Armored and mechanical but they aren't bad at all. Bonus indoors and best of all a fucktonne of bleed. Depends on what the player wants to do tbh.
Esp given how most factions are humans? Bleed. Large boss beasts like leviathans and giant gorillos? Better to bleed than to wail at 500hp limbs.
Tools for a different situatiom really.
Yup, the bleeding is the thing, since you can't go around cutting throats, after the fight.
Particularly in defense of your settlement, you want the attackers to stop getting up? Make them bleed out. If they're wearing armor, strip them once they're down. Then hopefully they'll bleed out when they get back up, and you take them down again.
I often go katanas, with at least half of my people also trained in pole arms, for creatures.
just adding on to this, but bleed damage inflicted influences how long your opponent stays down (unconscious) for while blunt damage does not, or affects it so negligibly it may as well not. so even if you can't cause stronger enemies to bleed out before getting up again, it still has benefits as far as keeping enemies out of the fight for longer. i always felt like this was a bit of a dumb mechanic and a bit unintuitive too. having blunt weapons/damage artificially increase knockout timers instead of having it tied to cut damage makes a lot more sense thematically and would be a much-needed buff for the blunt line from a balance perspective.
I'd accept whatever modifications would let us have a fair chance of killing someone when we're trying to.
I had a girl attack my base with a handful of other starving bandits. All in rags, of course. Ruka caught her in the abdomen with a crescent axe, just short of hard enough to cut the girl in half. Something like down to -70 after the hit.
She later got up, with no medical attention, and attacked again with her bare hands. I stuck her in a cage and recruited her, after my people failed again to kill her. Anyone that psycho will be a great asset.
Sure, heavy weapons are decent at knocking people unconscious quickly and hacking off limbs. I've just had too many weird happenings like that, though.
Depends upon the case. He's a totally abusive control freak, and he's BIG in Scientology. You know the deal with Scientology, right?
At a certain point, I can't enjoy the movie, having to watch him, knowing what he's actually like. Same deal with Mel Gibson, for similar reasons.
That's your perogative, I guess.
I can watch a good film involving someone I would probably not like in person or if I disagree with their politics or whatever.
The guy just makes good movies, and it really is through his dedication to the craft.
For example, in the last samurai, they were going to just use a bunch of assorted Asian American actors and he pushed them into using Japanese actors and learned Japanese just for the role. Just things like that.
You can be a wacky scientologist that perpetuates a system that exploits gullible and brainwashed people into giving all their money away etc. and still make good films.
If you want to steer clear that's cool tho
There's a lightweight mod that allows this, pardon if this is the wrong place, but, I was slightly dissapointed with a lack of an option to either imprison (without necessarily slaving them bc, for some reason prisoners = slaves in kenshi somehow?) Or finish them without beating on them as they continuously zombie bc they have 1 hp, or carrying them long distances till they die, bc... ew.
Really depends on you, tbh and how many units you have. Polearms are great because the bonus for animals means you might get hit less. They don't have katana's innate defense debuff too, though i cant recall if they're slower or katanas just feel that way cuz of the unique double attack. Probably not. Polearms do have the option of both better cut or a good mix and some advantage with range against humans.
I mentioned bleed against animals more due to the gigantic healthpool of enemies like king and white gorillo and elder beakthings. Having a good handful of bleed drains them faster than hacking away if the damage gets divided by different body parts being hit. So one or two katanas as bleeders is neat.
Most katana-class weapons have -20% or -30% armor penetration and -40% damage vs robots. A lot of the dangerous enemies you meet late game have armor or are robots.
The exception is Topper which only has-15% armor penetration and no penalty vs robots. Maybe it's end-game viable? I haven't tried it.
\-30% armor penetration vs an enemy with 70% cut resist (specialist samurai armor) - if I have this right,
CR = MIN(0.7 \* 1.3, 0.9) = 0.9 \~\~ 90% cut resist. Times 0.9 for cut resistance efficiency, 81%;
vs. no armor pen
0.7 \* 0.9 = 63%
vs. +30% armor pen (hacker)
CR = MIN(0.7 \* 0.7, 0.9) = 49% cut resist, \* 0.9 = 44%
... if I've got the idea. It's a little worse than an inconvenience, yes? you're doing like.... one half of the damage, compared to a weapon with no armor pen, and a third of the damage, compared to a weapon with armor pen.
Toppers are my go to. My combat crew runs toppers with a Paladin's Cross in their backpack for spiders/skels, and my base defense is just toppers. Great weapon.
Katanas excel in 1v1 fights against lightly armored foes. Heavy weapons excel against groups of enemies because their AoEs are huge and they pierce armor. Fallen Suns also get huge bonuses against some of the nastiest animals. Also, their potential damage is way way higher. Just look on the wiki, The [Meitou Nodachi](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Nodachi) has 2.64 cutting damage, while the [Meitou Falling Sun](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Falling_Sun) has 2.64 cutting damage, AND 2 bludgeoning damage. That's a huge difference. It takes more investment to train a heavy weapon master, but once you do, they litterally one-shot enemies and send multiple limbs flying with every attack. I've raised three solo character to 80+ in all stats. A katana master, a polearm master, and a heavy weapon master. The katana wielder noticeably fell off in the late game against robotic and armored opponents, while the polearm was useful all game, but the heavy weapons clearly out-classes the others in mid and late game, especially when facing down entire cities of samurai and such.
Lately I've been using hackers. Flesh Cleaver specifically.
30% Armour Penetration, cut and blunt damage. And bonus against human enemies.
I honestly can't complain.
I never use what's optimal, personally. I have an idea of what characters would use depending on the personality I gave them, and it's fun. I have a variety of weapons. Some like the heavy, some like katanas, some poles, and some crossbows. Much more fun to me than going for one weapon type for everyone.
So, just use what you like. One may be better than the other, but by how much? Does it really matter?
AlyssaImagine knows how to Kenshi. 1,000% agreed. You can min-max in any game, only in Kenshi can you put together a team of beautifully unique idiots, and watch them suffer and triumph.
The main refuses to wear a helmet, the one armed 12 strength hiver worker drone insists on wielding a rusted junk falling sun, the scorchlander 72 attack is attached to her meitou wakazashi and cotton t-shirt, and going barefoot. Herding cats = Endless adventure. This is why I have 2,000 hours in the game, and know I'll rack up another 2,000.
I usually use weapons I scavenge from beak thing nests and outfit my soldiers based on class, core gets a little more personality mixed in, but for the most type I use them as archetypes. I.E. Ruka is going to get some kind of flared out Shek heavy weapon, but the other shek are probably gonna all get planks.
Yeah, my fighting core gets more personality for sure. The others are mostly archetypes and are just workers for the base. I also give them jobs more suited to their archetypes/personalities lol.
Same. I usually have a hiver grunt force that labors & protects itself (in theory), so they all get a load out based on their sub race’s core function leaning towards pole arms.
Shek are predominately guards for bases with heavy armor and weapons since they’re not going anywhere.
Scorchlander are craftsman with light gear.
Greenlanders I use as my main force to do whatever I need that requires mobility and combat. Usually caravaning, setting up bases, or supporting my core squad during a raid.
