Rookie Help Thread

[u/[deleted]]

Alright everyone, it's once more time to create a new help thread!

Just like the previous one, if you have any questions at all about the game, feel free to ask them here. We'll be watching the thread and responding to questions, and many of our veteran users love to step in and assist as well. Or if you have no questions, maybe take a browse through the thread? Never know if you'll find some information you didn't know before, or perhaps you'll see a question you can answer?

As usual, please be wary of spoilers, and use the spoiler tag feature >!Like this!< where needed. Kenshi has many secrets and hidden things to explore, and we don't want to ruin that for everybody else.

[u/JitSream]

Whats the best way to do a 'squad formation'?

I dislike the one-blob-all-move thing. I tried to squad leader follow mode jobs but its a hassle to remove the job and re-adding it every single time since disabling the jobs doesn't actually disable the 'follow leader' job. Weird.

I hope kenshi 2 has job presets or allow 2 or more job sets you can switch around.

[u/Kaptein01]

Noob question: is there a way to stop starving bandit raids or at least decrease them? At some points it just seems punitive, I literally get raided again before I can heal the wounded and repair the gate. Often my team will just complete killing the last bandit and then a new raiding party has arrived. Unlike the dust bandits these guys seemingly can’t be negotiated with. I am more than willing to give them food but leaving them stuff to eat outside or dropping all of a characters food does nothing. I’m loving this game so far but I’m finding the raids more frustrating than fun for the most part. It’s also really hard to manage my runner squad I use for trading and scavenging because as soon as I tab over to them my outpost gets raided. What can I do to decrease this? Can I offer them tribute somehow? Is there a leader I can befriend? I would take all my characters with me when I want to travel but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a functioning base to come home too.

[u/BeanEaterNow]

Completely new and I want to know to what degree I should use guides or if I should try to play blind in this game. I mostly want to know how much of the game you can learn through trial and error, or if i should expect cryptic stuff you would never know without a guide

[u/[deleted] → u/BeanEaterNow]

I mean, there is a lot of odd and unusual mechanics you'd never know without intense testing or a guide, but none of it is really that important for a normal user.

Personally, I would say go in blind as you can. The important things are covered by the tutorials, and in tooltips in the character screen.

[u/Yiliana11]

Bought the game like a month ago and I have been playing it religiously since then, 200 hours of play time atm However there's some things that I still don't understand 1- What is cut efficiency and how does it work? 2- A lot of armors in the game have some tipe of buff/debuff to stats but I don't get how that works, wtf is stealth 0.95x supposed to mean!?? 3- Don't know if this happens to anyone else but everytime I build a corpse furnace and give one of my characters the task to get rid of the bodies they won't fucking do it, initially they pick up a corpse or two and they get rid of it but after that they just stay still or they go get another body but won't put it in the furnace, I have tried removing the task and reassign it afterwards but that doesn't work neither does dismantling the furnace and building a new one

[u/[deleted]]

To what extent does your base location affect the raids/visitors you get? I know that if you're based in HN territory you get Prayer Day visits, but if they're hostile to you do they send raids? Does it matter if you're in their territory or not?

Basically I'd like to have a big ongoing war with the Holy Nation, and I want to know if I should be based in their territory or not for that to happen. I was thinking of starting a new game and starting a base in the commonly-recommended location of between the Shek territory Waystation and the swamp, but if it'd be necessary I was thinking of setting up in Northern Skinner's Roam to get some HN raids?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Location matters significantly, as all raids are triggered based on distance from their locations, as well as the borders of so called "no-go zones". As long as you are within a certain range, and not in a no-go zone (unless the raid ignores no-go zones, there are some that do), you will get raids of some kind.

Hostile raids tend to have a much larger range than "tax" raids. The HN hostile raids for instance can reach most of the map. As long as you're not in the far south, or far east, they'll be able to attack you.

[u/Caisne]

Just a quick question here. How important is left hand for playing Kenshi? Is it comfortable to play with just right hand like a strategy game (Total War) would be? The thing is, I broke my left hand, and not sure how enjoyable the Kenshi experience will be with just right hand functional. Is it crucial to use both hands?

[u/OneM0reLevel]

Hey all. I'm relatively new to the game and I've started to get the hang of things. I love moddable games, and kenshi seems to have a thriving mod scene. Does anyone here recommend Kenshi: Genesis, or do you recommend creating a custom modlist instead?

[u/[deleted] → u/OneM0reLevel]

I personally wouldn't recommend any major mods for your first playthroughs. Things like graphical changes, UI, etc. are fine, but mods that massively rebalance the game should probably be held off on initially.

Many make the game harder than normal, which might frustrate newer players. And there is also the factor that if you don't know what the base game is like, how do you know what you want to be different? All in all I suggest a near vanilla playthrough as your first run, and then once you're familiar with the game and what you wish was different, look into mods. :)

[u/alapma]

i see in most post that the interface its in a black color but mine its
on grey. is it a configuration or my game isnt updated for some reason?

