Yora plays Kenshi: A Stick in the Landscape

[Yora]

Kenshi is a weird little huge sandbox game on the post-post-apocalyptic desert planet Kenshi. 12 years in the making as pretty much a one man show, this is as indy as it gets. When it eventually was considered progressed enough to call it released two years ago, I briefly heard about it as being really weird and funny in a cracked up Mad Max way, and while it didn't have the massive breakthrough of Minecraft, there's still regular new stuff about it on youtube, which brought it back to my attention.
I finally got around to get it for 27€ on GOG, and putting it all the way down to potato-mode makes it somewhat playable on my computer. Being the kind of game it is, that's not too bad of an issue, but it's still sad given how pretty it can look with high quality textures and shadows. But none of that for me. I'm playing in the early-PS2 look.

After getting the game installed, I quickly started a new game to see if I actually had it working this time, without even looking at the random starting character. But after fiddling around with the settings and finding the minimum settings to be playable, I discovered that the character is actually pretty cool. It's a Greenlander woman named Sticks (actually Sticky, but I can change that later) who looks like Ciri with weight lifter arms. And judging by the random people walking right past her through the dusty town square, she's really tall! I'm gonna keep her!



Sticks is a Wanderer, the default game start, which begins with old trousers, a big stick, and a purse of 1,000 cats, standing in the Hub. It's the starting town, but it's really just a ruined fortress with a bar. With every other building being rubble, I went into the bar where the other people were headed, and discovered a couple of other dusty travelers. A Scorchlander woman asked if I was interested in hiring a rum brewer, but I neither had use for that at this moment, not did I have the 6,000 cats she was asking for.
Looking at what the owner had for sale, I realized that 1,000 cat really wasn't much at all. It would only get me 3 breads or so. Since I was currently not hungry at all,
I decided to wait on that and come back for food later if I need it.

Roaming around the ruins, I found a number of other homeless like me sitting around small fires in the collapsed buildings. Not feeling too proud to rummage through garbage, I found a few wooden bowls, water jugs, and a burned book. At the very far side of the castle I found a big tower that hadn't collapsed yet, and was serving as the base for a group of Trade Ninja. The guard in the front asked me if I want to join, but still exploring the fortress I declined for now. However, seeing that the Hub was almost empty but had all these ruined houses, I somehow got the idea in my head that I want to take over and rebuild this place, with me as the local warlord. But with a wooden stick and all stats at 1, that might be a very far of dream, and I only got here an hour ago.
Selling the bowls, jugs, and the book, I managed to get 114 additional cats. Not enough to buy a bread, but it's a start.

As I stepped back out of the bar into a growing sand storm, a group of people came marching through the square, which turned out to be a dozen or so Hungry Bandits. I had jeard of these guys, but not having any food on me, they left me alone and marched out into the desert. I decided to follow them as a scavenger, hoping they would get in a fight with someone or something, and then being able to loot the dead.

But soon I spotted a small shack in the distance that I had seen as the only thing on my map, which I decided to check out. It turned out to be another bar, which was being used as a camp by some Rebels who didn't have anything to offer for me either.

I decided to go back to the Hub, as I had seen some copper ore outside the gate. That might be a way to make some money to secure more food and some equipment to survive the dangers of the desert. Fortunately, you don't need to by a pickaxe. You just have one when you want to mine ore.
As the sun was setting and night falling, Insaw some lights moving in the distance. Possibly those Hungry Bandits from earlier. Since the lights kept moving in the same place for a long time, they didn't seem to make camp for the night. Maybe they were fighting something? Definitely something to check out in the morning.

As I kept mining, suddenly two Garru with two young came marching right past my ore rocks, big weird looking animals like buffalos or elephants or something like that. Fortunately they seemed completely uninterested in me and quietly disappeared back into the desert night.

