How to stop dying

Recently I’ve seen a lot of new players, and what most of them have in common is developing an early fear of combat, believing that getting knocked out solo is a death sentence, and wondering why sometimes they can get back up and sometimes they can’t. This guide aims to enlighten learning players on the hows and whys of solo combat safety by showing that with little other than the right tactics and basic micro even a Hive Worker can keep picking themselves back up, and even get a leg up on combat training in the process.

First things first, assuming the standard Wanderer start, immediately buy a couple of first aid kits. (Skeletons will have to wait, and should continue to avoid heavy combat until they can afford—or find!—a repair kit.) Then let’s take a look at movespeed. We’re going to be doing a lot of running away for the first few encounters.

There is little reason to leave this panel closed, as it obscures a negligible portion of the screen corner and contains two of the most important character attributes to an inexperienced player: RUN SPEED and KO POINT.
18 mph (the Athletics level 1 speed for Scorchlanders and Hive Workers) is enough to outrun any threat which spawns in the Border Zone, while the 16 mph everybody else starts with will outrun all save the rare well-fed Hungry Bandit Leader. What this means is that entering or leaving combat in this zone is entirely the player’s choice, provided their legs are not injured. Humans and Shek may be interested in looting a pair of Wooden Sandals from a Hungry Bandit Leader, which will boost movement speed by 10%.

A character in Kenshi will run at their full speed unless their leg health falls below 55%. Here’s a breakdown of when this is for each race:

Here’s a screencap from this character’s first combat:
My character has taken 20 damage to the right leg. Another hit to that leg will reduce its HP below 41.25, so it’s now time to get the hell out of there. It is also important to note the damage each hit deals, as characters with the same stats and melee weapon will always deal the same damage. (Modified, of course, by the target’s Toughness and armour protection.)

Someone in this group is also dealing 29 damage per hit, meaning that anyone but a Skeleton will lose speed on a second hit at that value. Anyway, I disengage and seek safety. If you cannot run due to being staggered, I suggest toggling Block for a defensive boost until you can get away.
Once my character is at a safe distance, it’s time to First Aid all that cut damage (the red parts of my character’s health bars) and rest up that leg before the next encounter. Here’s what happened in my next fight:
Once again, a second 28 damage hit would be bad news, so it’s time to get out of here.
But there is a second reason I need to escape from this one: At -100% (-75 for a Hive Worker,) additional cut damage will remove a limb, assuming limb loss is allowed in your game settings. Two additional 28 damage hits will remove my character’s arm, which is bad news right now for reasons I’ll touch in my next section.
But for now I’ve survived two solo fights and gained 6 Toughness, deepening my KO point by 4! What’s KO point, you ask?

KO Point is a terrible name. Here, I’ll fix it.

Any character is knocked Unconscious when their Head, Chest, or Stomach receives damage which drops them below 0 HP, or when those body parts receive a hit while below 0 HP. (A resisted crossbow bolt to a vital body part under 0 HP will still knock you back out.) Reaching Coma Point will put you in a recovery coma until that body part’s HP is positive again. This can seem like a big problem for new characters, as a body part being so deeply damaged frequently means that part is also subject to a deteriorating cut wound (indicated by a <, <<, Or <<!! At the end of the health bar.) In each of my previous fights, I saved before escaping so that I could show what happened if my character stayed in combat.
The worst-case scenario has occurred. My character was very close to 0HP when a 28 damage attack sent their Stomach HP well beyond their Coma Point of -15, and the severe cut wound obliterates all hope of returning to positives. This character is already dead unless happened upon by slavers. Here’s the second fight:
My character’s legs are still fine, but that arm isn’t! The loss of this arm is actually quite survivable on its own, however…
I don’t have in-depth knowledge on the formula for time spent Unconscious, but being knocked out while experiencing limb trauma appears to result in long timers. But my HP is still within my Coma Point, and I’m even healing a little.

A bit of information about the two types of damage in Kenshi: Cut damage, and Stun (blunt) damage.
Stun Damage:

The grey portion of my character’s health bars represent Stun Damage. Provided the hit itself did not kill you, Stun Damage is 100% non-lethal and will always heal. This is why my character’s health raises from -9 to -8 between screenshots. Cut Damage:

The red portion of my character’s health bars represent Cut Damage. Cut damage will never heal without First Aid, and accumulating 20 points of Cut Damage on a single body part will result in a Deteriorating Wound, which will slowly apply additional Cut damage, worsening further as you accumulate more damage. This is usually what kills you. Nine and a half hours later, note how the grey portion of my character’s Stomach health bar has shrunk to only half, while the HP number has fallen to their Coma Point due to a Deteriorating Wound.
It will take another four and a half hours, but…

The good news is that wounds are easy to deal with! Here my character has taken a whole lot of Cut Damage to their Chest:
As long as their legs are okay, this is a good thing! But it’s time to back off for now. You can run all the way to safety to bandage your wounds before finding a new fight, or if you’re fast enough you can stop to heal as you’re retreating, like so:

Here I feel I’m at a safe enough distance to start bandaging

I get about a third of my character’s Chest wound bandaged (represented in light-yellow) before they’re close enough to take a swing

And issue a move command

Many Hungry Bandits don’t meet the Strength Requirement of their Iron Clubs. My character is long gone before the blow lands.

Rinse and repeat until you’re all bandaged up! After this I went back to the Dust Bandit group with about 60% of my character’s Chest health Bandaged and let them take another hit.Knowing in advance that this Dust Boss would deal 28 damage, I can engineer a situation where my character is hit to just below 0. But what about that wound?
Well! The funny thing about First Aid in Kenshi is that Bandaged health cannot be undone by attacks. If you have
40 points of health Bandaged and take 20 damage, you will still have 40 points Bandaged and continuing to heal. Deteriorating Wounds, however, can’t touch your HP value until they’ve undone your Bandage first.
Note how the red portion of my character’s health bars has grown, but they’re gaining HP and the light yellow has stayed in roughly the same spots:

My character has survived a knockout, now it’s time for some progress!
First off, if your entire party was knocked out and somebody wakes up with enemies still nearby, they will enter the Playing Dead state. Characters with the Medic job will Bandage themselves while remaining untargetable.

And even better; choosing to Get Up while there are hostile NPCs nearby awards Toughness XP per enemy.
That was four whole levels, deepening my character’s Coma Point by 3, lowering their Damage Resistance Penalty by 5%, and making it even easier to survive hits in the future. You won’t start winning solo combat without some better armour and weapons, but at this point you’re on the road to Toughness Town.
From here I repeated the above tactics until I decided I’d put enough together for this guide, reaching 62 Toughness (dropping those 28 damage Hungry Bandit hits down to 15!)

I think that’s about it. I hope this guide is informative and helpful enough for more people to enjoy Kenshi!
I’d also like to thank Jimo’s Steam Guides guide for helping me format my own.