Getting Started

“

You are not the chosen one. You're not great and powerful. You don't have more 'hitpoints' than everyone else. You are not the center of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it.

”

Kenshi is an unforgiving game about a brutal world which does not care about you. Many people will attack you in order to loot you, enslave you, or eat you. You heal very slowly and, if you are not careful, you can easily lose a limb. Gaining the edge over your opponent is difficult since you do not gain skill faster than a non-player character. This guide's goal is to help new players who are Getting Started in the world of Kenshi.

Game Starts

Starting the game, Kenshi allows you to choose a scenario, or Game Start. The information given for each Game Starts is: Difficulty, Cash, Play Style, and a short description. On the Game Starts page there is a more details on what items, stats, and faction relations the starting character(s) have as well as information about the starting locations.

Difficulty

These difficulty labels refer to how your starting character's circumstances will be at the very beginning of the game. Selecting an easier difficulty Game Start will not make your character level up faster than at harder difficulty.

Cash

In Kenshi, all factions and vendors trade using coins called Cats. Some Game Starts begin with no money and some start with a small sum of Cats.

Play Style

Play Style is a label given to each Game Start. Play Style suggests to the player what mindset they should have while playing their characters in Kenshi. There are five different Play Styles listed in the default Kenshi Game Starts: RPG, Action RPG, Real-time Strategy, Wanted Criminal, and Trading RPG. You could play with those but they are not "enforced", so if you choose a Game Start with the "Wanted Criminal" play style, for example, nothing will stop you from turning your game into a "Trading RPG."

Short Description

Game Starts also give the player a short description to help their decision making. These descriptions typically give you some context in where your character may have come from, what items they have, and what their starting relations will be with some of the Major Factions.

Crew

During character design, you can choose the race of your starting characters: (Bonuses mentioned are +20% XP and penalties are -20% unless stated otherwise)

• Humans - Benefits include being the only race which can enter The Holy Nation territory without being attacked by them on sight, the ability to wear all (Excluding Hiver Shirts...) clothes. All humans blood pool = 75+(0.75)Strength level.
  • Greenlanders - Bonus to Cooking, Farming and Science. Only race with no penalties to any XP rates. Normal healing speed and decent running speed. 100 all health, 1x Bleed rate and 1x Hunger rate.
  • Scorchlanders - Bonus to Armoursmithing, Athletics, Dexterity (10%), Dodge, Stealth and Weaponsmithing. Penalty to Cooking, Farming, Labouring and Strength (-10%). Fastest healing speed (1.1x Healrate) of the starting organic races and fastest non-Hiver. 100 all health, 0.9x Bleed rate, 0.9x Hunger rate.
• Shek - Bonus to Attack, Strength (+10%) and Toughness. Penalty to Athletics, Dexterity, Dodge, Farming, Labouring, Robotics, Science, Stealth, Thievery. Slow healing speed (0.8x Healrate) (Healrate x max hp is healing speed so they heal as fast as a Greenlander. However, blood regen and robotic limbs will heal 20% slower than Greenlanders) and tied with Skeleton for the slowest running speed. 125 all health, 0.9x Bleed rate, 1.25x Hunger rate. Unable to wear some helmets. Blood pool = 75+(0.75)Strength level.
• Hive - Actually has three specialized sub-races, unable to trade with Hive Villages, cannot wear boots and only wear Hive variant shirts (Same as normal shirts however they are cheaper and lack limb protection) and a few other armour restrictions. All hivers have the same hitchances on their body which leads to most hits landing on their chest. All Hivers have a blood pool of 50.
  • Workers - Bonus to Athletics, Dexterity, Engineering, Farming, Labouring, Stealth, Thievery, Toughness and Turrets. Penalty to Cooking, Science and Strength. They heal pretty slowly (1x Healrate) due to their low max health. 125 head health, 75 all for other bodyparts, 0.3x Bleed rate, 0.5x Hunger rate. Unable to wear certain helmets. Fastest starting race.
  • Soldiers - Bonus to Attack and Toughness. Penalty to Armoursmithing, Cooking, Engineering, Farming, Field Medic, Perception, Robotics, Science and Weaponsmithing. Relatively fast healing for a Hiver (1x Healrate) but as they have the Hiver hitchances they are prone to taking many hits in the chest making them less effective for combat than the non-hive races. 200 head health, 100 all for other bodyparts, 0.3x Bleed rate, 0.6x Hunger rate. Unable to wear any helmets. Slower running speed than the other two Hive sub-races but still faster than humans.
  • Princes - Bonus to Athletics, Dexterity, Field Medic, Lockpicking, Perception, Science, Stealth, Thievery and Toughness. Penalty to Labouring and Strength. Heals slightly faster than Workers (1x Healrate) due to their 80 all health, 0.3x Bleed rate and 0.5x Hunger rate. Starts out slower than Workers but once you reach max level Athletics they move at the same speed.
• Skeleton - Bonus to Heavy Weapons, Robotics and Turrets. Penalty to Dodge, Stealth and Thievery. Extremely fast at healing (2x Healrate) with a massive 200 all health. As healing speed is based on maximum health and healrate they will heal 4x faster than a Greenlander. 0.1 Bleed rate and 0x Hunger rate meaning they do not require food. Unable to wear boots, shirts or helmets. Requires more expensive kits to bandage cut damage. Bandaged Robotic health heals 250x faster than organic bandaged health so they are very fast at recovering. Their maximum health is reduced equal to 4% of the damage that they take. This takes a while to actually add up and can be restored back to full in seconds by sleeping in a Skeleton repair bed. Higher chance to be hit in their chest compared to the rest of their body. Skeletons play an important part in Kenshi lore.

