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Kenshi

Path B

Learn the basics of Kenshi, an unforgiving sandbox RPG. This guide covers game starts, character races, health, allies, equipment, combat, crime, skills, money making, and outposts.

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Learn the basics of Kenshi, an unforgiving sandbox RPG. This guide covers game starts, character races, health, allies, equipment, combat, crime, skills, money making, and outposts.

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](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Cats "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](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/The_Holy_Nation "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

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