Kenshi - Guide

This is my second Steam guide, aiming to help with a feeling of helplessness Kenshi instills on new players. This guide covers the journey from homeless vagabond to controlling a self sufficient bastion, useful tips & tricks, as well as some info about how the world works.

Introduction

Welcome to Kenshi - Guide. This will help you understand the lessons the game wants to teach you and ultimately master this unforgiving world. Several gameplay suggestions and examples are also included.

Table of contents:

• Kenshi Basics
  
• Early Life
  
• R & D
  
• Final Preparations
  
• Settling A New Land
  
• Mastery
  
• Save Location
  
• Sources & Credits

Author's Note: This guide avoids spoilers as much as possible. Any lore references are based on my (flawed) understanding and don't necessarily represent the truth of Kenshi.

Difficulty
This game is brutally hard, no two ways about it. If you want a safe, relaxing experience you might want to look elsewhere or patiently work at it until you are well established. That being said, the game does offer you ways to tweak the experience when you start a new game:

Beginning: A lot of role play options here with "Wanderer" being the standard Kenshi experience (hard). Most other options are harder than this with the exception we will be going for in this guide: "The Freedom Seekers" where you start with 6 customizable characters, 4000 cats (currency) and a couple of building materials.

WARNING: One of your characters, "Old Soldier" is stronger than others but also a wanted man. (the last on the row) The bounty can be bought off later.

Advanced Options: It is important to familiarize yourself with these settings before you begin your adventure as this settings can't be changed latter. (unless you import the game) The options are:

Hunger time: In Kenshi, characters need to eat or they will die of starvation. Setting the number higher than 1 means it takes longer for characters to go hungry, alleviating some micromanagement and making sparse food manageable. (recommended 8)

Chance of death: Taking damage in Kensi likely means you also start bleeding which will eventually kill you (even if the wound is minor) if left untreated. How major a wound or bleeding is are determined by this. (recommended 0.5)

Global damage multiplier: Like the tool tip states, this simply amplifies the total damage of combat. For newcomers a lower number also gives time to understand what is going on. (recommended 0.5)

Production speed: How fast labor and crafting is done. Keep in mind that experience is granted on working on something and not finishing it. (recommended 1)

Research speed: Similarly, how fast you research stuff. (recommended 1)

Building speed: Once more, how quickly construction is completed. (recommended 1)

Number of nests multiplier: Initially and over time, the world will be populated with beast nests and bandit camps making exploring or setting up a base hazardous. (recommended 0.5)

Bandits loot the player: Just what it sounds like. If you get k.o. bandits will pilfer your items. Since sparing with bandits is a good way to train your combat early on, this makes it risky. (recommended unchecked)

Easy prospecting: Prospecting scales off science skill. This, supposedly makes it unrelated, however it's a broken option and doesn't change anything, leave it as is.

Once you are happy with your settings you may hit "BEGIN" and go on to customizing your squad.

Pro Tip: You can always and at any time import your characters & buildings into a new world state. (effectively a New Game+) You can the change any of the above options, say, after you established your base, to make the game way more challenging whenever you wish. More in importing latter in the guide.

Options: These options affect the game difficulty but can be changed at any time from the "Gameplay" section.

Squad size multiplier: How many people are in each squad. More people makes harder fights but more loot. (recommended 0.5)

Global population Multiplier: How many individual squads roam about. (recommended 0.5)

Town raid size: When you set up a town, raids will start hitting. This changes how many arrive. Generally unless you are well prepared you want this as low as possible. (recommended 0.25)

Town raid frequency: How often raids happen. (recommended 0.25)

Town attacks frequency: How often wandering bandits decide to storm your base. Even if set to "never" if provoked, bandits will clash at your gates. (recommended "never")

Dismemberment: In Kenshi, damaging individual limbs can have adverse effects on a character, and eventually permanently loosing a limb. Since replacing a lost limb is expensive early on, it's advised to change this during end game. (recommended "never")

Import Game: An important feature of Kenshi. This functions basically as a New Game+ you can do at any time by importing your characters from a save into a new world state. It's recommended to make use of this feature to bypass the odd bug, or to undo mistakes in the progression of your world. It has additional features:

Reset squad positions: This takes your characters (and their gear) from all over the world are places them all together in an appropriate starting area.

Import Buildings: This makes sure your base and outposts are imported along with your characters. This includes all loot inside your base's containers.

Import Research: This imports all completed research to the new world.

Import Dead NPCs: Important story NPCs can be killed and affect the world's state. This makes it so that any deaths are remembered.

