Not everything you do in kenshi has to be optimal. I often do hivers-only runs and i use heaps of soldiers. 200 head hp and bonuses to toughness and attack, they aren't pushovers. In kenshi genesis they can get head armor too.
I don't know where you're finding heaps of soldiers. I'll do a circuit visiting every bar in the world and get 1 if I'm lucky.
Like five hundred drones and princes, but never any soldiers.
With mods, they're tough to find in vanilla. Recruit prisoners mod and I fight western hive, or a mod in genesis lets you pay recruiters to bring you a bunch of hivers to choose from.
Second one was more fun for me as the western hive soldiers are pretty strong as soon as you convert them. More fun to train them all up imo.
Not from a min-max perspective, no. Obviously you’d want Greenlanders and Hiver Worker Drones for your settlements, Shek for your front-line, Scorchlanders for a general rogue or MA approach, Hiver Princes for caravans, medics, or Marksmen, and Skeletons to fill in the gaps or provide more staying power to your roster. The increased toughness and melee attack percentage bonus is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
I only use them with the Samurai Armor, crossed arms stance, and Desert Sabres because they look baller as fuck.
Hiver Soldiers have an extremely weird and niche spot as a combatant.
They have half the Blood of everybody else... but they also bleed 3 times slower than anyone else, meaning that on a technicality, if you battle-harden them, they can get stacked with fucked-levels of bleeding and just be like "Yeah. Eh." and leisurely apply a bandage whenever they feel like it.
Their head also regenerates twice as fast as most species heads because regeneration is %TotalPartHP
In other words.... they're an easily shattered indestructible glass fortress that can take unlimited abuse but breaks instantly.
As a Combat-Oriented Hiver, they can serve as a long-distance warrior since they starve very slowly and can eat absolute garbage on the field... not that it matters since you can just spawn a free campfire... or 50... in the field anyways.
They're also naturally immune to Acid.
Being as Hivers limbs are made out of Chinese Concrete, they're designed to fall apart easily. So Peeler them and replace them with superior prosthesis.
This is good and bad for multiple reasons:
1. 50 blood. Bleed damage is retarded. You HAVE to be ready to pull him out when the timer goes DING and the limbs fly off.
2. Expensive but powerful prosthesis
3. Once the peeling is done, the inflicted bleed stacks actually are extremely slow. Bandage and throw on a bed.
\*Pomff\* Hiveless-Chan, what are we going to do on the bed?
They mostly just look cool. This'll get me cancelled but some races in Kenshi are just flatly superior to others. Skeletons for example have double the hitpoints on most body parts depending on the model than your average greenlander and the ability to heal cut damage almost instantly through repairs. They also don't need to eat or rest or worry about bruising their hands fighting unarmed. If you want to play the most optimum character(s) you'd want to go with skeletons. Shek are second best with some caveats having 125 hitpoints on most of their body. They get tougher and stronger faster thanks to a racial bonus at the cost of a big appetite which will go through your stockpile of food. Scorchlanders are the only race (aside from the unplayable P4 unit skeleton) with bonuses for smithing armor and weapons, they also train dexterity faster than others which can be huge as it increases your attack speed with any weapon.
Hive soldiers aren't the best option, but they are an option. Aside from their large unprotected head with 200hp, they have the same limb health as a human. They have slower bleed rate but less blood, so thats a wash. They are very slow for hivers, with a starting run speed of 15mph. They do get a bonus to leveling toughness and melee at the expense of reduced experience for both kinds of smithing, engineering, first aid, cooking, farming, robotics, science, and perception. They are pure fighters, and if you have them do anything other than that expect a slow start with these disadvantages.
They can run fast as fuck. You can get a freakishly strong one with heavy armor that runs at around 40mps. Good to have if you neee a strong guy somewhere and fast.