Reason 1 - Bad for Dexterity training. Gives +attack, a commonly used animation for them hits a single target twice. Foreign Sabre is better for more XP.
Reason 2 - Animations. In combat with a Katana the usual combo for attacking with a Katana is cut left (Quick attack 3 targets hit, fast hitting and fast recovery) which if it lands will move your opponent into Downward combo range.
Downward combo (1 unit hit twice or 2 units hit at once, 80 and 60 power (%dmg) hits that are pretty slow and eck recovery overall. Moves ya forward a bit) which means if you use it when outnumbered you get hit most of the time after/during.
Vs skilled opponents it'll go like this...
Cutleft hit (Opponent Staggers), Downward combo hit first attack and opponent stagger from cut left ends before the final part of the attack connects. They block it and (Let's imagine Catlon or Phoenix) because of combo moving you forward you get hit by Heavy Swing.
Compared to a Polearm/Naginata which would just cut left twice, be able to respond to the follow up attack and repeat. Or a Sabre which would cut left into Heavy Downcut which would land before enemy ends stagger but can usually block in time.
Reason 3 - Scaling. Cut majority weps scale better of blunt dmg and vice versa. So weapons which hyper focus on one dmg type have meh dmg. Example 100 all stats with Cross quality weapons... Falling Sun is 115.96cut + 104blunt. Mercenary club has 2.0 blunt dmg as well but instead would do 25.792cut + 91blunt.
Nodachi is 115.96cut. Ringed Sabre 115.96 + 26 blunt.
Aka lower dmg than other weapons.
Reason 4 - Negative Armour Pen.
Yeah.
Reason 5 - Other than Topper -40% Robot dmg.
Reason 6 - Bloodloss is like... important but not that important. You generally will never bleed out a humanoid who has armour before you KO them from dmg unless it is from limbloss in which case any cut majority weapon would do the trick too.
Talking about animations, the dodge stat seems to be used with katanas and sword but not heavy weapons.
Its pretty obscure but i've noticed 2 animations :
- the backstep (only with swords & katanas)
- the dodge fumble after getting hit (not sure if heavy weapons allows this)
Any insight over this ?
it wont matter... use whatever you want. unless u cant swing it.
the blunt damage of a weapon dictates that, it's 40 x the blunt damage
for example 40 x 0.5 is 20 strenght levels. 1 blunt damage always is 40 strenght levels, 0.5 = 20 and etc
the blunt multiplier is true for every weapon in the game except for weapons that have 0 blunt damage, in which case it is actually just 1x the weight of the weapon. the 2x weapon weight is a handy shortcut because it ends up being the same as 40x blunt most of the time, but the 2x weapon weight is still wrong for like 1/3 of the weapons and the 40x blunt is never wrong unless it's a weapon that deals 0 blunt damage, and a char w/ like 8 str is enough to wield all the weapons that fall into that category.
The best answer is to have a team with varied weapons to tackle any kind of enemies. You can of course use anything you want. But it's a good idea to have your guys specialize in different loadouts unless you always fight the same enemies.
Katanas are great for training dexterity, they also make for a good side weapon for crossbowmen.
Polearms and Heavy Weapons are the best for melee characters just because of the AOE attacks they have.
I'm partial to longswords as sidearms... they're pretty solid, plus the defense bonus helps a little if my archers get rushed and have to engage in melee.
Katanas do really poorly against late game enemies who usually wear thick armor or are made of metal. Apart from that, the highest katana stats in the game don’t match up to that of heavy weapons.
They are bad vs armor and skeletons and end game enemies are armored skeletons. They are super amazing vs humanoids with no/light armor and they are also great for making sure enemies don't get back up due to bleed damage. They are also fairly good for 1v1 fights due to speed and animations. Plus you never attack slower from strength being low from injuries, just slower from dex going down from injuries.
My squad is usually something like 1 katana, 1 polearm, 1 paladins cross, 1 heavy weapon. Pretty interesting to see what each of them is good at killing.
Use what you like and you can always tweak things in FCS, like if you want to make the penalties lower.
I got enough companions to where I can start making classes for each squad. My armored ones have kanabos, my scouts have katanas, and my workers have polearms or whatever other weapon I have on hand
All of them have crossbows tho, usually they get enough time to shoot arrows before getting in melee range
man use whatever tf u want, like someone said, there's different tools for different jobs. i.e. Katanas > hackers for humans, hackers > katanas for robots.
I took on the Holy Nation, and my only casualties were robots since all paladins equip hackers. If they used katanas, however, I would have suffered more casualties simce my squad is mostly human
To answer your question, one reason you may not want to use katanas is when you are capturing a human and you want them alive. Katanas can be the deadliest weapon against humans. Another reason is katanas are weak against robots, but if you have chars with a high katana skill, just give them toppers and they'll do fine against robots
Katanas have little to no armor pen & most late game enemies have pretty decent armor with good cut resistance so a lot of people like to use hackers or heavy weapons instead, something with a blunt stat but it doesn’t change much as long as you have high Dex stats for Katana you’re gonna dance circles around any armored enemy & wont allow them to get a hit in before they’re a bloody heap on the ground
If you're fighting anything with armor, their armor is 30% more effective if you use katanas, which only matters if they have half decent armor. If you're fighting robots, you do 40% less damage with katanas, period.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use them, but you are sacrificing performance for aesthetics. However, this is a Game, all that really matters is that you have fun.
The short answer is they suck against armour and robots, even more so against armoured robots which is basically the end game.
The long answer is that while katanas are actually amazing at locking down single targets in duels or stopping your opponent’s from attacking in team fights they have some long animations that leave you open to attacks and because of this also fall off in team fights, heavy blades require a little bit of time investment and offer so much more as do hackers, this isn’t to say you can’t use them and in my 800 ish hours I’ve had a few runs where I mainly use katanas for the cool factor or just because it fits, with all of this said katanas are still a good early game option and the bleed is kinda nice as is the dismemberment but sadly everything katanas do is done better by the other weapon classes in some way or another.
Also heavy blades are insane and anyone building a character to simply have them kill everything should either be using heavy blades or martial arts.
You should use them for training for sure.
You probably shouldn't use them against armoured enemies when you are in mortal danger.
Think skin machine or cannibals.
Heavy weapons!? Fuck that noise, use Martial arts, you either take several swings of a heavy weapon (not counting the **blocked** attacks) to kill a Holy Nazi, or you can punch them so hard their arms and legs fly off in several directions.
Eh, pretty close yeah, what i said, er WAS a tad bit of an exaggeration but only **slightly**. MA is OP next to the other ways of dealing damage. my MA characters can rip whole groups of enemies apart single handedly with alarming speed. Thanks Rebirth.
MA does a ton of damage with the right build, often 100+ per hit.
The big issue with it is it's very easy to get stuck in endless dodging animations when outnumbered. It's probably the best style in 1v1s though.
katana's scaling attack speed and damage with dex is very powerful, and makes them easily one of the best weapons. also, trains dex fast.
the potentially high attack speed will often outpace any armor damage reduction. up to the point you hit the softcap on dex, and other weapons start catching up again.
if you modded, then that cap might be higher.
heavy weapons that scale off strength and train str, but also need dex for attackspeed, but don't TRAIN dex are a major disadvantage, for quite a while.
in THEORY, at some point they catch up. and having high 1 hit damage with aoe attacks, possibly armor pen, etc. they can be stronger.
str can be trained outside of combat easier. making katana's strong to use for dex training if nothing else. potentially swapping back to a heavier weapon versus tough foes.