Import Relations: You can ally or oppose the many factions of Kenshi. This maintains your relations with them.

Pro Tip: depending on the situation or preference, you can mix and match these options, for instance, starting your base building from scratch is faster than dismantling a fully established outpost manually.

Kenshi Basics

Here lie some of the terminology used in game and this guide for your convenience.

Attributes & Skills

Strength: Affects mainly blunt damage and how much you can carry. Is raised by using blunt weapons or being overencumbered.

Dexterity: Affects mainly cutting damage and attack & block animation speed. Is raised by using cutting weapons.

Toughness: Affects mainly how much damage you take, KO point and how much damage it takes to stagger you. Is raised by getting hit (not blocking).

Perception: Affects mainly how you perform with ranged weapons. Is raised by using ranged weapons.

Weapons: Each different weapon category has it's individual skill level and is raised by using that kind of weapon. This affects outgoing damage only.

Melee attack: Affects every melee weapon hit chance and reduces enemy block chance. Is raised by fighting (landing hits or not) preferably stronger opponents.

Melee defense: Every melee weapon (but not fists) can block incoming attacks based on this skill. Is raised by blocking attacks (not getting hit) preferably from stronger opponents.

Dodge: Martial arts (fists) can't block so they dodge instead. Keep in mind that while staggered, your character may attempt to doge since he can't block. Is raised by dodging attacks when using fists.

Ranged: Affects crossbow and turret accuracy and fire rate and is raised by using them.

Precision shooting: When shooting a ranged weapon, bolts have collision and will affect friendly targets if they are in the way. This allows a bolt to pass harmless from friends. Is raised ironically, by shooting said friends in the back.

Stealth: Reduces how far your character can be detected when sneaking. Is raised by sneaking with enemies around.

Lockpicking: Allows a character to open treasure chests and handcuffs. Is raised by picking locks. (successful or not)

Thievery: When stealing, there is always a % chance of being detected by nearby people. Training this will lower said chance. Is raised by stealing.

Assassination: While sneaking, you may attempt to KO an enemy. This deals no damage, and is great for capturing potential recruits or bounty targets. Is raised by KOing enemies. (successful or not)

Athletics: How fast your character moves. Is trained by moving around but trains faster with no encumbrance.

Swimming: Swimming always slows down a character, but with higher swimming skill, less so. Is trained by swimming.

Field Medic: Affects how effective first aid kits used by this character are. Is raised by using said kits or making them.

Robotics: Affects how effective skeleton repair kits used by this character are and the quality of prosthetics made by this character. Is raised by using said kits or making them as well as crafting prosthetics.

Engineer: Affects how fast a character can build & repair things. Is raised by building & repairing things.

Science: Affects research speed done by this character but also the area "prospecting" reveals. Is trained by researching and crafting certain components.

Smith: Affects how fast a character crafts weapon, armour & crossbows and their quality. Is raised by crafting said gear.

Labouring: Affects how fast a character can mine, operate machinery and do other menial choirs. Is raised by doing said work.

Farming: Affects not only the speed but also how many crops a farmer ruins due to poor skill. Is raised by doing farm work.

Cooking: Affects the speed of making meals or brewing. Is raised by doing said work.

Weapon damage ratio: Weapons in Kenshi deal a mix of cutting and blunt damage. Cutting damage scales off Dexterity and Blunt damage scales off Strength. Using any weapon also trains these stats by the % of damage distribution. (ex a blunt only weapon trains Strength 100% and Dexterity 0%)

Backpack: Backpacks in Kenshi not only increase inventory space but also allow certain items to stack in the same space. In addition many backpacks reduce the total encumbrance of their contents making them an essential option for manual work or trade. Most do, however, reduce combat stats in some form, so caution is suggested.

Armor Mechanics

Blunt resistance: A flat % damage reduction of incoming blunt damage. (100 blunt damage -> 50% blunt resistance -> 50 blunt damage)

Cut resistance: How much % of incoming cut damage is "resisted" (100 cut damage -> 50% cut resistance -> 50 "resisted" cut damage and 50 cut damage)

Cut resistance effectiveness: How much % of "resisted" cut damage is negated and the rest passes on as blunt. (from the above 50 "resisted damage" -> 50% cut resistance effectiveness -> 25 blunt damage)

Coverage: The % chance that armor will take effect. (50% coverage means armor will take effect 50% of the time)

Layering: When multiple layers of armor overlap, damage passes through all of them in turn and all armor effects take place in turn. (head>chest>pants>shirt>boots)

Armour penetration: Certain weapons have a % of positive or negative armour penetration. This counteracts the resistance. (So even with 100% blunt resistance if a weapon deals 100 blunt damage but has 10% armour penetration, it will still deal 10 blunt damage instead of 0)

Environmental resistances: Environmental resistances offered by armor are a sum total of all parts.

