Really glad you touched upon one of the most important issues right at the gate: Settling too early. I think most ppl are introduced to Kenchi by streamers and let's plays, which usually do some hardcore start right at the gate for content But the frustration, from those deaths and lost progress, are I think one of the things that put most ppl off by this wonderful game, even though it's completely avoidable
I think there is one RUclipsr who said it perfectly, in that the best weapon in Kenshi that beats even Martial Arts (which is the most OP combat stat in the game) and even the game itself (constant loading screens) are your legs 😂.
@@arcadius2569 yes. i always build too early and then the black dragons come and stay at my base for an hour or so at a time. instead of me either not building, or just leaving the base for the encounter.
I would agree. I started with a small base in the hub, then bought property in Mongrel and Squinn for Materials/selling After about day 60 in game, I’m just now thinking about building my base lol
this is the first game i played mostly blind from start to finish. in many years. my and i had 0 regrets doing it that way. great game. my biggest disapointment was the shop feature didnt work.
@@Baddaby It would be better if in places like the United Cities Nobles or other high ranking individuals like Traders would make a point to flex their wealth by seeking out shops to buy out as much as they can. It's the kind of bullshit, shortsighted and greedy move you'd expect from the sort at any rate.
black scratch is THE best place for early game you can do everything in there, big library 3 iron nodes in front of the town for strenght training ,constant attacks to improve combat skills slave camps nearby for recruits, close to gut if you are in need for food
IMO, the fun and most difficult part of the game is the roaming stage before a base. Getting those ancient books and engineering research is always easier when you don't have to worry about a raid on your base. You'll be leveling up your squad when adventuring and I always level my armorsmiths in town. I have setup just an iron processing base outside squinn before just to level up weaponsmithing, and just run back to squinn to my house in town when theres a raid. Once you get your armorsmiths and weaponsmith leveled up, it is much easier because your squad has good gear. Throw lvl 4 or 5 tech on top of that, and only then I settle a base.
This should be pinned. When I started my first base my stone and iron refineries would not get power. I believe it was due to being on too much of a slant. I had to build new ones that were a little more flat. It took me an hour googling why no power before I just decided to rebuild them on flat terrain.
I have 900 hours in Kenshi I love your videos and watch them as they release. Until now I have not gotten any thing new from them. “Still fun to watch “. But what you did at the 5:20 mark. Were you put all the materials on the ground when you got to the base. That is a priceless practice. I have no idea why I have never thought of that before. You have my thanks for that.
Good find! That turned into a habit after I realized the ground is a valid storage container (just don't leave the area or the items disappear). Glad you're enjoying these as an experienced player. I've noticed some viewers are experts at Kenshi while some are very new. I'll see if I can add more niche information in future videos for all the pros out there.
Slightly older video, but I've been playing this game for years and a few habits that I've picked up might be helpful to someone. In no particular order: 1. Have a stealth robot medic/scientist with a high strength score. Using him, you can train up combat bulls in the Fog Islands. Combat bulls are great in areas with poorly armored enemies like cannibals or spiders. Bulls are better at combat than rabbit camels (garu) with their nasty aoe charge attack, are only slightly worse at being a pack animal, and are better at stealth without a pack lamp. 2. Your stealth medic/scientist robot is a good rescue option for downed characters/animals, especially is he's a martial artist/crossbowman with speed legs. He's also a great scout that doesn't need food. Other races and classes will work for this, but I've had the best luck with high-speed ninja nerd skeletons. 3. It's not a terrible idea to make a few general storage boxes at prospective base locations. These will mark them on your map so you can find them later, and you can stockpile supplies over multiple trips if you're lacking in carry capacity. 4. Having stockpiled supplies allows you to build up defenses immediately, at bare minimum, two houses facing each other so you can shoot at bandits in a kill alley. 5. I usually don't close my gate, only building walls so my characters wander off a little less often. Because of this, I usually settle immediately after having enough blue/green high coverage armor for my entire squad. Selling armor plates while leveling smiting on two characters is enough to buy all your books anyway. 6. Having guard bulls at your gate allows you to buy out needed supplies from caravans with a lot less micromanagement. 7. I rarely settle in a region unless I'm going to war with or have allied with the local major faction. It's annoying when any of the big boys break down your gates, and you have no idea why.
I’ve been playing kenshi for years and only now found your channel thank you so much for making super high quality tutorials like this, even me who has 600 hours find them super valuable
It's understandable. The first or even second time you try building a base (even with locations guides on RUclips) you are merely just experimenting AND learning the game's mechanics, jank, and limitations. I personally like to build a small to medium-sized base with a simple square or rectangle layout that is suitable for a 6-12 crew, including pack animals. Anything beyond that squad number just becomes micromanagement hell for me because the characters would sometimes stop responding due to pathfinding or job automation issues.