[Yora]

Day 2: After selling the copper I had mined during the night at the bar, I went out into the desert to check out the lights I had seen. Unfortunately there was nothing there when I arrived late in the morning. But I did find a huge giant cactus thing growing from the ground. Or an enormous satelite that fell from space. No real way to say either way.
While I was out there, I decided to mine some iron, and while digging away a big group of garru, some pack bulls, bone dogs, and goats wandered by. They belonged to some kind of nomad group, but with no people to be seen anywhere.
Minning all the iron I could carry out there a mile into the desert turned out to be a pretty stupid idea. Of course I got slowed down by the load, as iron weighs twice as much as copper, and then also realized that it also sells for only half the price. Not much sense in mining it for money. While out in the desert I had encountered another even larger group of hungry bandits, and also a group of dust bandits. Those guys might be interested in taking my cats rather than looking for food, so I quickly sneaked away from them, having absolutely no combat experience and only heavy stick to fight with.
I spend the next four days mining copper below the walls of the hub to earn the 6,000 cats needed to buy one of the ruined houses in the fortress.

Day 6: After having toiled in the desert sun for days, bringing my Laboring skill up to 28 (starting at 1), I went around the hub to pick a good building to buy and renovate. It seems that the bar, the tower of the Shinobi Thieves, and one small shack are the only buildings still intact in the entire Hub. I decided in the last moment to maybe just start with a small shack for 1500 cats for now. If I am going to rebuild the entire Hub as my own personal domain, I'll have to buy all the shacks anyway.
I decided to take the shack closest to the Shinobi tower, even though it's the furthest away from both gates and the bar. Seeing what a wreck the Hub really was, I didn't want to get a place that draws attention and was more outnof sight, and with the Shinobi being neutral and asking if I want to join, they didn't seem to be any threat to me. Living next to a gang boss is often one of the safest places in a city. The boss doesn't want his neighbors to tell on him, so his people aren't gonna touch any of their stuff. And other gangs won't even dare showing their faces on the whole street. If any bandits might get close to my shack, hopefully the Shinobi would regard them as getting too close to their tower and attack before anyone gets to raid my storage.
That left me with 4,500 cats to spare, which was convenient because there were serious renovations to be done. Fortunately building materials are pretty cheap to buy, but the bar didn't have enough in stock to fully rebuild my shack. So I went back out to the Lonely Shack where the Trade Ninja had a second bar. As I arrived, I discovered two dead hungry bandits, as the dumb bastards had apparently tried to rob the place. The Ninja didn't even have a scratch on them. The first bandit in the dust outside didn't have quite my size, but I got myself a nicer pair of trousers and some actual, but really poor armor. A step up from nothing but a loincloth. And the ninja had lots of building material as well!
After returning to the Hub, I completed the new roof on my shack and build a research table to start designing plans for storage boxes. While making another run to the bar for more material, I remembered that one shack that wasn't rubble and looked like it was inhabited, but never seemed to have anyone hanging out at that place. I didn't want to steal all the food lying around, as I made more than enough cats to buy something to eat, but that locked chest was a great opportunity to practice my lockpicking skill. To my surprise, I actually had it open by the time my lockpicking had reached level 6, and decided to take what I got and move on with my errand. But out of curiosity, I decided to turn around and check what was in the chest anyway. To my surprise, in addition to a good amount of food, there were five documents. They were written by some High Paladin from the Holy Nation, which I knew to be one of the main powers in the region, and explained that the Hub was a Holy Nation fortress that was destroyed by their great infernal enemies, the Shek. Apparently the Shek occupied the Hub for a while before they all left suddenly leaving only an empty ruin. And according to the paladin, the place was haunted by wraiths, and he concluded that the whole fortress was cursed, with there being no point in trying to retake it for the Holy Nation to guard against the Shek.
Maybe rebuilding the Hub and taking it for myself wasn't such a great idea. Even though the torches were burning, it seemed like the paladins had left the Hub a good while ago before the outlaw squatters moved into the rubble, so I gladly helped myself to all the food and pottery that was lying around.
What a day!

