Kenshi - Post-Apocalyptic Weeb cousin of Mount & Blade

[ZazietheBeast]

I too love this game, and I'm currently playing it far too much.

I go through a cycle about once per year of reinstalling this game, binging it for a week or three, then getting burned out by the glitchy jankiness and tedious gameplay. Then after I've forgotten how obnoxious this game can be to play, I get nostalgia for the good times and the freedom and reinstall it. Currently I haven't quite been reminded yet of how shit this game is but its bound to happen soon.

I know that feeling. I get the urge to binge it when a new mod shows up or anything that shakes up the game. The amount of atrocities you can commit in this game is honestly staggering especially with the right mods. Just like Rimworld but with 3d graphics.

Other than that though, it does an excellent job of simulating a living, breathing world with changes that occur when you trigger them via getting rid of certain people on top and the characterization is great.

 

[Space_Dandy]

I know that feeling. I get the urge to binge it when a new mod shows up or anything that shakes up the game. The amount of atrocities you can commit in this game is honestly staggering especially with the right mods. Just like Rimworld but with 3d graphics.

Other than that though, it does an excellent job of simulating a living, breathing world with changes that occur when you trigger them via getting rid of certain people on top and the characterization is great.

Definitely relatable. I feel like it strangely is both a living breathing world, and a dead lifeless hull. Closest thing IRL is going to a club when its packed with a bunch of people who have about 12 IQ between them. Tons of people but nothing to say to anybody and nothing to do worthwhile.

What are some good mods you'd recommend?

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Definitely relatable. I feel like it strangely is both a living breathing world, and a dead lifeless hull. Closest thing IRL is going to a club when its packed with a bunch of people who have about 12 IQ between them. Tons of people but nothing to say to anybody and nothing to do worthwhile.

What are some good mods you'd recommend?

For basic quality of life stuff?

-Dark UI
-Reduced weather effects
-Wanted posters
-KPM performance particles
-Clutter removal
-Waystations Plus
-Forgotten Buildings (So you can build ALL vanilla buildings)
-Dyer's Guild (recolor your outfits without having to kidnap someone for their colors)
-Attack slots x3

Additional characters and shit (lore friendly)

-Old Ironsides
-Arachnids (faction and armor)
-Sailbacks
-Thrashers
-Hazards Unit
-Processor Unit
-Warmaidens

World overhauls (pick one or both)
-Kaizo
-Legendary of Kenshi (turns most NPCs into harder enemies)

For shits and giggles (lore unfriendly)

-Fogmen to Fugmen
-Oyakodon mod (Its food)
-2b mod
-Emmy for Kenshi (Yes, that Nandroid)
-Female Android
-Ouroboros Empire (adds an entire faction of high-tech armor looking dudes)
-Steady the Clown

These I'd recommend right off the bat. I'd have to admit that the modding scene in Kenshi is fairly active but the variety is very little due to Chris not releasing the source code. Otherwise, you'd see complete world overhauls. But the types of game changing mods I've seen is fairly impressive. Adding complete facial animations, an entire new race with an extensive amount of customization options. Its just that its still constrained. So even if you mod in a pistol, it will still force characters to use crossbow animations and sounds while firing.

 

[Space_Dandy]

Whelp, I officially hit my breaking point, after like two months of playing fairly regularly.

I try to play vanilla-ish because a lot of mods feel like cheating. Even so, I still use a few that ultimately make the experience a bit smoother, more balanced, and all around less shitty, while not deviating in any essential way. A couple I run are Pocket Change, Weaklings Give Xp, and Training Swords. Oh and 'Feed them to the dogs!' where your bonedogs will feast on downed enemies!

I hit a brick wall, and I'm done with this game.

I've been trying to take a squad of 10 through all of the games toughest battles. Four humans, two Shek, and four bonedogs (one is a wolf). The amount of grinding this game requires is unreal. Even with those helpful mods, AND with taking several dedicated training sessions, my guys are nowhere near ready. Dogs are all elder. My guys all have stats (strength, dexterity, melee attack/defense, and weapon proficiency) in the ~60 ballpark, some a little higher and some lower. My best character is in the mid-70s on most of those areas. We are decked out in Specialist grade gear with mostly Meitou weapons from the prior bosses we've defeated.

We got curb stomped by the fucking Southern Hive! We had been mowing down their patrol squads with little effort, but when it came to their platoon of elite royal guards, their stats are in the 70s+ and they just annihilated me. King wasn't much of a problem, I isolated him and eliminated him first (kidnapped him, repaired him, and released him in Blister Hill, where he fought paladins for a couple of days before they eventually took him down). The queen herself died in like two hits. But those guards just gave me so much trouble.

I'm sure I could grind some more and re-attack them, but I'm at this point where I've defeated every major enemy except a handfull and all of them seem way outside of my current grasp. There's this brick wall. I'm sure this is the point where you either have to have an elite squad of near 90s Chads, or a big 20+ platoon to proceed. It's just way too much work, hours of grinding...

