire team is in green quality or better)...

[Zourin]

yup. A master of 'critical resource procurement' starts small and just grabs the easy stuff in reach. Preferably with a partner.

Ultimately, the goal isn't usually cash, unless you're being extorted by burly thieves, taxmen, or need to save up for new hires or town buildings. The true path to self sufficiency is in quality equipment that you're normally priced out of. The difference between 'Standard' and "shoddy" quality equipment is like night and day.

My squad still can't fully handle a Dust bandit patrol without picking smaller fights that often results in the injury of the people i'm trying to train up in the first place. You're not making bank selling starving bandit sticks and Dust Bandit armor. You're not even feeding your team with them. A good thief, on the other hand, fixes that problem.

A good thief procures the equipment, food, and medical supplies neededd to survive, and blueprints & research books that make your faction self-sufficient for equipment for very little cost.

[Adohleas]

Originally posted by Zourin:

yup. A master of 'critical resource procurement' starts small and just grabs the easy stuff in reach. Preferably with a partner.

Ultimately, the goal isn't usually cash, unless you're being extorted by burly thieves, taxmen, or need to save up for new hires or town buildings. The true path to self sufficiency is in quality equipment that you're normally priced out of. The difference between 'Standard' and "shoddy" quality equipment is like night and day.

My squad still can't fully handle a Dust bandit patrol without picking smaller fights that often results in the injury of the people i'm trying to train up in the first place. You're not making bank selling starving bandit sticks and Dust Bandit armor. You're not even feeding your team with them. A good thief, on the other hand, fixes that problem.

A good thief procures the equipment, food, and medical supplies neededd to survive, and blueprints & research books that make your faction self-sufficient for equipment for very little cost.

I'm doing a solo run, without saving(except after my gaming session is complete). I get a bounty if I get caught and even an item at 98% chance to steal seems to fail a lot and gets a bounty placed on my head, thus ruining me from visiting that faction.

[Black Raven]

Thievery is far to easy even without save scum you just got to understand mechanics, if don't have 100% on chest don't do it, additionally you need consider you need to maintain blue eye stealth for 3 to 5 seconds after the theft, if your not confident can do that with patrols, don't do it.

Stealing external objects, you only need to worry about stealth eye, as its always 100% success chance regardless of skill, and best way to train thievery.

[Woofthr]

Raid trade caravans... Technically it's stealing.

I got 600 rations to feed my squad and more rare research books than I could ever use for research; I just sold a few whenever I was at a shop and am sitting on well over a million cats.

And that's just from two of them. You can even trade with them first to see if they're a worthy target.

[Leg Day]

This thread turned me to a life of crime.. I was buying up all the research stuff and stocking up on food from mining and selling ore. Turns out it was training to run from guards.

[Black Raven]

I started a new game and ruled myself to not steal except in very desperate situations (eg starving to death), otherwise game gets far to easy, even with nekos economy mod that tries to balance the bill gates wealth issues of the game.

[redshadovv]

A couple of things I discovered about stealing that someone might find interesting:
1. You can steal anything regardless of thievery level by knocking everyone out in the building you are stealing from. If everyone has been stealth KOed then you will see 100% steal chance on every item. Personally this seems a lot more straightforward than regular thieving.
2. If you really want to use thieving, you can train it easily by going into any building with stuff lying around such as cups, plates,w/e and picking up a few without being seen then simply dropping them back on the floor and picking them up again. You can sit stealthed in a corner where npcs don't patrol and do this ad infinatum for easy xp.