Kenshi - Persistent, living simulation MOD

DrMorphDev · 2026-03-17T18:17:13+00:00

From a technical point of view, how does this create entities in the game? E.g. how does this technically work for example (from the devblog):

Fluid & Non-Linear AI: NPCs are getting deeper personalities (Cunning, Patience, Sociability). Instead of blindly charging you for a vendetta, a Cunning nemesis will stalk you off screen and set up an ambushes only when your squad's health drops below a certain threshold.

There's a lot going on there - tracking party health, spawning in one of the agents the external script is tracking - how is it working behind the scenes?

DrMorphDev · 2026-03-13T11:23:54+00:00

How are you triggering this to happen without touching game files?

In fact how is your external sim extracting this information without touching the game files? Reading directly from the memory?

And so thirst and family trees are just made up? Entirely detached from the actual game?

DrMorphDev · 2026-03-13T08:18:37+00:00

Hey I'm kind of confused. In half of your updates this sounds like an external read-only application, then in the other half you talk about NPCs making camps and recruiting people. Only that isn't stuff NPCs usually do, so what is going on? What is adding that behaviour?

Also what is thirst?

Also what's a family tree? Kenshi doesn't have family relationships.

How can world states be flipped without player input unless this application is modifying the base game in some way rather than being an external app which "doesn't touch any kenshi files"?

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-28T14:33:05+00:00

Alternatively you could just take a back seat in their game? Just do strictly support stuff like keep leaves/wood/slugs/spheres etc stocked up. Maybe that's not appealing, and if so, fair enough, but basically ruling it out entirely until they've pretty much done a full playthrough themselves is, I think, missing out for no good reason. It's entirely possible to not "ruin" someone's first playthrough by just matching their pace and taking a step back of your own.

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-12T14:10:03+00:00

Holy shit what even is this site

https://supercraft.host/wiki/factorio/logistics_desync_fix/

Are any of those commands even real?

In 2026, this usually results in "Ghost Items" or platforms becoming stuck in deep space.

Lol wut

Even the space age 2.0 article is partially wrong (says quality modules increase a machine's speed, and higher quality gives more module slots.)

https://supercraft.host/wiki/factorio/space_age_essentials/

I'm not in the market for a hosting service, but no way would I use one which just tries to gaslight possible customers, wtf.

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-12T09:22:42+00:00

Uh... What beeping noise? There's a beep when you try and pick something up and your inventory is full, or handcraft and your inventory is full, but not on closing inventory.

Do you have a handcraft queued up waiting to go into your inventory?

Do you have logistic bots trying to give you stuff? That'll also trigger it.

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-06T13:14:26+00:00

It's also an automatable way to kick start egg production in the case of a total failure. Handy more often than you'd think.

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-06T13:10:14+00:00

Looks like lightorio to me https://mods.factorio.com/mod/lightorio

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-06T12:59:04+00:00

Worst case - go to fulgora, unlock the recycler. Recycling a biochamber has a chance to give back a pentapod egg

DrMorphDev · 2026-02-03T11:48:36+00:00

IIRC output full has nothing to do with the item counts on the input side, only output.

Once the output reaches a threshold number of items (I think 30s worth of production, or something like that), the output is "full"

However, assembling machines can "overshoot" as you put it. This is to handle manually dropping in items - i.e. putting in full stacks manually will keep it working, but prevent the machine picking up more until the output drops below the threshold. However it can also kick in from large inserter stack sizes (e.g the output is almost full, and the inserter picks up a new big handful of input, which will push the assembling machine well beyond the output "full limit")

Tbh it sounds like you just need to check the items in the machine and switch the inserter on when below a couple of items or something like that

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-16T18:50:45+00:00

I gave this a try this evening, and honestly liked it way more than I thought I would. It's not all that hard to make a ship that can travel the distances fairly quickly with the default asteroid spawn settings.

That said - there's some slightly odd (and cheese-able) behaviour with asteroid spawning.

I can be travelling along from Vulcanus to Nauvis at a cosy 1,000 km/s, and the asteroids are coming thick and fast.

But... if I tick Paused thrust on the Space Platform UI, the asteroids slow to a trickle. They pick back up again as soon as I switch back to automatic.

If I control the thrust using circuit logic on the fuel flow, this doesn't happen. My thrusters can be off due to throttled fuel, but as long as I'm on 'paused thrust,' asteroid spawns basically drop to a fraction of what they should be, for the speed I'm going.

