Kenshi is a fun sandbox game that dumps the player’s character into a hostile post-apocalyptic world and find a way to keep them alive while carving out an empire for themselves.
But this game can prove difficult even for the most experienced player and progress can often be very, very slow. For those who aren’t opposed to cheating in a single-player game there are a number of cheats that can make the game much easier. Be aware that in order to use many of these cheats you will have to become familiar with the game’s built-in modding program Forgotten Construction Set or be willing to hunt down mods made by other players.
Updated By Benjamin Baker On February 25th 2020: All these years later, and even with several mods installed Kenshi can still be a difficult game. Going from lonely wanderer to ruler of your own empire is no small feat. To help with this here are some additional cheats that can make the early part of the game faster and make managing an empire much easier.
15 Remove Hunger
Hunger can be an annoying problem to deal with in the beginning of the game, or when out exploring and your funds are running low. It is possible to use the Forgotten Construction Set (or FCS editor) to modify your hunger values.
Go to your save file, find your character’s name, and find the MEDICAL_STATE entry. Your hunger range is 0-3 with a value of three representing 300 hunger in-game. You could also alter the NU value which determines hunger regeneration with a 1 value, equaling 100 NU in game.
14 Claim Towns
Take Over The World is a mod that allows you to conquer and claim towns for your own use. While it sounds incredibly fun, it is also very much a cheat as you can use an army to remove problematic factions and nearby threats.
After meeting the mod’s in-game requirements you can have a fully functioning base without spending any resources. We’re talking walls, shops, houses, and general infrastructure for free. Sure you need an army and the will to use it, but a couple of neighborhood raids and you’re in a profitable and safe position for the rest of the game.
13 256 Squad
The Incredibly popular mod 256 Recruit And Squad raises the limit on the size of your squad from 30 to an astounding 256. With 256 squadmates you can turn over a handsome profit farming, crafting, mining, manufacturing, and engineering.
With a squad this size you could do all of those things and still have a sizeable army to go conquering other towns, assuming you’re using the mod mentioned earlier. Bandit attacks, wandering hostiles, and other threats will be a thing of the past when you can have 256 bodyguards following you around.
12 Longer Mercenary Contracts
Longer Mercenary Contracts is a simple mod that makes the game a heck of a lot easier and qualifies as a cheat in many players’ minds. It extends the number of days after which a contract will expire, giving you more time to fulfill them.
This makes the game much easier and you can complete contracts at a more leisurely pace. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself completing fewer contracts as a result.
11 Double Learning Rate
There are a number of mods that achieve this cheat, but it’s simple enough to do in the game files with FCS. In global game settings find the race your character is, locate the xp stat values and modify the multipliers.
Depending on what you set them to this can dramatically speed up how long it takes to train skills. Do keep in mind that using the FCS route will lead to all NPCs of your character’s race receiving the same XP boost. This can be awesome if they’re your squadmates, but a problem if they’re a hostile group.
10 Hang Onto The Past
While some may not consider this a useful cheat starting out, it’s handy for players who have built up a decent base, strong squad, and a good collection of gear and want to restart with everything they’ve built. It’s also one of the easiest cheats on this list to implement.
Simply import your old save to a new game and you’ll start with your old base, squad and whatever items you had stored in the chests in your base. It does require struggling through the game initially, but it makes restarting less of a hassle.
9 Not So Rare
The best weapons in the game are Meitou quality crafted by the legendary weaponsmith Cross. These rare weapons are held by high-level bosses and only a handful exist in the entire game.
If you want to have more than a handful of these legendary weapons you can implement the import save cheat mentioned earlier. Simply kill the wielder of say a Meitou Katana, store the weapon in a chest in your base, then import your save to a new game. Now you have the Meitou Katana at your base and the person you killed before is alive and well with the same weapon in their possession.
8 God Mode
A cheat expected to be in every game is surprisingly not easy to implement in this one. At the time of this article the easiest and best way to give your character invincibility is to download a mod called Zatoichi, the last samurai.
The mod gives the player character a regeneration rate of 10,000 meaning about 40 health is regenerated every second. The player will also be faster, take longer to starve, and is unfortunately restricted to a single race. It’s possible to reverse engineer the changes in the mod to make your own, but it’s something beyond the scope of this article.
7 Instant Mastery
Now we’ll be diving into the Forgotten Construction Set or FCS for short for the rest of the cheats in this article. To obtain maxed stats players can open the FCS, load their save, find their character’s name and open it, look for the desired stats and then change the values to the desired level. Although it should be noted anything above 100 will cause problems.
