Procedurally generated Game of Thrones, but it is German and no one seems to have limbs.
(Hints go here)
u/stemhesong — 7 hours ago
u/stemhesong
▲ 31 r/Kenshi
(TL;DR at the end of post)
It took me a few weeks to do this, but I'm back again with yet another needlessly complicated study following my previous one: https://www.reddit.com/r/Kenshi/comments/1e6v25u/measuring_the_survivability_of_different_armor/
It has came to me that the vast majority of comparisons in the sub involving armor are based on solo tests, but studies involving group combat are practically non-existent.
Which is understandable, seeing that group combat has way too many factors involved that cannot be reliably modelled using controlled conditions.
So I decided to do things the hard way. By simulating every individual fight to find how different armor sets in-game perform against late-game enemies.
Method:
I converted the Berserker Village into an improvised outdoor combat arena, where I spawned 6 Greenlanders of identical stats and equipment. I then spawned a group of enemies inside a building, which will then walk out, detect the player characters and pick a fight with them. All tested groups are exactly 2x the size of existing roaming squads in the game, except for the Shek Kingdom test where I combined a standard and a scout patrol.
I tested all fights at 5x speed. I also do not provide any form of input during the fights, not even changing the zoom level and camera angle.
I paused immediately after the combat stops to calculate the number of test subjects still standing and any remaining enemies.
I then conducted 8 repeated tests for every single armor/enemy combination.
Example of the end of one fight
All Greenlander test subjects are equipped with: Crab Helmet, Dark Leather Shirt, and Wooden Sandals. All are given a MK I Falling Sun as a weapon. Body and leg armor varies depending on the armor set being tested. All armor pieces tested are of Masterwork quality.
I removed all roaming spawns and weather effects from the Stenn Desert and Spider Plains to prevent any factors interfering with test results. I also increased KO time by 100x to speed combat up. Reason being that default KO time drags combat on, makes it hard to quantify results, and my preliminary testing also shows that increasing KO time doesn't appear to affect the end results.
The only mod I used was RE_Kenshi to improve loading performance. Not even pathfinding mods or DarkUI are used.
------
The tested sets are:
Crab Armor + Samurai Legplates
Samurai Armor + Samurai Legplates
Unholy Chest Plate + Samurai Legplates
Mercenary Plate + Samurai Legplates
White Plate Jacket + Plated Drifter's Leather Pants
Dustcoat + Plated Drifter's Leather Pants
Ninja Rags + Samurai Clothpants
Assassin's Rags + Samurai Clothpants
------
Results:
50 stat Greenlanders vs Southern Hive (2 Hive princes, 16 Droneguards)
Southern Hivers have minimal offensive penalties and armor penetrating long reach weapons, which heavily favors an offensive playstyle.
Crab, Samurai, and Mercenary Plate sets are the worst performers in this setup.
Unholy Plate, White Plate Jacket, and Assassin's Rags are the top performers.
Unholy appears to be the odd one out of all heavy armor sets, having a performance more characteristic of lighter armor. Be aware that it is also the only armor set with arm amputation events happening in this particular test.
Dustcoat performs less effectively than expected compared to other light and medium armors, possibly due to the lack of protection and offensive stat boosts.
------
60 stat Greenlanders vs Shek Kingdom (12 Warriors, 11 Scouts, 3 Hundred Guardians)
Sheks have minimal offensive penalties combined with hard hitting weapons with very long reach and huge AoEs, which highly favors a defensive playstyle.
White Plate Jacket, Dustcoat, and Assassin's Rags are the worst performers in this category.
Samurai Armor, followed by Crab and Mercenary Plate, are the best performers of this category.
Again, Unholy Plate is the odd one out of the heavy armors, performing worse than every other heavy armor combination, likely due to the poor arm coverage.
Ninja Rags appear to have better performance compared to all the other light/medium armor tested, possibly due to it being in a sweet spot between offensive buffs and protectiveness. It is still not reliable enough to consistently take down massed Shek patrols.
------
60 stat Greenlanders vs Holy Nation (8 Paladins, 8 High Paladins, 2 Inquisitors)
Holy Nation Paladins possess low-grade weapons and armor, but also have armor penetration and high skill levels. This favors a highly defensive playstyle to outlast them with attrition, or a highly offensive playstyle to overwhelm them with sheer speed and skill.
Samurai Armor, Dustcoat, and Mercenary Plate are the worst performers in this setup.