Day 8: After a day researching new construction plans, building some storage space, and doing some more copper mining by the side, I decided that it would be a good time to expand my little mining opperation. So far my plan had been to make some money to afford a roof over the head and better equipment, but it seemed that the traders at the bar didn't have anything other than a few rusty blades. Nothing that would help me against an attack by a dozen bandits ornwho knows what might be out in the desert. But there was plenty of iron and copper outside the fortress walls and maybe I could learn to make axtual armor myself. But having made my home in a shack so far away from the gates would mean a lot of running back and forth. So in the morning, I grabbed what copper ore I had in storage, which hopefully would give me the money I needed to hire that mean brewer hhanging out in the bar. There was also a mercenary named Logan roaming around town, but he gave me an even less trustworthy impression.
When I came to the bar, I discovered that the hungry bandits had gotten even more desperate. Or dumber. This time five of the guys lay dead, completely annihilated by the ninja and mercenaries hanging out in the bar. Since none of them had any interest in the rusty clubs and barely-qualifies-as-armors, I helped myself and with the money from the haul and my copper I had the money to hire Molly with still some to spare.
Turns out that Molly is quite short, though this might be normal for Scorchlanders, while Sticks very much is not. And while a skill of 40 in cooking is impressive, that was really the only skill she had. I gave her one of the bandit armors and we went down to the copper mine. Having been at it for a week now, Sticks' laboring skill was in the mid-40s, while Molly had no skill whatsoever in that field. I ended up having her carry the copper back to the storage in out shack and my big miner doing the majority of the digging. As it was getting late, I decided to have Molly stay at the shack and research some cooking equipment while Sticks was mining the last haul for the day.

--

What a fascinating game. I'm some six hours into the game having covered 8 days, and I never went out of sight of the Hub's walls and didn't have a single fight yet. And this game can absolutely become a big campaign of carnage and conquesy. Yet here I was, spending day after day digging for copper after beeng sneered at by a brewer for saying that rum is bleh. (I was foolishly convinced once that rum is amazing, and it's the most disgusting thing I ever drank. It tasted like rotten disinfectant, even though that is an oxymoron.) And I am having lots of fun with it!
After reading that the Hub is a destroyed border fort between the Holy Nation and Shek territory, I plan to head for safer shores as soon as possible. But I don't know anything that is outside of the Hub and blindly walking out into the desert seems like certain death. I'll be needing any advantage I can get before risking it. Researching armor and weapon making and build the equipment to make some decent armor for us seems like a good plan for now. But beyond that, I quite like being a miner and it sounds fun to turn my gang of now two into a little mining company running a full scale mining camp with dozens of workerks. But that's not going to happen in the Hub. There's nothing but rubble and hungry bandits and those two bar traders have barely anything to sell other than food and basic building material. And once I'd be starting a serious business, I think I'll make them run out of money to buy my metal in a matter of days.

I came to be a ninja warlord, but now I want to be a mining company. And from what .i understand about this game, this could absolutely be a viable approach for hundreds of hours of play.

[Blackhawk748]

I havent played Kenshi myself, but I got it on sale after watching a hilarious review, and yes, apparently being a Super Miner running a company is totally valid in this game. The freedom available is kinda nuts.

Anyway, from my understanding Hungry Bandits are freaking everywhere, so you'll never really stop running into them, but their stats suck and so they aren't usually a threat. Unless like 30 of them show up.

[Yora]

Yeah. You can see the stats of any creatures, and some of the hungry bandits really look very unimpressive. I think I can already research training dummies. That will allow me to get some combat skill before I have to fight anything, I believe.
The bigger problem is that bandits roam around in such big gangs. Winning against one should be easy. Against 12 I'll be needing either more people or way better skills.
From what I know, there are no easy enemies to practice on. You get practice by getting beaten up. A lot.

[Yora]

Day 9: To improve our chances to survive our inevitable first fight, I decided to build a training dummy in out small shack. These things take 4 iron plates to make and only one was in stock at the bar. I could wait and hope that eventually more plates would come in, but who knows how long that might take. There is plenty of iron right outside the Hub, but making my own iron plates would surely require a lot of machines that won't fit into the tiny shack. Getting a bigger building was in order and that would take 6000 cats plus building materials. So I decided to continue with a few more days of mining copper.
With Molly's mining skill being barely existing, I send her over to check if there's iron plates at the Lone Shack Bar while Sticks started to get to work at the copper. As Molly approached the bar, a huge group of Dust Bandits came charging around the hill and the Trade Ninja came out to meet them. Molly stayed back to hide and it was a complete slaughter. After a few minutes, over 20 bandits were on the ground with the five ninja at the bar having barely a scratch. I called Sticks over to start stripping the bodies and hopefully makea bit of money selling the rags and clubs to the ninja. Sticks finally got herself some sandals. As we were about halfway through, a dozen slavers arrived to put shackles on anyone who as still breathing, so we had to hurry up. The big find were the two dead bandit leaders, who had something that looked more like actual armor and helmets, and two nice crossbows and spiked clubs. There were also a couple of big swords, but those didn't seem like Sticks' and Molly's style so they were sold off with all the other junk. Overall we made some 5000 cats that morning.
We had the required money for a house much sooner than expected, but now that we had proper equipment, the whole point of building a big forge had become redundant. Just buying three more iron plates to build just one training dummy would have to do. Anything we build at the Hub would have to be dismanteled later and hauled to wherever the next home might be, so I want to keep further building to a minimum for now. Unfortunately, the bar at the Hub was still one plate short. And Molly made another run to the Lone Shack. Outside she met an escaped slave rebel, who looked even taller than sticks with very badass looking gear. Unfortunately she was not open to offers of getting hired.