@@lukmaanpratomo6866 yea I went into overkill on my last playthrough I had a fuckin massive triple gated city with like 67 characters multiple squads for attacking, defending, trading/economy, and food/production. With all that plus my mods my pc couldn’t handle it, which is sad bc I had a LOOT more to do. Basically got my base set up and then my pc was like this is too much homie. Which is a travesty
It depends on both your PC specs and personal management skills to be perfectly honest. Installing performance mods does certainly help first and foremost. This is because simply due to how "old" the base game engine is. Generally speaking, I like to keep my base design and layout as simple as possible with 1 gate to avoid NPC issues and to ensure a smooth "job automation" as much as possible. You can certainly do it with 20+ characters and a complicated base design, but you'll be treading at or near the engine's limit by that point, even with performance mods. You can somewhat remedy this issue with "city building related" mods such as that mod which lets you place copper and iron nodes literally anywhere (flat areas are recommended), or no research automated machines mod which usually requires 1 to 2 characters to operate. It may feel cheaty, but it helps in reducing micromanagement and npc issues in the long term.
@@lukmaanpratomo6866 yea my setup was just way too ludacris for my pc shit was struggling w my 50+ workers and the settlers i had in my base, gonna have to downsize somehow
Glad you mentioned waiting to settle. Maintaining a base is a fairly full time commitment, even if you plan to just dodge raids. I'd also add that The Hub makes a fair city to bootstrap in. The local supply of stuff like building materials is a little weak, but you can strike out to Squin, Stack and the Hive from there, it has a shinobi tower and the building selection for purchase in the Hub is pretty wide (recommend storm House, not small shack). I'd also recommend people keep a super close eye on food. If your squad is a fair size then you need to get the food industries going the moment you have walls up (probably simultaneous with building supply/iron plate infrastructure)
Problem I have with the Hub is the power generation limits production facilities. Squin actually has a season that lasts something like 1/2 the year where it gets no wind. and yes, food is a big limit for squad size, even if you have strong fighters that can afford to buy food from shops just off selling loot some towns won't restock enough food to keep a large pop going. This is a big hurdle for those squad limit expanded runs with recruitable prisoners mod players that get huge numbers early on and no food production backbone. xD Farmers also get VERY productive when their skill maxes out so get training 1-2 farmers asap.
@@PerfectDeath4 that's a good point, The Hub power grid needs some help if you wanna go even to mid tech tiers. Solvable, but costs you most of your rooftops for small turbines. Worst power grid goes to World's End which barely meets its own demand and contains enough tech to eat through your batteries if you do try and shore it up. It's one of those double-edged swords in Kenshi. Basing in a city means you run off their power grid 😀. But on the flipside, basing in a city means you run off their power grid 😞
Evil protip: if you built decoy shacks around the map before building your actual base, you can cheese a lot of raids lowering the chance of your actual base getting hit
You can also build an quick starter right away with walls around bar a gap where you place a shack on an angle with the ramp inside walls but touching the walls at a corner, and a bed just at the bottom of the ramp outside the walls and one inside walls at bottom of ramp. then its simply a process of placing members of your party or animals on the beds once you pick them up from either side to get in and out. It wont get attacked and is virtually impenetrable and you can stock up with all your resources inside etc until your ready to build a huge base, this can be done anywhere and its very quick.
I settled my first (my fist base on my first playthrough) in that location from one of your videos recommendations! Its so peaceful once you wipe out the dust-bandits and the ninjas. The HN can be an issue, but the waystation nearby is great. What sucks is on my playthough the shopkeeper somehow died so i cant buy stuff from them anymore.
You can import the save and make unique NPCs respawn. That, of course, makes the Ninjas and Dust Bandits reset too. But since you already wiped them out once, that shouldn't be an issue for you.
This is definitely the biggest issues with being near towns is collateral damage builds up inevitably. Import your save and make sure to tick off dead npcs so they can all come back.
only thing i'd add is that players try to get a few skeletons in the beginning. then you put them on turret duty and they can stay there the entire play through. dont need to feed them
You can also and should use the terrain to your advantage to funnel enemy, they will only attack a gate, or gatehouse and the walls either side to get into your base. So if you use the terrain ie a ravine or gully to funnel them before the gate or better yet a large body of water like a lake or pond which the enemy has to cross to get to your gate, it slows them down long enought to be killed with either mounted crossbows and later harpoon guns.
play with only hivers or skeletons, build in the deadlands and build a maze entrance to your door through an acid pool so that human invaders have to swim through acid to raid you, you never get raided because bandits just die before they can get to your gate, ez gg
Two great places to buy your first property for beginner research. The Waystation in Grey Desert for any race, or city in Dead Lands if you are a skeleton. Both are centrally located on the map.
Thats my go-to spot for a base too. Fertility isn't the best but its a good flat place that can be walled over a huge area. Tend to end up with a sizeable city going on and buckets of cats from weapon and armour production. Pre-base I usually go for the Shek town just South of The Hub. Lots of meat for sale so can even stockpile a bit before heading out and good retail choices for books etc
Admag is a great place to have a home before setting up a base too. It's not as good with nearby resources as Squin is, but on the other hand it has all the same shops plus a Thieves' Guild, and there's two Watchtowers for sale.