I know I could probably cheese the battle with crossbows. And I did succeed in sneaking in and kidnapping the Queen. But I feel at this point with all that we've been through, including the Bug Master, we should be able to hold our own in a direct confrontation without gimmicks.

I don't think I could ever take on Cat-Lon and his army of thralls with a squad this small. Even if we had our stats in the 90s, I don't see it happening if we're struggling with this battle that is a fraction of that one's difficulty.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Then take on the thralls first and then Cat-Lon. Also, the Ashlands has multiple small bosses you can take down in the meantime.

Rhinobot is a good test. If not feeling too confident, take on Agriculture Head.

 

[BALLZ-BROKEN]

Go to the Scraphouse, get some MKII to Edge type 2 Falling Suns, and watch the limbs fly!

 

[Overcast]

I've recently discovered this game a few days ago and decided I wanted to try something new and took the plunge today.

Spent about six hours with a main character while also checking out what the other starting points are like. (The idea of starting off as a slave and having an automatically set routine that punishes you if you try to take direct control of your character is a really cool one.)

I'm not quite sure how to feel about it yet. It's definitely one of those games that's gonna require time and patience to get anywhere in. I started off with a Scorchlander and spent hours mining for copper and am slowly building up a squad in Stack.

That being said, it makes me feel like I'm playing an early 2000's PC game and I like how unforgiving it can be. Quite a couple times where a large group of bandits swarm me and left me for dead. I like all the different ways you can start off in the game, having a fast forward feature, ect.

So far, the setting and lore look very foggy to me. (By design no doubt) So far, all I've gotten is that one of the factions worship this God of Light who fought this God of Darkness who's name is just a backwards version of the former's, and that they enslave women and work them like crazy because of the darkness they contain?

All I know is, one of the recruits I got was a lady named Ice who asked to join me as I was from out of town.

 

[LongWayDown]

I've recently discovered this game a few days ago and decided I wanted to try something new and took the plunge today.

Spent about six hours with a main character while also checking out what the other starting points are like. (The idea of starting off as a slave and having an automatically set routine that punishes you if you try to take direct control of your character is a really cool one.)

I'm not quite sure how to feel about it yet. It's definitely one of those games that's gonna require time and patience to get anywhere in. I started off with a Scorchlander and spent hours mining for copper and am slowly building up a squad in Stack.

That being said, it makes me feel like I'm playing an early 2000's PC game and I like how unforgiving it can be. Quite a couple times where a large group of bandits swarm me and left me for dead. I like all the different ways you can start off in the game, having a fast forward feature, ect.

So far, the setting and lore look very foggy to me. (By design no doubt) So far, all I've gotten is that one of the factions worship this God of Light who fought this God of Darkness who's name is just a backwards version of the former's, and that they enslave women and work them like crazy because of the darkness they contain?

All I know is, one of the recruits I got was a lady named Ice who asked to join me as I was from out of town.

A lot of it feels that way partly because it's made on a 30 year old engine that can't do shit right. You're absolutely right about the unforgiving nature and the need for time and patience. It's hard. Once you have a few people, consider roaming around near a city and drawing the attention of some enemies. Once they're following you, run into town and let the guards beat them senseless. While they're unconscious, have your party abduct them and either turn them in if they have a bounty or sell them as slaves. It's also a good option to spend some money on a house (destroyed houses are cheaper and can be repaired). Once you do that you can plop down a research bench and get started with the tech tree. Can be a good way to make (and waste) lots of money, as well as giving an incentive to build up adventuring parties.

For the lore it's way too deep for me to explain without spoiling. It goes for a kind of Dark Souls style storytelling where nothing is ever really given to you straight. Some people will tell you different versions of events that other people did. Just be sure to read any kind of objects or books you come across and always be on the look out for unique characters and locations. There IS a story, there's just no plot. You're a resident in a world that doesn't revolve around you. I'm really hoping Chris stops cockteasing and shares some more progress from Kenshi 2 soon. He's said there's a feature in the game that'll change everything so I'm kind of hoping for more news soon.

 

[God of Nothing]

me in the middle of the night

 

[My Name is Ed]

That being said, it makes me feel like I'm playing an early 2000's PC game and I like how unforgiving it can be. Quite a couple times where a large group of bandits swarm me and left me for dead.

Also remember that getting swarmed and getting the shit kicked out of you is great for building character.

I mean literally, it helps you withstand more beatings for longer. After breaking a few bones and losing a few teeth, instead of being insta-KO'd by that group of hobos you might be able to take out one or two if you're on your own. Just make sure you have a medic handy for emergencies.