Health, what's that?

You might start the game hungry. This will significantly affect your running speed, etc. when your hunger is less than 200. Hivers and Scorchlanders can eat raw meat, but other race starts will have to purchase food (in Bars or Trade Goods stores) or cook raw meat with a campfire. Since hunger is greatly debilitating, slave owners keep slaves on the edge of starvation to greatly reduce the combat and movement speed of their slaves. Your characters, including animals, will eat automatically provided there is food in their inventory (or that of their squad).

You will most likely perish from your first fight in Kenshi. Animals, or people wielding swords will quickly cut you down, and you will die if there is no one to perform first aid. Characters with untreated wounds may die quickly, as cut-injuries progressively worsen at a faster rate. Damage to the head, chest and stomach is particularly fatal and all cut damage must be patched up using medical items such as bandages or repair kits. Splint kits (for fractured bones) may be used after bandages to be able to use a limb when it is below 0 health provided you are skilled enough to splint to that point. Characters heal fastest in a Bed (x8 organic healing speed), Skeleton Repair Bed (8x robotic healing speed) or a Camp Bed (4x organic healing speed). See Guide to Health.

Starting characters which are Skeletons can only be healed with variants of the Skeleton Repair Kits or by using a Skeleton Repair Bed. These beds can be rented only in very specific shops (check the Skeleton Repair Bed page for a full list) and are generally around c.200-c.3,000 Cats per use. Some locations have free Skeleton Repair Beds. Repairing skeletons can be expensive early on, but Repair Kits can be found in many ruins including undefended ones. (The Armoury Ruin in the South East of the Deadlands has 2 as an example)

Allies

In towns, many characters can be talked to by the player. These include Traders, Recruits, Mercenaries, and characters who are just looking to give information. When entering towns, your characters may also be stopped by the Town Guards. The guards will want to check your character for contraband before you enter the town. Only a few items are contraband so simply allowing this early game is the quickest dialogue branch.

Being weak is less dangerous when you have more characters under your control. There is a great advantage early on in having one character hide away during fights so that they can run over after the battle and bandage your unconscious or dying character(s) when it is safe to do so. Having at least two characters can be the difference between dying and being heavily injured.