Other

Cats(c.): The currency of Kenshi.

Jobs: A main feature of Kenshi is automation of certain tasks. By pressing shift+click on a task, it gets added to the "Jobs" section. Clicking the "Jobs" button deactivates all jobs temporarily.

Prospect: Shows you the terrain's features in an area around the character. Useful when deciding where to build a base or for finding useful veins around cities. Scales with science.

Taunt & Block: Taunt attracts the attention of enemies and block disables a characters attacks but gain a +20 melee defense in return. Useful when used together to create a "tank" character.

Stronger opponent logic: Combat experience is scaled in proportion to the power difference of opposing fighters. Attacker's "melee attack" vs defender's "melee defense" Thus, hampering your stats with heavy armor & large backpacks is a great way to train fast.

Races of Kenshi

Greenlander: One of the two "human" factions in Kenshi. Considered high class citizens. Welcome by the Holy Nation.

Scorchlander: The second of the two "human" factions. Considered lower class citizens. Tolerated by the Holy Nation.

Shek: Humanoids with a bony exoskeleton. Allowed only as slaves by the Holy Nation.

Hiver: An insectoid race of 3 different "breeds" worker, soldier and prince. Allowed only as slaves by the Holy Nation.

Skeleton: A sentient robotic race shrouded in mystery. Rumored to have caused a great calamity. HATED BY THE HOLY NATION AND WILL BE EXTERMINATED ON SIGHT.

The Holy Nation: A theocratic order of paladin knights with a burning hatred for skeletons and one of the 2 major powers in Kenshi. Settling their fertile lands in the west grants frequent patrols and safety, but every Sunday is prayer day. And you don't wanna skip out on prayer day.

The United Cities: A corrupt slaver empire of the east renowned for their elite samurais. One of the 2 major powers in Kenshi, settling their eastern lands offers decent conditions and tolerance to skeletons but comes at a price. That price being 3000c per week in "protection" tax.

Minor factions: Kenshi has many other factions with their own relations, allies and enemies from cannibal bandits to tech hunters. Settling their lands grants peace of mind from the major powers but often comes with caveats such as acid rain, poor resources or hostile fauna.

Early Life (Walkthrough 1/5)

After setting up your preferred options for your new game and hitting "BEGIN" you will be taken to the character creator screen. It is now you will need to make some choices.

Starting party composition: Depending on your origin story, you will start with 1 to 6 people and varying levels of resources. For our narrative, we will go with "The Freedom Seekers" as we want to eventually settle a base and build our castle.

Different races have different modifiers on the speed of certain tasks. Some are better at combat, others at science and others at fieldwork. While noticeable these differences are not all that important however. Here are the strengths and weaknesses in a nutshell:

Greenlander & Scorchlander: Unremarkable jack of all trades humans. The latter are great thieves.

Shek: 125 HP instead of the normal 100 HP in all parts due to their exoskeleton naturally makes Sheks exceptional warriors and fantastic tanks. They are poorly skilled in labor and need to eat more than humans however.

Hive Worker: Workers are quite weak characters and lose limbs quite easily. Their pathetic 75 health to most parts and inability to wear boots and most helmets further punishes them in combat. They are exceptional at labor and eat less than humans however. All hivers are immune to acid rain.

Hive Soldier: Soldiers are equal to humans in terms of durability. Their heads have twice the HP of humans but are unable to wear helmets. They excel at melee combat and have a heavy penalty in all labor. All hivers are immune to acid rain.

Hive Prince: Princes are a bit more tough than workers but not by much. They excel at intellectual work and are the rarest of hivers to be found outside of their hives. All hivers are immune to acid rain.

Skeleton: Ah skeletons. By far the most unique faction in Kenshi. Skeletons are immune to ALL weather effects and don't require food at all. In addition, they have a massive 200 HP in all parts, making them incredibly durable, though they can't wear helmets, boots and shirts limiting their armor layering potential. The catch? apart from being hunted by all Holy Nation knights, skeletons don't heal over time. Instead, they rely on super expensive repair kits or end game repair beds to get their HP back. Assuming those shortcomings can be managed, they are by far the best race to have around in most situations.