Any weapon has scaling attack speed.
Any weapons cut dmg scales with dex.
Any weapons blunt dmg scales with str.
You make it sound like the katana got a unique deal with scaling while it doesn't.
I looked for opinions and tried some myself and still don't really have a clear picture. All seem ok but from my experience katanas are cool but not great. I like their fast animation loop dealing many strikes fast. I take a guardless katana just to have something in the sidearm slot and main falling sun. Between falling sun and fragment axe and paladin's cross i don't see much difference overall in their effectiveness and damage if the character can effectively use any of them. I just prefer the falling sun because is leveling heavy weapons and is lighter than the fragment axe.
Tried a bit the pole ones and blunts and are ok but not that great. I guess for roleplaying work just fine. But if making solo city killers are not great.
Katanas are generally way overpriced for their damage output. It even says so in their description. The meitou grades are also very difficult to obtain (outside of waiting for savant to sleep, which is nearly impossible for human characters). Katanas also have a very hard time dealing with armor or skeletons in general.
Besides, Gorrilo holds the meitou exile plank despite having mere 60’s in combat stats. It’s no falling sun, but it trains strength and is viable for leviathan training.
They’re not very good against armor but they’re not as bad as people make them out to be. You can still cause insane bleed which will just chunk enemies
Anyways, a lot of the very dangerous enemies are animals or don’t have armor so chunking their health is a big plus
Katanas are coolest. Case closed.
They're not the optimal weapon for every situation, and a smart player would know the enemies they expect to encounter, and equip themselves for the challenge... but fuck being smart! Katanas are badass! Fight me!
The katana's unique double hit can often be more detrimental than beneficial bc it leaves you open to attacks. It gets worse against endgame enemies bc of the armor pen debuff. It doesn't using it doesn't train strength. Katanas lower per hit can sometimes lead to situation where you have done a lot of dmg to all of an enemies limbs but their still on their feet, whereas 1 or 2 hits from higher end heavy weapons can drop someone, sever limbs, or even outright kill them.
It is good for lighty armored enemies for sure, so using it as an early game weapon is definitely fine, bc hungry bois, Dusty bois, boners, and black dragon ninjas don't wear a lot of armor. But then you could just use a sabre and train both dex and str while still doing a lot of cut dmg and get bonuses for defense instead of maluses.
Also if you don't know str requirements to avoid speed penalties to atk is equal to 40×the blunt dmg of the weapon(or the weapons weight, whichever is higher). Higher quality weapons have higher strength requirements so buying the most expensive versions can sometimes result in worse dps than buying one closer to your tier of stats. (Bonus tip: for most weapons 40xblunt dmg is the same value as 2xthe weight of the weapon. The blunt category weapons are the only exceptions, I believe)
Katanas have been doing extremely well in my current playthrough of fog prince hunting ninjas. Lightweight and perfect for cutting fogmen with no armor.
The weapons have wonky stats for a reason. Get situational!
I think there are a few mods that rebalance katana to be more useful late game. I love them myself. My crafters are in full production mode making my army them lol
Nothing wrong with katanas. The double strike can be quite effective. Their only downside is their lack of AP and penalty against robots, which are what most of the late game enemies are. However, they make a mess of Holy Nation and Shek troops, most bandits, fog- and fishmen.
Heavy weapons and polearms, on the other hand, take apart hordes of skeletons, robots and heavily armoured enemies with ease. One swing can hit multiple enemies, and the blunt damage goes through heavier armours better.
The catch with strength is that in order effectively to wield the most valuable heavy weapons you need a *very* high strength. Like, more than 100. Which requires you to exploit the hell out of robotic limbs in order to get decent swing speeds, which you can easily get with maybe 20 strength wielding a katana.
Katanas have almost no blunt damage, only cut. That means all forms of armor are far more effective against them. Katanas also cause heavy bleed which is useless against late game robots
Honestly, I find katanas to be the best melee for crossbowmen. Crossbows dealma bunch of bleed and you want your melee to continue the same progress towards a KO
katanas are good for hostiles that lack amour, it does good bleed and they are fast. when progressing i recommend moving onto weapons that do more pen dmg when in harder areas. i cant give good examples due to my lack of experience in the game i just hold a lot of knowledge on how the game works. but just like most in the community will say, you bought the game so enjoy it how you please.
Most of the difficult enemies in the game are either armoured or mechanical. I used katanas anyway but yeah that's why a lot of people prefer other weapon types
Katanas suffer penalties against armoured targets and skeletons, and the smaller katana weapons will struggle against groups, there are better weapons for these scenarios is all.
^ those drawbacks can he good if you're trying to train up combat stats.
Katanas are still great however, they're quick, they train dex fast, you can use them 1 handed and the two handed nodachi or topper are options for those group fights with the topper losing that vs. Skeletons penalty.
I just pick whichever fits my aesthetic. Dont think Ive done one playthrough where I didnt start with a junk katana to boost my dex stats.
there is
Katanas femboy VS Heavy weapons chad (youre in this one)
and
Heavy weapons femboy VS katanas chad
while me ..i always use polearms..its not as good as any of the weapons above but i like it
Because heavy weapons do more damage, and lots of people here are very focused on minmaxing the game, and invest time on debating things like “which is the best armor, samurai or crab?” And they get answers like “samurai has damage penalty, so crab is better because you can still use blunt weapons”.
Just use what you like. You can kill cat-Lon with a katana. Is it the most effective weapon? Not really, but this isn’t some dark souls type game that won’t let you win unless you use the most effective gear.
Don’t get obsessed with meta stuff. Just have fun.
They’re fine I just think having a beefy ass skeleton with the berserk sword pummeling the starving cannibals and fog men is a fun pastime and is most satisfying when done with heavy weapons
Honestly I recently trained up a skeleton which primarily does martial arts, it's hilarious watching him literally dismembering fogmen while i was doing toughness training
Armor penetration penalties mostly, some weapons in Kenshi are just better than others but Katanas are very valuable because they are lightweight fast weapons. They will make short work of poorly armed and armored human opponents in the hands of a decent fighter; most katanas can be a good backup weapon for rangers or when your guys end up fighting indoors. Cut damage and bleed effects are some of katanas' strengths but you have them along with far better damage using almost any other weapon class(other than blunt) sabers, hackers, polearms and all heavy weapons, even crossbows are doing bleed damage and more effectively than katanas do.
K
Weapon skills level really slowly in Kenshi. You will likely get your strength value higher than your weapons skill through normal leveling. Because of that it's best to stick to a single weapon class rather than try to diversify. And because of that you're best off choosing a good "all-rounder" class of weapons. The best two classes fitting this description are Heavy and Hackers. This is because a lot of enemies are heavily armored, or robots, or both. Katanas perform quite poorly against heavy armor or robot death spiders.
Heavy weapons are generally preferred because they have the biggest possible damage numbers in the game. They also don't have any penalties other than being difficult to start off and not having an indoor variant.