Recruits

There are three ways which Playable Characters are categorized: Generic Recruits, Unique Recruits, and Slave Recruits. Bar Recruits and most Unique Recruits can be found in towns. These Recruits will usually be in Bars but can also be patrolling the town. They will ask for a set amount of Cats in order to join your squad. Some Unique Recruits will join for free. When recruiting characters, the game may open the Character Customization module where you can decide to change their name and their appearance.

Mercenaries

Most Recruits are weak and don't have good equipment. For a couple days at a time, you can recruit Mercenaries to protect your characters. These Mercs will charge 2,000 Cats per day. Mercenaries can be found in Bars, Mercenary Camps, or roaming the world in certain regions. Mercenaries include Cannibal Hunters, Bar Thugs, Mercenaries, or Tech Hunters.

Animal Recruits

Animals make great recruits, but there is a drawback or two. The weaker bandit factions will usually butcher your animal for meat if they see it unconscious. Also, movement speed for animals is based on age of the animal, more than the athletics XP that the animal has gained. There's a list of animals for purchase here.

Equipment

At the start of the game, you can use all weapons, and all equipment, if you have the strength to use them, although you will start with low-quality equipment. High level equipment will be quite heavy, making it impossible to run, or swing a sword quickly in the beginning of the game.

Characters have two weapon slots named "Weapon 1" and "Weapon 2." To use a particular weapon, put it in the topmost position. Crossbows will be used if the "Ranged" button is activated, and if you have ammo. If a character is using a weapon with an indoor penalty and goes indoors, they will automatically switch to Weapon 2 if they have one. If using a 2handed weapon like a Heavy Weapon or Polearm and a characters left arm goes below 0 health they will use their sidearm, or just start using Martial Arts if one is not equipped. See Guide To Equipment.

Scavenging

Often, squads from Hostile Factions will attempt to raid a town. After the town guards beat these characters unconscious, you should safely be able to loot them. Although, be careful not to loot any unconscious townspeople because stealing from them will be a crime. Stealing from bandits is not an issue though. Wear whatever armour is the highest quality among them and sell everything else that the bandits had. Beware that town guards will notice you wearing their faction's uniform and will attack you, so do not wear any clothing in towns you stole from a guard if it has the faction uniform tag. If you dress completely in faction gear, you're in disguise, and you might pass, if your stealth skill is high.

Purchasing from Shops

Buying equipment from shops is the most legitimate way of acquiring these items from a legal standpoint. From a financial standpoint however, it is the worst. The difference between price and sell price on equipment is very discouraging. However, having any armour is better than none. Purchase the lowest quality option you can find in stores (prototype or shoddy) of Light Armour. Early game, light armour is the best because it allows for characters with low Strength to be protected and it can often have bonuses to Combat Stats. Wear Light or Medium Armour until your stats improve and wear Wooden Sandals as most shoes will harm your ability to flee from danger.

Stealing from Shops

Stealing allows for you to get higher quality equipment early game. Train up your Thievery skills before attempting to steal from a shop because after you are caught stealing, you will never be able to legitimately purchase from that shop again. The shopkeepers remember your entire player faction, so sending in a completely different character will make no difference.

In order to avoid getting caught stealing, you should enter the shop in Stealth mode and hide behind furniture like a wooden wall in order to stay out of sight. Wait until night. The shopkeeper will lock the door to the building, and, eventually, the shopkeeper and shop guards will go to sleep as long as the building has beds for all of them. If you are caught staying in the shop after closing time, the shopkeeper will tell you to leave many times before you are charged with trespassing and the guards attack you. While everyone is sleeping, go around picking up items on shelves to build up Thievery before attempting to steal from containers. It may be beneficial to unlock the door before attempting any stealing but make sure not to open the door because that may result in patrolling town guards entering. If you are caught stealing, open the door and run or remain and fight.

Combat Mode

On the right side of the HUD interface, you will see seven buttons: block, hold, passive, jobs, ranged, taunt, sneak. These buttons apply to individuals in your squad and affect their current goals.

