Overview
Now that the game is released, this guide is being repurposed and updated into a collection of the best descusions and information for new and seasoned players alike.
What Is Kenshi?
Farsight has been editing this guide. Props to him but it still needs a lot of work to catch up. Hopefully this summer will finally be the time I actually catch up.
Kenshi is a real-time free-roam sandbox game with squad tactics by Christopher Hunt of LofiGames. You can run around fighting bandits, trading goods, setting up your own town, and much more. The theme of Kenshi is post apocalyptic with a Medieval Japanese twist. The combat is automatic (You click and your character fights). However, giving your character better gear, letting them train, and having a larger squad will increase your chances of winning. Factions are yet to be implemented, but will involve territorial war with large scale battles. Kenshi also has numerous skills to train such as Melee Attack, Engineering, Science, and much more. There is no main character meaning that:
Let’s say you have 3 squad members. 2 of them die, including the character that you made in the Character Creation. The remaining squad member will now become your “main character.” You don’t lose the game unless ALL of your squad members die and cannot be revived.
Development of Kenshi has been going on for a total of 8 years now. With the recent Steam Greenlight the target date was 2014.
Here’s very well done video by http://www.youtube.com/user/LegatusIgnatius?feature=watch that does a very good job covering the overall gameplay and features that Kenshi has to offer:
Suggestions
Same with bugs, check the forums and past discussions about suggestions. Most of the discussions are requests for the same content that will already be added or have been covered.. Also feel free to check the LofiGames forum for suggestions.
Forum Page: [link]
Thanks to gmat for the link to the planned development of Kenshi: [link]
- No Tanks, Guns, Rocket Launchers. There will be bows and maybe crossbows.
(List updated and cleared as of 13/03/2017.)
Skills
If you play the Demo, or buy the game, you can see that many of the skills are shaded. This means that they are going to be in the game, but are not currently implemented. Take a quick look at these skills before you post suggestions asking about future skills. All skills in the game can be increased by performing actions that apply to it. Researching increases science, building increases engineering, farming increases labour, etc.
Multiplayer and Cooperative
No, Co-op and multiplayer are not planned for the full release of Kenshi. The developer has decided to keep it a singleplayer game just the way it is. There are already several people who are working on Co-op mods for Kenshi. Fingers crossed, Co-op may be a great addition to this already amazing game.
Graphics
Even though Kenshi has basic graphics, make sure to turn down your settings for optimized play. Some high-powered graphics cards are still straining to render the game. Few graphical glitches or failure to load the display could be due to outdated drivers.
CD-Key
Lovely discussion/post about all CD Keys: [link]
Bugs
Being in Alpha, Kenshi has numerous bugs all the time. Below are the most common bugs that you might encounter.
Check the bug report sections of the Lofigames Forum: [link]
Many of the bugs in the game can be solved by restarting the game, or reloading the game.
Crashes: Again, there are many discussions about how to fix Crashing. Some can be solved by making sure you are running the game in Steam Beta mode or verifying game cache.
Mouse Lag: If your mouse isn’t tracking properly and seems very sluggish, try selecting Hardware Mouse in the startup game options.
Small or Blurry Text/Display: Mess with the resolution on the start up menu for Kenshi. It’s not really a bug, but I see many posts complaining about blurry graphics or un-readable text.
Lack of Walls: Due to walls being too buggy, the dev has removed them for the time being.
Can’t move away from town: Reload your game. Should fix it.
Some textures and buildings aren’t loading: Walk into a building and back out to refresh the game. If that doesn’t work then quicksave > restart game > load save.
When the shop is full and you have an item currently selected by the mouse, closing the window will cause the game to freeze: Reload/Restart the game.
Units get stuck in the stone processor: Move closer with another squad member to pick them up. Dismantle stone processor. Import squad to a new game. Any of these will work.
Unfixable Bugs
- Party members set on “BodyGuard” will walkthrough solid objects to keep in formation.
- Occasionally the Police who recieves the Jounin or Bandit Boss as bounty will walk off aimlessly or never use the prison cells.
- While in the shop window, lifting an item from personal inventory then placing it back in personal inventory will subtract it’s value from the player’s cats.
- Unit collision can push units into solid structures.
- The Trading Outpost near Catan is inaccesible.
- Switching chunks (Set zones that the game is divided into. Kind of like laying a grid over the entire game map) will cause the game to pause and then return to normal speed.
- Some Police Headquarters in Towns are incorrectly labeled as Trade.
- A minor bug involving corpses being renderd as upright when zoomed out or when the game is reloaded.
- Sometimes choosing the Hardware Mouse option in the Kenshi startup will cause the cursor to dissapear completely (Still looking for solution).
- Caravan traders will get stuck in between outposts and towns occasionally.
- Caravan traders will not visit player owned shops/shop counters, let alone spend Cats.
- Character may be attacked in the character creation screen.
Props to Demented and Sparhawk for pointing out some of these bugs.
If you can’t find a thread based on your bug then go ahead and create a thread on the steam discussion and the LofiGames forum for help.
FAQs
Link to the Kenshi Wikia: [link]. Still needs work, but the basic stuff is there.
How do I recruit squad members and what can they do?