I have a suggestion on the looting the black dragon ninjas part: build a crossbow locker or a weapon cabinet to store and collect all the looted blades before going to sell, that way you get double money when selling them due to the effect of the "stolen" tag
If you can sell cactus rum for good profit to the swamp villages (I didn't know that), do that and buy all their hashish stock. Run over to Flats lagoon next and sell it there. With a trading run like that you should have plenty of money to buy decent equipment in the shops of Flats lagoon.
@@paulrogersgaming if the cactus rum sells for enough cats to buy all the hashish available you should be able to gear up your entire settlement in two or three runs and get a couple of thousand surplus cats. You just need a strong and fast runner to not get caught by bandits or beak things.
after 2000hrs I've kinda arrived to a conlusion that almost all preventive measures in kenshi are waste of time. I don't build killboxes anymore, I don't build walls, no harpoons. I just train my squad a bit so they don't die, then slam down a small shack or storm house and go on from there. much more fun, much more excitement, and you have a base around day 20 without try-harding. defending it is much more fun, and if you get crushed once or twice by dust bandits or ninjas it just gives you healthy resentment towards them which makes the revenge so much more satisfying. are there areas where that's not a safe plan, sure. but really you don't ever need 80 days (like so many people advice) and a pimped up citadel to START your city. it's such vast overkill and makes all attacks boring. unless of course you use those 80 days running around like headless chicken achieving nothing (which is fine too). why even play a semi-challenging game by removing all its teeth? it just makes no sense.
I remember having my first serious party settle in Clownsteady for a while mining the local ores for monetary gain, and raiding the local research buildings for books and the likes. Good times.
Im surprised you got raided before the first house was even done- I've set up a ton of safehouses throughout many playthroughs, and I don't think any of those have attracted raids unless I expanded them. Maybe it was because of the stone mine, iron processor, and stone processor blueprints.
First time I played the first thing I did was creating one single small shack close to the hub, 10 minutes in and my base was raided by black dragon ninjas and my character lost an arm later dying from blood loss because I didn't have another character to aid him
How do I pick a spot for a base? Are ores important? I feel like that should be one of the first things in the guide considering its the first step to making a base other than preparation
It is definitely an issue for new players and even veteran players to get bogged down in early base building under a constant loop of getting raided, trying to heal up after the fight, only to get raided again. Meanwhile base progression happens at a crawl but eventually a persistent player can get their base strong enough to allow for expeditions. It does knock the wind out of a playthrough for MANY hours. This is exactly why it can be nice to have a property set up to do some research and production training done while the bulk of the group explores, fights, etc. I usually take a bit longer before setting up a base, my benchmark is if my squad can take on an entire dust bandit camp with basically no one getting KO'd. This does mean the squad is already leveled enough to the region so I end up making the base in a more difficult area instead of the borderlands.
I kinda find it to be the opposite, and if you look at the date number where you reach a certain level, it's gonna waste a LOT more game days starting the base late. sure the actual base construction will be done from 0 to 100% in a much shorter time, but maybe you only started it at day 80 and finished day 100, when your gung-ho no preparations base will be ready and filled with decent fighters already on day 50. I don't know if it's the 3x fastforward or what that makes people think they're 'saving time', but often it seems like they're actually wasting massive number of days without even noticing it. there seems to be some psychological effect that makes it feel like the troublesome basebuilding is slower (maybe bc you don't fight at 3x to keep weak squad alive?), but at least for me all the 'preparation' seems to generally take much more time than it saves.
You also left out mods. You clearly have "slopeless," I also consider "animals can enter buildings" and the flipped buildings mod, I can't think of the name of right now, essential.
I have started base with no tech and a small shack and it is viable but starting with storm house tech at least is more comfortable. Even having a small shack where you can dump loot early game is kind of nice and a door that shuts keeps the critters out
yeah it's true. but I find when I buy a house in city to research those few early techs, I tend to get stuck there and overprepare until starting the actual base offers no challenge whatsoever. it's a me problem for sure, but avoiding it by starting in small shack only takes a few hours to research storm houses.
its much more efficient to buy iron plates, building mats and have people in the swamps crafting bandanas, using their farms, which can be automated, but this is too cheesy imo, but its the best way, just more micro for trading caravans
What animals can you not get into buildings? I get bulls, garru and dogs into an out of buildings with no issues. There is a spot on the tops of stairs where it connects to the floor that if you click on it correctly the animals walk right in.The storm square house is the one thats most difficult but do able.
You can pick up a npc called Greenthumb or something like that at the fishing village near the cannibal plains he starts with good farming skill i always get him before starting a base.
Started building my fourth base in the Grey Desert. It's going well. Found a great location I liked. Then I realized the worst mistake... The water fertility is capped at 20% in the immediate area I chose...
yeah it has very poor water level. I use the moisture farming mod because it also makes massive sense for semi-technological desert civilizations to have, and it isn't too fast at generating water either (at least the base version, there's a buffed one too). it basically adds a variant of the hemp processor which instead produces water. that said, now I'm kinda thinking basing a base around producing large amounts of water (the vanilla way) in a very dry zone would be a nice RP theme as well. the water king shall rule over all desert dwellers!