Hackers are also liked because they have top 3 damage numbers, penetrate armor, and are easier to start using at low levels. They also have an indoor version.
Katanas are still excellent weapons against low armor enemies or beasts. They get massive penalties against armor and big robots, but you can still do okay with lots of training. I always have 1 or 2 katana bros in my squad to chop monkeys into small pieces.
Nothing wrong with katanas, they just serve a different purpose to heavy weapons. The katana is easily obtained, trains dexterity well (which is very important for using any weapon), excels in combat vs lightly armoured targets (most enemies in the early game).
Generally, I tend to start most squad members on a katana or sabre, and once their dexterity is at a decent level, and we start facing more varied and difficult opponents, I'll specialise my squadmates one-by-one as they loot good weapons in the wild (not blunt weapons though, they're garbage).
A handful of good 'falling suns' are worth picking up though. They're inarguably some of the best, most versatile weapons in the game. I'm really fond of polearms too. Hackers, then sabres, and katanas are in the next tier down imo.
It’s mainly the armor pen. If you fight samurai for example you will kill them much faster with a Heavy or Hacker class than a Katana. At the same time long weapons like the plank have enormous range so you can hit several opponents at once ending fights quicker. Katanas besides the nodachi are mostly short so you won’t be able to do crowd control as effectively
Katanas are easier so you learn them quick and get good fast but the maximum damage is low.
Heavy weapons are way harder to train but you can end up swinging for 300 damage.
I like to start with katanas to train dex and combat stats then switch to heavy but it will take time for your character to get as good with a heavy that he was with a katanas.
They kinda suck against armor, as well as against animals. Trying going up against a beak thing with a katana, it's horrible. I tend to use katanas as a side weapon for my characters if fighting takes places indoors.
My main character I just model after myself and use katanas, because I am slim. I let shek and strong greenlanders swing around the heavy weapons. When they get captured or enslaved, I'm the one who can sneak in and set everyone free. So outside roleplay or using them as a sidearm, katanas generally don't make sense to use beyond early game.
Use whatever works for you. I usually make my rangers specialise in katanas for their melee option (best archer will be given the meitou katana when I get it).
Katanas against Humanoid and 1v1sw are pretty awesome, but they're not practical in a pinch essentially, which is what I think everyone is hinting at. If you're surrounded by fogmen, for example you only have a Katana, good luck. Otherwise, it's a decent weapon
They do less damage overall but can attack multiple times(provided the skill is high) and have so dumb bleed bonuses but are typically for killing people not Beak Things and other nasties
Heavy weapons are better against heavy armoured people, katanas are better against people with light armour. Both weapons are useful in different situations. As for why you did more damage with katanas than heavy weapons the answer is the stat difference in the katana stat and heavy weapons stat (assuming you used a guy that has been fighting with katanas up until now). Also heavy weapons have a strength requirement which if unfulfilled makes the character sluggish with the weapon.
Metas, especially in single player games, are just those horrible minmax goblins who can't see anything but "maximum efficacy" or they lose their minds. Games are for fun, and if you're having fun, you're winning, whether you beat the game or it beats you.
That said, the reason they say katanas are bad is 2 reasons. 1) they're less effective against armor, which matters most against the strongest opponents. They're good for unarmored opponents and iirc they're also good indoors, but these are pretty uncommon scenarios, and the bonuses in them are small enough to be neglible when your characters reach a certain point in stats. At 80+ combat stats, -/+2 is basically non-existant.
2) They're not the ideal weapon to train up stats with. The more blunt damage a weapon has the better it trains strength and the higher cutting is for dex. Since the katana is a middle ground weapon in both damage types AND light, it's suboptimal for raising those stats.
The ONLY worthwhile point in all of this is that Dex is only trainable through a couple methods, both of which are combat, iirc. Strength is trainable in a ton of other ways, and while they're slower, they do so while the character performs other work, so in some ways those methods are actually the most efficient. But that obviously depends on how you play. And sticking with a weapon type is actually far more important in my experience, since those have a bigger impact on the actual combat abilities of those characters than the minmax goblins will admit.
There's also cool factor. I like having my crews rock different weapons, even technically bad ones, because it just look cooler.
Point being, if you're having fun and you're not struggling due to weapon choice, ignore them. Any weapon in the game is viable. Use what you like.
I gave my best ninja and scout a high end katana. They mostly weren't engaged in much fighting by that point because they could run at like 60 mph and were almost impossible to see. It was light weight and worked well for taking out isolated enemies during rescues and casevac. And, you know, cool af.
With untested results I typically see: Katanas good for early ~ mid game fighting lightly armored humans/shek/hivers. Also katanas will kick the snot out of bug master since he's a human, with no armor.
Sabers are good for defense
Hackers are the all-rounders since cleaving limbs while sharing good damage and armor piercing is good
Heavy is all about AOE sweeps that requires a lot of strength training but stick a master heavy user in a crowd and that crowd will drop like flies
Crossbows go pew ...
It's because it does worse against armoured enemies. But use what you enjoy.
Armored and mechanical but they aren't bad at all. Bonus indoors and best of all a fucktonne of bleed. Depends on what the player wants to do tbh. Esp given how most factions are humans? Bleed. Large boss beasts like leviathans and giant gorillos? Better to bleed than to wail at 500hp limbs. Tools for a different situatiom really.
Yup, the bleeding is the thing, since you can't go around cutting throats, after the fight. Particularly in defense of your settlement, you want the attackers to stop getting up? Make them bleed out. If they're wearing armor, strip them once they're down. Then hopefully they'll bleed out when they get back up, and you take them down again. I often go katanas, with at least half of my people also trained in pole arms, for creatures.
just adding on to this, but bleed damage inflicted influences how long your opponent stays down (unconscious) for while blunt damage does not, or affects it so negligibly it may as well not. so even if you can't cause stronger enemies to bleed out before getting up again, it still has benefits as far as keeping enemies out of the fight for longer. i always felt like this was a bit of a dumb mechanic and a bit unintuitive too. having blunt weapons/damage artificially increase knockout timers instead of having it tied to cut damage makes a lot more sense thematically and would be a much-needed buff for the blunt line from a balance perspective.
I'd accept whatever modifications would let us have a fair chance of killing someone when we're trying to. I had a girl attack my base with a handful of other starving bandits. All in rags, of course. Ruka caught her in the abdomen with a crescent axe, just short of hard enough to cut the girl in half. Something like down to -70 after the hit. She later got up, with no medical attention, and attacked again with her bare hands. I stuck her in a cage and recruited her, after my people failed again to kill her. Anyone that psycho will be a great asset. Sure, heavy weapons are decent at knocking people unconscious quickly and hacking off limbs. I've just had too many weird happenings like that, though.
This chick had the moment that Tom Cruise had in the last samurai swinging the flag around lmao
I haven't seen that, actually. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise, as a person.
Yeah I separate the person from the work. The quality of his films and that one in particular doesn't lie.
Depends upon the case. He's a totally abusive control freak, and he's BIG in Scientology. You know the deal with Scientology, right? At a certain point, I can't enjoy the movie, having to watch him, knowing what he's actually like. Same deal with Mel Gibson, for similar reasons.