Day 10: The next morning, Sticks build the dummy and started training, while Molly went to research some more basic stuff we would need later, like larger houses to build and an iron refinery. Once that was done, Molly took over training her fighting and Sticks went out again to use the time making some money mining more copper.
The plan from here on is to get both of them some combat training and gear them up in armor, and then cross the desert to Squin, the only other place marked on the map. From what I had seen of the hills outside the Hub, it doesn't look that difficult, but that remains to be seen.

[Yora]

Day 11: When Molly had completed her training it was still mid morning. With nothing much else to do, we got into our full combat gear, grabbed two bowls and rice and dried meat, and left the Hub around noon.



The map seemed to show some kind of dry river south of the Hub leading all the way to Squin, which seemed easy enough to follow. Marching through the hills was slower than I expected, partially because of the weight of our armor, but it still looked like we should reach the tow long before nightfall. Not too long after leaving the Hub behind, I spotted people ahead in the ravine and chose to sneak closer to get a better look first. There were about two dozen dusty bandits sitting around fires in the middle of the crossroads. So far they had not bothered me, but with over 7000 cats, I really didn't want to risk it. Fortunately the walls of the ravine were not very steep at that point and we could just sneak back a bit to get behind the ridge and safely circle around the bandits.

Things seemed to be going fine, until suddenly a hungry bandits came running from behind, yelling to give him our food. With quite a lot more right behind him. Not wanting to risk fighting a dozen bandits, I dropped what rice and meat we had behind us, but they didn't seem to notice and kept running after us. Sticks tried to tell the leader that we didn't have any food on us, but the guy just told us to give him our money. And I was not going to give him the 7000 I had worked 10 days for.



Fortunately what looked like the walls of Squin came into sight in a big canyon just ahead of us, and so Sticks and Molly kept running. Sticks got hit a few times by the bandit's clubs, severely injuring her left arm, but I was hoping that she would make it just another 300 meters or so to the gate. The biggest worry was that I had no idea what kind of town Squin would be. I had heard some things about the Holy Nation, and two armed women traveling alone would be better of taking their chances with the bandits. Fortunately, the guards charging down from the gate turned out the be Shek and they made quick work of the bandits. I only managed to grab a few rags before the guards picked up the fallen bandits to haul them to jail.
As night was still some time off, Sticks and Molly went back to try retrieve the food they ditched, even though it wasn't that valuable. But out in the desert, it's best to waste nothing.

The Shek turned out to be pretty rude, constantly making insults about humans being weak, but otherwise not causing any trouble for us. The weapons and armor stores in the town had a lot of great stuff to sell, much of which I could even afford, but I didn't really have any need for it so far, and didn't plan to either. The bar was packed with Shek mercenaries, many of which offered really cheap prices, but they were grumbling that they didn't get any good fights in this town and looking for someone leading them into battles. So these guys are Klingons. Or Krogans. This isn't what I planned to do in the future, so I passed on that.
One of the warriors told me that their queen the Stone Golem is avoiding fights, which seems to be what has everyone in Squin in such a bad mood.

I found an equipment store shortly before it closed, and the human trader was selling various backpacks. At 1500 cats, the basic backpack doesn't come cheap, but I had more than enough money to buy two. They more than double the inventory space and cut encumbrance in half. They also get in the way in combat, but that isn't realy an issue for me now. The trader was also selling maps, and I bought three for a thousand cats, which gave me a good number of additional settlements on the map. A map of the landscape is not much help in an emergency if you don't know where any of the places are you could try to escape to. At this price, I considered those maps a steal.