I do the exact opposite by setting up as early as possible but staying at the base only temporarily. Seems that when you get invaded and no ones at the base nothing happens. Slowly over time my base becomes strong enough for permanently settle. I do still use a small house in a city for basic tech research though.
Man, im redoing my kenshi game (its slightly modded, some of those mods led to many free recruits before) and ive limited myself to my start of 5 nobodies, maybe i'll let myself go up to 10 before i go for a base. Never did a base really before, i think one time i tried the wells i had had didnt work so i kinda stopped playing after awhile when fixing it didnt work. Hopefully this advice helps me this time, specially cause your example is in the megabase example from your BZ guide (if im remebering right)
To be fair, you only really need crossbow turrets, makeshift walls, a gate and stormhouses to make a pretty defensible base. How? I put a gate between two stormhouses, as high up as i can raise them, flush with the farthest back walls of the SHs, and then wall off the base. Basically I've created a gatehouse killbox that is very hard to assault. Also nobody breaks down the walls
Enemies will break your walls they do it all the time if there is only 1 layer of walls but your gate has a second, closed, gate cordoned off behind it.
to be fair, you don't need any of those. bases without walls are completely fine and much more fun. kinda easier to defend too because escaping is so easy.
you need to save game + reload after f12 for some changes to take effect. sometimes rebuild the navmesh. otherwise you can often run throught walls etc. also f12 buildings are free, there's no challenge. nothing to play for. f12 is nice to fix positioning problems etc, like maybe you built too close to ore deposit and now pathing doesn't work. or maybe you want to place something at places they're not allowed, like putting storage containers closer than allowed. or on on top of each other. there's a lot of tricks you can do through f12 to make your city look nicer.
13:09 The guy you sent wasn't white and neither was the HN guy he was talking too, HN is sexist and speciesist but there not bothered about the skin colour of the Grasslander you are.
I disrespectfully disagree with the first half of the video. The only thing you need to set up base are 1-2 people with 60 athletics and backpacks, makeshift walls with 2 gates on the opposite sides of the base, res for iron ref and stone ref. and one building.
@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 There are zones where you will get swarmed from all directions. You need gate as a funnel. You can try making base without walls in the swamp and then you can teach me :D
@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 I think that by now i have build base pretty much everywhere except for The Gut and Ashlands. The Swamp is pretty good, it has pros and cons. Pros being res, fertility, water, shops and most of the raids against your base get eaten on the way. Cons being wind and things that eat those raids :D If not for the foliage it would be one of my favorite places.
Really glad you touched upon one of the most important issues right at the gate:
Settling too early.
I think most ppl are introduced to Kenchi by streamers and let's plays, which usually do some hardcore start right at the gate for content
But the frustration, from those deaths and lost progress, are I think one of the things that put most ppl off by this wonderful game, even though it's completely avoidable
Yeah this game is not a building game at heart, even though I love to build. If you can't protect it, you will lose it, and maybe your lives.
I think there is one RUclipsr who said it perfectly, in that the best weapon in Kenshi that beats even Martial Arts (which is the most OP combat stat in the game) and even the game itself (constant loading screens) are your legs 😂.
@@arcadius2569 yes. i always build too early and then the black dragons come and stay at my base for an hour or so at a time. instead of me either not building, or just leaving the base for the encounter.
@@tooslow4065skill issue
I would agree. I started with a small base in the hub, then bought property in Mongrel and Squinn for Materials/selling
After about day 60 in game, I’m just now thinking about building my base lol
This is a delightful guide! I’d like to suggest a sequel idea for it: how to best re-settle/move to a new base.
This sounds like a great idea! I second this!
this is the first game i played mostly blind from start to finish. in many years.
my and i had 0 regrets doing it that way. great game.
my biggest disapointment was the shop feature didnt work.
Yeah it works only inside cities, if you have a public house there
But still, NPCs usually have no money so it's very poorly implemented
@@Baddaby It would be better if in places like the United Cities Nobles or other high ranking individuals like Traders would make a point to flex their wealth by seeking out shops to buy out as much as they can. It's the kind of bullshit, shortsighted and greedy move you'd expect from the sort at any rate.
The most important in preparation part,is to buy for every your squad member a Holy Flame,so may Okran save you!
They only talk to one person so one per squad that contain a Greenland male
@@Surmise_This why, exactly, would you ever have any squad members that aren't greenland males?
@thisisaname5589 why? Only to spread the word of Narko of course! 😇
@@thisisaname5589took me a second to get it 😭
@thisisaname5589 Because scorchlanders make better smiths and having women is funny
black scratch is THE best place for early game you can do everything in there, big library 3 iron nodes in front of the town for strenght training ,constant attacks to improve combat skills slave camps nearby for recruits, close to gut if you are in need for food
*close to Gut if you are in need of becoming food
@@Arbaaltheundefeatedthis
Between Reavers and BeakThings, its a bit tough for early game, but yolo
IMO, the fun and most difficult part of the game is the roaming stage before a base. Getting those ancient books and engineering research is always easier when you don't have to worry about a raid on your base. You'll be leveling up your squad when adventuring and I always level my armorsmiths in town.
