Players who are interested in growing and Crafting Items for trading should find this Guide to Building an Outpost helpful. Player Outposts can be built just outside of towns or deep in the wilderness.
Starting an Outpost[]
Different regions in Kenshi offer very different resources and dangers. Before starting an Outpost, players should consider what they want to build and where they want to build it.
Territory[]
Be careful of whose territory and what animals are nearby (Ex: Beak Things in Vain)
Territory: will tax collectors come bug you (UC)
Even ruins can trigger base visits from the controlling faction (ex: Tiny Settlement).
Dangers: will raids from Hostile Factions occur here (Ex: Dust bandit extortion)
If players are planning on Armour Smithing with Leather, they should pick a location near animals like Beak Things and Gorillos.
Prospecting[]
Find nearby resources with Prospecting.
Resources: copper, iron mines, Environment for farming.
Power: Can wind generators be used in this area? Or will you need to research biofuel?
Research[]
The player will only be able to build a couple of things before needing to research additional Technologies. If the player decides to start their outpost before doing any research, the only building they will be able to Construct for shelter will be a Small Shack.
Alternatively, players can purchase a cheap building in a town and research the necessary tech before starting.
After building a Research Bench, characters can work at the bench to research. In order to build a Level 2 Research Bench, characters must research Small House and then Tech Level 2. Studying these Technologies will cost 8 Books. In order to determine how best to spend Research Artifacts, it is recommended that players research Tech Levels before spending Research Artifacts.
Build Mode[]
In order to start construction, choose the building and then click to place it. Confirm placement by clicking 'confirm.' The building will change colors from blue (too close to a town) --> red (unable to place) --> green (OK to place), indicating location suitability.
Link to Construction page
Managing an Outpost[]
How to name an outpost.
Players can rename their outpost to whatever they want. Renaming an outpost affects the map marker and the Event notifications.
Types of Buildings[]
In build mode, buildings are split into these categories:
- Buildings (Building Shells)
- Camping
- Crafting
- Defence
- Farming
- Food
- Interior
- Lights
- Mining
- Power
- Storage
- Tech
- Training
- labs (Peeler Machine)
- Walls
Jobs[]
Players who want their outpost to function without constant micromanaging should make use of the Jobs system. These are the categories which jobs fall under:
- First Aid: this includes the Medic and Robotics jobs. They can be added through the medic button or when clicking to heal a character. These jobs remain active even when Jobs has been deselected for that character. If HOLD is active characters will not travel to heal other units, only themselves.
- Work: this includes all jobs where a character is using a machine or farm.
- Auto-Haul: when characters have these jobs active, they will carry items to the related Storage building. Characters take these items from either their inventory, the ground (If dropped) or the building which generates it.
- Collection: players can give characters the job of finding dead bodies in order to bring them to a Corpse Furnace as well as the job of foraging the bodies of fallen animals.
Visitors From Other Factions[]
Trade Caravans[]
These traveling merchants provide the player with chances to buy and sell goods while not having to venture to a city. Hive traders are a common visitor in the Border Zone and often have a large amount of food, materials, and plants to sell. They can facilitate starting or expanding farms but at potentially inflated prices.
Tax Collectors[]
Certain factions will send out squads to collect from player outposts. The player can avoid conflict by responding a certain way to these squads. If the player chooses to go against this faction, they might be immediately attacked, or the squad will retreat with the promise of returning with an army.
- Hounds - Extortion
- Shek Kingdom - Tribute Round
- The Holy Nation - Prayer Day
- United Cities - Tax man visit
Base Raids[]
Certain factions may raid the player's base, these attacks are all listed in Base Assault.
Hostile factions may antagonize the player while the player is inside their territory.
While not an actual raid, animals also pose a threat, potentially attacking the player or eating their crops.
Tips[]
- Insulate your base from the world. Rampaging fauna and factions have a much harder time doing damage if your base is behind a wall.
- Access to resources is important. If you can't sustain your population then you must have access to traders or to scavenge resources nearby.
Recommended Start Areas[]
These are some areas where other players have already started their bases.
- Fertile land (Green and some Arid) and decent Copper and Iron resources.
- Endless source of meat from Crabs (dangerous for weak characters), however no Animal Skin.
- Gut is a short travel to the west/southwest, for all your Beak Thing needs. (Animal Skin and Beak Thing Eggs for selling)
- Easy trading access with UC/Traders Guild.
- Black Scratch (Tech Hunters) is fairly close, although shortest route is through Gut or via swimming.
- Acid rain is infrequent enough to be easily managed.
- Baby Crabs (From nests) are some of the best animals to level Martial Arts on, so you don't need to travel far to train.
No patrols from major Factions, although some (including caravans) still visit. Reavers and sometimes Slave Hunter/Trader raids do happen. Crab Raiders can also come to visit, including for the Crab Tournament. Good point to start thinking of moving here is when fights in areas like The Hub become easy, with base locations here lasting into end game.