Getting out of the store with our new backpacks, the door closed for the night right behind us, so we went back to the gate we came in where I had seen something that looked like an inn. While Sticks' arm had been bandaged, she still needed rest to really heal. In the inn where several more Shek mercenaries. Ruka said she was demoted because she got knocked out and the others thought she was hiding from battle. Not being alowed to fight anymore, she just want to leave and offered her services for free. She didn't seem as overly aggressive as the other Shek, and if she's coming along for free I'm not gonna say no.
While not as strong as Sticks had gotten as a miner, Ruka is by far more skilled in fighting. I had Molly give her rag armor to Sticks, and Sticks give her heart protector to Ruka. Ruka also got Molly's helmet, so Molly would be made a full crossbow shooter and stay out of blade range. Hopefully.

[Yora]

Day 12: We headed out with Ruka to see what's o the other side of the short canyon that houses Squin. In the distance ahead were some giant roots or vines growing out of the ground, and I headed over to see if there's something interesting. Upon getting closer, those roots started looking more like giant metal pipes. Upon getting closer still, they started looking a bit like an absolutely enormous skeleton. Upon getting even closer, they really just seemed to be metal pipes. The map showed that on the other side of the next ridge there was a Waypost, and the Nameless Gang headed over to see what it was about.
Approaching the Waypost, it looked like some kind of fort on top of a flat hill, but there wasn't a single person to be seen anywhere. Slowly I crept closer, but there didn't seem to be anyone at the gate or on the walls. Carefully looking around, one of the buildings had a small crowd of various travelers, making the place look like some wretched hive of skum and villainy. There were also some traders there and half a dozen Trade Ninja guarding the place. I'm starting to really like these guys. On of the ninja was a weird looking crab?-guy, who didn't look very impressive, compared to some of the giant Shek that made Sticks and Ruka look small, but appeared to be the most powerful ninja in the place. There wasn't much of interest in the place, since I wasn't looking for mercenary guards, but I did find a guy who let me change Sticks' name to be actually Sticks.

Not wanting to walk blindly further into the unknown, and being at the edge of a giant plain, we turned around and headed back into the hills to Squin. Checking out the canyons near the gate to the town, we found some more copper to mine just 200 meters or so away. Sticks and Ruka went ahead to mine some more copper during the afternoon, but with the place being too crowded for three, I send Molly out to check out more of the canyons around the town, since so far there hadn't been any sign of danger since the hungry bandits on the road from the Hub yesterday. There turned out to be plenty more iron nearby, and even a small valley that had some vegetation in it. There also seemed to be a good amount of water in the ground. I had considered doing a bit of farming for a long while, maybe get a patch of cactuses to let Molly get back to her work and make tequila or something. After having circled around the whole town, there turned out to be a perfect spot for a small work camp, right outside the gate to the town, which has a ruined house next to it, that I had had an eye on since arriving in the town.
Squin isn't a place where I want to build my big mine, but if I want to set one up in the wilderness, I'll need to have the means to defend it. It also will be really useful to have some experience with mining and knowing what kinds of machines and infrastructure I will have to build before picking a site and setting up defenses. Squin seems like the perfect place for this, since I can have a house where I keep all my valuables inside the guarded walls of the town, and only my mining equipment being vulnerable to attacks. I don't think bandits would bother with destroying the machines and buildings, and all my workers can easily run back into the town to save themselves.

Day 13: After getting all the copper from the night sold in the morning, there was still easily enough time to do the trip back to the Hub to get all the material we left there. If things went smoothly, we might even return to Squin the same day.

They did, in fact, not return to Squin that day.

