One of my fav starts

Fishing mods make this potentially survivable, This is my favourite large group start, thanks for making it.

it is one of my favourite start can you make more like this?

@Skald Can do! The only limitation would be if the game putting a hard cap on the number of NPCs that can spawn in an environment, so it might get glitchy. Also, they'd need some kind of shanty town set up. Could be fun. Especially if the dynamic is like that army of robots that follow you around. Just need to figure out a way to 'shake' them when you get them somewhere safe.

Odd question...but is it possible to put them actually in the world? Rescuing them, would be a great mid/late game objective...as would capturing them...

great mod. any chance we get more mods that give more info on this new kingdom. mabye a military expidition from them or something like that?

@500 POUNDS, awesome, glad you got it working! Good luck trying to keep everyone alive~

After changing the load order it caused it to simply crash right after loading the save, not even making it to the creation screen. I decided to tweak my mods a bit but I couldn't find any avail. It was probably one of my attack slot mods or my faction size mods. So what I did is I just tweaked your mod and removed all the global settings and got it to work. Thanks for taking the time to write this, it helped. And I did not do too much work, I tend to just customize the first five characters and make sure the others don't look too ugly with my randomization mod.

@500 POUNDS, it still works, I tried it the other day (99.15). The crash might be the stress of spawning this many characters at once. My rig can handle the game with this start itself real smooth, but that initial spawn makes it groan real bad for 5 seconds. I hope you didn't spend too long on the character creation! Maybe try lowering the settings, run this mod in isolation, just for the initial start, and then turn everything back on/up once you've got a save with it up and running?

Oh, and try loading it at the bottom of your mod list because it makes some global changes, and another mod underneath it might be overwriting them. Esp. the 256 recruitment limit mod: I'm unsure what that sets the individual squad limit at, but if it's less than 60 there will be too many characters in one squad for the spawn. That might be causing the crash. But - if you have my "More Names!" mod, leave that underneath this one.

You planning on updating this anytime soon? Not sure if it's my computer but I'm getting an instant crash after I'm done creating my characters.

nice mod

@rexpw622 It still works. Is it being actively updated? Well. I had big plans for it (the story related encounters and things), but I've since moved on to other things in a similar vein that work (make sense) for anyone playing, rather than just people beginning with this start. I'm thinking of adapting the story I started here to be an in-world encounter for everyone. Like, you come across these characters and have the opportunity of helping them/getting involved. As it is, this start provides a unique challenge and different play style just in the number of characters you get.

is this mod still up to date?

Was searching something like this.
Its even more interesting when you roleplay as one of those rugged poor nobodies and rise up in this mini-society by helping Captain etc.
How about some rabbid dog nest nearby? =P
Thanks.

i like the size its just you seem to stay a slave.

Ah. I added a research package to the start. That might be causing it. I'll delete it and update. Should fix it. I assume it'll need an 'import'. Thanks for the feedback!

Hey Iv ran into the same issue as broderic_beard. Normally id fix things like this myself but haven't figured it out yet.

Hey, I've run into an issue where your start doesn't allow me to build anything other than the research bench II. Nothing else shows up on the list of possible items. Vanilla starts seem to be unaffected, as well as the Queen Himiko mod, so I'm thinking it might be you mod? I dunno. Let me know if you think it's on my end.

My sympathies: It varies... On my first and second plays it was "everyone rows or the boat wont go", it was just too hard to not be 1 group. The third play was after you upgraded the crew and broke them into 2 squads. This time it was easier to think of them as opposing groups, and it felt more thematic to keep them this way. The crew followed the mob and kept them together, forcing the mob to take most of the wounds, but allowing them second choice of the loot.

The crew is acting more like a squad of bullying guards than anything else. The crew does a lot of fighting, once the enemies are distracted by the mob. The mob is slowly arming up with whatever the crew doesn't want and has basically reached the tipping point of "game is winnable" for me, I have taken the mob and crew to Squin where we feast on food purchased off the bars and bonedog steaks.

Ok, I fell in between the buff nerf cycle and it was a bit too strong for my taste. I think if you are going to limit race, you probably should go all in, because even 1 non hiver and I can trade freely with the hivers. It would play quite differently. All shek: food is a major problem, until mid-late game, combat really isn't. All hiver, the opposite. All human a middle ground. All skeleton, is as always, easy mode, unil you need to buy those repair kits.

There is a fair amount of fun to be had by allowing the player to MAKE that choice. I may try the next one where the captain and uniques are Hive princes, the sailors are soldiers, everyone else drones. Just to try it.

So maybe the answer is to NOT limit it, just suggest it.

Regarding race I didn't think about that. I guess it lore and story friendly to let the player decide. OR, should I make all of the refugees Hive drones? Less food consumption but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ HP BUT awesome farming XP rate for mid-late game, AND it's perhaps quite evocative story-wise of the culture of wherever all these characters are coming from... Oh, another interesting play dynamic given the location is that the hive don't sell to hive players. That might intensify the beginning nicely.

My computer just exploded (deep deep motherboard melt down), so I can't play or play test until I get a new one. But I can run the FCS so I'm gonna keep working on this. Currently working on dialogue so the characters will engage in conversation, already have a couple of dialogues working. Also creating story based NPCs for the specific characters to bump into (the cartographer's society DID say that had sent others to the island, just never heard from them again). Even thinking about how to implement a set of stuff so the player can treat as a serious mission trying to get passage on a ship back home for the Captain, first mate, sailors, and possibly the cartographer (provided he has been to every biome region on the island). EVEN just setting that as a goal for that one character (the cartographer travelling to every biome and city) I think I can see how I can do that in the FCS. That in itself is 'play through' challenge I'd never even thought of.

