WeaponsReport
English：Weapons · Items & Equipment
Kenshi's weapons come in six melee classes plus crossbows, and what actually decides strength is not the name but three numbers — cut/blunt split, armour penetration and racial modifiers — plus the manufacturer ladder that climbs from rusted scrap to Meitou across a fivefold difference in damage.
- Equipment rules
- The six melee classes
- What the damage types actually do
- The split between anti-robotics and anti-human
- When the shape is not about tactics
- Strength requirements and swing speed
- Manufacturers: the real grading system
- Meitou and Cross
- Forging your own
- Crossbows: a separate rulebook
- Further reading
- Related items
If I got a cat for every rusted piece of junk I've seen strapped to a wanderer's back… — Catun Scrapmaster
Kenshi's weapons have no attack-power number, only a pile of multipliers. The same "katana" varies by nearly six times in cut damage between Rusted Junk and Meitou — same model, same animations, same name. Judging a weapon's strength by its class in Kenshi is simply wrong; you have to read the manufacturer's mark.
Equipment rules
A character has two weapon slots. Anything can go in the primary; the secondary only accepts weapons of grid size 1×7 or smaller, and in normal circumstances the topmost weapon in the primary slot is always used. A disabled right arm means being unable to use weapons at all (Kenshi has no "one-handed weapons"); a disabled left arm, or using a weapon with an indoors penalty while indoors, switches automatically to the secondary. Heavy Weapons, Polearms and crossbows additionally require both arms to be healthy (or splinted above 0 HP).
The six melee classes
| Class | Damage bias | Signature trait | Main weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blunt | Almost pure blunt | No bleeding, no bandaging | Low damage, very short knockout times |
| Hackers | Half cut, half blunt | +30% armour penetration, bonus vs robotics | −10% vs animals |
| Heavy Weapons | Mostly blunt | Enormous reach, sweeps several targets at once | −6 indoors, very high strength requirement |
| Katanas | Pure cut | Double strikes, +10% vs humans, heavy bleeding | −30% armour penetration, −40% vs robotics |
| Polearms | Mostly cut | Long reach, light, bonus vs animals | −4 to −8 indoors |
| Sabres | Cut plus a little blunt | Defence bonus, fast animations | Attack modifier usually negative |
What the damage types actually do
Cut damage causes bleeding and needs a first aid kit to stop; blunt damage causes fractures and knockouts and needs no bandaging. That sounds like it makes blunt weapons ideal for bounty hunting, but there is a trap:
The split between anti-robotics and anti-human
This is the core of mid-to-late-game weapon choice. Katanas take −40% against robotics, and late-game skeletons and old machines are all robotic; katanas also carry −30% armour penetration, which leaves them barely able to dent heavy armour. Hackers, conversely, generally get +30% armour penetration and up to +50% against robotics, which is the standard late-game answer.
| Example weapon | Class | Armour pen. | vs animals | vs humans | vs robotics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paladin's Cross | Hacker | +30% | −10% | −10% | +50% |
| Mercenary Club | Blunt | +30% | −10% | — | +20% |
| Polearm | Polearm | +30% | +50% | — | — |
| Naginata | Polearm | — | +50% | — | — |
| Katana | Katana | −30% | — | +10% | −40% |
| Falling Sun | Heavy | — | — | — | +50% vs Beak Things / Leviathans |
| Desert Sabre | Sabre | — | — | — | +100% vs spiders |
When the shape is not about tactics
The table above reads weapons as numbers, but some of the game's arms are plainly not optimised shapes. The clearest case is the Preacher Cult's standard weapon, the Moon Cleaver: its blade curves backwards, a form deliberately matched to the crescent moon the cult worships. One commentator argues that this blade was never only a weapon by design — for the one holding it, every swing is a sacrificial prayer[V1 0:03:26].
This "faith first, shape second" logic occurs more than once in Kenshi; the Crab Raiders' crab armour belongs to the same family. In practical terms, note that such weapons really do deviate from their class norms: the Moon Cleaver is a Hacker with +30% armour penetration and a robotics bonus, at the cost of −2 defence.
Strength requirements and swing speed
Insufficient strength does not stop a character from equipping a weapon; it only makes them slower. Strength requirement = blunt damage × 40 (or the weight of the weapon's Rusted Junk grade, whichever is higher); fall 20 or more levels below the requirement and combat speed drops by as much as 47.5%. Strength above the requirement gives no further benefit — it is just a buffer once you start taking damage.
Attack speed has a base value of 0.765, +0.00228 per point of Dexterity and +0.00152 per point of Melee Attack; block speed works the same way with Melee Defence. This explains why a high-strength, low-dexterity new recruit looks natural with a heavy weapon and absurdly slow with a katana — the katana's strength requirement is only 2, but it leans heavily on Dexterity.