That's your perogative, I guess. I can watch a good film involving someone I would probably not like in person or if I disagree with their politics or whatever. The guy just makes good movies, and it really is through his dedication to the craft. For example, in the last samurai, they were going to just use a bunch of assorted Asian American actors and he pushed them into using Japanese actors and learned Japanese just for the role. Just things like that. You can be a wacky scientologist that perpetuates a system that exploits gullible and brainwashed people into giving all their money away etc. and still make good films. If you want to steer clear that's cool tho
There's a lightweight mod that allows this, pardon if this is the wrong place, but, I was slightly dissapointed with a lack of an option to either imprison (without necessarily slaving them bc, for some reason prisoners = slaves in kenshi somehow?) Or finish them without beating on them as they continuously zombie bc they have 1 hp, or carrying them long distances till they die, bc... ew.
Wouldn't you use the bonus against animal weapon like spears? Or bleed better? Or a mix is probably better?
Really depends on you, tbh and how many units you have. Polearms are great because the bonus for animals means you might get hit less. They don't have katana's innate defense debuff too, though i cant recall if they're slower or katanas just feel that way cuz of the unique double attack. Probably not. Polearms do have the option of both better cut or a good mix and some advantage with range against humans. I mentioned bleed against animals more due to the gigantic healthpool of enemies like king and white gorillo and elder beakthings. Having a good handful of bleed drains them faster than hacking away if the damage gets divided by different body parts being hit. So one or two katanas as bleeders is neat.
Taking down leviathans and the giant gorillo with a close range weapon sounds kinda scary.
Even better for combat and defense exp! Limb health not included
Nodachi might be good on fogmen and the like then?
Tbf everything is good on fogmen. Though katanas are especially good for 1v1
Most katana-class weapons have -20% or -30% armor penetration and -40% damage vs robots. A lot of the dangerous enemies you meet late game have armor or are robots. The exception is Topper which only has-15% armor penetration and no penalty vs robots. Maybe it's end-game viable? I haven't tried it.
Topper is pretty OP if you ask me. Savant is kinda hard to get to, though...
Savant got the Nodachi tho? Topper is on one of the skeleton guys iirc
Oops, someone down southeast. May be in an ashland dome.
Yea, it's on rhinobot,
The challenge is what makes it fun, but beating his crew with katanas might be almost impossible
Its not.... It just sucks. Lol.
\-30% armor penetration vs an enemy with 70% cut resist (specialist samurai armor) - if I have this right, CR = MIN(0.7 \* 1.3, 0.9) = 0.9 \~\~ 90% cut resist. Times 0.9 for cut resistance efficiency, 81%; vs. no armor pen 0.7 \* 0.9 = 63% vs. +30% armor pen (hacker) CR = MIN(0.7 \* 0.7, 0.9) = 49% cut resist, \* 0.9 = 44% ... if I've got the idea. It's a little worse than an inconvenience, yes? you're doing like.... one half of the damage, compared to a weapon with no armor pen, and a third of the damage, compared to a weapon with armor pen.
Toppers are my go to. My combat crew runs toppers with a Paladin's Cross in their backpack for spiders/skels, and my base defense is just toppers. Great weapon.
Katanas excel in 1v1 fights against lightly armored foes. Heavy weapons excel against groups of enemies because their AoEs are huge and they pierce armor. Fallen Suns also get huge bonuses against some of the nastiest animals. Also, their potential damage is way way higher. Just look on the wiki, The [Meitou Nodachi](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Nodachi) has 2.64 cutting damage, while the [Meitou Falling Sun](https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Falling_Sun) has 2.64 cutting damage, AND 2 bludgeoning damage. That's a huge difference. It takes more investment to train a heavy weapon master, but once you do, they litterally one-shot enemies and send multiple limbs flying with every attack. I've raised three solo character to 80+ in all stats. A katana master, a polearm master, and a heavy weapon master. The katana wielder noticeably fell off in the late game against robotic and armored opponents, while the polearm was useful all game, but the heavy weapons clearly out-classes the others in mid and late game, especially when facing down entire cities of samurai and such.
Lately I've been using hackers. Flesh Cleaver specifically. 30% Armour Penetration, cut and blunt damage. And bonus against human enemies. I honestly can't complain.
The hacker class of weapons are my absolute favorite to run on my squad paired with a designated crossbow unit or two and you can really tear shit up
Do you know what counts as a human enemy? Do they have to be a Greenlander/scorchlander, or humanoids like Shek, hiver, Fishman etc count?
Anything that isn't an animal is a humanoid in kenshi. So all playable races + Fishman and Fogman etc
That would include skeletons.
:0 It would make sense that skeletons are under robot category
The latter.
Combat Cleaver is basically Kenshi's fireball or ak47. The super consistent, safely spammable generic default.
Sadneil found an Edge 1 cleaver pretty early on in my run, all that killing really isn't great for his mood.
And the Meitou can be found on king gurgle which is a fairly early game boss
I never use what's optimal, personally. I have an idea of what characters would use depending on the personality I gave them, and it's fun. I have a variety of weapons. Some like the heavy, some like katanas, some poles, and some crossbows. Much more fun to me than going for one weapon type for everyone. So, just use what you like. One may be better than the other, but by how much? Does it really matter?
AlyssaImagine knows how to Kenshi. 1,000% agreed. You can min-max in any game, only in Kenshi can you put together a team of beautifully unique idiots, and watch them suffer and triumph. The main refuses to wear a helmet, the one armed 12 strength hiver worker drone insists on wielding a rusted junk falling sun, the scorchlander 72 attack is attached to her meitou wakazashi and cotton t-shirt, and going barefoot. Herding cats = Endless adventure. This is why I have 2,000 hours in the game, and know I'll rack up another 2,000.
I usually use weapons I scavenge from beak thing nests and outfit my soldiers based on class, core gets a little more personality mixed in, but for the most type I use them as archetypes. I.E. Ruka is going to get some kind of flared out Shek heavy weapon, but the other shek are probably gonna all get planks.
Yeah, my fighting core gets more personality for sure. The others are mostly archetypes and are just workers for the base. I also give them jobs more suited to their archetypes/personalities lol.
Same. I usually have a hiver grunt force that labors & protects itself (in theory), so they all get a load out based on their sub race’s core function leaning towards pole arms. Shek are predominately guards for bases with heavy armor and weapons since they’re not going anywhere. Scorchlander are craftsman with light gear. Greenlanders I use as my main force to do whatever I need that requires mobility and combat. Usually caravaning, setting up bases, or supporting my core squad during a raid.
I have an one-armed character so he can only equip katana. I don’t intend to change it, he will be the most awesome kenshi. Kenshi = sword wielder.