For the reasons above, hivers and skeletons are not recommended for your starting crew unless you really know what you are doing or going for a specific RP scenario. By the end you will have 30 people including pack animals and members from every race so don't worry too much about starting with humans only.

Now, make your choice and customize your starting gang and let's begin proper.

Pro Tip: If your 6th character, "Old Warrior" is a Shek he will be a formidable fighting force for this state in the game. Remember to pay off his 20000c. bounty at some point.

Pro Tip: There is an plastic surgeon in certain bars that will allow you to rename & customize your men at any time for a small fee of 200c.

Welcome to the world of Kenshi. You will likely start near a neutral town such as "The Hub" but the strategy for this early part of the game changes little per location.





Pro Tip: Several maps for Kenshi will be found latter on in the guide. Visit the sources listed at the end to obtain higher resolutions of said maps.

First order of business: your men are hungry and they need a place to rest. You could rush off and try finding your base now, but that is a great way of getting torn to pieces by beak things. You may use the money you have at hand and buy the cheapest, most run down shack and repair it if need be. If money is short, there is only one thing to do: mine copper.

Copper and Iron deposits litter the world of Kenshi and sometimes are located near outposts and cities. They can be mined indefinitely and will latter be the backbone on where to found your city. Copper is way more valuable as a trade resource than iron. Until you can afford a home, you will have to carefully mind deposits and sell copper. Quickly run to the guards if danger approaches you wile mining.

It won't take long to buy a cheap house. Now next up is food, rest and medicine. Food can be bought from bars or better yet, cooked from raw meat you get of animals in a campfire you can build for free. Buy a "Sleeping bag" and build yourself a "Camp Bed" so your wounded can rest. Buy first aid kits as needed but try to avoid combat as it's still risky and costly.

Pro Tip: Your athletics and laboring should rise over time during this period. If you add a lot of weight into a character, his strength will slowly rise as well. Tell him to sneak around while mining and his sneak will rise at the same time at the cost of copper mining efficiency.

R & D (Walkthrough 2/5)

Weapons & Armour: By now you should have a humble but stable economy so it's worth considering some initial equipment for your troops to look out for. Without going too much into it, we want the best armour that has no penalties, mostly light armour. For this set we want the "Dustcoat" "Leather Turtleneck" "Wooden Sandals" "Samurai Clothpants" and the "Iron Hat". This set has no penalties, exceptional layering & coverage, very lightweight, grants immunity from acid rain and has respectable defense to boot. For weapons things are a bit simpler. You want everyone with the "Polearm" spear in hand. Since we are rolling with no dexterity penalties, this weapon will do decent damage, the highest hit chance bonus (tied with guardless katana), exceptional reach, and most importantly, 30% armour penetration and +50% damage vs animals. Humanoid enemies and beasts will be no problem and you won't be encountering many robot/skeleton enemies if you mostly follow this guide, at least early on. Go for the "wooden backpack" as it allows stacking of trade items up to 9 while also reducing total weight of all items inside it by 50%

Pro Tip: You can buy blueprints of the above gear (not backpacks so stock up on those) and later craft better versions yourself.

Research: It's time to move up in the world. Build yourself a research bench and either trade or explore ruins for "Book" put these back into the bench and do research. Ideally, you'd want most research done before you set out to colonize, but for now, go for the essentials such as "storage" techs and focus on raising your tech level. From level 2 research bench and onward, you will need power. You can build a "Small Wind Generator" on top of larger buildings you can buy.



Pro Tip: If you decide to go delve in ruins, press & hold the left Alt key to highlight items on the ground such as research artifacts.



Pro Tip: From "Research Bench II" and onward you can upgrade to the next level of bench without the need of building a new one every time. Certain buildings and instruments can be upgraded in this manner, saving up time, resources and space.

WARNING: leaving a town for an extended period will RESET all buildings and make you loose all your loot. Think of owning property as extended rent. You will eventually need to pack everything and move so don't go overspending in real estate. Buy what you need.

Automation: Now that you have a house you can build a copper storage and a food storage. These will serve as drop-off points and allow you to assign tasks (with shift+click) You will notice your cats are increasing. When you reach level 3 techs, go for "Electrical Crafting" so you can start making useful (and more profitable) "Electrical Components". If you exhausted your copper production go for "Plate Armour Crafting" research and sell "Armour Plating" made from raw iron.