I have setup just an iron processing base outside squinn before just to level up weaponsmithing, and just run back to squinn to my house in town when theres a raid. Once you get your armorsmiths and weaponsmith leveled up, it is much easier because your squad has good gear. Throw lvl 4 or 5 tech on top of that, and only then I settle a base.
I'd like to add that you can hold the Left Bracket Key to force your buildings to level out.
Ayo, that’s amazing. Thank u 🙏
This should be pinned. When I started my first base my stone and iron refineries would not get power. I believe it was due to being on too much of a slant. I had to build new ones that were a little more flat. It took me an hour googling why no power before I just decided to rebuild them on flat terrain.
YOU WHAT
I have 900 hours in Kenshi I love your videos and watch them as they release. Until now I have not gotten any thing new from them. “Still fun to watch “. But what you did at the 5:20 mark. Were you put all the materials on the ground when you got to the base. That is a priceless practice. I have no idea why I have never thought of that before. You have my thanks for that.
Good find! That turned into a habit after I realized the ground is a valid storage container (just don't leave the area or the items disappear).
Glad you're enjoying these as an experienced player. I've noticed some viewers are experts at Kenshi while some are very new. I'll see if I can add more niche information in future videos for all the pros out there.
Slightly older video, but I've been playing this game for years and a few habits that I've picked up might be helpful to someone.
In no particular order:
1. Have a stealth robot medic/scientist with a high strength score. Using him, you can train up combat bulls in the Fog Islands. Combat bulls are great in areas with poorly armored enemies like cannibals or spiders. Bulls are better at combat than rabbit camels (garu) with their nasty aoe charge attack, are only slightly worse at being a pack animal, and are better at stealth without a pack lamp.
2. Your stealth medic/scientist robot is a good rescue option for downed characters/animals, especially is he's a martial artist/crossbowman with speed legs. He's also a great scout that doesn't need food. Other races and classes will work for this, but I've had the best luck with high-speed ninja nerd skeletons.
3. It's not a terrible idea to make a few general storage boxes at prospective base locations. These will mark them on your map so you can find them later, and you can stockpile supplies over multiple trips if you're lacking in carry capacity.
4. Having stockpiled supplies allows you to build up defenses immediately, at bare minimum, two houses facing each other so you can shoot at bandits in a kill alley.
5. I usually don't close my gate, only building walls so my characters wander off a little less often. Because of this, I usually settle immediately after having enough blue/green high coverage armor for my entire squad. Selling armor plates while leveling smiting on two characters is enough to buy all your books anyway.
6. Having guard bulls at your gate allows you to buy out needed supplies from caravans with a lot less micromanagement.
7. I rarely settle in a region unless I'm going to war with or have allied with the local major faction. It's annoying when any of the big boys break down your gates, and you have no idea why.
These tips are clutch! I LOVE wild bulls. They're highly efficient against large groups of enemies.
@@paulrogersgaming You have a great channel, I'm looking forward to your kenshi 2 videos when it finally drops.
I’ve been playing kenshi for years and only now found your channel thank you so much for making super high quality tutorials like this, even me who has 600 hours find them super valuable
It's understandable. The first or even second time you try building a base (even with locations guides on RUclips) you are merely just experimenting AND learning the game's mechanics, jank, and limitations.
I personally like to build a small to medium-sized base with a simple square or rectangle layout that is suitable for a 6-12 crew, including pack animals.
Anything beyond that squad number just becomes micromanagement hell for me because the characters would sometimes stop responding due to pathfinding or job automation issues.
I'm at a squad of 20 at the moment and the combat power is nice but, food, healing items, and equipment management become quite a hassle.
@@lukmaanpratomo6866 yea I went into overkill on my last playthrough I had a fuckin massive triple gated city with like 67 characters multiple squads for attacking, defending, trading/economy, and food/production. With all that plus my mods my pc couldn’t handle it, which is sad bc I had a LOOT more to do. Basically got my base set up and then my pc was like this is too much homie. Which is a travesty
It depends on both your PC specs and personal management skills to be perfectly honest.
Installing performance mods does certainly help first and foremost. This is because simply due to how "old" the base game engine is.
Generally speaking, I like to keep my base design and layout as simple as possible with 1 gate to avoid NPC issues and to ensure a smooth "job automation" as much as possible.
You can certainly do it with 20+ characters and a complicated base design, but you'll be treading at or near the engine's limit by that point, even with performance mods.
You can somewhat remedy this issue with "city building related" mods such as that mod which lets you place copper and iron nodes literally anywhere (flat areas are recommended), or no research automated machines mod which usually requires 1 to 2 characters to operate.
It may feel cheaty, but it helps in reducing micromanagement and npc issues in the long term.
@@lukmaanpratomo6866 yea my setup was just way too ludacris for my pc shit was struggling w my 50+ workers and the settlers i had in my base, gonna have to downsize somehow
Glad you mentioned waiting to settle. Maintaining a base is a fairly full time commitment, even if you plan to just dodge raids.