Assassin's Rags is the undisputed champion in this setup, followed by White Plate Jacket and Crab Armor.
Again, Dustcoat performs poorly in comparison due to the lack of offensive stat bonuses compared to other light armor.
Ninja Rags is notable for having the highest casualty rate out of all sets tested, but also having a much higher win rate than its stats would suggest.
------
60 stat Greenlanders vs United Cities is not shown, as testing shows that every armor set can reliably win (8/8 wins for all) against the average 2x roaming UC squad with minimal casualties. (a.k.a. low grade Katanas + Samurai Armor suck)
Whereas an extreme-difficulty UC fight like Tengu's Elite Samurai retinue cannot be won by any armor set tested even at 80 stats (0/8 wins for all), except for 80 stat Greenlanders wearing Assassin's Rags (3/8 wins in initial testing).
------
70 stat Greenlanders vs Skeleton Legion (29 Legion, 9 Legion Scout)
This was meant to be a test against massed harpoon attacks, but a 70 stat squad will easily make short work out of any pure ranged patrol regardless of armor set (Including multiple Sniperbots). So I decided to use a massive wall of 29 Legions to hold them off for as long as possible for the Legion Scouts to shoot them up.
Assassin's Rags' lack of harpoon resistance makes it by far the worst option in this fight, followed by Dustcoats' lack of offensive buffs and poor harpoon resistance.
Crab Armor's good coverage and amazing harpoon resistance makes it the clear winner in this fight, closely followed by Mercenary Plate.
Surprisingly, White Plate Jacket performs at a level comparable to other heavy armor sets despite its poor harpoon resistance, mostly due to its ability to win against the 29 Legion shieldwall quickly and move on to the ranged attackers. This also applies to a lesser extent to the Ninja Rags due to its good coverage against harpoons combined with offensive buffs.
Unholy Plate and Samurai Armor are the worst performers in the heavy armor category, which can be explained by the poor limb coverage of the Unholy Plate and the huge offensive debuffs of the Samurai Armor respectively.
An argument against this test is that it is highly unrealistic, since no player that is capable of reaching the Ashlands will actually allow a massive ranged squad to shoot at them for a long period of time with impunity. A separate test with 60 stat Greenlanders and priority targeting against Legion Scouts gave similar results to that of the 50 stat vs Southern Hive test, albeit with slightly better Crab Armor and slightly worse Dustcoat and Unholy Plate performance.
------
70 stat Greenlanders vs Skin Bandits (28 Skin Bandits)
Skin Bandits boasts extreme offensive capacity with primarily blunt damage and armor penetration that no armor set in the game can reliably protect against. This greatly favors high combat speed with and overwhelming offensive power to win against them.
To those who were using Crab Armor against Skin Bandits, this is what I meant when I said it was worse than fighting them naked, as shown with a 0/8 win rate even at superior stats. In fact you can even get to endgame-level 80 stats and still constantly lose to Skin Bandits in Masterwork Crab Armor.
All medium and light armor sets fare very well against this setup, although Assassin's Rags suffer quite a bit from its poor coverage and defense penalty.
Unholy Plate and Samurai Armor fare much better than the rest of the heavy armor sets, but are still not reliable enough to consistently take out large patrols/skinhouses.
Ninja Rags stands out as the winner in this setup, thanks to the combination of good coverage and offensive buffs. The lack of acid protection would slightly favor the Dustcoat and White Plate Jacket in actual play however.
------
So what can we learn from this study?
(TL;DR begins here)
A disclaimer is that this is a controlled study with very specific test conditions and enemy matchups, and will not be reflective of the experience of every individual player.
There appears to be no "universal" armor that is good against every opponent, and it is probably more effective to bring spare armor sets for different opponents. Advice like "just slap Crab Armor/Samurai Armor/White Plate Jacket on everyone and call it a day" will win you some fights, but will also get your squad killed in just as many others.
Non-meta armor choices like Mercenary Plate and Ninja Rags are not weaker compared to the more "meta" choices, and they have effective use cases even compared to the more "meta" sets. On the contrary the Dustcoat's lack of offensive buffs combined with its low protection often works against it in group fights, compared to the sheer offensive capacity of Assassin's and Ninja Rags or the higher protection of White Plate Jacket.
Unholy Plate is... weird to say the least. It is very much classified as heavy armor, but it performs more like lighter armor in a lot of cases. Which might make it the closest thing to an "all-rounder" the game has. Also be warned that the Unholy Armor also has the highest arm amputation events in the tests by a HUGE margin.
