Survival Guides

Surviving Your First Week Beginner

Pick a safe town, earn starting cash, recruit a second body, and learn to run before you learn to fight.

Escaping Slavery Intermediate

If you are enslaved, train your stats in captivity, pick your moment, break the collar and run for friendly ground.

Desert Survival Beginner

Carry food and water, time your crossings, avoid acid-rain regions unprotected, and never march a hungry squad into open sand.

Anti-Bandit Strategies Beginner

Use town guards, fight at chokepoints, never get surrounded, and let numbers — yours or the guards' — do the work.

Night Travel Guide Intermediate

Night travel improves stealth and can avoid patrols, but reduces your sight and raises the risk of walking into predators.

Injury Recovery Guide Beginner

Treat wounds fast, get downed characters to safety, manage blood loss, and use beds and medics to recover properly.

How To Avoid Beak Things Intermediate

Scout ahead, know which regions they den in, keep Athletics high, and treat any Beak Thing sighting as a signal to leave.

Avoiding Early Death Beginner

Stay near guards, never travel alone, route around your race's enemies, and accept that retreat is a win.

Why Running Away Matters Beginner

Retreat preserves the run, trains Athletics, and turns losing fights into survivable ones. It is a skill, not a shame.

Best Beginner Starts Beginner

For a first run pick a gentle start — a Greenlander, a couple of squadmates, and a safe region near Squin or the Hub.

Copper Mining Beginner

Mine copper near a safe town, sell it to local vendors, and use the income to recruit and equip your first squad.

Smuggling Guide Intermediate

Move contraband past faction inspections using stealth, hidden inventory pockets and routes that avoid patrols.

Trading Routes Intermediate

Buy goods cheap where they are produced, sell dear where they are scarce, and run a steady circuit between towns.

Hashish Trading Intermediate

Grow hemp in the swamp, process it into hashish, and sell into grey-market towns — accepting the legal risk for high margins.

Base Economy Advanced

Turn a base into a money engine with farming, mining and production chains that generate goods to sell continuously.

Robotics Economy Advanced

Salvage robotics components from Skeletons and ruins, then sell or craft them into high-value goods for serious income.

Best Money Making Methods Intermediate

From copper mining to bounties, trade routes, base production and Leviathan hunting — match the method to your game stage.

Melee Combat Basics Beginner

Combat is resolved by stats and positioning — manage Attack, Defence, formation and numbers rather than twitch skill.

Ranged Combat Guide Intermediate

Crossbows deal damage before melee, but demand positioning to manage reload time and friendly fire.

Crossbow Guide Intermediate

Choose the right crossbow tier, train Crossbows and Precision Shooting, keep bolts stocked, and manage firing lines.

Martial Arts Guide Advanced

Build Martial Arts with Dodge and Toughness, keep armour and encumbrance light, and use captivity as natural training.

Armor Penalties Explained Intermediate

Heavy armour protects but slows you and cripples stealth, Dodge and Martial Arts — match armour weight to the build.

Squad Formation Guide Intermediate

Place tanks in front, ranged and support behind, hold chokepoints, and never let the squad get surrounded.

Training Safely Beginner

Use town guards, training dummies, captivity and controlled fights to build stats without losing characters.

Toughness Training Intermediate

Build Toughness by surviving defeats — get downed in survivable conditions, recover, and repeat until your squad stops dying.

Heavy Armor Guide Intermediate

Heavy armour turns a strong character into an immovable front line — wear it on tanks, never on speed builds.

Best Base Locations Guide Intermediate

The best sites balance resources, defensibility and a survivable raid profile — start safe before attempting an ambitious one.

Defending Against Raids Advanced

Combine funnelling walls, well-placed turrets and a trained squad — and keep wealth growth in step with squad strength.

Endgame City Building Advanced

Scale a settled base into a self-sufficient city with full production, strong defences and a large trained population.

Best Squad Roles Intermediate

Build a squad around clear roles — tank, damage, ranged, medic, builder, scout — rather than identical generalists.

Medic Builds Intermediate

Build a Field Medic with high medical skill, protect them in the back rank, and keep them stocked with supplies.

Tank Builds Intermediate

Build a tank around high Defence, Toughness and Strength, full heavy armour, and a place at the front of the line.

Stealth Builds Advanced

Build around Stealth, Assassination, Lockpicking and light gear — for theft, infiltration and silent takedowns.

Solo Play vs Squad Play Intermediate

Squad play is safer and more flexible; solo play is harder, more personal, and unforgiving of a single mistake.

Animal Squad Guide Intermediate

Recruit and raise animals — Bonedogs, garru, even crabs — as combat and pack members of your squad.

Skeleton Squad Guide Advanced

An all-Skeleton squad ignores hunger, acid and harsh environments — ideal for the deadliest regions, but reliant on Robotics.

Solo Kenshi Run Expert

A single-character run with no rescue net — survive on stealth, retreat and patient stat-building before any real fighting.

Pacifist Run Expert

Survive and thrive without killing — through stealth, trade, base building and outrunning every fight.

Holy Nation Playthrough Intermediate

Run a Greenlander squad aligned with the Holy Nation — safe territory, soldier recruits, and war against the Shek.

Anti-Slaver Run Advanced

Side with the Anti-Slavers — free slaves, raid slave camps, and accept losing the United Cities as the price.

Cannibal Hunter Run Advanced

Base near the Cannibal Plains and wage war on the hordes — brutal Toughness training and a steady bounty income.

Ironman Challenge Expert

Play with no save-scumming — accept every loss, every lost character, and every consequence as final.

Hardcore Survival Settings Expert

Tune game settings — squad limits, permanent death, harsher economy — to build a punishing custom survival experience.

Reactive World Guide Intermediate

Install and play with the Reactive World mod for a wasteland whose towns and factions visibly respond to your actions.