It wont make your character invincible and they’ll still have trouble fighting armies of enemies even with the proper gear, but it removes the need to train and practice various skills and the ability to run at max speed is a god send for this game.
6 Infinite Backpack Space
A very basic and incredibly useful cheat to have, you can create a backpack that can carry an infinite amount of items inside making you the Mary Poppins of the wasteland. To do this simply open the FCS, create a new mod for items, select bags, pick the desired bag you want, then change the “Stackable Bonus” minimum and maximum values to whatever you want, and then save the mod.
Then you can either create a starter character that already has the bag or you can find it within the game. It’s a handy cheat and makes trading, looting, and stealing a much easier endeavor when you can carry anything and everything.
5 Unlimited Money
If you want to save yourself some time or don’t want to learn how to mod, this is by far one of the most common mods to find on the steam workshop. If you want a little more control over what you get or to learn how to make your own mods then this is a fairly easy cheat to create.
Open the FCS, open your save, in the “Changes List” open “Camera” and then edit the player’s money value to whatever you want. It’s recommended you don’t give yourself billions of cats as it could bug the game and don’t ask why the game developer put the money files under “Camera”.
4 Raise The Dead
If you feel your death was unfair or you’d rather not lose your favorite unique recruit forever, then this cheat will allow you to bring any character back from the dead. Simply Open the FCS, load your save, find your character’s name or the desired NPC’s name, open Medical_State, change the death value to false, set the bandage, rig, stun and wear values to 0, and set flesh value to the maximum value for the chosen character.
When you load your game the character or NPCs you manipulated will pop up like daisies, unless you forgot to change the flesh value in which case the character will rise up and then die and fall back down.
3 Instant Buddies
It’s very easy to become enemies with various factions in the game, shoot, if you play as a woman or nonhuman you’re already on The Holy Nation’s blacklist. But there’s a way to alter your relationship with any faction.
Open FCS, load your quick.save file, find the desired faction, look for the “relationSID” with the “204gamedata.base”. What you need is the number next to the “relationSID”, write it down and then go back up the list to the “relation” values. Look for the one that has the same number you wrote down and change it to whatever you want between -100 and 100. When you load the game that faction will be your biggest fan, or worst enemy depending on what you set the value to.
2 They Wont Know What Hit Em
If you find yourself having trouble taking down a particular base or have come under attack from a particularly powerful group, there’s a cheat that allows you to kill them instantly and it’s very similar to the cheat that brings people back to life.
Open FCS, load your save, find the NPC’s name you wish to kill, open medical_state, set the death value to true, and set the flesh value to 0 (the other values don’t matter in this cheat). When you load the game the NPCs you manipulated will instantly die and drop to the ground, unless you forgot the flesh value again then they’ll come back to life and get up ready for a fight.
1 Advantaged Or Disadvantaged Start
This is one of the trickier cheats on the list and is recommended to find an appropriate guide regarding new starter construction. Basically you open the FCS, create a new mod, from here you can duplicate and modify characters, create custom squads, give your new character powerful gear, high starting money amounts and so much more.
Using this cheat you can start the game with a powerful warrior with legendary gear and an equally powerful squad at their side or you can start as a lowly escaped slave with nothing but a name.
NEXT: 10 Left 4 Dead 2 Cheats
Kenshi is a fun sandbox game that dumps the player’s character into a hostile post-apocalyptic world and find a way to keep them alive while carving out an empire for themselves.
But this game can prove difficult even for the most experienced player and progress can often be very, very slow. For those who aren’t opposed to cheating in a single-player game there are a number of cheats that can make the game much easier. Be aware that in order to use many of these cheats you will have to become familiar with the game’s built-in modding program Forgotten Construction Set or be willing to hunt down mods made by other players.
Updated By Benjamin Baker On February 25th 2020: All these years later, and even with several mods installed Kenshi can still be a difficult game. Going from lonely wanderer to ruler of your own empire is no small feat. To help with this here are some additional cheats that can make the early part of the game faster and make managing an empire much easier.
15 Remove Hunger
Hunger can be an annoying problem to deal with in the beginning of the game, or when out exploring and your funds are running low. It is possible to use the Forgotten Construction Set (or FCS editor) to modify your hunger values.
Go to your save file, find your character’s name, and find the MEDICAL_STATE entry. Your hunger range is 0-3 with a value of three representing 300 hunger in-game. You could also alter the NU value which determines hunger regeneration with a 1 value, equaling 100 NU in game.