I'd also add that The Hub makes a fair city to bootstrap in. The local supply of stuff like building materials is a little weak, but you can strike out to Squin, Stack and the Hive from there, it has a shinobi tower and the building selection for purchase in the Hub is pretty wide (recommend storm House, not small shack).
I'd also recommend people keep a super close eye on food. If your squad is a fair size then you need to get the food industries going the moment you have walls up (probably simultaneous with building supply/iron plate infrastructure)
Problem I have with the Hub is the power generation limits production facilities. Squin actually has a season that lasts something like 1/2 the year where it gets no wind.
and yes, food is a big limit for squad size, even if you have strong fighters that can afford to buy food from shops just off selling loot some towns won't restock enough food to keep a large pop going. This is a big hurdle for those squad limit expanded runs with recruitable prisoners mod players that get huge numbers early on and no food production backbone. xD
Farmers also get VERY productive when their skill maxes out so get training 1-2 farmers asap.
@@PerfectDeath4 that's a good point, The Hub power grid needs some help if you wanna go even to mid tech tiers. Solvable, but costs you most of your rooftops for small turbines.
Worst power grid goes to World's End which barely meets its own demand and contains enough tech to eat through your batteries if you do try and shore it up.
It's one of those double-edged swords in Kenshi. Basing in a city means you run off their power grid 😀. But on the flipside, basing in a city means you run off their power grid 😞
@@celem1000 Yeah, that is why I love Mongrel, plenty of power from fuel generators.
Evil protip: if you built decoy shacks around the map before building your actual base, you can cheese a lot of raids lowering the chance of your actual base getting hit
You can also build an quick starter right away with walls around bar a gap where you place a shack on an angle with the ramp inside walls but touching the walls at a corner, and a bed just at the bottom of the ramp outside the walls and one inside walls at bottom of ramp. then its simply a process of placing members of your party or animals on the beds once you pick them up from either side to get in and out. It wont get attacked and is virtually impenetrable and you can stock up with all your resources inside etc until your ready to build a huge base, this can be done anywhere and its very quick.
I settled my first (my fist base on my first playthrough) in that location from one of your videos recommendations!
Its so peaceful once you wipe out the dust-bandits and the ninjas. The HN can be an issue, but the waystation nearby is great. What sucks is on my playthough the shopkeeper somehow died so i cant buy stuff from them anymore.
You can import the save and make unique NPCs respawn. That, of course, makes the Ninjas and Dust Bandits reset too. But since you already wiped them out once, that shouldn't be an issue for you.
This is definitely the biggest issues with being near towns is collateral damage builds up inevitably. Import your save and make sure to tick off dead npcs so they can all come back.
only thing i'd add is that players try to get a few skeletons in the beginning. then you put them on turret duty and they can stay there the entire play through. dont need to feed them
it is good to see current videos for a game thats been around for a bit..
i lose hours playing this and all i did was inventory swap! 😆
Thank you. Your guide pushed me to build a base in stobe's garden and it is fun.
You can also and should use the terrain to your advantage to funnel enemy, they will only attack a gate, or gatehouse and the walls either side to get into your base. So if you use the terrain ie a ravine or gully to funnel them before the gate or better yet a large body of water like a lake or pond which the enemy has to cross to get to your gate, it slows them down long enought to be killed with either mounted crossbows and later harpoon guns.
My favourite Kenshi channel
play with only hivers or skeletons, build in the deadlands and build a maze entrance to your door through an acid pool so that human invaders have to swim through acid to raid you, you never get raided because bandits just die before they can get to your gate, ez gg
Oh my god the true capstone base building video. Im so ready for this
Two great places to buy your first property for beginner research. The Waystation in Grey Desert for any race, or city in Dead Lands if you are a skeleton.
Both are centrally located on the map.
Great great work! And yes, settling a base should be "late game" at best, especially on your first playthrough.
My first base was too early and I got destroyed by raids within the first week. A learning experience for sure.
Thanks for another good video! Always look forward to 'em.
Thats my go-to spot for a base too. Fertility isn't the best but its a good flat place that can be walled over a huge area. Tend to end up with a sizeable city going on and buckets of cats from weapon and armour production. Pre-base I usually go for the Shek town just South of The Hub. Lots of meat for sale so can even stockpile a bit before heading out and good retail choices for books etc
Good video broski. The audio is so much better than the past videos. Keep up the good work!
Admag is a great place to have a home before setting up a base too. It's not as good with nearby resources as Squin is, but on the other hand it has all the same shops plus a Thieves' Guild, and there's two Watchtowers for sale.
I have a suggestion on the looting the black dragon ninjas part: build a crossbow locker or a weapon cabinet to store and collect all the looted blades before going to sell, that way you get double money when selling them due to the effect of the "stolen" tag
THANK YOU HAMMMOND FOR HELPING ME IN MY KENSHI GAMETHROUGH
16:57 Our boy Ato really isn't feeling the passion for farming today it seems.
animals in Kenshi are OP. once you get a bull/garru/bonedog, you will know how they take the fun out of the game.