• BLOCK -- Never swing but can still face off. This person gains 20 to defense skills (Melee defense, Dodge)
  • If a unit is crippled, they will still attempt to punch attackers even when BLOCK is enabled. Units with BLOCK enabled will still fire ranged weapons provided RANGED is enabled as well.
• HOLD -- Don't run out, when combat is nearby. Also affects the first aid job.
• PASSIVE -- Will only act in self-defense when attacked. Will not attack characters not acting them first.
• JOBS -- The character won't do automated work in base when this is off. Does not affect the first aid jobs.
• RANGED -- Cossbows/Mounted crossbows/Harpoons won't be used when this is off.
• TAUNT -- Increases the threat of this character, leading enemies to focus their attacks here. (Threat seems to be affected by damage output as well as distance from a target so this will not always work similar to taunting in other games)
• SNEAK -- When activated, the character will attempt to go into stealth. Depending on light, skills, equipment, movement, enemy vision range multiplier, line of sight, etc, this may be unsuccessful. If enabled when playing dead characters may crawl instead of standing up.

The default settings are to activate the Jobs and Ranged buttons. When all of your squad is downed, you may find it useful to engage passive and sneak-to allow the enemy to win, and walk away, otherwise your characters with high toughness will stand up and continue the fight. In such situations, it's also important to hold the first aid job, since characters will go to heal, and stop playing dead. Skeletons can heal while staying low, but only after an order (Bug. They should behave like other races) is belayed by that character.

Crime and Belligerence

Kenshi has a realistic system for crimes and combat. The system works well, although it's not clear why you're being attacked, and why you're being flagged as a criminal.

Minor crimes include assault and trespassing. You can commit these crimes freely and avoid the bounty by running away before you're seen. If you're seen, an alarm is raised, and guards will rush to arrest you. If you resist arrest, you'll have an assault charge as well. It's often helpful to jump into a jail cell, at which point you'll lose your weapons, and run the risk of being enslaved. If you evade arrest, you'll have a small bounty put on you, which should expire in hours.

Major crimes are theft and kidnapping. If they catch you for theft, you'll lose a bit of standing with the faction, and the vendor will be permanently unavailable to you. Kidnapping is also serious-you'll get a c.5,000 bounty for kidnapping or trying to free a slave.

In the wasteland, the wastes keep their secrets because there's no major faction to report the crimes. You can commit as many crimes as you want, and nobody can report them. Your actions aren't free of consequence though. Your aggression (see the next paragraph) might make individual NPCs or entire factions hostile to you. Hostile factions can't freely attack you in cities, unless your "committing crime" is still flagged, or if that faction is allied to the city.

Aggression is completely separate. You might be flagged for aggression, (the cursor turns RED, when you hover over a person) if you previously attacked them, etc. They won't necessarily attack you, but they could-even if your criminal flagging is gone. The aggression flag should go away in five hours.

Wearing stolen faction clothing is usually a crime. Don't wear it. For some reason, it's nearly impossible to sneak into a city as an escaped slave, which seems odd, since your bounty and aggression flags are ignored by most NPCs.

Training Skills

These are the most recommended strategies for increasing character Statistics early game. For a more exhaustive guide to training, read our Guide to Training Statistics.

Combat Skills

Before fighting, characters can easily train up on Strength, which will help during combat. The fastest way to train Strength is through having a heavy inventory and carrying another character. After doing this, your character will be heavily weighed down and will walk very slowly. Training this way requires your character to walk around while carrying this weight. You can tediously click around town to move or simply find a character which is patrolling the town and follow them through holding right click.

Some buildings will have Training Dummies for characters to train Melee Attack with. Using these will likely be a crime, as they are privately owned by the faction which owns the building. Train on them for a little while until someone starts to yell at you. If you continue to use their private equipment after many warnings, they will attack you. Please note that training your attack this way will result in less Dexterity experience in the future. (As Dexterity uses attack level to multiple it's XP gain in combat)

You can safely and easily gain experience by attacking alongside town guards when bandit raids occur. The guards will undoubtedly defeat the enemy squad. In order to decrease time waiting for a squad to attack your town, run outside of town to find a group of enemies and lead them back to the town. Once you are close enough to the gates, the guards will come to your defense.