Spoiler

Show

Everything went well until we passe the point where the hungry bandits had started chasing us two days earlier. Though all of them had been thrown in jail by the Shek, more of them were running down from the hill charging at us. Being halfway between Squin and the Hub, charging forward seemed as smart as running back. Which in hindsight was a huge mistake. Only a few hundred meters later, we came back to the crossroads where the dusty bandits had been camping, and they were still there. We tried again circling around them, but the hungry bandits manage to catch up and getting some good hits on us. The biggest issue was Ruka's injured leg, but most of the bandits kept running after Sticks and Molly. With only a single hungry bandit nearby, Ruka tried her luck to fight him, but being already injured quickly landed in the dust. Stick also got overwhelmed, but fortuitously the dusty bandits came running over to fight with the hungry ones. There was nothing left for Molly to keep running towards the bar in the Hub with a broken arm three bandits still behind her. Being the fastest runner in the group, she easily made it and the bandits were killed by the Trade Ninja without hesitation.
Mwanwhile Sticks and Ruka lay forgotten in the hills next to the crossroad while the bandits were fighting among themselves. Regaining consciousness and with a completely broken leg, Ruka managed to crawl into a nearby ditch, managing to hide from any of the bandits. Sticks also got back up and ran over to her behind the small rise and treat her wounds. It seemed like everything would be fine at that point, but after having sorted things out among themselves, the dusty bandits started patrolling the surroundings and unfortunately discovered Sticks and Ruka in their hiding place. Another fight broke out, but with everyone seeming focused on Sticks, she tried to make a run for the Hub, which left Ruka with her still broken leg completely forgotten. But it didn't work out and Sticks was knocked out again just as she made it to the ravine leading up to the Hub. Thankfully the bandits left her there and returned to their camp site. Being still in relatively decent shape, Molly sneaked back down the path to pick up Sticks and carry her to the Hub. In the meantime, wandering bandits found Ruka again and knocked her out another time. In the end, Molly managed to come back and pick up Ruka as well, who was already in critical condition and had to be bandaged as soon as they made it to the Hub. Molly put the two into bed at the bar and laid down to recover as well not long after nightfall.

That was insane! That was pure luck. I was not in control of that situation at all! But at least we had nothing to steal (they didn't seem to want out cats) and we all had a lot more toughness the next morning.

Day 14: Late in the morning, everyone seemed to be mostly recovered, with only Ruka's leg still making a bit of problems. Since only two people could mine copper at my usual spot anyway, I send Sticks and Molly to go digging and had Ruka walk back to the last day's battlefield to see if there were any dead bandits that could be looted. There were no bodies to be found anywhere, and the dust bandit camp at the crossroads still seemed to be at full size. One of the bandits started shouting something and Ruka was about to run back to the Hub, but I noticed then that the bandit wasn't shouting at her, but at a lone robot from the Tech Seekers who was walking down the road straight through their camp, minding his own business. The bandit kept pestering the robot and got his katana in response. All the other bandits descended on him at once, and another group came running around the hill to join in. 24 bandits against one skeleton, and he completely carved through them. Eventually they managed to wear him down, after he had send 19 of them bleeding into the dust.
I decided to send Ruka back to help Sticks mining copper and have Molly go to the battlefield in her place. Being the fastest runner and having a decent crossbow, she might have a chance to lure the remaining five towards the bar to be killed by the Trade Ninja. Unfortunately, they didn't bite and did not pursue her when she ran towards the Hub. However, most of the surviving bandits were resting a good distance away from where most of the bodies lay, so Molly might have a shot to get at some of the corpses before getting spotted and attacked. Nightfall happened to come just at the right time, and even with a very low Stealth skill, nobody noticed her as long as she kept out of the firelight. Crawling through the darkness, Molly managed to search most of the bodies for anything valuable, and there was a good number of standard quality armor pieces and crossbows, and even a rather expensive sword. She managed to cram her backpack full with as much stuff as possible and disappeared back into the night without anyone noticing her. In the meantime, Sticks had mined an impressive amount of copper, and when they headed to the bar to sell all their things, they got 3,000 cats for the copper and 3,500 cats for Molly's loot.
They dismantled everything at the small shack at the Shinobi tower and just managed to get all the construction material stuffed into their packs. Fortunately, the decision to not buy a backpack for Ruka before leaving did not come to bite me in the ass.

At the next sunrise, they were ready to leave the Hub again, and with the place holding nothing more for them, this time for good.



--

I am absolutely certain that a lot of work and effort has gone into making the size of the inventory as inefficient as possible. Everything is just the right dimensions to not be able to use all the space completely. No matter how much inventory tetris you do, you always end up with a lot of empty spaces where nothing else will fit.

[Blackhawk748]

I am absolutely certain that a lot of work and effort has gone into making the size of the inventory as inefficient as possible. Everything is just the right dimensions to not be able to use all the space completely. No matter how much inventory tetris you do, you always end up with a lot of empty spaces where nothing else will fit.