14 Claim Towns
Take Over The World is a mod that allows you to conquer and claim towns for your own use. While it sounds incredibly fun, it is also very much a cheat as you can use an army to remove problematic factions and nearby threats.
After meeting the mod’s in-game requirements you can have a fully functioning base without spending any resources. We’re talking walls, shops, houses, and general infrastructure for free. Sure you need an army and the will to use it, but a couple of neighborhood raids and you’re in a profitable and safe position for the rest of the game.
13 256 Squad
The Incredibly popular mod 256 Recruit And Squad raises the limit on the size of your squad from 30 to an astounding 256. With 256 squadmates you can turn over a handsome profit farming, crafting, mining, manufacturing, and engineering.
With a squad this size you could do all of those things and still have a sizeable army to go conquering other towns, assuming you’re using the mod mentioned earlier. Bandit attacks, wandering hostiles, and other threats will be a thing of the past when you can have 256 bodyguards following you around.
12 Longer Mercenary Contracts
Longer Mercenary Contracts is a simple mod that makes the game a heck of a lot easier and qualifies as a cheat in many players’ minds. It extends the number of days after which a contract will expire, giving you more time to fulfill them.
This makes the game much easier and you can complete contracts at a more leisurely pace. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself completing fewer contracts as a result.
11 Double Learning Rate
There are a number of mods that achieve this cheat, but it’s simple enough to do in the game files with FCS. In global game settings find the race your character is, locate the xp stat values and modify the multipliers.
Depending on what you set them to this can dramatically speed up how long it takes to train skills. Do keep in mind that using the FCS route will lead to all NPCs of your character’s race receiving the same XP boost. This can be awesome if they’re your squadmates, but a problem if they’re a hostile group.
10 Hang Onto The Past
While some may not consider this a useful cheat starting out, it’s handy for players who have built up a decent base, strong squad, and a good collection of gear and want to restart with everything they’ve built. It’s also one of the easiest cheats on this list to implement.
Simply import your old save to a new game and you’ll start with your old base, squad and whatever items you had stored in the chests in your base. It does require struggling through the game initially, but it makes restarting less of a hassle.
9 Not So Rare
The best weapons in the game are Meitou quality crafted by the legendary weaponsmith Cross. These rare weapons are held by high-level bosses and only a handful exist in the entire game.
If you want to have more than a handful of these legendary weapons you can implement the import save cheat mentioned earlier. Simply kill the wielder of say a Meitou Katana, store the weapon in a chest in your base, then import your save to a new game. Now you have the Meitou Katana at your base and the person you killed before is alive and well with the same weapon in their possession.
8 God Mode
A cheat expected to be in every game is surprisingly not easy to implement in this one. At the time of this article the easiest and best way to give your character invincibility is to download a mod called Zatoichi, the last samurai.
The mod gives the player character a regeneration rate of 10,000 meaning about 40 health is regenerated every second. The player will also be faster, take longer to starve, and is unfortunately restricted to a single race. It’s possible to reverse engineer the changes in the mod to make your own, but it’s something beyond the scope of this article.
7 Instant Mastery
Now we’ll be diving into the Forgotten Construction Set or FCS for short for the rest of the cheats in this article. To obtain maxed stats players can open the FCS, load their save, find their character’s name and open it, look for the desired stats and then change the values to the desired level. Although it should be noted anything above 100 will cause problems.
It wont make your character invincible and they’ll still have trouble fighting armies of enemies even with the proper gear, but it removes the need to train and practice various skills and the ability to run at max speed is a god send for this game.
6 Infinite Backpack Space
A very basic and incredibly useful cheat to have, you can create a backpack that can carry an infinite amount of items inside making you the Mary Poppins of the wasteland. To do this simply open the FCS, create a new mod for items, select bags, pick the desired bag you want, then change the “Stackable Bonus” minimum and maximum values to whatever you want, and then save the mod.
Then you can either create a starter character that already has the bag or you can find it within the game. It’s a handy cheat and makes trading, looting, and stealing a much easier endeavor when you can carry anything and everything.
5 Unlimited Money
If you want to save yourself some time or don’t want to learn how to mod, this is by far one of the most common mods to find on the steam workshop. If you want a little more control over what you get or to learn how to make your own mods then this is a fairly easy cheat to create.
Open the FCS, open your save, in the “Changes List” open “Camera” and then edit the player’s money value to whatever you want. It’s recommended you don’t give yourself billions of cats as it could bug the game and don’t ask why the game developer put the money files under “Camera”.