If you can sell cactus rum for good profit to the swamp villages (I didn't know that), do that and buy all their hashish stock. Run over to Flats lagoon next and sell it there. With a trading run like that you should have plenty of money to buy decent equipment in the shops of Flats lagoon.
Shoot, that sounds like a great idea. The gear in Tech Hunter cities is much better than with other factions.
@@paulrogersgaming if the cactus rum sells for enough cats to buy all the hashish available you should be able to gear up your entire settlement in two or three runs and get a couple of thousand surplus cats. You just need a strong and fast runner to not get caught by bandits or beak things.
Seeing an image of Ball (/Hammond) overlaid on a Kenshi video thumbnail was not something I was expecting
My channel is a fever dream sometimes... I've learned to accept it 😅
You don't need any wall for your base. Just build your stuff and welcome all bandits to come over so that you can gain xp.
after 2000hrs I've kinda arrived to a conlusion that almost all preventive measures in kenshi are waste of time. I don't build killboxes anymore, I don't build walls, no harpoons. I just train my squad a bit so they don't die, then slam down a small shack or storm house and go on from there. much more fun, much more excitement, and you have a base around day 20 without try-harding.
defending it is much more fun, and if you get crushed once or twice by dust bandits or ninjas it just gives you healthy resentment towards them which makes the revenge so much more satisfying.
are there areas where that's not a safe plan, sure. but really you don't ever need 80 days (like so many people advice) and a pimped up citadel to START your city. it's such vast overkill and makes all attacks boring. unless of course you use those 80 days running around like headless chicken achieving nothing (which is fine too).
why even play a semi-challenging game by removing all its teeth? it just makes no sense.
I remember having my first serious party settle in Clownsteady for a while mining the local ores for monetary gain, and raiding the local research buildings for books and the likes. Good times.
kinda crazy hammond decided to teach me how to play kenshi after diffing me in comp
"Tank diff" probably the most common diff in Overwatch with there being only one now 😵. Back in my day, "DPS diff" was the norm!
mustve been tough i guess, im not ow1 player
I'm going to do a Fishman Island base for my next playthrough I usually settle in the north/east and I want to try south.
Im surprised you got raided before the first house was even done- I've set up a ton of safehouses throughout many playthroughs, and I don't think any of those have attracted raids unless I expanded them. Maybe it was because of the stone mine, iron processor, and stone processor blueprints.
First time I played the first thing I did was creating one single small shack close to the hub, 10 minutes in and my base was raided by black dragon ninjas and my character lost an arm later dying from blood loss because I didn't have another character to aid him
classic kenshi experience. love it! :)
How do I pick a spot for a base? Are ores important? I feel like that should be one of the first things in the guide considering its the first step to making a base other than preparation
I'm really good at this game. I have played, thousands of hours.
It is definitely an issue for new players and even veteran players to get bogged down in early base building under a constant loop of getting raided, trying to heal up after the fight, only to get raided again. Meanwhile base progression happens at a crawl but eventually a persistent player can get their base strong enough to allow for expeditions. It does knock the wind out of a playthrough for MANY hours.
This is exactly why it can be nice to have a property set up to do some research and production training done while the bulk of the group explores, fights, etc.
I usually take a bit longer before setting up a base, my benchmark is if my squad can take on an entire dust bandit camp with basically no one getting KO'd.
This does mean the squad is already leveled enough to the region so I end up making the base in a more difficult area instead of the borderlands.
I kinda find it to be the opposite, and if you look at the date number where you reach a certain level, it's gonna waste a LOT more game days starting the base late. sure the actual base construction will be done from 0 to 100% in a much shorter time, but maybe you only started it at day 80 and finished day 100, when your gung-ho no preparations base will be ready and filled with decent fighters already on day 50.
I don't know if it's the 3x fastforward or what that makes people think they're 'saving time', but often it seems like they're actually wasting massive number of days without even noticing it. there seems to be some psychological effect that makes it feel like the troublesome basebuilding is slower (maybe bc you don't fight at 3x to keep weak squad alive?), but at least for me all the 'preparation' seems to generally take much more time than it saves.
You also left out mods. You clearly have "slopeless," I also consider "animals can enter buildings" and the flipped buildings mod, I can't think of the name of right now, essential.
guys guys.... you can settle at level 1 in okrans pride since all you have to "fight" is prayer day.
Then its cakewalk.
I have started base with no tech and a small shack and it is viable but starting with storm house tech at least is more comfortable. Even having a small shack where you can dump loot early game is kind of nice and a door that shuts keeps the critters out
yeah it's true. but I find when I buy a house in city to research those few early techs, I tend to get stuck there and overprepare until starting the actual base offers no challenge whatsoever. it's a me problem for sure, but avoiding it by starting in small shack only takes a few hours to research storm houses.
its much more efficient to buy iron plates, building mats and have people in the swamps crafting bandanas, using their farms, which can be automated, but this is too cheesy imo, but its the best way, just more micro for trading caravans
What animals can you not get into buildings? I get bulls, garru and dogs into an out of buildings with no issues. There is a spot on the tops of stairs where it connects to the floor that if you click on it correctly the animals walk right in.The storm square house is the one thats most difficult but do able.