I would not be shocked considering how Kenshi came to exist. Hell, the combat is freaking physics based.

[Yora]

Day 15: The journey back to Squin went uneventful, taking a different route over the mountains that avoided the dust bandit camp. Once everything was stowed away, Sticks and Ruka resumed their copper mining and Molly took up researching in the new place. Just as Sticks and Ruka were getting ready to pack in their haul for the day, a group of hungry bandits charged at them right outside the town gates. They made it almost back into the town, but both were knocked out just as the guards came running to deal with the bandits. Molly had to come out to carry them both back to the house and put them into sleeping bags.

Day 20: After a few uneventful days mining copper and researching more metalworking, the time had come to start building some serious mining infrastructure. It turned out the Shek didn't want random strangers to dig big holes into the walls of their town and construct heavy industrial machinery right on their front lawn. So another location had to be found, and after some scounting by Molly in the surrounding hill, the decisison fell to a nice spot on the hill we had crossed when we got all the stuff from the Hub.
Even with all the material we already had, there wasn't enough in Squin, so while Sticks and Ruka started working on the new main building for the mine, Molly went by herself to the Waystation to see if they got any. Halway between Squin and the Waystation, she got spotted by hungry bandits, but they really didn't have any chance to catch up with her. So she took the time to stop occasionally to take shots at them with her crossbow. Eventually they followed her all the way to the Waystation where they got slaughtered by the Trade Ninja. And they also had the materials Molly was looking for.
When she arrived with the things at the mine, the building was already completed and Sticks managed to finish work on a wind turbine before it got fully dark.

Day 21: As expected, we got warning that bandits were coming to raid us. We took all the copper we had at that point and ran for the safety of Squin. The dust bandits that showed up still kept surrounding the mine building and shouting to get all out money, and started battering down the door. Molly again started shoting at them from a distance before heading back towards Squin. In the end, three of them followed her all the way to the town, were two of them were dealt with by a guard, and the three took out the last bandit all by themselves.

Day 22: While Molly was in Squin working on new construction plans, a single hungry bandit attacked Sticks and Ruka at the mine. He had been stripped of all his stuff the day before and still had two of Molly's bolts sticking in him, so he went down easily. They returned to work, but seeing the guy bleed to death right in their camp, Sticks decided to walk over and patch him up. There certainly would be a lot of killing required to defend a large mine in the desert, but they really didn't have to start like this. So far, all the killing had be done by the Shek and the Trade Ninja. Sticks carried him to the nearby road, hoping to never see him at the new Nameless Mine again.

[Blackhawk748]

I started my own playthrough, and it hasn't gone anywhere near as well as yours.

I took the one that starts with the Dog and you start up in contested lands between the Holy Nation and the United Cities.

Everyone sucks up there.

So I had to sneak through the entirety of the HN, because I wasn't sure if they would keep sucking, and then wound up in Broken Teeth, where I am now mining Copper in some attempt to get money.

[Yora]

Things got a lot bloodier.

Day 27: My small mining camp is coming along slowly but nicely. I spend a good day doing nothing but mining more copper to recruit the Shek field medic Fuumin for my crew, so quarrying the rock for my walls wouldn't take forever.



A group of goats came walking through my camp and I thought it was a great opportunity to get some meat. It wasn't. Molly had to come out to the camp with bandages to keep the others from bleeding out and put Sticks into bed. But a swing from Ruka had taken out one of the lambs, sonwe got a bit of meat out of it.
As I had expected, my camp very quickly became a magnet for bandits, but the tried and true ancient tradition of "running for the hills" served me very well most of the time. One time I even had a large gang of very whiny Black Dragon Ninja show up. Finding that nobody was home and there wasn't anything to steal, they always left eventually after a couple of hours. Sitting in the empty house, they didn't even keep me from continuing my mining. Another time some hungry bandits came by when a guard from the Shek Kingdom also came running, and we took one down ourselves,
Shortly after getting Fuumin to the camp and showing him the basics of mining, one gang of wandering Dust Bandits somehow decided to use my house as their new club room and refused to come out even when Molly ran inside and a fight broke out. (I think they got bugged.) Since they got clustered at the open door, Molly managed to shoot a couple of them and get a few backstabs, and a few even started coming out to chase after her. And then a group of hungry boys joined them in my house and also didn't want to come out. I shall not leave the door to the food crates open again. Do you want Hungry Bandits? Because this is how you get hungry bandits.
Even though Fuumin had looked very weak, he actually was a huge help and finally we got a good amount of green numbers fighting three bandits at once. But eventually we ran out of bolts and one of the dust bandits beat us up quite badly before going back inside. So we had to head back to Squin to patch up and come back with more ammunition. The last few days have been far bloodier than anything before.