4 Raise The Dead
If you feel your death was unfair or you’d rather not lose your favorite unique recruit forever, then this cheat will allow you to bring any character back from the dead. Simply Open the FCS, load your save, find your character’s name or the desired NPC’s name, open Medical_State, change the death value to false, set the bandage, rig, stun and wear values to 0, and set flesh value to the maximum value for the chosen character.
When you load your game the character or NPCs you manipulated will pop up like daisies, unless you forgot to change the flesh value in which case the character will rise up and then die and fall back down.
3 Instant Buddies
It’s very easy to become enemies with various factions in the game, shoot, if you play as a woman or nonhuman you’re already on The Holy Nation’s blacklist. But there’s a way to alter your relationship with any faction.
Open FCS, load your quick.save file, find the desired faction, look for the “relationSID” with the “204gamedata.base”. What you need is the number next to the “relationSID”, write it down and then go back up the list to the “relation” values. Look for the one that has the same number you wrote down and change it to whatever you want between -100 and 100. When you load the game that faction will be your biggest fan, or worst enemy depending on what you set the value to.
2 They Wont Know What Hit Em
If you find yourself having trouble taking down a particular base or have come under attack from a particularly powerful group, there’s a cheat that allows you to kill them instantly and it’s very similar to the cheat that brings people back to life.
Open FCS, load your save, find the NPC’s name you wish to kill, open medical_state, set the death value to true, and set the flesh value to 0 (the other values don’t matter in this cheat). When you load the game the NPCs you manipulated will instantly die and drop to the ground, unless you forgot the flesh value again then they’ll come back to life and get up ready for a fight.
1 Advantaged Or Disadvantaged Start
This is one of the trickier cheats on the list and is recommended to find an appropriate guide regarding new starter construction. Basically you open the FCS, create a new mod, from here you can duplicate and modify characters, create custom squads, give your new character powerful gear, high starting money amounts and so much more.
Using this cheat you can start the game with a powerful warrior with legendary gear and an equally powerful squad at their side or you can start as a lowly escaped slave with nothing but a name.
NEXT: 10 Left 4 Dead 2 Cheats
Combat is a part of Kenshi gameplay which should be highly anticipated. However, there is more to remaining healthy in Kenshi than just bandaging wounds. This Guide to Health should help newer users learn all information regarding Hunger, Healing, Splints, and Limb Replacement.
Beds[]
Healing with bandages and splints is slow, and it is recommended that characters rest in a Bed (8x Heal speed) or a Camp Bed (4x Heal speed) if they are injured. Beds and Camp Beds can be rented at Bars and occasionally used for free at some locations. Camp Beds can easily be carried by characters and built in buildings or in the wilderness in order to rest.
While sleeping in a Bed or Camp Bed, the hunger meter will decrease at 0.33x the normal rate. On top of that wounds will not degrade while sleeping, this is even the case for Skeletons
Hunger[]
Over time, characters get hungry. When a character’s hunger meter goes below 250, that character will eat any Food which is available in their inventory. If a character’s hunger drops below 200, they will start to suffer from malnutrition and their stats will begin to be negatively affected. If their hunger meter continues to drop, they will begin to pass out regularly from hunger. This fainting will become more and more frequent as their hunger meter steadily declines. Eventually, the character will die from starvation.
Each race has a modifier for rate of hunger. Skeletons do not need to eat and, therefore, their hunger rate is 0 times the hunger rate of a Greenlander.
| Hive | Human | Skeleton | Shek | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince | Soldier | Worker | Greenlander | Scorchlander | P4 Unit | Skeleton | |
| 0.50x | 0.60x | 0.50x | 1.00x | 0.90x | 0x | 0x | 1.25x |
Characters which are enslaved are kept fed to around 115, which results in major stat drainage from malnutrition. Many non-player characters which are hostile are suffering from malnutrition and will loot unconscious or playing dead characters for food.
Nutrition[]
Every edible food item has a clearly labeled Nutrition amount. If characters have multiple of these items spread out among them, they can be consolidated by moving them into the same inventory (only works if they are not stolen items).
More complicated food items have the most Nutrition values, such as Foodcubes, Gohan, and Ration Packs.