Be aware that all gear are of Masterwork quality, which requires base building and dedicated teams of high level armor smiths crit-fishing and making crafting materials 24/7 for tens or even 100+ of days. This may not be reflective of the experience of most players of the game. It is far more likely for the player to have Specialist tier gear or lower, which will negatively impact the performance of heavier armor sets.
------
Hope you guys enjoy the read, and I'd be glad to take constructive feedback on the study!
u/stemhesong — 13 days ago
▲ 16 r/Kenshi
I decided to do a sequel to my old story a few years back, for no particular reason. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Kenshi/comments/gdpoif/kenshi\_confessions\_of\_a\_powerleveler\_warning\_tldr/)
Day 3:
I was a prince. I regret everything I've done in the past few days.
Since I was cast out of the hive, all I wanted was some companionship and paying off my debts. Instead I am now stuck here, chained in shackles, spending my days digging stone for a giant statue of some megalomaniac until I die.
She called herself a "Former Hundred Guardian", yet she folded like a soggy parchment after two hits from a Paladin. They almost cut off my leg too. I should have never trusted anything Rane the Giant Windbag said.
She doesn't seem that bothered though, almost like she has a plan for all this madness.
Since last night, I've noticed that she had been picking her shackle and cage locks, sneaking out of her cage, punching the guards in their sleep, and running back to her cage before the guards noticed anything.
In fact, that's all she has been doing the past night repeatedly. Without a wink of sleep.
I think I might start doing that as well. Better than waiting to die in this Queen-forsaken pit.
------
Day 12:
I was a prince. I found my freedom once more.
Turns out most of the guards don't know each other that well. They'll gladly put their former colleagues in chains and work them in the mines if they find them locked in cages in the morning. Rane and I had been thinning the herd this way for the past few nights.
By the night we made our escape, there were barely any guards left at the northern gate of the compound.
Some nice lady named Moll had left some supplies in this shack we found. We helped ourselves and took some extra food and bandages for the coming journey.
Rane said that we needed to look out for more hirelings, and we should travel to that hidden town in the fog infested with the Lost Ones.
I still haven't quite forgiven her for getting us captured by Okranite bastards, but she seemed to be onto something. Let's see how this goes.
------
Day 25:
I was a prince. I discovered myself in a new hell.
We had been camping in this dusty desert called "Skinner's Roam" for the past few days.
It has been ten hours since she left this morning, but Rane finally came back to camp.
Crawled back, more accurately. Both her legs were broken, every inch of her body was covered in bruises, and her nostrils were leaking blood constantly.
"Your turn, stick prince. The noisy stick man Beep is still in a coma, and Wingwang won't last much longer. Get out there before the bandits get bored and leave."
I looked around. Crumblejon was still unconscious, his back even more crooked than when we first saw him. Shryke was still complaining about the ringing in her ears.
All I had was a rusty curved sword and a crummy piece of metal over my chest, taken from some bandits which the guards in the Shek valley city graciously took care of for us, all the while calling us "soft" and "flatskins".
Here's hoping I don't get beaten to death.
------
Day 40:
I was a prince. I went back to where it all started.
For the past week, we have been travelling across the red sands of Vain picking fights with the carnivorous Beak Things and the giant white apes.
Nothing feels more like home than the shopkeepers screaming and kicking us out of their stores the moment they saw my face.
We got some upgrades to our equipment. Me and Shryke now have flimsy blades on sticks which would probably snap into two when a stiff wind blows. Rane got Crumblejon and herself some rusty Planks which are probably older than the retired Samurai himself.
We even got some crude copies of the UC Samurai armors made by the Shek. They are absurdly heavy and made it hard to swing our weapons, but Rane insisted that we wear them at all times.
She also got us all these ridiculous oversized backpacks that made it difficult to fight in.
Today Rane told us she will be starting a new training regimen. She confiscated all our weapons and said that we are supposed to take down the next Garru we see with only our bare hands.
Great. Exactly what I needed. At least I can get some new injuries that match the splitting headaches I still have from that bandit "training" she made us all do two weeks ago.
------
Day 60:
I was a prince. She can't be serious about this.
CRABS? That's all we came here to fight?
Not even proper giant crabs that will actually give us a challenge, now that we can properly punch limbs off bandits. BABY crabs. Hundreds upon hundreds of them on this beach alone.