Pro Tip: You might want to visit hive villages in the west and pick up many "Lantern of Radiance". This is the only belt item in the game and emits a light around the character, preventing the "working in the dark" penalty, useful for setting up your base fast or working indoors without a light source.

Pro Tip: Consider building a few "Training Dummy MkIII" so your people can safely train combat up to level 15 and not be completely outclassed by starving bandits.

Recruitment: Your income should allow for more hands. By the end you will have 30 people in 2 squads including pack animals. For now you can hire up to 20 people, including a few skeletons.

You can recruit people from bars or buy them from slavery. Unique characters exist, but keep in mind that re-naming them will still count as you having that unique character and won't re-spawn if you import your game.

Pro Tip: The skeletons can be sent on far away towns and check local shops without the need for food or fear of weather. By avoiding fights their repairs should be rare and affordable.

Pro Tip: Recruitable variants of hivers and skeletons exist with minor stat variations and cosmetic differences although they are exceedingly rare.

Pro Tip: Use the import function to reset a bar if you want to hire many people in a short span of time, or you are looking for specific rare recruits (like skeletons).

Breakthrough: Keep researching techs and collecting research artifacts until you know all buildings, mines and refineries. (Tech Level 6) It sounds extreme, and you can set out earlier, but knowing all buildings and machinery will allow you to stock up for the journey. Going early runs the risk of building an inefficient or cramped base and tearing down and expanding is a pain. (and a risk in the wilds). Automated buildings will be a blessing for initial base set up. You can skip on many indoor, crafting and miscellaneous techs if you wish.

Pro Tip: Research artifacts include, in order of rarity: "Book" (306 needed), "Ancient Science Book" (154 needed), "Engineering Research" (19 needed) and "AI Core" (32 needed). Most of these can be found in ruins, usually guarded by tough enemies. Ruins restock with the import function.

Pro Tip: The "Scraphouse" in the Deadlands is a skeleton research center that has a chance to sell artifacts including the uber rare AI cores. You can send a skeleton to stay at the town and check the store every day or import the game, resetting their stock.

Pro Tip: If you wanna buy pack animals, wait until you are about to move as they eat a lot of food and will be a strain in your economy at this point.

Final preparations (Walkthrough 3/5)

You have done your homework. You have recruited people. You have equipped them. You have amassed a reserve of money. It's time to leave the confines and safety of your town and set out to colonize your own base. The time has come.

Before you leave, it's time to buy 1 or 2 pack animals. For variety i recommend one of each "Pack Beast" and "Pack Bull". Pack beast backpacks stack to 6 instead of the pack bull's 5. These beasts can hold MASSIVE loot quantities and will be essential to settle your base and establish long distance trade latter on. Be forewarned: they eat a lot of food as a trade-off.

Before we get into the geography of Kenshi, you need to account for provisions as well as some initial materials for when you reach the desired site. As a rule, walling off your settlement immediately costs insane amount of heavy and bulky "Building Materials" you can cheaply make on site. So don't calculate them in your list.

You will need a few buildings to put your beds and workshops in. You can get by with a single large building like an "Outpost s-IV", "Stationhouse" or "Y-House" initially. How you will set up your dream city is up to you but make sure this first building(s) are the heart of it. If you have skeletons, account for one "Skeleton Repair Bed" so you can rapidly repair your mechanical friends (and prosthetics) for free.

Pro Tip: You can rotate buildings with "<" and ">" but also make them leveled or sloped with "[" and "]"

Pro Tip: Beds are essential for resting injured party members and first aid to close bleeding. Bring fabric and first aid with you, since it is not a priority to build these kinds of farms (hemp/cotton) just yet.

Pro Tip: Campfires are free and are used to cook raw meat. Use them as a supplementary source of food from the predators that will inevitably descend upon you wile your crops grow.

Pro Tip: "Foul Raw Meat" can be found in many beasts in Kenshi. This isn't good for your squad but animals can eat this. To avoid clogging your inventory, build an "Animal Feeder" so your people can store the foul meat there.

The second most important thing you need is power. You will need to build a couple of "Wind Generator II" so you can jump start your production line and become self sufficient.

WARNING: many buildings have variants or superior versions. For instance, by default the game selects "Wind Generator" when you click on it. Make a habit to double check the version of the building you wanna place with the < and > buttons next to it's name.

Next we need a "Hybrid Stone Mine II" to make more building materials and an "Iron Refinery IV" to make iron plates. Automated iron mine and steel refinery are not necessary in this stage of development. Use your materials to build more of the aforementioned structures to boost your industry.