- Fertile Land and good Stone/Iron Resources (Copper deposits sparse and of low quality)
- Good Source of Raptors for Animal Skin, occasionally Bonedogs for meat.
- Roving Paladin, High-Paladin, and Inquisitor squads do an excellent job keeping Holy Nation territories safe, killing wild animals and bandits. As such, Okran's Pride is a safe early building location for the new or the nervous.
- No taxes but, in exchange, you will need to participate in Prayer Day once a week. If you miss it, you'll be in trouble. If the prayer day squad happens to be defeated on their way to your base it may prevent any future prayer day events in the future.
The downside of building in Holy Nation territory, is that if you have any character that isn't a Human male, you can expect some degree of discrimination at the hands of the Holy Nation populace. Women tend to be treated rather condescendingly, are forbidden from owning an outpost without a Human male and have less persuasive power, but non-humans are in for a bad time. If a Paladin spots a non-human outside of your base, un-escorted by a Human, they will be attacked on sight. If a Paladin spots non-humans in your outpost, they may request that you surrender these party members to the service of Okran. You may avoid this by giving your human a copy of The Holy Flame. You may then assure the inquisitive Paladin that these non-human "beasts" are slaves to glorious Okran. They will then leave you alone. Skeletons will always be attacked on sight, keep them out of the Holy Nation. If you reach 50 relations with the Holy Nation, they will stop bothering your non-human characters.
- Best soil for farming (Green and Swamp), continuous rain (seldom acidic)
- 2 spots with all resources at hand (copper, iron, stone, water)
- Fishmen hordes can be tricky to deal with but a potential good asset for training
- If you kill the Gurgler leader this causes Fishmen to no longer spawn on the island, replaced with only crabs.
Going to the island is a bit tricky (proximity of the Bonefields harboring spiders and Beak Things as well as The Southern Hives) but once there, you need to wall up and then you will have relative safety. Once you found a way to deal with the locals, it's a smooth ride to have a small plot of land evolve to full-fledged powerhouse.
- Fertile land (Green and some Arid)
- Mass amounts of fauna including the deadly yet beautiful Leviathans
- Great quality stone and iron deposits, however copper deposits are sparse and medium quality.
- Zone is quite far away from all starting areas and very inaccessible to all but mid-end level characters.
- Beware as you are subject to Cannibal raids wherever you are in the zone.
Once you are here, you have to worry about Cannibal raids and, depending on your affiliated faction, raids from the Holy Nation. Besides these, however, you will also be sought out by the Hiver caravans to the south in Dreg. It is hard living, but very bountiful if you can get a base up and running.
- The promised land
- Pros:
- Large number of deposits, both (100) Iron and (80) Copper.
- Easy to occupy land with many fields of 100-richness stone.
- Large tracts of flat or mostly flat land for all your megalopolis projects, while also accommodating snug little camps.
- Roaming bands of Garrus, as well as small squads of Beak things. Free meat and skins!
- Low bandit population. Mostly starving bandits, with the occasional Band of Bones party.
- No solicitors, besides Black Dragon Ninjas if you've let them live so far (but you'll have a very early warning).
- Somehow caravans still come by easily and frequently.
- The lakes make for a nice natural complement to your walls.
- And what a view!
- Cons:
- Arid climate. Mitigated by high fertility, so you can still reliably grow hemp and wheatstraw next to your cacti.
- Awkward roads around the area. Roaming NPCs rarely visit (unless a custom mod with additional tracks is created).
- Annoying cliffs make a complete surrounding wall require some creative angles.
- Somewhat far from cities. Flats Lagoon can be accessed by skirting the south of Venge, others requiring full day trips.
- Also, pretty isolated from scavenging spots. Nonetheless a peaceful, central location to return home to after expeditions.
- Recommended base location: To the left of the Fishing Village, near the water, there is a copper and iron ore node there.
- Pros:
- Mix of Arid and Green environment and good fertility allowing for the growth of every crop in the game except for Riceweed. This allows for production of several goods to be sold at a profit and sufficient food.
- Plentiful Stone and Iron along with sufficient Copper scattered around.
- The only negative faction event that will occur is cannibals coming to raid you and River Raptors eating your crops.
- World's End is close by and a very big city which should fulfill your needs for merchants with money and the need of purchasing certain resources for yourself. For quick trips, the Fishing Village is right next to you, it has a Bar and a Traveler's shop. You can easily purchase food there.
- Being near the edge of the map gives you quick access to an Ancient Ruin.
- Recruits are plentiful considering there are multiple bars located around here, in World's End, Fishing Village and Flotsam Village.
