Creative way to get a strong weapon into the game.

[Comrey]

Hiya fellas, I'm in need of your help here.
I made this fairly strong (slightly overpowered I suppose) light katana and I wanted to get it into the game.

First, I thought that I could spawn it on a very strong samurai, like a grandmaster of some sorts, and then just make it my whole mid-game quest to kill him one on one. (I mean, if I manage to kill a super strong samurai in high quality gear, who is using the very sword I'm trying to acquire, it's a fair deal, right?)

So I really liked that idea, and I still do, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to spawn this samurai. I tried everything. I followed the step-by-step guide from RighteousSinner and the step-by-step "create a town and faction" guide by omegamarcel that I found here on the forums, but after 3 hours of work nothing happened. I made the faction, the town, the squads, the AI's, everything, but clicking populate simply did not spawn my samurai near the house. So I gave up. I restored my leveldata back to what it was before I started messing around making my own custom towns/houses for the samurai, and deleted most of the mod clutter/data (such as the town, the faction) except for the weapon itself and the actual samurai, in case I'd try again fresh.

Anyway, that's the backstory. Now I need other ideas to get my sword into the game, which is why I come here. The katana's stats are 3.0 cut (including the manufacturer, 1,5 if it's rusty) and +10 ATK/DEF - what's a suitable and rewarding/worthy way of acquiring that weapon in-game? Note it's supposed to be a "legendary" sword so I can't just walk into a store and buy it. Ideas will be appreciated, anything goes!

Also, if anyone is willing to help me bring my original idea (with the grandmaster samurai) to life then I'll gladly give the .mod file containing the sword and the samurai. I swear I've spent more time trying to mod this game than actually playing it. :L

Peace.

[Butta]

Welcome to Kenshi Modding!

Why not just a one man squad roaming the deserts? Of course you should make him really rare. Working for sure

new character (your grandmaster samurai) -> new squad containing the new character -> new faction containing the new squad -> add your squad as a homeless spawn to the biomes

I recommend you to always duplicate an already existing squad/character/... and just edit it afterwards. It feels more safe and you can't forget to set something important.

[Comrey]

I've thought about that actually, but there were some issues I couldn't get around.

- What if he is killed by some random Leviathan while wandering. Since it's going to be a unique character (so that multiple legendary swords won't appear in-game) won't I miss out on the chance?
- What if I fail to kill him my first time (which will probably be the case, since it's by no means a weak character and I wouldn't want to jump him with 5 people at once), will I get a second chance once I'm stronger or will he just de-spawn/get rekt by someone/something else while I'm training, like in the above problem?

As long as he doesn't de-spawn or get killed by something else, this might be an even better solution because I actually have to search for him, thus I have the incentive to attack whenever I spot him, rather than knowing where he is at all times and just being able to come back for rematches as many times as I want. I imagine I can circumvent the "killed-by-OP-Leviathan" by making the Leviathans weaker (which I already did, since they razed whole towns by themselves...) or simply making him friendly-neutral with all factions. This leaves only the de-spawning. Will he ever de-spawn, and if he does, will he be able to re-spawn even when set to Unique?

[Butta]

Aah I forgot that he is supposed to be a unique character. Yep, Leviathans probably would be a problem and the only solution I can think of is to weaken them (like you mentioned).
But I would like to know what you define as "really strong". 80 in all his stats? Maybe even more? or less?

Making him neutral to all factions is a really good idea actually! No one even dares to attack him.. besides you. As far as I know he won't despawn until he dies. Even if you get rekt, he just keeps roaming the deserts.

[Comrey]

The Grandmaster Samurai has 60 in all his combat stats, + there's that legendary sword he wields which gives him an additional +10 ATK and DEF as well as a cut multiplier of 3, thus buffing him to 70 combat stats. I've also given him a full set of Samurai armour which is one tier stronger than Standard. Since I'm currently running around with 30ish combat stats coupled with the Naginata (wonderful work by the way, I've always liked pole weapons) and still able to kill a bunch of Sand Ninjas on my own, I imagine the Grandmaster Samurai to be quite a pain to deal with. That's just adding to the point though, if I want that legendary sword I better make sure I deserve it.

Anyway, if he doesn't de-spawn then I might just go with this solution, making him neutral to wildlife to buff his chances of survival (not that he needs it that much anyway, I've made the Leviathans pretty weak so that town guards could handle them) and a few factions that could potentially gang up on him. I'll leave him conflicting with the Dust Bandits though, he'll wipe them out anyway and it sort of makes sense I'm not the only one hunting him. The biggest fear I have now is that he'll get stuck in terrain someplace and I'll never find him due to the remote location.

[Butta]

It changed a little with 0.70, but back in 0.67.2 I experimented with the Strangers of my Naginata mod. I set their combat stats to 70.. my squad of 4 ~35 and 1 ~45 guys got totally destroyed.
Prepare well!

The biggest fear I have now is that he'll get stuck in terrain someplace and I'll never find him due to the remote location.

In that case just import to a new game. But you will have to find him again.

[Comrey]

Ouch, I haven't actually fought him before but looks like he'll be a challenge indeed. Thanks for your help.