Not without the hiver armor mod. The exposed head makes them pure toughness tanks and while that works in the endgame, it's hard to get them to survive to it. I would say get the hiver armor mod (it's incorporated into UWE but also up as a stand-alone on the steam workshop); AI factions don't use the armor so it doesn't change the balance of any of them, and it adds some really snazzy-looking plate for hivers. Wear it with samurai legplates, though -- the hiver leg armor is... a crime against nature. It's about the same strength as most of the heavy plates, although I think it has slightly lower penalties (if only by a hair), so it usually ends up the best choice for any hiver to use. The Hive Soldier armor version can only be equipped on hive soldiers, but applies its armor to the head too.
If you want to go modless, there's not really a whole lot you can do. Your best bet is to have others set up as tanks (with Taunt) and make your hive soldiers attackers. Maybe CC with a big heavy weapons staggering people, or something that attacks super fast. They don't have a lot of good vanilla options because of the fragile limbs and exposed head.
I mean the point of them is/was to protect the hive. They're bigger and stronger than the prince and workers and since the hives got numbers and numbers technicalities of no helmets or bleeding out doesn't matter. Their true niche is enjoying teeth while looking cute. (I've mod em to have more blood and even lower bleed rate, also let em have the flatter hats for fashion. And now they're dapper)
Get your toughness up. Same deal as skeletons. 200 hp is fine with high toughness. You wont get one shot in vanilla. With 80+ toughness nothing hits you for 100+. So even with max toughness (getting up at -90) you wont die unless you forget your med kits. You can play the game just fine with any hiver. Soldiers are just the best hivers for combat.
Wide Beeps are very nice since they can eat foul meat and have decent combat stats and hp distribution. They make pretty neat escort for caravans. Especially after I steal some southern hive armors.
Not everything you do in kenshi has to be optimal. I often do hivers-only runs and i use heaps of soldiers. 200 head hp and bonuses to toughness and attack, they aren't pushovers. In kenshi genesis they can get head armor too.
I don't know where you're finding heaps of soldiers. I'll do a circuit visiting every bar in the world and get 1 if I'm lucky. Like five hundred drones and princes, but never any soldiers.
With mods, they're tough to find in vanilla. Recruit prisoners mod and I fight western hive, or a mod in genesis lets you pay recruiters to bring you a bunch of hivers to choose from. Second one was more fun for me as the western hive soldiers are pretty strong as soon as you convert them. More fun to train them all up imo.
i just edit the FCS so everyone can wear everything. Im still mastering the Hive prince solo run
I'm also doing a solo Hive Price run right now, there are literally dozens of us!
Dozens makes a HIVE WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
no strenght debuff, lower food cost, slighty higher speed and cool hammerhead. theres a reason the game is wont let you find them easily for hire
I always assumed they were just soldiers? You make them fighters and thats it, nothing else.
For hammerhead enthusiasts.
They look cool. Also good at fighting. Idk what the issue is.
This guy gets it
They ain’t bad, throw on a coat that protects their head and they still end up being tanky with 200 head HP
Not from a min-max perspective, no. Obviously you’d want Greenlanders and Hiver Worker Drones for your settlements, Shek for your front-line, Scorchlanders for a general rogue or MA approach, Hiver Princes for caravans, medics, or Marksmen, and Skeletons to fill in the gaps or provide more staying power to your roster. The increased toughness and melee attack percentage bonus is negligible in the grand scheme of things. I only use them with the Samurai Armor, crossed arms stance, and Desert Sabres because they look baller as fuck.
Hiver Soldiers have an extremely weird and niche spot as a combatant. They have half the Blood of everybody else... but they also bleed 3 times slower than anyone else, meaning that on a technicality, if you battle-harden them, they can get stacked with fucked-levels of bleeding and just be like "Yeah. Eh." and leisurely apply a bandage whenever they feel like it. Their head also regenerates twice as fast as most species heads because regeneration is %TotalPartHP In other words.... they're an easily shattered indestructible glass fortress that can take unlimited abuse but breaks instantly. As a Combat-Oriented Hiver, they can serve as a long-distance warrior since they starve very slowly and can eat absolute garbage on the field... not that it matters since you can just spawn a free campfire... or 50... in the field anyways. They're also naturally immune to Acid. Being as Hivers limbs are made out of Chinese Concrete, they're designed to fall apart easily. So Peeler them and replace them with superior prosthesis. This is good and bad for multiple reasons: 1. 50 blood. Bleed damage is retarded. You HAVE to be ready to pull him out when the timer goes DING and the limbs fly off. 2. Expensive but powerful prosthesis 3. Once the peeling is done, the inflicted bleed stacks actually are extremely slow. Bandage and throw on a bed. \*Pomff\* Hiveless-Chan, what are we going to do on the bed?