Finally, to avoid starvation we need to account for farms. Since these can be upgraded, start with many small variants and latter work your way up. What crops you will bring with you depends on where you choose to settle. (more on that latter) This also means a "Well III" for reliable water for said crops.

Next up is a "Cooking Stove" and an "Electrical Workbench" for food & components respectively.

Now, note the total cost of all things mentioned above and adjust for your differences. You can start with more resources and build multiples of the above buildings at once, but it's not a good idea to go under-equipped as not having the essentials mentioned above can doom all you have worked for so far.

Now, pack all necessary provisions and materials on your people and pack animals and go forth!

Settling A New Land (Walkthrough 4/5)

And so, you and your caravan of settlers are on the road. It's time to talk about the geography and topography of Kenshi now.

The world of Kenshi is an intricate place with biomes, factions and weather effects unique to various areas of the game. For example, "Ashlands" in the southeast, are an inhospitable barren wasteland with no fertility, no water, no stone, slow winds, little rain, colossal hostile robots and poison fog clouds. Therefore, for the purpose of this guide, settling that place is akin to suicide.





















As a rule of thumb, you desire green fertility since with that you can make foodcubes (best food in the game) and hemp (first aid, fabric, fuel, drugs) in large quantities. However hydroponics do exist to compensate for lack of fertility.

You also desire no extreme weather such as acid rain or poison fog and a healthy supply of water, stone, iron and copper in close proximity to encase in heavy walls.

You can visit wikis and external sources linked at the end of the guide and ponder on the best location. Thankfully, i've done some pondering for you and came with 3 optimal suggestions:

Shem



The best location to set up shop in the game in terms of simplicity.

Water and copper are in modest supply but the weather is perfect, the winds reliable and the terrain fairly open and simple. Most importantly: no major power holds control of this land which means no taxmen or prayer days.

Friendly neighbors, no lairs spawns and apart from the occasional bandit raid and stray beak thing, this place is a quiet paradise. To top it off, Shem is located smack dab in the center of the map, making trade and exploration ideal.

The bad: Shem is 100% arid and 10% green which is not ideal but with hydroponics all crops in the game can be made eventually.

Okran's Gulf & Orkan's Pride



A more advanced location as it capitalizes on 2 different zones for abundant resources and farming, so make sure your outpost is build in the border of these 2 regions.

Okran's Pride river boasts 100% green fertility and abundant water while Okran's Gulf has 100% arid fertility and immense wind power. Numerous copper deposits can be found in the gulf and iron is plentiful. No adverse weather in this location.

Your neighbors consist of many Holy Nation cities and farms as well as hivers and sheks of the west. You can expect minor bandit raids and the occasional bonedog and river raptor nests. Such easy targets are more of a steady stream of meat and leather than an issue however.

The bad: You are deep within Holy Nation territory. While their patrols increase the road safety by distracting dangers, but any skeletons you might have on your group will do well to hide and avoid patrols and cities. And every Sunday is prayer day. And you don't wanna skip out on prayer day.

Fishman Island



The hardest of my suggestions is the remote island to the far south. The selling point here is that the island has all 100% green fertility and also the rare 50% swamp fertility meaning that it can produce high tier food without the complications of bread making. Copper and iron are also available.

Your neighbors consist of crabs and fishmen. That's it. If you kill their leader, King Gurgler, only crabs will spawn. Surrounded by water, you can also make some lethal death pits where enemies swim through a maze of walls while being fired upon by turrets.

The bad: Acid rain, albeit light and if you followed the guide not a problem for your equipment as it adds up to 100% acid resistance. Thankfully your animals, hivers and skeletons are immune to the effects as well. If you wanna trade & explore the world, this base is extremely remote as well which can be an issue unless you build forward outposts latter on.

Pro Tip: Use the prospect button to scan an area for copper deposits as these are usually rare and far apart from each other. You can put numerous automated ore drills near a single iron node, but you need to mine cooper by hand. Higher science skill scans a larger area at a time.

Arrive at your desired location and set up shop. Begin with a starting central building and proceed with power, mining and food. This is the most dangerous part of the game, defending your outpost from raids and beasts while you start building your walls. Be patient and vigilant and when you have enough building materials, it's time to fortify and dig in.

Zone of Control: (save before making changes)

If certain buildings you construct are owned by nomads or nearby factions don't panic! This happens because they are outside of your "zone of control" created when you build your first structure and your outpost is sited. Press shift+F12 to open the debug menu.