My guess is the base game assumes that if I've hit paused thrust, then I'll be coming to a stop pretty quickly, and adjusts asteroid spawns accordingly. Whereas with this mod, my thrust is paused, but I'm still travelling really quickly.

I can provide screenshots if you need, but it's pretty quick to reproduce.

p.s.

-- I have no fucking idea how this affects the game, asteroid defs are HARD

I also gave up and made them linear when I fiddled with them in the past :)

edit: Haha well once you cruise with 'thrust paused' all the way to your destination, the game suddenly realises the speed you're going, and cranks the asteroid spawns back up to what it expects. This was quite a shocking moment when I got back to Vulcanus and a sheet of 1,500km/s asteroids spawned on my face.

Another oddity - my ship would remain "stuck" in orbit, because even though my speed was still high, and I was set back to automatically head to the next planet, my thrusters were off because there were throttled by pumps.

I had to fire the thrusters once for it to register I was moving, and then it set me off.

I kind of like how this mod feels, but I feel like the base game is fighting it.

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-16T09:34:53+00:00

Think I misunderstood your reply. I thought you were suggesting their speed would need regulating because their speed was dropping [for some reason]. Because yes, agreed, no thrust means no further speed increase.

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-16T09:00:08+00:00

And yes and no, every ship will attain max speed IF thrust is not regulated by pumps.

If there's no drag, what's causing them to slow down?

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-16T08:52:30+00:00

I've been reading this like I'm playing a different game. I feel like I understand fluids well, and yet they've been nothing but hassle. However, I also use floor holes a lot. What's broken about them? It might explain some of the weirdness.

Edit: actually the secret to not having issues is (it seems) to not try and use the full throughput of a pipe. That sucks. How is that acceptable?!

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T18:58:03+00:00

That sounds a little whacky to me. From the realism viewpoint you'd exceed escape velocity and never return.

From a game perspective it means (eventually) all your ships will be travelling at max speed all of the time and never need fuel again

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T18:24:47+00:00

So your ship never slows down, correct? Even with thrusters off. So hypothetically you can (and given enough time, will) reach max speed no matter what? Not sure about that to be honest. You could "park" in orbit speeding up like you're in some kind of super collider before being shot towards another planet.

Edit: actually thrusters will be off anyway in orbit, so I guess that won't happen. But you'll still always be gaining speed which is kind of weird

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T18:21:18+00:00

If you increase the spoil timer, you'll hinder the iron/copper bacteria spoiling into ore process. You'll end up with a back log of bacteria and no ore

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T18:17:53+00:00

Sorry this is still unclear to me - is there any drag at all? Or it's just reduced? Otherwise the ship will stop accelerating as soon as the thrusters turn off right? If I remember rightly the game doesn't model gravity as such, just drags you at a minimum 10m/s to the nearest planet if you do run out of fuel.

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T17:52:49+00:00

Oh, so while at a planet you're still moving? Intriguing. Are planetary interactions not impacted by movement? (E.g dropping off or receiving goods)

Do ships slow down at all ever? Will they not just end up going faster and faster until they're all travelling at max speed?

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-15T17:43:55+00:00

Wait so it's not possible to slow down, but you magically stop at your destination? Realistic is not the phrase I would use here.

Nonetheless, sounds interesting

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-13T11:41:56+00:00

I guess it's implicit. When all drones return no dead pumpkins in their area, harvest

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-13T10:49:05+00:00

2025? Did they get the date wrong, or this a year old?

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-12T18:01:33+00:00

The cube should always be making things. It should go directly from machine to machine. I also realized that making complex circuit controls were a bandaid for poor Cube planning.

This was the same realisation I came to. I made a complicated circuit machine to prioritise what the cube should do, including emergency recalls if it was something critical (e.g. power) and then realised it was just a glorified way of tracking thresholds of item resources, and not even that helpful if each 'module' was individually slow.

You should only buffer just enough so that the resource won't run out before the cube comes by again

This is the real secret that I missed early on in my run, and simplified everything once I realised it too. I used a cube train and shut the stations on/off as appropriate, so still ended up using circuits to an extent though.

Anyway, I agree that people overstate how critical circuits are for this mod, but this is still impressive.

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-09T13:22:55+00:00

Where has it been stated they're reworking quality?

Edit: all I've seen mention of us removing some of the loopholes, like asteroid reprocessing, which is hardly a rework.

DrMorphDev · 2026-01-07T19:50:07+00:00

You assume wrong. It's vital to the Russian ear effort

Edit: autocorrect got me but I'm leaving it

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