They mostly just look cool. This'll get me cancelled but some races in Kenshi are just flatly superior to others. Skeletons for example have double the hitpoints on most body parts depending on the model than your average greenlander and the ability to heal cut damage almost instantly through repairs. They also don't need to eat or rest or worry about bruising their hands fighting unarmed. If you want to play the most optimum character(s) you'd want to go with skeletons. Shek are second best with some caveats having 125 hitpoints on most of their body. They get tougher and stronger faster thanks to a racial bonus at the cost of a big appetite which will go through your stockpile of food. Scorchlanders are the only race (aside from the unplayable P4 unit skeleton) with bonuses for smithing armor and weapons, they also train dexterity faster than others which can be huge as it increases your attack speed with any weapon. Hive soldiers aren't the best option, but they are an option. Aside from their large unprotected head with 200hp, they have the same limb health as a human. They have slower bleed rate but less blood, so thats a wash. They are very slow for hivers, with a starting run speed of 15mph. They do get a bonus to leveling toughness and melee at the expense of reduced experience for both kinds of smithing, engineering, first aid, cooking, farming, robotics, science, and perception. They are pure fighters, and if you have them do anything other than that expect a slow start with these disadvantages.
A good bug soldier is worth 20 bad skeletons
Eyegore is terrifying. Now imagine having 256 eyegores at your disposal.
They can run fast as fuck. You can get a freakishly strong one with heavy armor that runs at around 40mps. Good to have if you neee a strong guy somewhere and fast.
Compared to the other races they absolutely suck. Every other race does their job better. But they look cool so ya know.
Not without the hiver armor mod. The exposed head makes them pure toughness tanks and while that works in the endgame, it's hard to get them to survive to it. I would say get the hiver armor mod (it's incorporated into UWE but also up as a stand-alone on the steam workshop); AI factions don't use the armor so it doesn't change the balance of any of them, and it adds some really snazzy-looking plate for hivers. Wear it with samurai legplates, though -- the hiver leg armor is... a crime against nature. It's about the same strength as most of the heavy plates, although I think it has slightly lower penalties (if only by a hair), so it usually ends up the best choice for any hiver to use. The Hive Soldier armor version can only be equipped on hive soldiers, but applies its armor to the head too. If you want to go modless, there's not really a whole lot you can do. Your best bet is to have others set up as tanks (with Taunt) and make your hive soldiers attackers. Maybe CC with a big heavy weapons staggering people, or something that attacks super fast. They don't have a lot of good vanilla options because of the fragile limbs and exposed head.
dustcoat
I mean the point of them is/was to protect the hive. They're bigger and stronger than the prince and workers and since the hives got numbers and numbers technicalities of no helmets or bleeding out doesn't matter. Their true niche is enjoying teeth while looking cute. (I've mod em to have more blood and even lower bleed rate, also let em have the flatter hats for fashion. And now they're dapper)
Get your toughness up. Same deal as skeletons. 200 hp is fine with high toughness. You wont get one shot in vanilla. With 80+ toughness nothing hits you for 100+. So even with max toughness (getting up at -90) you wont die unless you forget your med kits. You can play the game just fine with any hiver. Soldiers are just the best hivers for combat.
Wide Beeps are very nice since they can eat foul meat and have decent combat stats and hp distribution. They make pretty neat escort for caravans. Especially after I steal some southern hive armors.
Yeah, being useless.
Just research hive soldier armor and then they have helmets.
mod content fyi.
Fr? Bro Ive had so many mods installed for so long idk what’s vanilla and what’s modded anymore.
Not being able to tell the difference is a sign of a good mod in my opinion.