NPCs can be found in various Bars and wandering around each Town. You can hire unskilled Drifters for 3000 Cats, or more specialized NPCs for 6000 Cats which higher stats than unskilled Drfiters:
- Medics = Higher Field Medic skill
- Engineers = Higher Labour/Engineering/Strength skill
- Hired Blades = Higher Melee Attack/Defense/Strength skill
Squad members can perform everything the “main character” can do. They can labour on owned buildings, fight, trade, and take over if others die.
How do I interact with objects, such as using medpacks or building?
Select the squad member that you want to perform the action with Left Click. Hold Right Click on the target you want to interact with to bring up an action window.
So I healed my guy, and now his health bar is yellow. Huh?
Using a medkit will turn the injured health bar yellow. This means that health points will slowly regenerate to that body part. Serious injuries require a bed for the squad member to rest in. These can be found in town buildings with a picture of a bed on it. Beds cost 100 cats per squad member and can be used at any time.
Any good moneymaking guides or tips on starting?
Bait bandits into chasing your squad members. Run to a town, Holy Empire Soldiers, or Empire Conscripts. The AI will engage each other and usually the bandits die due to their low stats. Collect the loot and sell at Town Vendors. Repeat this process until you get enough money. See Farsight’s Town Founders Guide below.
How do I improve relations with factions?
Giving First Aid to wounded faction members will give you a large temporary boost, and a small permanent boost towards relation. Yes it is possible to become allies with the Bandits.
How should I train strength?
There are many ways to go about training strength. One way is to load up your squad members with heavy gear and have them Walk, Jog, or Run everywhere. Another way is to find a dead corpse or pick up your squad members and run around with them. Strength will improve through combat but the XP gain is very slow.
After I make my town, how do I automate the harvest?
Assign squad members to the structures (Farm, Stone, Well, etc.) They will automatically produce whatever that stations provides. Currently only Stone will be automatically stored if you have a stone storage unit within close proximity of the Mine. You must manually take the products of your harvest and sell them at a town.
How do I build/research?
First, as with all structures, make sure you have the required building materials with your squad members. You can get building materials from town Trade shops. Go to [Build] > [Subcategory] > [Select the structure] > [Rotate with < or >, raise/lower with PageUp or PageDown] > [Find a suitable spot and make sure the object is highlighted green] > [Place with Left Click] > [Hit Space to end build mode] > [Assign a squad member to begin construction].
To research you need a Research Bench which is roughly the size of a Bed. Once you have that constructed, select a technology from the Tech tab in the UI. Then assign a squad member to Operate the Research Lab. The Science skill is improved by performing research. Research Benches now require Reasearch Books for all non-basic technologies. These will need to be bought and place inside a Research Bench in order to be used. A technology will list how many Research Books it costs.
How do I purchase property?
Left click on the door of a buildling. If it is purchasable then the price and buy option will be on the bottom left UI.
Where/How do I turn in Bounties?
Bandit Bosses and Sand Ninja Jounin are stronger versions of the common enemies. You may notice in their info UI that they have a bounty stat. This is the amount of money you will recieve if you disable the enemy and turn in the corpse to a Police Headquarters. Regular bandits and ninjas will not yield any bounty. Unfortunately not all towns have a Police Headquarters, and others have them incorrectly labeled as Trade.
Mods, where are the mods!?
Kenshi is moddable and there are already several on the Steam Workshop to choose from.
Starting War!
Starting a war may be a little confusing so i’ll break it up into a step by step process.
1. Become Allies with the faction you wish to side with by gaining at least 25 relation. (Holy Empire, Imperial Lords, United Cities).
2. Be an aggressor towards the faction you wish to start the war with by attacking their soldiers.
3. Have the allied faction rush to your defense and protect you from the enemy faction.
4. The relation between these factions will deteriorate and cause them to become hostile towards each other.
5. Raid the enemy faction’s towns, warbands, and engage in all out war!
There you go, these factions should now openly fight each other across the desert. Towns with faction guards positioned in front of it may also engage in territorial protection/aggression.
Steam user 35te Branok found this while playing Kenshi
Mod Manager
Great and easy to use mod manager by Hellhound1: [link]
At the moment, the mod manager only works with .mod files, but in the future will support it any mod, and automatically back up any files for you.
Here are some suggested mods:
To install the mod simply merge the mod Data file and the Kenshi Data file which can be found in your C: drive. For steam users, C:/Program Files x86/Steam/steamapps/common/Kenshi
Back Up Affected Files Before Installing
Guides
A great guide by Farsight that gives new players tips on money making and squad balance. Also very detailed on steps of starting a town. I recommend you read the entire thing:
[link]
Also a guide by Farsight that gives you detail about all the current weapons in Kenshi:
[link]
A small guide, but well done and covers military in Kenshi:
[link]
Keep in touch, I will be adding more guides as the Kenshi community grows.
Updates
Farsight: Update 1 (10/03/2017) – Edited the FAQ to display correct hiring costs.
Farsight: Update 2 (13/03/2017) – Checked over and edited out information that is no longer valid.
Farsight: Update 3 (15/03/2017) – Updated some information and smoothed the layout a little.
Farsight: Update 4 (17/03/2017) – Updated Graphics and Sound to only mention Graphics.
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully by reading this I have answered most of your questions. Kenshi has a great concept, good gameplay, and has it’s own unique twist that other sandbox games lack.
I would definitely recommend getting the Alpha, or at least trying the free Demo on the developer page: [link]