Sharing Food[]
If working with many characters, it can be time consuming and tedious to add food to each individual inventory. By purchasing a stacking Backpack and filling it with as many food items as possible, the need for distributing food is mitigated. All Player Characters in the same squad who are nearby the character wearing the backpack filled with food will eat food out of it if their hunger is low enough to trigger eating. If the player wants to avoid the negative stats of wearing a backpack, they can easily remove the backpack from the backpack slot and regularly put it on for a second in order to feed all characters at once, or use a Small Thieves Backpack. This technique will only work if all characters are in the same squad. To feed members of another squad a character with the backpack full of food should also exist in another squad.
Domesticated Animal player characters will also eat out of another player character’s backpack, provided they are a part of the same squad. Characters can also eat food from a livestock backpack which can be worn on Domesticated Bulls and Pack Beasts. More about animal player characters can be found on Guide to Animals.
Healing[]
Characters of all races will need to be healed if they take cutting Damage during fights. Characters will need the corresponding Medical Item for their race. The other kind of damage, blunt damage, appears as lost limb health, and regenerates without the need of a bandage.
The Field Medic skill governs the rate and efficiency of bandaging, while the Robotics skill governs skeleton repair. This is dependent on the level of the first aid kit in use. Lower level kits will be used first (like how the person eats lower quality food first), but this limits the speed of the medic or roboticist. Higher level skilled people will not only repair faster, they will heal more with the same kit as they use less charges.
Bleeding and Triage[]
All characters have blood, although for Skeletons this is called «Oil.» The blood is the top line on the health pane. If you see arrows (<) over a character’s blood then they are bleeding. The more arrows the more bleeding. The amount of blood loss greatly increases as you accumulate more bleeding. As losing a limb causes around 6-30 instant blood loss no matter the bleed rate Hivers (50 Blood) are very vulnerable to being KOed from blood loss. Clotting should occur naturally after taking damage, as you only bleed at the maximum rate for a few seconds. Death from blood loss occurs when reaching your maximum blood value as a negative. Examples are a Hiver reaching -50 blood, Skeleton reaching -100 Oil, etc… The difficulty settings in the game settings determine if limbs destroy themselves if they reach -100%. If your game setting is limb loss=rare, then you can patch up the head, torso and stomach quickly, and ignore the limbs, as any compounding cut damage on the limbs will be non-fatal.
When a character has received at least 20 cut damage on a part of their body it begins to degenerate, indicated by «<«. The wound will degenerate based off the amount of cut damage in total on the part along with character’s Toughness level. If you have over 100% of your total health as cut damage you will see, «<<» and the wound will worsen at a MUCH faster rate. The speed appears to be x4 as fast as 90% of your total health as cut damage. People die when those body parts reach -100% so it is very important to bandage cuts to avoid succumbing to your wounds. A character will get knocked out when their vital (Head, Chest or Stomach) body parts drop below 0 from damage in combat and enter a recovery coma when an injury goes under their KO Point (KO Point = 10+(Toughness)0.75). The coma ends when their vital health rises above 0. If a unit’s blood level drops below 0, you will also be knocked out. After being knocked out by reaching 0 blood, you will only be knocked out again through bloodloss/bleeding upon reaching -25 blood.
Races respond to bleeding damage at a different rate. Weapons have their own Bloodloss values. For instance, a Nodachi has a Bloodloss of 1.2 which means it will deal 20% more bleeding damage than a 1.0 Bloodloss weapon. Hivers and skeletons have low bleedrates and as such are quite resistant to this damage type.
| Hive | Human | Skeleton | Shek | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince | Soldier | Worker | Greenlander | Scorchlander | P4 Unit | Skeleton | |
| 0.3x | 0.3x | 0.3x | 1.0x | 0.9x | 0.1x | 0.1x | 0.9x |
You will not regenerate blood until you stop bleeding.
Bandaging Cuts[]
A character lying in a pool of their own blood after losing an arm.
In most cases, cut damage on humanoid characters never heals by itself, unless using mods. Some characters can spawn with above the max level of Toughness achievable by the player (Such as Estata sometimes spawning with 104 Toughness) which results in their wounds never degenerating and instead healing. However, without a bandage their injuries will never heal the last 20 cut damage. Cut damage with the «<» sign means the injury is getting worse.
In order to bandage cuts, non-skeletal characters must use a First Aid Kit. These items are easily found across Kenshi as many non-player characters will be holding a Basic First Aid Kit and they are often stocked in stores. Characters can use a First Aid Kit while it is in their inventory or inside the backpack they are wearing. A character will use whichever (Still follows the same lower quality kits first rule) kit is first in their inventory, followed by backpack. When applying first aid a unit’s wounds will be bandaged from top to bottom.