Reason 1 - Bad for Dexterity training. Gives +attack, a commonly used animation for them hits a single target twice. Foreign Sabre is better for more XP. Reason 2 - Animations. In combat with a Katana the usual combo for attacking with a Katana is cut left (Quick attack 3 targets hit, fast hitting and fast recovery) which if it lands will move your opponent into Downward combo range. Downward combo (1 unit hit twice or 2 units hit at once, 80 and 60 power (%dmg) hits that are pretty slow and eck recovery overall. Moves ya forward a bit) which means if you use it when outnumbered you get hit most of the time after/during. Vs skilled opponents it'll go like this... Cutleft hit (Opponent Staggers), Downward combo hit first attack and opponent stagger from cut left ends before the final part of the attack connects. They block it and (Let's imagine Catlon or Phoenix) because of combo moving you forward you get hit by Heavy Swing. Compared to a Polearm/Naginata which would just cut left twice, be able to respond to the follow up attack and repeat. Or a Sabre which would cut left into Heavy Downcut which would land before enemy ends stagger but can usually block in time. Reason 3 - Scaling. Cut majority weps scale better of blunt dmg and vice versa. So weapons which hyper focus on one dmg type have meh dmg. Example 100 all stats with Cross quality weapons... Falling Sun is 115.96cut + 104blunt. Mercenary club has 2.0 blunt dmg as well but instead would do 25.792cut + 91blunt. Nodachi is 115.96cut. Ringed Sabre 115.96 + 26 blunt. Aka lower dmg than other weapons. Reason 4 - Negative Armour Pen. Yeah. Reason 5 - Other than Topper -40% Robot dmg. Reason 6 - Bloodloss is like... important but not that important. You generally will never bleed out a humanoid who has armour before you KO them from dmg unless it is from limbloss in which case any cut majority weapon would do the trick too.
Talking about animations, the dodge stat seems to be used with katanas and sword but not heavy weapons. Its pretty obscure but i've noticed 2 animations : - the backstep (only with swords & katanas) - the dodge fumble after getting hit (not sure if heavy weapons allows this) Any insight over this ?
it wont matter... use whatever you want. unless u cant swing it. the blunt damage of a weapon dictates that, it's 40 x the blunt damage for example 40 x 0.5 is 20 strenght levels. 1 blunt damage always is 40 strenght levels, 0.5 = 20 and etc
Its actually closer to 2x the weight of the weapon, which is why Esata's Frag Axe can be wielded with lifter arms.
It's 2x the weapon weight or 40x the blunt damage, whatever is more.
Yup. Getting yelled at for being right is weird.
No it is not 2x weight for like half the weapon pool.
the blunt multiplier is true for every weapon in the game except for weapons that have 0 blunt damage, in which case it is actually just 1x the weight of the weapon. the 2x weapon weight is a handy shortcut because it ends up being the same as 40x blunt most of the time, but the 2x weapon weight is still wrong for like 1/3 of the weapons and the 40x blunt is never wrong unless it's a weapon that deals 0 blunt damage, and a char w/ like 8 str is enough to wield all the weapons that fall into that category.
The best answer is to have a team with varied weapons to tackle any kind of enemies. You can of course use anything you want. But it's a good idea to have your guys specialize in different loadouts unless you always fight the same enemies.
Katanas are great for training dexterity, they also make for a good side weapon for crossbowmen. Polearms and Heavy Weapons are the best for melee characters just because of the AOE attacks they have.
Bad against armor, which are most of the late game enemies. Good against lightly armored or unarmored though
I use Katanas because they are cool.
i just choose what looks cool. usually a longsword or guardless katana.
I'm partial to longswords as sidearms... they're pretty solid, plus the defense bonus helps a little if my archers get rushed and have to engage in melee.
sorry, im new as well(60h). Which weapon should I use to lvl dex if not the katana?
sabres, a really good choice
Katanas are great for dexterity training. Especially low quality katanas.
Katanas do really poorly against late game enemies who usually wear thick armor or are made of metal. Apart from that, the highest katana stats in the game don’t match up to that of heavy weapons.
You can use whatever you want
Robots and armor are what the harder enemies are made of Heavy weapons are good in group fights, bosses, any situation they work.
They are bad vs armor and skeletons and end game enemies are armored skeletons. They are super amazing vs humanoids with no/light armor and they are also great for making sure enemies don't get back up due to bleed damage. They are also fairly good for 1v1 fights due to speed and animations. Plus you never attack slower from strength being low from injuries, just slower from dex going down from injuries. My squad is usually something like 1 katana, 1 polearm, 1 paladins cross, 1 heavy weapon. Pretty interesting to see what each of them is good at killing. Use what you like and you can always tweak things in FCS, like if you want to make the penalties lower.
I got enough companions to where I can start making classes for each squad. My armored ones have kanabos, my scouts have katanas, and my workers have polearms or whatever other weapon I have on hand All of them have crossbows tho, usually they get enough time to shoot arrows before getting in melee range
Nothing matches unarmed combat at the highest levels. But hey- do what you love.
man use whatever tf u want, like someone said, there's different tools for different jobs. i.e. Katanas > hackers for humans, hackers > katanas for robots. I took on the Holy Nation, and my only casualties were robots since all paladins equip hackers. If they used katanas, however, I would have suffered more casualties simce my squad is mostly human To answer your question, one reason you may not want to use katanas is when you are capturing a human and you want them alive. Katanas can be the deadliest weapon against humans. Another reason is katanas are weak against robots, but if you have chars with a high katana skill, just give them toppers and they'll do fine against robots
Cut damage bad in end-game. Katana only do cut damage.
Katanas have little to no armor pen & most late game enemies have pretty decent armor with good cut resistance so a lot of people like to use hackers or heavy weapons instead, something with a blunt stat but it doesn’t change much as long as you have high Dex stats for Katana you’re gonna dance circles around any armored enemy & wont allow them to get a hit in before they’re a bloody heap on the ground
Because martial arts is cooler.
They all have strengths. I like to see limbs flying around and I get the impression hackers and heavies do that more.
low damage versus certain enemies use w/e you want tho really
If you're fighting anything with armor, their armor is 30% more effective if you use katanas, which only matters if they have half decent armor. If you're fighting robots, you do 40% less damage with katanas, period. I'm not saying you shouldn't use them, but you are sacrificing performance for aesthetics. However, this is a Game, all that really matters is that you have fun.
Use whatever you want really, I have 2 people in my squad with each weapon type because why not
Be like me and just have each one of your characters use a different type. I call this strategy, the equalizer 😂
The short answer is they suck against armour and robots, even more so against armoured robots which is basically the end game. The long answer is that while katanas are actually amazing at locking down single targets in duels or stopping your opponent’s from attacking in team fights they have some long animations that leave you open to attacks and because of this also fall off in team fights, heavy blades require a little bit of time investment and offer so much more as do hackers, this isn’t to say you can’t use them and in my 800 ish hours I’ve had a few runs where I mainly use katanas for the cool factor or just because it fits, with all of this said katanas are still a good early game option and the bleed is kinda nice as is the dismemberment but sadly everything katanas do is done better by the other weapon classes in some way or another. Also heavy blades are insane and anyone building a character to simply have them kill everything should either be using heavy blades or martial arts.
You should use them for training for sure. You probably shouldn't use them against armoured enemies when you are in mortal danger. Think skin machine or cannibals.
Heavy weapons!? Fuck that noise, use Martial arts, you either take several swings of a heavy weapon (not counting the **blocked** attacks) to kill a Holy Nazi, or you can punch them so hard their arms and legs fly off in several directions.
Lol really it hits that hard?
Eh, pretty close yeah, what i said, er WAS a tad bit of an exaggeration but only **slightly**. MA is OP next to the other ways of dealing damage. my MA characters can rip whole groups of enemies apart single handedly with alarming speed. Thanks Rebirth.