- If you prefer to mine to make money before building up your base, you can easily do this in Flotsam Village which has a bunch of ore nodes close to it, one of which (I think) can be mined from inside the village itself, making you safe from most attacks, if you get attacked while mining a bit further away you can run here to get defended by the guards.
- To avoid dying from the cannibal raids you can hire mercenaries from World's End, there are multiple squads there if you want extra safety. You can also run and lure the cannibals to the Fishing Village but the population there although able to take care of themselves, will slowly start to die off the more you do this. You will make a lot of money from the production of goods here, so money should be plentiful to hire lots of mercenaries.
- If you want to, you can utilize the water in your base building to force entry via swimming, this takes a while to do meaning enemies will take a while to get into your base, if you setup turret guards they will kill everyone trying to enter before they get inside.
- Cons:
- Cannibals are reasonably tough and take your squad away to be eaten at their camps if someone gets knocked unconscious. You may one second not be paying attention and then you see one of your character's name in the distance and you realize he's being carried by a cannibal to their camp for dinner. You may, due to this, occasionally have to sneak out of the camp with that character or help him with the other members.
- Other cities are very far away, making exploration or acquisition of specific items annoying due to long travel times.
- River Raptors will eat your crops sometimes.
- Sometimes, light Acid Rain will fall. No one in your party should die because of it, but it can be annoying to have damaged party members if a fight is about to happen.
- Due to how easy it is to survive and make money here, it is actually a bit boring, which might be the biggest "con" of all.
- Recommended base location: South-southeast of the Strange Camp, directly on the water's edge. There's a 50 quality copper rock west of the two iron trees for easy resources.
- Pros:
- Visually unique and alien area.
- High fertility Arid/Green soil mix with plenty of water and common rain.
- Essentially infinite iron and building materials due to several 100 quality resource nodes.
- The many Beak Things offer a constant supply of animal skin and meat, as well as their eggs.
- Brink, Heng, Eyesocket, and Black Scratch are nearby, letting you get supplies, blueprints, new recruits, and mercenaries, if you need them. There's also the small farming village just outside Gut if you only want to sell things.
- As with the Northern Coast example above, the water can act as an excellent defensive measure if built around, forcing hostiles to swim and slowing them down.
- Hive traders and caravans sometimes pass through.
- Cons:
- Until you build walls and a gate around your base, beak things will constantly harass you. However, they can't follow into or out of any building, so having everyone hide inside until they pass then resuming building is a viable option.
- The many hills and small ponds can be annoying to build around.
- Reaver and slaver raids happen here but are usually weakened if not outright killed by the swarms of beak things.
- The Tax Man Visit and Traders Guild Visit events are within range here as well, but these can again be dealt with by beak things before reaching you.
- Any traders that attempt to visit will also most likely be eaten by beak things.
- Beak things can get stuck on and sometimes phase through any defensive walls you build, and even inside buildings near the walls, giving anyone at home an unwelcome surprise.
- Depending on where exactly you build, over two dozen beak things can walk past your base per day, on top of any from nearby nests. This can quickly overwhelm your squad members if you forget to shut your gate or have poorly armed laborers doing outdoor jobs.
- Wind power is unreliable with long periods of low wind speeds. Investing in small wind generators and batteries helps, but not much.
- As beak things are always considered hostile, having static turret guards will make them constantly shoot at and aggro every passing one, which can quickly destroy your gates and lead to further problems if left unattended.
- Pros:
- 100% fertile Arid soil, with adequate water in most areas.
- Several high quality nodes of every resource, including many large iron and copper rocks that are often grouped together.
- Ambient dust storms give strong wind power without needing dust storm protection.
- Abundant flora that (mostly) fight amongst themselves, making scavenging meat and skins very easy and profitable.
- Catun and Mourn are within walking distance, with Shark and Flats Lagoon being a day away.
- No tax event of any kind occurs here, with the exception of dust bandit extortion at the northern edge of the zone.
- Trade caravans and hive traders pass through semi-regularly.
- Cons:
- Extremely hilly, uneven terrain with many unpathable areas makes building very tedious.
- Boneyard Wolves, Skin Spiders, and Beak Thing packs that can number up to ten will be a constant threat when travelling to and from your base.
- Elder Beak Things spawn here, and are truly terrifying opponents, especially for any poorly equipped squads. If spotted by one you can use its large size against it by using ores/rocks to break line of sight to easily escape. If wearing Heavy Armour and knocked unconscious (Not into recovery coma) when it attempts to eat your character, they will get back up causing it to flee.
- Band of Bones patrols will routinely raid your base without warning and occupy it as their own if all of your squad members go down, meaning they will eat your food from any storage, use your beds and turrets, and will keep attacking whoever wakes up if you don't manage to sneak away.
- Honestly quite a boring area, as nearly nothing happens here aside from the aforementioned silent attacks by starving Sheks every few days.