Where do your sympathies lie? Of course the captain and elite passengers had more time to grab food and what not before jumping overboard compared to the refugees stuck under deck. But does that mean that food should be shared? There are competing interests there. Will the sailors and the captain cut and run? Will the captain's conscience take pity on the hoard, or perhaps his economic considerations for how useful they'll be? Will the sailors mutiny? They must want to go home after all. Will the cartographer branch off on his own to complete his assignment? Will the stowaway stay in Mongrel with the kind of folk you know he'll get along with?

@Tarsis "I am resisting sharing food between them for RP reasons." This makes me so happy! I wrote the description of the mod before I even started. I wanted that possible threat of "bitter infighting" to be real, but didn't know how to implement it as possibility into the engine (especially since you cannot attack characters you control). You've just made me realize that because the beauty of Kenshi (the reason I love it) is how much of the game is actually played in your head, then all that is required is a few suggestive details to get that dynamic rolling. That's right!

Addendum: New crew has food enough to be not worried about, and enough combat skill to hold thier own quite well. Passengers are still a struggle to keep fed so far, but I am resisting sharing food between them for RP reasons.

Combat slots x3 makes the horde vs. horde combats very interesting as you have to keep an eye out for your weaklings getting double teamed while double or triple teaming when you can.

Crossbows are super dangerous to these guys, no armor and limited med kits mean the bleeds are brutal. This is fine, as crossbows are not strong or common here.

As far as the new crew goes, I took less hivers this time (they eat less than greenlanders, if you intend this to be fully greenlanders, set the race in the character tab in the FCS), but I took some shek (who eat more). I set everyone to follow the captain and set him to move to the Settled Nomad village. During the swim, I examined my new crew, picked a lock, and read up on who is who.

Came upon a nomad goat train severely wounded by fogmen and hungry bandits. Gathered meat, weapons, and a few rags then stopped at settled nomad village. Nomads kindly healed us up and let us use the beds for free while we cooked and sold some goods. Did a little mining while waiting.

Going to target scrawny cannibals when I head further inland to first hive village. Need some med kits.

Yes, you had to catch all the downed critters, cannibals, hungry bandits, fog men, and nomads. You have to take ALL the loot. The campfires worked for me, used the nomad's campfires in the village on the way south, and ones inside the hive village. There is a lot of money with the robot shops which helps, and there are 2 hive villages very close together on the coast. Also stopped in at the one inland on the way south. So you needed enough miners to keep whatever nodes you can keep full and guarded, and the rest of the crew out hunting for fallen enemies.

@ Pvt. Poppa. Haha. Yeah. One of my most memorable deaths so far was thinking that because I had found some weapons, I could Zerg rush 4 hungry bandits for XP. It was actually quite impressive watching the humble hungries take down all 75 of the refugees. I think they were more surprised than I was :D.

@Tarsis. I'm impressed you made it that far! I think I know where you made it to (that waterside hive village SE, in the 'inlet'?). I read in a guide each character needs 40nu per day. That's about 500c a head if your buying it from the hive. Hunting and running those 5 max campfires sounds like micromanaging torture, esp. now the campfire cooking job is gone. Basically I realized there was no possible world where you get food production up and running (needing to travel for days to find a 'fertile' location, and THEN researching the basics) because everyday was just an endless mining struggle to ward off starvation. A vivid lesson in the poverty cycle I guess :P

Would love your feedback on the new version. Should still be hard, but a couple of aces in the deck should mean you've got a fighting chance. My only worry is now it might be too easy, which I wanted to avoid, considering you're basically given an army right off the bat.

It was not impossible. It was hard as balls. I skipped the island and went right to nomad/cannibal territory. Using all the goats, garru and the cannibal med kits I have been able to keep everyone alive, though I am going to be spending a huge amount of time earning money for limbs.

I made my way down the coast on goat meat until I reached hiver territory where mining and selling with a hunting squad will barely keep the horde fed, but it is a constant stream of herding cats. But now... now you have added interesting characters that make me want to abandon all this struggle. Yes, I think I will make a third try of this, since I am sure the second squad is a win at this point.

It's these interesting starts that keep Kenshi so fun for me. Thank you.

Awesome! Yeah- I was realizing that myself. I played a few rounds to it and met my demise each time. I'll be testing it again!

Made some big changes. After play testing I realized the start was mathematically impossible. You needed to be earning 20,000 cats a day by day 3 to feed everybody. Considering where you are on the map that wasn't going to happen. Eased up the nerfs and crises. Added a handful of special characters with fragments of back story for you to discover. Should be a more reasonable (though still intensely challenging) start now with some narrative fragments to kick start your story.

This looks amazing. I can't wait to try this.

Next try are now 4 days in. Starvation is real. If I can find some extensive mining work near this hive colony, the fainting refugees might just be able to save themselves and make good for the promised 'hub' region. So far only one lost. Legless, she was no match for the cannibal hoard that picked her off from the main group. The leader made the tough call to save the group under his care rather than risk more. You could hear her screams from the other side of the mountain...

Just gave it a solid try. All dead in 2 days. Haha.