 

[StacticShock]

another bump i guess because i picked this thing on GoG.
seemed fine until i noticed the load of bullshit you have to grind to withstand getting hit past starving bandits, then i noticed how OP martial arts are to a point that my two martial masters were punching left arms away and literal blood out of their enemies with one-two taps, yesterday i had them use some weird palm movement that was 121 chest damage EASILY, also cue in the latest reaver raid that will give me free recruits.

i've also got a notice on how the dev made the first game to be practically abandonware and how modding is easy but limited as in you can't mod shit the dev didn't want you to mod even though OGRE itself isn't that hard to fiddle with at all and is on par with gamebyro, i think most of the bugs could be fixed by modders if the main dev wasn't such a fag with the tool, i might consider doing model working for it because why not? there's plenty of tutorials already.
the worst part of this is that the dev intends to make kenshi 2 on fucking unreal engine, if conan exiles taught me anything is that unreal is a huge, massive fucking bitch to deal with for modding, both enabling modding and modding the fucking thing itself.

i really don't get the people that had videos on this saying that the game "is not about you" and "you're not the dragonborn", like BITCH, YOU AS THE PLAYER CAN TOPPLE ALL FACTIONS BY GRINDING A FEW STATS. HOW THE FUCK IT'S NOT ABOUT THE PLAYER BEING SPECIAL? THE FUCKING FACTIONS DO FUCK ALL IF YOU DON'T MOVE YOUR ASS TO CHANGE THEM IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE BESIDES TRADING

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Gonna bump this game and that's because the world overhauls and/or additional stuff is crazy. There's tons of beautiful autism to be seen. Such as the Grineer mod.

Spoiler: Screencaps galore

They managed to add the Corpus and Grineer from Warframe. Hell there's even a Warframe that can be fought as an enemy!

i really don't get the people that had videos on this saying that the game "is not about you" and "you're not the dragonborn", like BITCH, YOU AS THE PLAYER CAN TOPPLE ALL FACTIONS BY GRINDING A FEW STATS. HOW THE FUCK IT'S NOT ABOUT THE PLAYER BEING SPECIAL? THE FUCKING FACTIONS DO FUCK ALL IF YOU DON'T MOVE YOUR ASS TO CHANGE THEM IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE BESIDES TRADING

They're just playing up the fact that when you're starting out, its too easy to get wrecked in melee. But once you figure out how to get strong, the world becomes your bitch. Also the world being mercilessly brutal is part of the sales pitch.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Necroooo

 

[Snekposter]

Coming soon... the new AAA remake!

 

[foam rolla]

I wonder if someone will make a Fallout mod for this game

 

[Gas18697]

i was playing uwe + kaizo recently and i must say uwe overhaul is kind of meh, anybody here tried any other "bigger" overhaul mods?

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

i was playing uwe + kaizo recently and i must say uwe overhaul is kind of meh, anybody here tried any other "bigger" overhaul mods?

Bit late but no not really. Only real thing is mods that add various location that may or may not need to be patched and something like Empire Reborn. Even then that's just a single faction, the best overhaul is smashing several overhauls together and either praying or patching them to work together. You're better off asking /keng/, yes I know it's 4chan and 4chan has been more disappointing over the years but since /keng/ is so small and niche a lot of the shit bounced off them.

 

[Venial Sneeds]

Kenshi ain't for everyone, but it's a great game. Gotta be one of my favorites.
What you get out of the box is a little lacking, but it's quite mod-friendly and that expands the possibilities a lot.
It's easy to lose interest in a playthrough once you stabilize your life, so after beating the game once it's good to plan what you want out of your playthrough beforehand.

anybody here tried any other "bigger" overhaul mods?

I've never heard anyone mention the big overhauls like uwe or odyssey without adding several but's. Those overhauls are in large part a collection of existing mods, so the best approach would be to add smaller overhauls, like Living World, and individually add mods that are also in the overhauls. You'll end up with 100+ mods on your list, but there are guides on how to organize them. I recommend the one by a guy with the username Atlas.

the load of bullshit you have to grind to withstand getting hit past starving bandits,

All you need to get started is 1000 spare cats. That'll hire a merc crew for a day so they soften up bandit camps and you can train safely. You won't get rich off looting npcs, but you can still use the npc meatshield method for riskier, more profitable jobs. Looting beak thing nests is great for buying early-game supplies.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Someone on /keng/ is making an alternative wiki for Kenshi that isn't fandom trash. They quite literally just started and they have admitted to having no idea what they're doing but I respect the effort.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

If you're like me and make patches and other tweaks for mods but are annoyed that you have to rename every workshop folder you put into your mod folder from that random number;

someone on plebbit made a script for a bat file that will rename the folders to its real name for you!

Spoiler: Code

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:: PARENT FOLDER
set "parentFolder=PATH TO KENSHI MOD FOLDER"
cd /d "%parentFolder%"

:: Loop through all subfolders within the parent folder, check if there's a .mod file and retrieve name, then set subfolder name to retrieved name, reset modfilename for next loop
for /d %%d in (*) do (
set "folderPath=%%d"
cd "%%d"
set "modFileName="
for %%f in (*.mod) do (
set "modFileName=%%~nf"
)
if defined modFileName (
cd ..
ren "%%d" "!modFileName!"
echo Folder "%%d" renamed to "!modFileName!"
) else (
cd ..
echo No .mod file found in folder "%%d"
)
)

pause

You'll have to rename the "parentfolder" path to your Kenshi mod directory.
For example: E: \SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Kenshi\mods (had to add a space between the drive and the path because of the emoji)
Result:


It renames every folder to the .mod file's name so it can be loaded properly in the FCS.