Survival Guides
Field manuals written from the perspective of wanderers who have been through it. Start with the beginner guides and work toward the advanced playthroughs.
Survival Guides
Surviving Your First Week Beginner
Pick a safe town, earn starting cash, train Athletics, recruit a second body, and delay risky goals until the squad can survive being knocked down.
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.
Economy Guides
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.
Combat Guides
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.
Base Building Guides
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.
Squad Guides
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.
Advanced Guides
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.