There are two methods for healing player characters. The first is to right click on the wounded character. The mouse tooltip will become a green plus (+) symbol when a hurt character is moused over. The wounded character can heal themselves as long as they have not become unconscious from their wounds. First Aid is also an option in the right-click-hold menu for that character and selecting that will also trigger the same action.
The second method is to click the Medic button in the User Interface. This will command the currently selected character(s) to heal any other player characters immediately nearby. When this button is shift-clicked, the job of Medic is assigned to the selected character(s). This job can unintentionally deadly when you have allies nearby to heal, as characters will leave the «playing dead» stance, to perform that job. If alone a character may bandage/repair themselves whilst playing dead.
Repairing Robotics[]
When Skeletons or units with Robotic Limbs take cutting damage or this damage is done to a Robot Limb, it must be repaired. In order to conduct repairs, characters must be holding a Skeleton Repair Kit or Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit. These items are primarily found in stores but can also be found through looting a Skeleton non-player character or an Ancient Lab. Characters can use a Repair Kit while it is in their inventory or inside the backpack they are wearing.
The methods for repairing Skeleton characters and Robot Limbs are the same as the methods for First Aid, except the name for the action is Repairs in the right-click-hold menu.
Skeletons and robot limbs regenerate to a slightly lower health after each time they are damaged, but this wear and tear can be repaired with a Skeleton Repair Bed. If a character is a non-skeleton, their non-robotic body parts will be bandaged at a high rate while sleeping on a Repair Bed as well.
Splints[]
Splints are a near instant way to recover up to 51 hit (26 for small splints) points, on a unit’s limbs when below 47.5 HP. A splint cannot be used to go above 50 HP, even if you have not used the full 50 points of splint value, it will stop at 50 HP if it gets there. The small splint kit only recovers 26 HP, if the Field medic skill of the player is also at least 25. You won’t be able to see the effect of a splint if the character’s health is too far into the negative.
Putting Splinting in the jobs list is particularly useful. Character with splinted legs can often run at close to full speed, and splints on arms can prevent limb loss as splinting adds to the hit points of the limb.
Hive Workers and Hive Princes are the only races that can run at full speed with splints. Running at full speed requires 55% leg health, and Hive Workers and Hive Princes can achieve this number due to having lower max HP on their legs. The 50 HP splint cap is more than 55% of their max HP, allowing them to run at top speed.
Limb Replacement[]
If a character’s limb goes beyond a negative value equivalent to their normal max health, it will be amputated. Amputated limbs will require a robotic replacement in order to function normally when fighting or, if a leg is lost, when doing almost anything. Robotic limbs require repairing in the same way as a Skeleton’s body does. They also suffer wear and tear damage which can only be healed through use of a Skeleton Repair Bed.
Robot Limbs can be purchased in a Robotics Shop, a Robotics Workshop, a Travel and Repairs Shop, and a Hive Robotics Shop. Always make sure that you are purchasing the correct limb, as the icon designs for (right) and (left) limbs are not distinctly different. Robot Limbs are equipment, not trade goods, so their sell value is noticeably lower than the cost to purchase them from a store.
In order to equip a Robot Limb, you need to first click the Limbs button found in your amputee character’s inventory. After opening the Limbs inventory, you can click and drag the limb to its correct slot or simply right click it from your character’s inventory. Characters which are not amputees will not allow you to make use of this button for obvious reasons.
Combat is a part of Kenshi gameplay which should be highly anticipated. However, there is more to remaining healthy in Kenshi than just bandaging wounds. This Guide to Health should help newer users learn all information regarding Hunger, Healing, Splints, and Limb Replacement.
Beds[]
Healing with bandages and splints is slow, and it is recommended that characters rest in a Bed (8x Heal speed) or a Camp Bed (4x Heal speed) if they are injured. Beds and Camp Beds can be rented at Bars and occasionally used for free at some locations. Camp Beds can easily be carried by characters and built in buildings or in the wilderness in order to rest.
While sleeping in a Bed or Camp Bed, the hunger meter will decrease at 0.33x the normal rate. On top of that wounds will not degrade while sleeping, this is even the case for Skeletons
Hunger[]
Over time, characters get hungry. When a character’s hunger meter goes below 250, that character will eat any Food which is available in their inventory. If a character’s hunger drops below 200, they will start to suffer from malnutrition and their stats will begin to be negatively affected. If their hunger meter continues to drop, they will begin to pass out regularly from hunger. This fainting will become more and more frequent as their hunger meter steadily declines. Eventually, the character will die from starvation.