Here on the top left you will see a "TOWN PLACEMENT" button, click it and scroll all the way down. Find the "Your Outpost [1]" by clicking it, you get to move the gray statue that indicates the center of your outpost. Move this closer to the unowned buildings, hit "EXIT" and save your game.

Now exit and reload. Your borders should gradually expand to cover your entire base. Repeat the process as needed. Keep this technique in mind as you go on to build your base.

Pro Tip: In the same menu you will also notice a "FIX STUFF" button in the lower middle portion of the menu. Clicking it numerous times will fix building snapping and clipping issues that accumulate over extended play sessions.

Pro Tip: Often, saving, exiting and reloading can resolve minor pathing, clipping and automation issues. Don't forget to try it if you notice anything out of the ordinary.

Mastery (Walkthrough 5/5)

"We're in the endgame now"

Your automatic hybrid mines are churning out building materials and the basic infrastructure is secure. It's time for fortifications.

Walls:

Encircle your settlement but don't overdo it. Having a huge area to cover and a lot of empty wasted space isn't ideal. Ideally you'd want at least 2 copper nodes within your walls as well as 2 iron nodes. Stone should be plentiful in my recommended sites so don't worry about that. Pay attention to zone transition if you plan on taking advantage of 2 adjacent zones (Okran's Gulf/Okran's Pride).

Start by deciding your one and only gate entrance. The gate should be surrounded by a diamond
/< >\ shaped wall formation to allow enemies to pour into the middle, clash at the gate, and get shot by ~16 harpoon guns. You do NOT want a traditional flat wall with a gate. From there, circle the entire camp and close your walls. Once complete, you will be safe from surprise attacks. With a few steel from the industry section you can latter put harpoon turrets to obliterate would be assailants.



Pro Tip: "Corpse Furnace" is a machinery that can dispose dead characters (with their items). You want this close to your gates as rioting corpses attract predators. Occasionally raids are so big in number that certain corpses (and enemies) are pushed inside your closed gate.

Pro Tip: With a secure base your production will soon pick up. You can safely support the maximum of 30 people across 2+ squads so consider filling your ranks as you will need a lot of hands for craftwork.

Industry:

With the town walled, it's time for heavy industrialization. Erect additional dedicated structures close to iron and copper veins as they will be your factories. 3 "Stationhouse" are enough to house multiples of all crafting & refining stations with many storage chests to boot. Start by building one "Steel Refinery III" and then simply increase your iron plate and electronics production while keeping an eye on power levels, building more "Wind Generator II" when necessary. Automated "Ore Drill III" will speed up the process and storage containers close to your factories will boost your production still.

The final step is simply to build at least one of every crafting station with their respective storage. I'd recommend 4 "Electrical Workbench" and 6 "Iron Refinery IV" as a healthy minimum for your construction efforts.

Pro Tip: "Item Furnace" Is a machinery that can dispose any items put inside it (and return a bit of iron ore). If you want to perfect weapon or armor crafting, your smiths will often build imperfect versions of items you want to trash instead of bother selling. Build this close to your weapon and armor workbenches to facilitate this.

Agriculture:

Any spare raw fruits you have stockpiled will now be used to upgrade your farms to their final level of production. Wheat and hemp should now interest you, if you don't have any on hand trade for em. Several "Automatic Grain Silo" will turn wheat into flour, then your cooks should make it into bread and finally into super efficient (and expensive) "foodcube" Additional wells and hydroponics will ensure you have ample of raw resources. A single large building dedicated to food should suffice.

Training:

A single large building should suffice as a training yard and as a prison. You will need high level prisoners to beat them as living training dummies to level stats beyond 15 - 30 in a meaningful way. Stronger opponent logic applies here, so reduce your guys stats with backpacks and heavy armor and gang up on one prisoner at a time.

Pro tip: Kidnap a skeleton, and remove one of his legs either through combat or "Peeler Machine". Stuff them into a skeleton bed and wack them endlessly for more efficient training.

Minor buildings:

You might want another large building dedicated to grog, sake, rum, hashish and fuel production should you want to dabble with that short of thing. If you want to sell your products i recommend a tiny building OUTSIDE your walls. The last thing you want is a raid sneaking in as customers check your shop counter.

Adventure:

You might have a fortress town and most research but there are still locations to explore, blueprints to buy, and rare weapons and backpacks to collect. Since 30 people don't fit in a single squad, your vanguard squad should now go out into the world of Kenshi and explore the vast unknown.