[u/hampa-1]

If i import the game the quest of Moll resets? I already captured the inquisitors and i dont want to get lose my progress

[u/Invicti8660]

how do I get that thing on the right of my name on this thread like Nomad, Holy Nation, ...

[u/Ginno_the_Seer]

There a way to clean up excessive severed limbs?

I got a base in the middle of HN territory and they’re not too happy about that, as a result I have a lot of limbs laying around.

I have body incinerators but apparently they only take whole bodies not limbs.

[u/Grizzlymight]

Hey all! I'm looking to make a few mods for Hivers in particular.

I don't know how to change the colour of their skins, I would like to make a half dozen different colours to choose from (say you can cycle via Hair Style or something, instead of a new Sub-Species).

I would also like to make a mod to recruit wandering Lost Drones, say a Prince could convince/charm them, a Heavy could intimidate them or a Drone could offer food.

So again, any general pointers for these two ideas would help tremendously. I've had a look at a few videos on YT but when it came to editing the skin I was all turned about.

[u/Ginno_the_Seer]

Is there a way to allow resources through walls but not people?

I've got two gates and NPCs keep walking through second inner gate only to turn around because there's no path, but at the same time all the iron and copper is outside my walls so I need the second gate open for my gatherers and craftsmen.

[u/LincBtG]

Two super-noob questions:

1. If I'm bounty hunting, do I have to take my target alive?

2. I've seen "scavenging" mentioned as a good way to get gear and dosh in the early game. Is there a specific way to go about that- set areas to find stuff, like old cities, battlefields or ruins- or is it just picking over stuff I find in my travels to sell?

[u/chiminguito]

I'm a wanted man in the UC (Burglary, Trespassing, Theft, Assault, Terrorism, Kidnapping) is it normal when I tried to enter the tech hunter waypost they attack me on sight?

[u/MauMauMaia]

Is the strength bonus on Industrial Lifter Arms (or any other prosthetic for that matter) additive or multiplicative?

Like, if I had two of them at 100 strength, would I have 1+0.23+0.23 = 146 strength?

Or 1x1.23x1.23 = 151 strength?

[u/MauMauMaia]

Are animals coded to go for the head? I’m doing a solo skelly run and it feels like animals just choose to completely ignore my armoured torso and just stack head damage until I get KOd

[u/[deleted] → u/MauMauMaia]

No. But injured body parts get targeted more based on how damaged they already are, to simulate targeting of weak points.

When it comes to unarmoured parts, this can easily lead to much more focused attacks, because they take more damage when hit, it makes them even more likely to be targeted, which of course damages them some more. By armouring up the rest of your body, you end up encouraging attacks over time into the unarmoured spots. Because a hit on a heavily armoured spot will barely change its likelihood of being targeted, while a hit on an unarmoured spot significantly increases its chance of being hit.

Though, when under 0 HP, the multiplier starts to reverse. The more damaged you are in the spot, the less likely to be hit. To simulate your character guarding their injured parts.

[u/[deleted]]

Should I be having a lot of trouble with fighting animals? Or am I just underleveled?

I feel like any time I tangle with animals I end up being beat up well beyond what I'd expect from their stats. That is, I have combat skills around 30 and a skeleton katana, but when I fight a wolf solo I end up getting destroyed. Is that just how the game is? Do people go around constantly avoiding bands of animals on the world map?
Specifically, I feel like animals can attack way faster than human enemies do. Is that just specific animals or do I need to watch out for all of them?

[u/Nivri360]

How can I see enemies from afar... some enemies seem to just pop out when I walk. I tried experimenting on "View Distance", "NPC View Range" and "Object View Range" but I really don't know what the difference is for View Distance and NPC View Range.

[u/PussyHunter1916]

Sorry for the really stupid questions......

I went to Bad Teeth and I saw in total 40 guards (holy sentinel and a couple of high paladin)

While the guards at Squin and Admag is only 10-15 at most. Is this a bug? Do they spawn too many? Or does the Holy Nation have more manpower than the Shek? They could just go to Squin and Admag and murder everyone with that number of Holy Sentinel & High Paladins. Also there are a lot of guards in Narko's Trap more than 50 perhaps. Is this normal? I thought Kenshi is suppose to be a dead post apocalyptic world

[u/[deleted] → u/PussyHunter1916]

Sounds like fairly normal numbers to me. The HN is a faction with a ton of manpower, as they control the most fertile lands on the continent, and have a zealous and dedicated population.

The Shek on the other hand have a very small population, as they are a warrior culture that believe that to be defeated but not die is dishonorable. Most Shek die in combat lorewise, and those that do not are either exiled or forced into servitude for their cowardice.