After these fights, healing these bandits and town guards is an easy way to increase your Field Medic statistic. Healing a character results in a minor relations boost with that faction. Depending on their faction, some bandits may carry a Basic First Aid Kit, you can easily loot this First Aid Kit before healing them. Either way, you shouldn't worry too much about wasting resources on as the field medic experience gained is, in the long-run, very beneficial. You can easily loot their First Aid Kit before healing them.

Thievery Skills

Before stealing anything from an indoors location, characters should train Stealth. Stealth can be trained by entering Stealth mode by clicking the Stealth button in the User Interface. Characters will gain Stealth experience as long as they are walking around near other characters. You gain hardly any stealth XP for sneaking near neutrals. You'll gain MUCH more near hostiles. The more hostiles the faster you will level. A safe but very slow way to train this is by turning Stealth mode on and walking around town for a while. Be careful clicking near other characters, as you may accidentally command your character to attempt an Assassination and that will probably be counted as Assault which is a crime in towns.

A successful assassination

Thievery can be trained by looting items from sleeping (NOT UNCONSCIOUS. Unconscious units give no thievery XP) characters, picking up any items which have a designated owner, and stealing from containers inside buildings. You will only gain XP if the chance to succeed is not at or over 98%. Before stealing from shops, you could steal junk items in residential buildings as being caught from those locations will not affect your ability to use the town's shops in the future. Often residential buildings will have mostly empty storage containers, to save time looking in every one you can find out if they are empty by clicking on the container and reading its details. It will specifically say [EMPTY] if it has no items inside it. Locked storage containers will always have at least one item inside of them.

You can usually just sell those stolen junk items in town since most towns have vendors of different factions within it who don't care that the item is stolen. If you have trouble finding a shop in your town, you can sell to the Tech Hunters in one of their Waystations, provided the stuff you are selling isn't stolen from their faction.

Lockpicking can be trained slowly on Locksmith Training Boxes which can be found in a Shinobi Thieves Tower. Remain in Stealth Mode while using those unless you have paid to join the Thieves. In order to avoid the Thieves becoming hostile towards you and affecting your ability to join them later, stop training on the boxes when someone sees you. A faster and safer way to train lockpicking is to go to places with cages like Bast and Fort Simion or gates like Old Prison and many Ancient Labs with locked gates. You can put yourself (Or a corpse) inside of these cages, unlock them, rinse and repeat. If you unlock and open a gate and then close it, it will relock allowing you to train lockpicking over and over as well. You need a Lockpicking level of at least 58.31 to be able to open the most powerful (100) locks.

Picking locks on storage containers is also a crime against the owner, so stop your attempts if someone is looking at you. You are still a criminal for 3 seconds after stopping your attempt at picking, so remain hidden until you're convincingly innocent.

If your character is enslaved, it can be an easy time to train Lockpicking and Stealth. Maintain Stealth Mode for the entire time and your character will increase slowly while other characters easily spot your character. While locked in a Cage, your character should be in range to pick the locks on the slaves locked up next to them. After picking the lock on both your Shackles and your Cage, attempt a full escape. Failed escape attempts make for some Toughness training as well because slavers heal slaves after locking them back up. The primary issue with repeating this plan is how long it takes for characters to heal while locked up, making your character's Stealth ability cut due to injuries and meaning that it may be a while until you are able to successfully escape the slave camp.

Keep in mind that any illegal activity carried out has a "cool-down timer" that ticks backwards giving the town's guard some time to spot any crime and to initiate arrest. Stop any such activity before the guards get to you.

Trade Skills

Without having to build your own Outpost or do any research, you can train in the trade skills of Farming and Laboring. Laboring can be trained in any region by mining a Copper or Iron deposit. Farming can be trained on Farms which are sometimes part of towns. Most notable towns with farms are Holy Farms, Drifter's Last, and any town in The Swamp.

Money Making

You don't need money if you choose to steal everything you want, but having money is still preferred to having no money. More ways to earn Cats can be found on the Money Making Strategies page.

