3-3: Border Scuffles

On the way back to the Hub, Outlaw Hana gets accosted by a group of dust bandits. The dust bandits are more or less top dog in the Border Zone's ecosystem, stronger and better armed than the starving bandits the gang has encountered a couple times. The Border Zone is still very much the beginner zone, though; the dust bandits don't hold a candle to most factions in other parts of the world. By this point, any given member of the gang is about an even match stat-wise for a dust boss—the leader of a given dust bandit group, stronger than the rank and file—and far better equipped.

While confident about the gang's chances all together, Outlaw Hana still isn't strong enough to take on these guys all by herself, so she flees, leading them back toward the Hub. Making a stand in front of the town gate, the gang takes a break from their various activities to make short work of the bandits.

From there, Outlaw Hana gathers everyone up to come help out at the house. Research is divided into several tiers, each tier unlocking a new set of options. You don't have to complete everything in one tier before moving on to the next; unlocking a new tier is simply its own research item, usually with one or two prerequisites. Since hemp farming is a tier 2 research, Outlaw Hana had to unlock Tier 2 to complete her goal of researching all the farming options. That, however, means that the gang will have to build a Tier 2 research bench, which is why she went out to buy materials in the first place.

This new bench takes up significantly more space than the first one, pretty much filling up the rest of the space in the house. I meant it when I said the purpose of this house was to be a research lab! The gang could dismantle the small research bench at this point—the tier 2 bench handles tier 1 research just fine—but there's really no need. They don't need the space for anything else right now.

A couple hours later, Outlaw Hana has learned all she needs to about hemp farming. She steps outside to find most of the gang running back and forth across town carrying each other on their shoulders. All that mining they were busying themselves with was partially for ore to sell for a bit of steady income but also to get a bunch of heavy iron to fill their pockets for strength training. It's been a productive few days.

After one training session, Keys moseys on over to the bar to freshen up. As she waits for her order, a posted bounty catches her eye.

Going after that could be a fine idea indeed. 30,000 is a decent sum of Cats and the gang had a pretty easy time with those dust bandits earlier. The rest agree. Soon, they've sold off all their heavy iron ore, filled their bellies, and are ready for a new adventure.

From World's End in the north (not the northwesternmost revealed city, that's Deadcat in the middle of the Cannibal Plains, which the gang hasn't visited yet. World's End is the one a little bit southeast of that), the gang now finds themselves close to the continent's centre, a bit to the west. The revealed city directly southwest of the hub is Squin and past that Admag, the capital of the Shek Kingdom. Visiting there is on the gang's bucket list but for now they have their eyes set east, planning to explore the part of the Border Zone separated from the Hub by a deep ravine.

After a steep climb, they spy what seems to be a Holy Nation outpost, making them a little nervous about the venture. Up close, though, it becomes clear it's nothing more than an abandoned wreck. Among the wreckage, there are a few of the kind of weapon dust bandits like to use: A particularly shitty type of sabre called a horse chopper. This seems to imply that it was dust bandits who took this place out. Perhaps approaching this Dust King will demand more caution than the gang expected.

Back on the trail, the gang soon finds another outpost perched atop a cliff. This one is not Holy Nation, rather a tech hunter waystation with a bustling bar and a couple other shops. The gang decides to make a stop.

Tucked in the back of the waystation, a helpful skeleton operates a little shop out of a small shack where they sell a few prosthetic limbs and have a skeleton bed for rent. This is a perfect little find for Jam. They've been really feeling the limitations of their hive-made economy arm lately. It's been saddling them with -16% to Crossbows, -60% to Lockpicking and Thievery, -22% to Dexterity, and -25% to Swimming. The High-grade skeleton arm here would lighten their Lockpicking and Thievery penalties to -16% and flip that Dexterity penalty to a +9% bonus! It'd worsen their Swimming penalty to -31% but that's a trade worth making. It's much more durable too, 125 HP versus the economy arm's 85. That's shek-level tough. Jam trades the old arm for the new without hesitation.

The main shop here is a materials shop, very useful for base-building and well-stocked with research books. On top of that, the shopkeep here actually has something to say beyond “let's trade”. She helpfully does a bit of tutorializing, answering questions about how to start researching and building. It's pretty likely that a new player will find their way here sooner than later but asking this lady a bunch of questions is thankfully not the only way the game teaches a new player about this stuff. The game does have actual tutorials you can opt into.

While I've already covered most of what she has to say, one of her answers does provide a good segue into the next step the gang will want to take toward eventually founding their own settlement.

Dunno why she says PROSPECTING like that but she's quite right. Building on the first plateau you see is a quick path to struggling with a lack of resources and barren ground. Prospecting before you build is essential. It's simple to do—simply select a character, hit the Prospect button in the bottom right corner of the screen, and wait a second. They'll come up with all sorts of info about the surrounding area.

Prospecting brings up all sorts of useful information about the land. Standing just outside of the waystation, Outlaw Hana learns that this little patch of the Border Zone has 39 Water, 62 Fertility, 37 Stone, 0 Iron and 0 Copper. Each of these numbers is out of 100 so even if the waystation wasn't already here, this would be a dismal place to build on.

We'll dive deeper into the information gleaned from prospecting once it reveals a place that doesn't completely suck. Each zone has fixed environment types (so the entire Border Zone is going to be 100% arid and 10% green, which matters for growing crops) and ranges for how rich it is in various resources (for example, you're never going to find a place with 100 Water if you build in a desert zone), but resource richness can vary quite a bit within each zone. Outlaw Hana is going to be prospecting quite a bit as the gang travels around—and it will be Outlaw Hana specifically since prospecting is governed by the Science skill. The better a character is at science, the larger the area they'll survey when they prospect. As she's spent a couple days researching, her science skill is now at 22, a far cry better than the 1 everyone else has.

Wandering around the Border Zone in search of fertile lands, the gang has gotten somewhat distracted from their goal of beating up the Dust King and turning in his bounty. That's how it goes sometimes. Starting and stopping as Outlaw Hana does her prospecting, they attract the attention of a bunch of starving bandits.

Ah well. The "eat a cactus" line works most of the time but I suppose this hungry bandit leader was bolder than most.

The hungry bandits equal the gang in numbers, which is a coy way of saying the gang mows them like grass. They are the most basic bandit faction, made to beat up a character at the very start of their journey but not to pose a threat to a halfway decent group. They probably should have known better than to attack the gang but bandits in Kenshi are terrible at threat assessment. They never stood a chance.