Each race has a modifier for rate of hunger. Skeletons do not need to eat and, therefore, their hunger rate is 0 times the hunger rate of a Greenlander.
| Hive | Human | Skeleton | Shek | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince | Soldier | Worker | Greenlander | Scorchlander | P4 Unit | Skeleton | |
| 0.50x | 0.60x | 0.50x | 1.00x | 0.90x | 0x | 0x | 1.25x |
Characters which are enslaved are kept fed to around 115, which results in major stat drainage from malnutrition. Many non-player characters which are hostile are suffering from malnutrition and will loot unconscious or playing dead characters for food.
Nutrition[]
Every edible food item has a clearly labeled Nutrition amount. If characters have multiple of these items spread out among them, they can be consolidated by moving them into the same inventory (only works if they are not stolen items).
More complicated food items have the most Nutrition values, such as Foodcubes, Gohan, and Ration Packs.
Sharing Food[]
If working with many characters, it can be time consuming and tedious to add food to each individual inventory. By purchasing a stacking Backpack and filling it with as many food items as possible, the need for distributing food is mitigated. All Player Characters in the same squad who are nearby the character wearing the backpack filled with food will eat food out of it if their hunger is low enough to trigger eating. If the player wants to avoid the negative stats of wearing a backpack, they can easily remove the backpack from the backpack slot and regularly put it on for a second in order to feed all characters at once, or use a Small Thieves Backpack. This technique will only work if all characters are in the same squad. To feed members of another squad a character with the backpack full of food should also exist in another squad.
Domesticated Animal player characters will also eat out of another player character’s backpack, provided they are a part of the same squad. Characters can also eat food from a livestock backpack which can be worn on Domesticated Bulls and Pack Beasts. More about animal player characters can be found on Guide to Animals.
Healing[]
Characters of all races will need to be healed if they take cutting Damage during fights. Characters will need the corresponding Medical Item for their race. The other kind of damage, blunt damage, appears as lost limb health, and regenerates without the need of a bandage.
The Field Medic skill governs the rate and efficiency of bandaging, while the Robotics skill governs skeleton repair. This is dependent on the level of the first aid kit in use. Lower level kits will be used first (like how the person eats lower quality food first), but this limits the speed of the medic or roboticist. Higher level skilled people will not only repair faster, they will heal more with the same kit as they use less charges.
Bleeding and Triage[]
All characters have blood, although for Skeletons this is called «Oil.» The blood is the top line on the health pane. If you see arrows (<) over a character’s blood then they are bleeding. The more arrows the more bleeding. The amount of blood loss greatly increases as you accumulate more bleeding. As losing a limb causes around 6-30 instant blood loss no matter the bleed rate Hivers (50 Blood) are very vulnerable to being KOed from blood loss. Clotting should occur naturally after taking damage, as you only bleed at the maximum rate for a few seconds. Death from blood loss occurs when reaching your maximum blood value as a negative. Examples are a Hiver reaching -50 blood, Skeleton reaching -100 Oil, etc… The difficulty settings in the game settings determine if limbs destroy themselves if they reach -100%. If your game setting is limb loss=rare, then you can patch up the head, torso and stomach quickly, and ignore the limbs, as any compounding cut damage on the limbs will be non-fatal.
When a character has received at least 20 cut damage on a part of their body it begins to degenerate, indicated by «<«. The wound will degenerate based off the amount of cut damage in total on the part along with character’s Toughness level. If you have over 100% of your total health as cut damage you will see, «<<» and the wound will worsen at a MUCH faster rate. The speed appears to be x4 as fast as 90% of your total health as cut damage. People die when those body parts reach -100% so it is very important to bandage cuts to avoid succumbing to your wounds. A character will get knocked out when their vital (Head, Chest or Stomach) body parts drop below 0 from damage in combat and enter a recovery coma when an injury goes under their KO Point (KO Point = 10+(Toughness)0.75). The coma ends when their vital health rises above 0. If a unit’s blood level drops below 0, you will also be knocked out. After being knocked out by reaching 0 blood, you will only be knocked out again through bloodloss/bleeding upon reaching -25 blood.
Races respond to bleeding damage at a different rate. Weapons have their own Bloodloss values. For instance, a Nodachi has a Bloodloss of 1.2 which means it will deal 20% more bleeding damage than a 1.0 Bloodloss weapon. Hivers and skeletons have low bleedrates and as such are quite resistant to this damage type.
| Hive | Human | Skeleton | Shek | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince | Soldier | Worker | Greenlander | Scorchlander | P4 Unit | Skeleton | |
| 0.3x | 0.3x | 0.3x | 1.0x | 0.9x | 0.1x | 0.1x | 0.9x |
You will not regenerate blood until you stop bleeding.