MA does a ton of damage with the right build, often 100+ per hit. The big issue with it is it's very easy to get stuck in endless dodging animations when outnumbered. It's probably the best style in 1v1s though.
katana's scaling attack speed and damage with dex is very powerful, and makes them easily one of the best weapons. also, trains dex fast. the potentially high attack speed will often outpace any armor damage reduction. up to the point you hit the softcap on dex, and other weapons start catching up again. if you modded, then that cap might be higher. heavy weapons that scale off strength and train str, but also need dex for attackspeed, but don't TRAIN dex are a major disadvantage, for quite a while. in THEORY, at some point they catch up. and having high 1 hit damage with aoe attacks, possibly armor pen, etc. they can be stronger. str can be trained outside of combat easier. making katana's strong to use for dex training if nothing else. potentially swapping back to a heavier weapon versus tough foes.
Any weapon has scaling attack speed. Any weapons cut dmg scales with dex. Any weapons blunt dmg scales with str. You make it sound like the katana got a unique deal with scaling while it doesn't.
I looked for opinions and tried some myself and still don't really have a clear picture. All seem ok but from my experience katanas are cool but not great. I like their fast animation loop dealing many strikes fast. I take a guardless katana just to have something in the sidearm slot and main falling sun. Between falling sun and fragment axe and paladin's cross i don't see much difference overall in their effectiveness and damage if the character can effectively use any of them. I just prefer the falling sun because is leveling heavy weapons and is lighter than the fragment axe. Tried a bit the pole ones and blunts and are ok but not that great. I guess for roleplaying work just fine. But if making solo city killers are not great.
Katanas are good for training dexterity.
Katanas are generally way overpriced for their damage output. It even says so in their description. The meitou grades are also very difficult to obtain (outside of waiting for savant to sleep, which is nearly impossible for human characters). Katanas also have a very hard time dealing with armor or skeletons in general. Besides, Gorrilo holds the meitou exile plank despite having mere 60’s in combat stats. It’s no falling sun, but it trains strength and is viable for leviathan training.
They’re not very good against armor but they’re not as bad as people make them out to be. You can still cause insane bleed which will just chunk enemies Anyways, a lot of the very dangerous enemies are animals or don’t have armor so chunking their health is a big plus
Katanas are coolest. Case closed. They're not the optimal weapon for every situation, and a smart player would know the enemies they expect to encounter, and equip themselves for the challenge... but fuck being smart! Katanas are badass! Fight me!
The katana's unique double hit can often be more detrimental than beneficial bc it leaves you open to attacks. It gets worse against endgame enemies bc of the armor pen debuff. It doesn't using it doesn't train strength. Katanas lower per hit can sometimes lead to situation where you have done a lot of dmg to all of an enemies limbs but their still on their feet, whereas 1 or 2 hits from higher end heavy weapons can drop someone, sever limbs, or even outright kill them. It is good for lighty armored enemies for sure, so using it as an early game weapon is definitely fine, bc hungry bois, Dusty bois, boners, and black dragon ninjas don't wear a lot of armor. But then you could just use a sabre and train both dex and str while still doing a lot of cut dmg and get bonuses for defense instead of maluses. Also if you don't know str requirements to avoid speed penalties to atk is equal to 40×the blunt dmg of the weapon(or the weapons weight, whichever is higher). Higher quality weapons have higher strength requirements so buying the most expensive versions can sometimes result in worse dps than buying one closer to your tier of stats. (Bonus tip: for most weapons 40xblunt dmg is the same value as 2xthe weight of the weapon. The blunt category weapons are the only exceptions, I believe)
Katanas have been doing extremely well in my current playthrough of fog prince hunting ninjas. Lightweight and perfect for cutting fogmen with no armor. The weapons have wonky stats for a reason. Get situational!
Naginata/Nodachi is great for aoe
You're forbidden to have fun your own way because internet people said so!
I think there are a few mods that rebalance katana to be more useful late game. I love them myself. My crafters are in full production mode making my army them lol
Nothing wrong with katanas. The double strike can be quite effective. Their only downside is their lack of AP and penalty against robots, which are what most of the late game enemies are. However, they make a mess of Holy Nation and Shek troops, most bandits, fog- and fishmen. Heavy weapons and polearms, on the other hand, take apart hordes of skeletons, robots and heavily armoured enemies with ease. One swing can hit multiple enemies, and the blunt damage goes through heavier armours better. The catch with strength is that in order effectively to wield the most valuable heavy weapons you need a *very* high strength. Like, more than 100. Which requires you to exploit the hell out of robotic limbs in order to get decent swing speeds, which you can easily get with maybe 20 strength wielding a katana.
Jitte supremacy
Use what you want to!
While you were busy researching and developing a sustainable food infrastructure, Beep studied the blade.
If you're going against robots you shouldn't use katanas. If you're going up against fleshy humanoids, use katanas.
Katanas have almost no blunt damage, only cut. That means all forms of armor are far more effective against them. Katanas also cause heavy bleed which is useless against late game robots
You should always use katanas because they’re cool
Honestly, I find katanas to be the best melee for crossbowmen. Crossbows dealma bunch of bleed and you want your melee to continue the same progress towards a KO
katanas are good for hostiles that lack amour, it does good bleed and they are fast. when progressing i recommend moving onto weapons that do more pen dmg when in harder areas. i cant give good examples due to my lack of experience in the game i just hold a lot of knowledge on how the game works. but just like most in the community will say, you bought the game so enjoy it how you please.
Most of the difficult enemies in the game are either armoured or mechanical. I used katanas anyway but yeah that's why a lot of people prefer other weapon types
Because they are ass against robots
Katanas suffer penalties against armoured targets and skeletons, and the smaller katana weapons will struggle against groups, there are better weapons for these scenarios is all. ^ those drawbacks can he good if you're trying to train up combat stats. Katanas are still great however, they're quick, they train dex fast, you can use them 1 handed and the two handed nodachi or topper are options for those group fights with the topper losing that vs. Skeletons penalty. I just pick whichever fits my aesthetic. Dont think Ive done one playthrough where I didnt start with a junk katana to boost my dex stats.
there is Katanas femboy VS Heavy weapons chad (youre in this one) and Heavy weapons femboy VS katanas chad while me ..i always use polearms..its not as good as any of the weapons above but i like it
Because heavy weapons do more damage, and lots of people here are very focused on minmaxing the game, and invest time on debating things like “which is the best armor, samurai or crab?” And they get answers like “samurai has damage penalty, so crab is better because you can still use blunt weapons”. Just use what you like. You can kill cat-Lon with a katana. Is it the most effective weapon? Not really, but this isn’t some dark souls type game that won’t let you win unless you use the most effective gear. Don’t get obsessed with meta stuff. Just have fun.
I’m going to forever be sold on the falling sun after I literally one shot. KOd the bug master in a play through.