(and die horribly to beak things or security spiders)

Save Location

For back-up purposes, here i will list the game's save location. The game's save files are located in:

c:\Users\(user)\AppData\Local\Kenshi\save

You can also save and import character customization to save time in character creator between different games. The path should be:

c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi\data\character\bodies\export

This path is for Windows 10 64bit. It goes without saying that this is the Steam version of the game. Game installed from elsewhere may or may not be in the same directory.

Sources & Credits

Certain information was found & was cross referenced in the following sites:

https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Kenshi_Wiki

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kenshi/comments/ba5uos/maps_of_kenshi/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXo24imR_54

[chesspaladin]

Excellent for beginners. You solved more than one roadblock for me with you clear explanations of some very basic matters. Thank you.

[Quenched]

also wanted to add that this guide is still viable today if anyone was wondering. but that there are (probably due to updates) a few more things that can be done to help mitigate potential progress walls

[Quenched]

hey ace dreamer, i think that you should add that this is your personal suggestion because there are many other options to success in this game. for example, following a cycle of recruit/ become slave/escape/hunt/repeat, is by itself a simple way to get human pawns, food source, and develop skills to generate money by stealing/speed/laboring skills being developed and of course combat skills like toughness. Lots of prison cages have melee attacking dummies near by. I am sure you are aware of these things but i found that utilizing that cycle allowed for recruitment of additional recruits that start at higher base stats like shek at 40 combat stats. pairing the final product with a bull resulted in a very strong and easy start with several of my first recruits having 25 or more base stats to begin with doing this process.

[SotiCoto]

I stopped playing after 5 minutes or so because I couldn't figure out how to talk to NPCs nor move around consistently. And apparently I set all the starting settings to the wrong values too. Bugger. Maybe I should just give up for now.

[Ace Dreamer]

@JackCarver I was not aware that rain can fill your crops, thank you very much for pointing that out.

This means that you can build hydroponics on areas with no water such as the Ashlands and still be able to grow crops. There are 3 caveats to keep in mind with this:

1) you don't have water for other projects such as cooking and alcohol making

2) [red] Acid rain doesn't count as rain. Rain colored acid rain counts as rain.

3) rain collector does not function with acid rain at all.

[JackCarver]

For Shem you can build right on the border with the swamp for green farm, rain so you never have to water your farm and still enjoy the benefits of Shem.

[StormsEnd]

Great guide! I have 900+ hours but still read it all. I am going to forward this to my buddy who is just starting... One push back, copper is def not the only way to start making money! The best(non cheese way) is running bandits into guards, or even getting south of worlds end and looting all holy nation gear as they fight U.C. but again those take practice. Copper is reliable though. I'd also recommend telling people not to save scum or steal if they want a super rewarding play through... If someone dies, dont reload or restart, just learn and be more careful... It is honestly the best way to play. Cheers

[Ace Dreamer]

@Fahrräder I can certainly see your point. Kenshi is such a unique game that most guides will er on the "cheese" side unless they are literal UI tutorials.

See Kenshi isn’t an easy game by any stretch, and has more than enough options to handicap yourself further. But if you start at the hardest start, hundreds of hours may pass before you are even remotely comfortable, at which point many players would have given up thinking that’s all this game offers.

As for the “import” function I wouldn’t consider cheating per se, rather than a quality of life feature. There are character editors which you can simply edit all your stats to 100.

What I list here is indeed a “playthrough” in order for a newcomer to understand the flow of progress instead of a wall of text. And as always, everything here is suggestions.

I smiled as I read your points however, since I was considering addressing some myself. Thank you for your input, it was quite on point.

[Fahrräder]

Again, I appreciate the effort you put into making the guide. But the quality and the good order of the information given are marred by some rigidity that threw me off.

[Fahrräder]

Well-written, but I don't like some of the points you base your guide on. It's as if you describe your own playthrough. As a relatively new player (consumed by addiction), I first started out as slaves, went and explored the hard way, making the most of the information provided. I stole food and didn't make shelter. I didn't research everything right away, just a few first things in the Hub, but instead enjoyed doing everything in parallel and upgrading my equipment once I built my base.

I also don't like how actively you suggest abusing importing without clearly making it out as a method for essentially cheating. I only used it for adding new mods in the middle of my game.

A few suggestions would be: add more emphasis on the clarification of the walkthrough side (e.g. "Kenshi - Guide +Walkthrough"); add "Cheese Warning" to "Pro Tips" that concern importing, or just rename some of the "Pro Tips" to "Cheese Tips" or something.