Looting

Characters which have been made unconscious can be stolen from easily. This action can be risky if the unconscious or dead character has allies nearby. Otherwise, all items they hold can be taken and sold in a shop. As noted earlier, it can be dangerous selling stolen items to the same faction where they originated. Players can lure bandits and other hostile roaming squads to town guards regularly in order to save time when using this method.

Trading

Acting as a wandering trader is a viable option to increasing your income. Most items have slightly differing prices from town to town. In your starting town, purchase as many as you can of whichever item has the lowest markup rate. Then wander to other towns where the markup rates are high and sell them off.

If you are worried about traveling far from your starting town, you can choose to simply become a raw materials trader instead. Through the Prospecting module, you can find the nearest Copper or Iron deposit. Run to the mine and work at it until your character has a full inventory of raw materials. Collecting from the mine will require either looting it through holding right click or selecting it and opening your player character's inventory. Take your full inventory of items and sell it at any store.

Purchasing a Backpack early in order to carry more items would make trips more efficient. When carrying a backpack (other than a Small Thieves Backpack), make sure that your character has enough inventory space to take off the backpack because the backpack's negative effect on combat stats can be brutal early game.

Selling Characters to Slavers

In the United Cities territory, you can sell characters to Slavers from the Slave Traders faction. An easy way to do this would be to find a town which is controlled by the Slave Traders and wait until bandits attack it. After the guards have finished the fighting, run out and pick up an unconscious character. By talking to the Slaver Boss in the Slave Shop or by placing the character in a Prisoner Cage, you can earn a couple hundred Cats.

This is a dangerous strategy choice because on the way to a town containing a Slave Shop, you can be attacked. If you are knocked out in United Cities territory and especially near Slaver controlled towns, it is likely that a roaming squad of Manhunters, Slave Hunters, or Slave Traders will enslave you. Rebirth is a location that also accepts slaves if your characters fit a certain criteria.

Bounty Collecting

Characters can be given Bounties easily in Kenshi for committing many crimes. In many towns, Wanted Posters are sold at Bars and Police buildings. The characters who have Wanted Posters out against them will likely have high bounties and be difficult to defeat.

However, many roaming bandits can be spawned with a randomly generated bounty of roughly 2,000 Cats. Be on the lookout for these minor criminals. If you see one of them defeated by a different faction squad and the coast is clear, run over and pick them up. Make sure that their wounds are bandaged before picking them up, as you will not earn the full bounty for a corpse. Carry the character to a town controlled by the faction which has the bounty against them (you can learn this by hovering over the bounty label when the character is selected) and drop them off in a Prisoner Cage in the Police building.

Some characters known to have randomly generated bounties are from these factions: Dust Bosses, Grass Pirates, Tech Hunters, Sand Ninjas.

Outposts

There is more to the game than bounty hunting, fighting, and trading. To experience the rest of the game, you will likely want to build an Outpost. It is suggested not to do this until you have a decent amount of cats (If in United Cities territory) as well as combat stats as raiders WILL be coming before long.

Inside Towns

Inside towns, there are often buildings for sale which can become Player-Owned Buildings in Town. You can find out which buildings these are by clicking on them and reading information about them in the bottom left corner of the screen. To buy these buildings, simply click on the "For Sale" button and confirm in the following popup window. Some purchasable buildings are damaged and need repair after purchase. They can be repaired by right-clicking on them and clicking on the "repair" pop-up button. The required cost in Building Materials (easily obtained in most, but not all, towns with buildings for sale) will be displayed in the next interface box. Ruined buildings are cheaper in cats than normal buildings for sale. Inside these buildings and on their roofs, you can construct any interior type building (in game's terms - furniture or other buildable items) and also some buildings labeled as exterior. Having your own building in a town before building an outpost is good because you will be protected by the town Guards while researching Technology and Crafting.

Building Your Own Outpost

Starting an outpost can be a poor choice early game because outposts tend to attract raids and tax-collectors. If you feel that your characters are ready to properly defend and afford their base, see our Guide to Building an Outpost.