Manufacturers: the real grading system
Weapon quality is not an adjective but seven manufacturers × fifteen grades — and a piece of worldbuilding at the same time.
| Manufacturer | Grades | Price | Cut | Blunt | Weight | Lore |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown | Rusted Junk, Rusting Blade | 0.3x | 1x | 1x | 1x | Centuries-old iron; any maker's mark rusted away long ago |
| Ancient | Mid-Grade Salvage, Old Refitted Blade, Refitted Blade | 0.8x | 0.9x | 1x | 0.7x | Old Empire relics, re-edged in modern times |
| Catun Scrapmaster | Catun No.1–No.3 | 1.2x | 1x | 1.2x | 1.2x | The only large-scale blade-making concern of the present day |
| Skeleton Smiths | Mk I–Mk III | 1.2x | 1x | 1x | 1x | Made by the skeletons of Black Desert City for their own use, occasionally leaking out |
| Edgewalkers | Edge Type 1–3 | 1.4x | 1.1x | 1x | 1x | An Old Empire smiths' guild whose work survives nearly intact |
| Cross | Meitou | — | — | — | — | A legendary swordsmith whose blades never rust |
| Homemade | Everything except Meitou and Edge Type 3 | 1x | 1x | 1x | 1x | Player-forged; the baseline for every value |
How big is the ladder, exactly
Taking a weapon with a 1.0x cut coefficient (a standard katana), the base cut damage of each grade:
| Grade | Cut damage | Grade | Cut damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rusted Junk | 0.385 | Catun No.3 | 0.98 |
| Rusting Blade | 0.47 | Mk I | 1.15 |
| Mid-Grade Salvage | 0.555 | Mk II | 1.235 |
| Old Refitted Blade | 0.64 | Mk III | 1.32 |
| Refitted Blade | 0.725 | Edge Type 1 | 1.49 |
| Catun No.1 | 0.81 | Edge Type 2 | 1.575 |
| Catun No.2 | 0.895 | Edge Type 3 | 1.66 |
| Meitou | 2.20 |
Then multiply by the manufacturer modifier: a looted "Ancient Refitted Blade" is 0.725 × 0.9 = 0.6525, while an "Edge Type 1" is 1.49 × 1.1 = 1.639. A Meitou katana sits at 2.20 — 5.7 times a Rusted Junk one.
Meitou and Cross
Meitou — the term is Japanese for "famed blade" — are all the work of a single smith who left behind nothing but the mark "Cross"; not even their gender is certain. The in-game description says only a handful survive in the world, while in practice there are at least several dozen, some grades even having duplicates (three wakizashi, two longswords and two fragment axes) — the lore and the implementation are visibly at odds.
Every Meitou is bound to a specific character, which makes the list a roster of top-tier bosses: Falling Sun on Cat-Lon, the Katana on Emperor Tengu, Paladin's Cross on Holy Lord Phoenix, the Foreign Sabre on the Bugmaster, and the Nodachi on Beep.
Forging your own
The quality of a homemade weapon is capped by three things at once, all of them necessary:
- Smithing skill: Catun No.3 at 40, Mk III at 60, Edge Type 1 at 70
- Bench tier: a tier-1 bench reaches Refitted Blade, tier-2 reaches Catun No.3, tier-3 reaches Edge Type 1
- Research: Basic Weapon Grades → Catun No.1; Advanced Weapon Grades → Mk III; Edgewalker tech → Edge Type 1
Anything above the cap comes from critical successes: the further your skill exceeds the current quality requirement, the better the chance of turning out a grade higher. Edge Type 2 can only be obtained through criticals, and Edge Type 3 and Meitou cannot be crafted in the base game at all. Quality is also dragged down by injury and light — a smith who is wounded, or working in the dark, produces lower grades.
Crossbows: a separate rulebook
Crossbows are the only carryable ranged weapons, and they use armour's quality ladder rather than the manufacturer ladder.
| Crossbow | Damage | Accuracy deviation | Reload | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Junkbow | 12–30 | 6–12° | 2.0–4.0 s | 30–40 m |
| Ranger | 23–57 | 3–5° | 2.0–4.5 s | 61–79 m |
| Oldworld Bow MkI | 23–64 | 2.5–4.0° | 2.5–4.5 s | 82–109 m |
| Oldworld Bow MkII | 40–77 | 2.3–4.0° | 2.3–7.9 s | 82–118 m |
| Eagle's Cross | 56–127 | 1.6–2.5° | 4.1–10 s | 152–188 m |
A crossbowman's performance is set by four values: Crossbows (accuracy and reload), Precision Shooting (hit chance and avoiding allies), Dexterity (reload) and Perception (accuracy and range). Reload speed is the only route to higher DPS, and Crossbows and Dexterity each cap at 100 — stacking Crossbows to 120 with equipment achieves nothing.
Crossbows remain a supporting act throughout the first game. That may change in the sequel: in a Reddit AMA, developer Chris Hunt replied that ranged weapons in Kenshi 2 may be more mainstream than in the first game, with a somewhat higher overall tech level[V2 0:10:26].
Further reading
- Armour — what armour penetration is actually penetrating
- Items — the relic system and the quality ladder
Related items
Medium Armour, Crossbows, Lantern of Radiance, Backpacks, Clothing, Legwear, Shirts, Armour (item list)
Video citations
- The Origins of the Preacher CultHeroInHisHead
- Kenshi 2 - What We Know So Far and What We Can ExpectHeroInHisHead