We came all the way across the desert to the other end of the continent, lugging so much iron ore that it tore up my back (and Crumblejon's), only to beat up baby crabs.
All because Rane the Giant Windbag says so.
That's it. I'll play along for this one last time. But if she asks us to do something else stupid like fight a hundred of those Skeleton-masked freaks at once in their main camp, I'm leaving.
------
Day 80:
I was a prince. I had no idea why I'm still here.
I made good on my promise. I left immediately after that newest "training" session concluded. Good on Beep getting his new sword, although the noise from the rings does get annoying after a while.
After a week or so, the loneliness came back, and it became unbearable. The only good thing was that nothing on the road can remotely threaten me anymore. Not even those oversized Beak Things you find around the desert with the giant skeletons.
So I went back. And apparently she had set up a new base of operations in my absence. She seemed rather pleased to see me again.
She also gifted me a new weapon, a Polearm unlike anything I have seen before. It easily surpassed everything we had seen for sale in that Skeleton city with the acid rain. I wondered how she came across such a priceless artifact.
That's when I saw her, slumped over Beep's shoulder. A bloody, unconscious figure that looked almost identical to our Queen back in the old Hive, except in a pinkish color. Beep appeared to be covered in the blood and viscera of our kind, looking very proud of himself.
All I could do is watch in horror as I pondered the consequences of kidnapping a Queen.
There will be payback, and it will be BAD.
Why did I even decide to come back in the first place?
------
Day 85:
I was a prince. Today I bested a King.
More accurately, me and Rane. In tandem.
As I predicted, a massive horde of Southern Hive soldiers showed up at the gate of our new base, along with a gargantuan walking machine they referred to as "King".
For a moment, I thought this would be the end of all of us.
For some reason, our friends from the fog lands managed to hold back the entire invasion force all by themselves, chopping off multiple limbs with every swing of their blades.
Me and Rane engaged the massive machine immediately. It was a long, grueling fight, still going long after the last of the remaining Southern hivers and Gorillos were lying on the ground bleeding out.
Both me and Rane took enough blows to possibly kill us a dozen times over. If not for our skins thickened from the repeated beatdowns we suffered from the bandits, and our brand new UC Samurai armor set courtesy of Shryke, we might not have actually survived.
And yet we did, despite all odds. I finally managed to strike a final blow to its head, the legendary weapon cutting through the metal like paper. The "King" collapsed into an unmoving heap immediately after.
Hail to the new King, I suppose?
------
Day 100:
I was a prince. Today I brought down a nation.
We made it to Blister Hill this morning, just the 6 of us. And 6 of us were all it took.
I've heard a lot of stories about the Holy Lord Phoenix, none of them pleasant. They said that he was a mighty warrior on the level of the Stone Golem herself, with an even more formidable protector that never leaves his side.
That might all be true, but I would never find out. All thanks to the fact that he refused to wear a helmet.
Rane and I charged into the front door of his palace while the rest of our group distracted the Paladins, both of us wearing those weird grey coats without sleeves. Without skipping a beat, I swung my knee at the Holy Lord Phoenix himself before he or his bodyguard could react.
The blow connected with his skull, knocking him unconscious in one blow.
His bodyguard tried to stop me from leaving with the Phoenix, but Rane crippled his legs with a few well placed kicks.
I must say, it was pretty funny to see the Holy Nation's disregard towards limb protection coming back to bite them in the end.
We rushed out of Blister Hill with the unconscious Phoenix as the rest of our squad covered our retreat, leaving scores of dead Paladins and Inquisitors in our wake.
And here we are back in our base, with the Phoenix securely under lock and key. Rane wanted to hand him over to the Stone Golem, but Shryke suggested giving him to Moll instead. Beep was insistent on putting him in that creepy machine we got from the skin-harvesting freaks and replacing all his limbs with budget hive prototypes before turning him in, much to the Phoenix's (and ours) horror.
Regardless of what we decide to do, I know that it is only a matter of time before the UC makes their move and spreads their horrific influence to this side of the continent. Ever since Rane and I got out of Rebirth, we swore to bring death to all slavers. And Emperor Tengu was the biggest slaver of them all.
Our war with the UC will begin in earnest. Tomorrow the UC Tax Man will pay us a visit, expecting us to pay him the 3,000 cats like we always did.
None in his group will make it back alive.
I was a prince. But tomorrow I will shatter an Empire.
u/stemhesong — 16 days ago