Lo-Fi Games

A recently returned player.

In my first revisit to Kenshi, I wanted to make my base in a place that did not exist/populated in the past when i played; hence, I made it in Shem. I purposely picked it since it stated there were no nests and nobody "owned" it.

Started base with 5 people in Shem & get raided frequently. By the time i finish one raid, I'll check squad and it shows i have another inbound in 1 Day 4Hr or 1Day 16Hr etc... this repeats over and over.

Some of the raids even overlap when one is virtually getting defeated, the other shows up.

If it wasn't for the fact that I have forced the enemy to swim through the water, I'd not have survived initially.

Frequency: Once every 2 days (sometimes a tad longer but mostly every 2-3 days at minimum)
Raiders: Dust Bandit Raids, Starving Bandits, Black Dragon Ninjas, but mainly Dust & Starving.

The Beak Things are easier for me to deal with, but it's the raids that without the water I force them to swim though, I would simply not be able to make it (I still have 5 people alive), but all 5 must fight when the raids come & use Xbows on walls. I think even if I had 10-15 people I would not be able to survive (without the aid of the water/Xbows combination) because all the starting stats are to low even with me slowly raising them...and the enemy would break gate (without the water slowing them down enough) before I kill them, thereby allowing them to win due to my lower stats and being outnumbered if they can ever break gate.

I have not significantly angered anyone (yet) but not sure why the raids are so frequent.

BTW, I've never given them food or payed $$, so I am not sure if they is why they keep on coming?
Am I doing something wrong?

Chalk me up as a dissenter to the frequency of raids. It's way too much and really turns the game into basic tower-defense. For this reason I'm currently avoiding this part of the game entirely since I've been able to start playing again. I have to admit to finding the game less playable as a result, but I keep hoping this will get balanced out.

I'd also like it if there's a need for NPC's to "discover" your outpost before raids start happening. I used to enjoy making small hideaways, and now that's not a thing at all, even though there's logically a vast and uninhabited map where one should be able to hide. The raiders seem to get a psychic notification as soon as an outpost is built, however -- it really doesn't play well.

You're not doing anything wrong, the game simply seems to spawn raids from nearby enemy location, this will continue indefinitely or until the game breaks itself and forgets to do it for a while for whatever reason, but it always picks back up.

Some raids might be stopped from spawning if you take out the locations that spawn them. The catch is of course that if you can't even survive the raids in the first place you're unlikely to be able to take on such locations in the first place.

I suppose you could try to hire some mercs to find the spawning camps and take them out, I've never tried that myself so I don't know if that works.

If you're more into breaking the game for convenience sake you can also try to build some extra gates and houses on the edge of your outpost to trick the ai into buggering that part of your outpost instead of the real part.

Of course if what you are fighting most are just dust bandits and starving bandits then you don't really need to fear them, all those guys do is take your food, so just let them beat your ass until you are strong enough to beat their asses. It may be useful to have some extra sleepingbags on hand in case those assholes decide to outstay their welcome in your base, that way you can heal up in any convenient location nearby to get your health back up for more beatings.

Ok, those things make sense.
Yes, it is vast majority Dust/Starving.
Although I am disappointed with the frequency, I appreciate the explanations.

I just want to say raids very in frequency A LOT by location and just .. I don't know luck it seems.

The only really annoying raid is those black dragon ninjas.. because the AI just goes straight for your food no matter what,
so I recommend killing/capturing/bounty hunting the leader before "digging in" to a base.

I've not built an outpost yet which wasn't all but immediately targeted with a raid. The only outpost I've ever finished building before the raid came was an outpost with just two machines for ore and iron plate -- I didn't actually finish the small set of walls around that and an ore deposit before the first raid. Then it was constant impending raids, often with Holy Nation sending prayer services over at the same time Dust Bandits were coming.

I really think having a mechanism for NPC populations to "discover" your outpost first would improve this. Then you either are able to hide from those patrols or you're not and you're discovered.

You know there is a slider in the gameplay options section that allows you to adjust the frequency and size of base raids right?
That will not change the number of wandering bands that show up, but there is an option for that as well.

Also check and make sure you didn't build in a funnel area. There are places on the map where terrain and roads cause wandering parties to funnel into certain passable areas. So traffic there is higher then in some other areas.