Bandaging Cuts[]
A character lying in a pool of their own blood after losing an arm.
In most cases, cut damage on humanoid characters never heals by itself, unless using mods. Some characters can spawn with above the max level of Toughness achievable by the player (Such as Estata sometimes spawning with 104 Toughness) which results in their wounds never degenerating and instead healing. However, without a bandage their injuries will never heal the last 20 cut damage. Cut damage with the «<» sign means the injury is getting worse.
In order to bandage cuts, non-skeletal characters must use a First Aid Kit. These items are easily found across Kenshi as many non-player characters will be holding a Basic First Aid Kit and they are often stocked in stores. Characters can use a First Aid Kit while it is in their inventory or inside the backpack they are wearing. A character will use whichever (Still follows the same lower quality kits first rule) kit is first in their inventory, followed by backpack. When applying first aid a unit’s wounds will be bandaged from top to bottom.
There are two methods for healing player characters. The first is to right click on the wounded character. The mouse tooltip will become a green plus (+) symbol when a hurt character is moused over. The wounded character can heal themselves as long as they have not become unconscious from their wounds. First Aid is also an option in the right-click-hold menu for that character and selecting that will also trigger the same action.
The second method is to click the Medic button in the User Interface. This will command the currently selected character(s) to heal any other player characters immediately nearby. When this button is shift-clicked, the job of Medic is assigned to the selected character(s). This job can unintentionally deadly when you have allies nearby to heal, as characters will leave the «playing dead» stance, to perform that job. If alone a character may bandage/repair themselves whilst playing dead.
Repairing Robotics[]
When Skeletons or units with Robotic Limbs take cutting damage or this damage is done to a Robot Limb, it must be repaired. In order to conduct repairs, characters must be holding a Skeleton Repair Kit or Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit. These items are primarily found in stores but can also be found through looting a Skeleton non-player character or an Ancient Lab. Characters can use a Repair Kit while it is in their inventory or inside the backpack they are wearing.
The methods for repairing Skeleton characters and Robot Limbs are the same as the methods for First Aid, except the name for the action is Repairs in the right-click-hold menu.
Skeletons and robot limbs regenerate to a slightly lower health after each time they are damaged, but this wear and tear can be repaired with a Skeleton Repair Bed. If a character is a non-skeleton, their non-robotic body parts will be bandaged at a high rate while sleeping on a Repair Bed as well.
Splints[]
Splints are a near instant way to recover up to 51 hit (26 for small splints) points, on a unit’s limbs when below 47.5 HP. A splint cannot be used to go above 50 HP, even if you have not used the full 50 points of splint value, it will stop at 50 HP if it gets there. The small splint kit only recovers 26 HP, if the Field medic skill of the player is also at least 25. You won’t be able to see the effect of a splint if the character’s health is too far into the negative.
Putting Splinting in the jobs list is particularly useful. Character with splinted legs can often run at close to full speed, and splints on arms can prevent limb loss as splinting adds to the hit points of the limb.
Hive Workers and Hive Princes are the only races that can run at full speed with splints. Running at full speed requires 55% leg health, and Hive Workers and Hive Princes can achieve this number due to having lower max HP on their legs. The 50 HP splint cap is more than 55% of their max HP, allowing them to run at top speed.
Limb Replacement[]
If a character’s limb goes beyond a negative value equivalent to their normal max health, it will be amputated. Amputated limbs will require a robotic replacement in order to function normally when fighting or, if a leg is lost, when doing almost anything. Robotic limbs require repairing in the same way as a Skeleton’s body does. They also suffer wear and tear damage which can only be healed through use of a Skeleton Repair Bed.
Robot Limbs can be purchased in a Robotics Shop, a Robotics Workshop, a Travel and Repairs Shop, and a Hive Robotics Shop. Always make sure that you are purchasing the correct limb, as the icon designs for (right) and (left) limbs are not distinctly different. Robot Limbs are equipment, not trade goods, so their sell value is noticeably lower than the cost to purchase them from a store.
In order to equip a Robot Limb, you need to first click the Limbs button found in your amputee character’s inventory. After opening the Limbs inventory, you can click and drag the limb to its correct slot or simply right click it from your character’s inventory. Characters which are not amputees will not allow you to make use of this button for obvious reasons.