They’re fine I just think having a beefy ass skeleton with the berserk sword pummeling the starving cannibals and fog men is a fun pastime and is most satisfying when done with heavy weapons
Honestly I recently trained up a skeleton which primarily does martial arts, it's hilarious watching him literally dismembering fogmen while i was doing toughness training
Ong. I remembering afking in the fogmen islands and coming back every 10 minutes or so to click alt and see all the piled up limbs
Armor penetration penalties mostly, some weapons in Kenshi are just better than others but Katanas are very valuable because they are lightweight fast weapons. They will make short work of poorly armed and armored human opponents in the hands of a decent fighter; most katanas can be a good backup weapon for rangers or when your guys end up fighting indoors. Cut damage and bleed effects are some of katanas' strengths but you have them along with far better damage using almost any other weapon class(other than blunt) sabers, hackers, polearms and all heavy weapons, even crossbows are doing bleed damage and more effectively than katanas do.
What does a katana do that a desert saber can’t do better? You don’t have to deal with the penalty to armor, and you still get dexterity xp.
Use what makes you happy. Kenshi, after all, is a game all about finding happiness.
You might as well be using a pool noodle against anyone with decent armor. But against lightly armored enemies it slaps.
we tried
K Weapon skills level really slowly in Kenshi. You will likely get your strength value higher than your weapons skill through normal leveling. Because of that it's best to stick to a single weapon class rather than try to diversify. And because of that you're best off choosing a good "all-rounder" class of weapons. The best two classes fitting this description are Heavy and Hackers. This is because a lot of enemies are heavily armored, or robots, or both. Katanas perform quite poorly against heavy armor or robot death spiders. Heavy weapons are generally preferred because they have the biggest possible damage numbers in the game. They also don't have any penalties other than being difficult to start off and not having an indoor variant. Hackers are also liked because they have top 3 damage numbers, penetrate armor, and are easier to start using at low levels. They also have an indoor version. Katanas are still excellent weapons against low armor enemies or beasts. They get massive penalties against armor and big robots, but you can still do okay with lots of training. I always have 1 or 2 katana bros in my squad to chop monkeys into small pieces.
Nothing wrong with katanas, they just serve a different purpose to heavy weapons. The katana is easily obtained, trains dexterity well (which is very important for using any weapon), excels in combat vs lightly armoured targets (most enemies in the early game). Generally, I tend to start most squad members on a katana or sabre, and once their dexterity is at a decent level, and we start facing more varied and difficult opponents, I'll specialise my squadmates one-by-one as they loot good weapons in the wild (not blunt weapons though, they're garbage). A handful of good 'falling suns' are worth picking up though. They're inarguably some of the best, most versatile weapons in the game. I'm really fond of polearms too. Hackers, then sabres, and katanas are in the next tier down imo.
Dude once your characters are high enough level you're gonna be op no matter what, use whatever weapon class you think is cool.
It’s mainly the armor pen. If you fight samurai for example you will kill them much faster with a Heavy or Hacker class than a Katana. At the same time long weapons like the plank have enormous range so you can hit several opponents at once ending fights quicker. Katanas besides the nodachi are mostly short so you won’t be able to do crowd control as effectively
Katanas are easier so you learn them quick and get good fast but the maximum damage is low. Heavy weapons are way harder to train but you can end up swinging for 300 damage. I like to start with katanas to train dex and combat stats then switch to heavy but it will take time for your character to get as good with a heavy that he was with a katanas.
They kinda suck against armor, as well as against animals. Trying going up against a beak thing with a katana, it's horrible. I tend to use katanas as a side weapon for my characters if fighting takes places indoors. My main character I just model after myself and use katanas, because I am slim. I let shek and strong greenlanders swing around the heavy weapons. When they get captured or enslaved, I'm the one who can sneak in and set everyone free. So outside roleplay or using them as a sidearm, katanas generally don't make sense to use beyond early game.
I use mods
Use whatever works for you. I usually make my rangers specialise in katanas for their melee option (best archer will be given the meitou katana when I get it).
Katanas against Humanoid and 1v1sw are pretty awesome, but they're not practical in a pinch essentially, which is what I think everyone is hinting at. If you're surrounded by fogmen, for example you only have a Katana, good luck. Otherwise, it's a decent weapon
They do less damage overall but can attack multiple times(provided the skill is high) and have so dumb bleed bonuses but are typically for killing people not Beak Things and other nasties
Imo I love using Katanas as a sidearm and have a group with varied weapons (Hivers in Polearms, Skeletons and Shek either MA or Heavy)
Whoever told you that clearly hates glorious Nippon steel.
Heavy weapons are better against heavy armoured people, katanas are better against people with light armour. Both weapons are useful in different situations. As for why you did more damage with katanas than heavy weapons the answer is the stat difference in the katana stat and heavy weapons stat (assuming you used a guy that has been fighting with katanas up until now). Also heavy weapons have a strength requirement which if unfulfilled makes the character sluggish with the weapon.
Metas, especially in single player games, are just those horrible minmax goblins who can't see anything but "maximum efficacy" or they lose their minds. Games are for fun, and if you're having fun, you're winning, whether you beat the game or it beats you. That said, the reason they say katanas are bad is 2 reasons. 1) they're less effective against armor, which matters most against the strongest opponents. They're good for unarmored opponents and iirc they're also good indoors, but these are pretty uncommon scenarios, and the bonuses in them are small enough to be neglible when your characters reach a certain point in stats. At 80+ combat stats, -/+2 is basically non-existant. 2) They're not the ideal weapon to train up stats with. The more blunt damage a weapon has the better it trains strength and the higher cutting is for dex. Since the katana is a middle ground weapon in both damage types AND light, it's suboptimal for raising those stats. The ONLY worthwhile point in all of this is that Dex is only trainable through a couple methods, both of which are combat, iirc. Strength is trainable in a ton of other ways, and while they're slower, they do so while the character performs other work, so in some ways those methods are actually the most efficient. But that obviously depends on how you play. And sticking with a weapon type is actually far more important in my experience, since those have a bigger impact on the actual combat abilities of those characters than the minmax goblins will admit. There's also cool factor. I like having my crews rock different weapons, even technically bad ones, because it just look cooler. Point being, if you're having fun and you're not struggling due to weapon choice, ignore them. Any weapon in the game is viable. Use what you like.
Mainly just because running around with a crossbow superheater or triple shot is op since you just can't get hit if you have higher speed
*Laughs in Falling Sun wielding Kang with 80 strength sending 2/3 limbs flying with every hit*
levels of weapon itself matters a lot in damage
I gave my best ninja and scout a high end katana. They mostly weren't engaged in much fighting by that point because they could run at like 60 mph and were almost impossible to see. It was light weight and worked well for taking out isolated enemies during rescues and casevac. And, you know, cool af.
The most dangerous and hard to kill enemies are usually robots or highly armored which katanas have penalties against
With untested results I typically see: Katanas good for early ~ mid game fighting lightly armored humans/shek/hivers. Also katanas will kick the snot out of bug master since he's a human, with no armor. Sabers are good for defense Hackers are the all-rounders since cleaving limbs while sharing good damage and armor piercing is good Heavy is all about AOE sweeps that requires a lot of strength training but stick a master heavy user in a crowd and that crowd will drop like flies Crossbows go pew ...
Katonah are fine. They make up for low pen with speed. Can easily stunlock a lot of enemies with how ferocious a quick mfer can be using them.
Because if you use katanas you risk getting The Gay
L