--

As dragging as the game sometimes get, and I seem to make no progress on my wall (it's going to be big, and it's going to be beautiful. And the hungry bandits are gonna pay for it) and still are pretty much broke, everything still means making progress. Research advancements aren't seen but are big progress anyway, and that's where a huge amount of my copper money has disappeared to. And with nobody having died yet, every fight has made us better. When you get beaten up, your defensive skills increase and by quite a lot.
In thise 26 days, I have not gone back to an old save once. All the chaos that happened was as it came, rilling with it and falling forward.

Which also brings me to how funny the game is. The discription for Toughness says the way to "train" it is to "get hurt, get beaten up, lose battles". The science skill is best: "Research things at the research bench; do science; be sciency".
One of the first weapon crafting upgrades said "One day we will fight heroically with shining silver blades. But not today. Today we fight with rusty junk."
A unique time of game that you only get when one guy is working by himself deep into the night for years, with nobody telling him how to make his game.
It's not Goat Simulator or Untitled Goose Game, but we surely live in a wonderful time where the tools exist to make weird unique things on basically no budget.

[Blackhawk748]

Glad thats all going well, despite the random bloodshed. I started a Wanderer character now and dear god is the Hub a forgiving starting location. Yes there are only two Bars there for Merchants, but Nomads walk through often enough that you could amass enough cash to buy Pack Animals off them.

Also, your luck is great. I've got one hireable dude available and he wants 6k, and neither Bartender sells Backpacks or sleeping bags. However, they always have Building Materials or Iron Plates so... mixed bag?

[Yora]

Day 43: Peace was never an option.

Life as a wanderer is easy. When you see danger, you run away. If you got caught, there's not much on you to rob anyway.

But things are different when you set up a home in the desert.

Building a house is pretty easy. Setting up machines to make cement and iron plates to build more stuff also wasn't much of an issue. But it's slow work and we needed more people, growing the Nameless Gang to six. But even that isn't enough against the endless waves of hungry bandits. Getting a wall build around the compound with iron gates and ballistas on top soon became a priority, but progress slowed down to a crawl as day after day, new battles were fought for the small fort, changing hands again and again. Now I understand why the paladins of the Holy Nation gave up on the Hub. There is no end to the battle.
But with every victory and every retreat, we survive and become stronger, looting what we can find from the fallen enemies.

There is no terror like trying to fill in the last hole in the walls before an approaching bandit gang arrives and your miners are desperately digging for more rock, and then you regret having torn down your old hand powered concrete mixer after you made a new electrically powered one that gets its power from the big wind turbine, and for the first time since coming to this barren hill the wind has died down completely!

They call this planet Kenshi. The Swordsman. On this barren world, there is no peace.

[Yora]

So this is getting views but almost no replies. And I'm not sure if those views might all be bots. I'd happily write more, as more exciting stuff keeps happening. But only if anyone actually reads it.

[Blackhawk748]

So this is getting views but almost no replies. And I'm not sure if those views might all be bots. I'd happily write more, as more exciting stuff keeps happening. But only if anyone actually reads it.

Well you know I'm here, but I don't expect you to keep this going for just me

[Iruka]

So this is getting views but almost no replies. And I'm not sure if those views might all be bots. I'd happily write more, as more exciting stuff keeps happening. But only if anyone actually reads it.

I like reading about it. Looks like a game I would have sunk countless hours in as a kid. Without really understanding any of the mechanics.

[IthilanorStPete]

Interesting reading! I'm going to check this game out at some point; it sounds like a ton of fun with all the flexibility, and jankiness has its own sort of weird charm. Hydroneer's a game I've played recently that's this oddly fun janky mining game with basic automation, though it's nowhere near as ambitious as Kenshi.