You can pick up a npc called Greenthumb or something like that at the fishing village near the cannibal plains he starts with good farming skill i always get him before starting a base.
There's a female greenlander in Shark with good farming, which you can pick up for free.
Green Finger and Miu
Started building my fourth base in the Grey Desert. It's going well. Found a great location I liked. Then I realized the worst mistake... The water fertility is capped at 20% in the immediate area I chose...
yeah it has very poor water level. I use the moisture farming mod because it also makes massive sense for semi-technological desert civilizations to have, and it isn't too fast at generating water either (at least the base version, there's a buffed one too). it basically adds a variant of the hemp processor which instead produces water.
that said, now I'm kinda thinking basing a base around producing large amounts of water (the vanilla way) in a very dry zone would be a nice RP theme as well. the water king shall rule over all desert dwellers!
This is huge
Meanwhile there I am preparing myself to take out the Dust King at level 80 in all combat stats
Good tips
Would ne nice if u mentions how to get a pack animal....
I see I'm not the only one to name my garru Garry. Anyone else naming beak thing Becky?
I do the exact opposite by setting up as early as possible but staying at the base only temporarily. Seems that when you get invaded and no ones at the base nothing happens. Slowly over time my base becomes strong enough for permanently settle. I do still use a small house in a city for basic tech research though.
Hi Mr.Rogers
Man, im redoing my kenshi game (its slightly modded, some of those mods led to many free recruits before) and ive limited myself to my start of 5 nobodies, maybe i'll let myself go up to 10 before i go for a base. Never did a base really before, i think one time i tried the wells i had had didnt work so i kinda stopped playing after awhile when fixing it didnt work. Hopefully this advice helps me this time, specially cause your example is in the megabase example from your BZ guide (if im remebering right)
Think the level 1 wells are manual labour but higher need power to operate. Could be that you upgraded them and didnt have power generation
any ideas on how to avoid spawning smth hostile inside your base?
"ten vagrants... and Ruka"
Of course, because otherwise who will empty your ENTIRE FOOD BARREL (this is a callout post)
:3 nice vid
I just know I'm never setting up in the Swamp again... I crave visibility. And a computer that doesn't sound like a jetliner taking off.
To be fair, you only really need crossbow turrets, makeshift walls, a gate and stormhouses to make a pretty defensible base. How? I put a gate between two stormhouses, as high up as i can raise them, flush with the farthest back walls of the SHs, and then wall off the base. Basically I've created a gatehouse killbox that is very hard to assault. Also nobody breaks down the walls
Enemies will break your walls they do it all the time if there is only 1 layer of walls but your gate has a second, closed, gate cordoned off behind it.
to be fair, you don't need any of those. bases without walls are completely fine and much more fun. kinda easier to defend too because escaping is so easy.
What is the difference between shift+f12 menu and the build menu for building?
you need to save game + reload after f12 for some changes to take effect. sometimes rebuild the navmesh. otherwise you can often run throught walls etc.
also f12 buildings are free, there's no challenge. nothing to play for.
f12 is nice to fix positioning problems etc, like maybe you built too close to ore deposit and now pathing doesn't work. or maybe you want to place something at places they're not allowed, like putting storage containers closer than allowed. or on on top of each other. there's a lot of tricks you can do through f12 to make your city look nicer.
Hire all the bodygaurds
One of my characters has a bounty of 60K caps with the holy nation. Can I turn her in myself and then bust her out after?
I believe so!
13:09 The guy you sent wasn't white and neither was the HN guy he was talking too, HN is sexist and speciesist but there not bothered about the skin colour of the Grasslander you are.
Nah... I usually settle using starting Freedom seekers start and accept the pain.
Ruka is so hot bro
Omg yes!
For the algorithm
Hero
When we needed a hero, kelleybell showed up for us!
what gui mod?
I use the Dark UI mod. I like it more than the brownish color.
@@paulrogersgaming as do I, it looks clean. Thanks for getting back to me.
Please refrain from using the Lord's name in vain.
I disrespectfully disagree with the first half of the video. The only thing you need to set up base are 1-2 people with 60 athletics and backpacks, makeshift walls with 2 gates on the opposite sides of the base, res for iron ref and stone ref. and one building.
If you can do that, you don't need a guide.
@@arcadius2569 I have thousands of hours in the game. I just like hamsters videos and also trolling in the comments...
@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 There are zones where you will get swarmed from all directions. You need gate as a funnel. You can try making base without walls in the swamp and then you can teach me :D
@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 I think that by now i have build base pretty much everywhere except for The Gut and Ashlands. The Swamp is pretty good, it has pros and cons. Pros being res, fertility, water, shops and most of the raids against your base get eaten on the way. Cons being wind and things that eat those raids :D If not for the foliage it would be one of my favorite places.
@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 That is funny. Did not think about that but now i have to.