Can zombie spores be actually usefull?

[Angpaur]

Since gainig attribute points is connected with time spent on doing connected activity it could be actually desirable to lower artificially stats in order to speed up attribute rising.

For example in researching, the slower dupes do it, then the more Science level rises can get. Research points are finite resource so maybe it can be a good idea to slow down the the late game technologies, by that -10 Science from zombie spores, because it doesn't matter how fast you will get them if for some longer time you will not be able to even use them

I will try this in my current colony and I will check how many Science level rises I can squeeze up for my dupes.

If you are a speed runner gamer then ignore this and move along

[lunazone]

The way stat attribute work is a bit different than that I think.

I think it works like this

• Natural Mining Skill 7/20
• Hard Digging +2
• Harder Digging +3
• Ultrahard Digging +3
• Atmo-Suit +10
• Zombie Spores -10
• TOTAL = 15

Regardless if you have it or not, once that natural skill one reaches it's limit, there's no real way to increment it.

[crypticorb]

It seems like an interesting concept, but I doubt it's worth going to the lengths you are outlining.

Since gaining points in science (and thus skill training speed) is a finite resource due to a finite amount of research that can be done, spending the most amount of time on a research task seems logical, to get a new dupe up to speed compared to older dupes.

However, since the science skill effects itself for skill gain, the -10 to science will effectively negate any benefit you could gain. Restated: an extended period of research at -10 science (-400% research speed) also comes with a massive -100% skill gain reduction. The skill gain reduction of -10 science affects the skill points gained in the same way as gaining points in athletics or digging, or science itself.

I just did some testing in a sandbox, and two freshly printed dupes side by side researching, both with 0 in science starting. One had zombie spores, the control group duplicant had no other factors. The control group gained a point in science, while the sick dupe gained nothing and made zero progress to the research. I even threw in hypothermia for an additional -5 to science.

So in summary, it's not worth it. The dupe spends an insane amount of time doing nothing, and the hit to athletics means the sick dupe couldn't even move 10 tiles in a FULL CYCLE to eat/sleep/pee/research, even though they were close as possible.

[bobucles]

3 hours ago, Squeegee said:

The way stat attribute work is a bit different than that I think.

I think it works like this

• Natural Mining Skill 7/20
• Hard Digging +2
• Harder Digging +3
• Ultrahard Digging +3
• Atmo-Suit +10
• Zombie Spores -10
• TOTAL = 15

Regardless if you have it or not, once that natural skill one reaches it's limit, there's no real way to increment it.

That looks about right. Your duplicant's interests set their natural job levels, so they start with XP already in the job. Their traits, buffs, debuffs and learned skills all get tacked on at the end.

XP gains are generally time dependent and dramatically boosted by your science skill. The issue is that even though zombie dupes take longer to perform a task, they also get a -100% XP rate from the zombie spores. It's not always true that going slower and learning slower will be superior to normal rates.

[Angpaur]

4 hours ago, crypticorb said:

I just did some testing in a sandbox, and two freshly printed dupes side by side researching, both with 0 in science starting. One had zombie spores, the control group duplicant had no other factors. The control group gained a point in science, while the sick dupe gained nothing and made zero progress to the research.

I tested this too. After 12 cycles dupe with -8 Science(I gave him Advanced Research skill) finally got his first Science attribute gain. And indeed no research was progressed so it can be considered as an exploit. If each next gain takes 10% less time then in 80 cycles dupe should reach +10 natural Science attribute.

I have a mixed feelings if it is worth to it - its an exploit and dupe will not have oportunity to rise any other attributes during that 80 cycles.

I need to test if having Hypothermia also prevents progressing research.

[metallichydra]

I think the dupe have to have a max. of - 4 science, otherwise research will be done. the dupe's science skill must not be lower than -10 science, otherwise the dupe won't gain any skills.

[nakomaru]

One reason to not worry too much about minmaxing leaning is because most things that you can train will reach 20 with any effort put to training it: athletics, operation, strength and harvesting are easy. Digging and construction might take a lot of manual intervention but can go there too. Ranching sounds miserable. In the very end you can get all those to 20 if you want and put the time into it.

[Angpaur]

45 minutes ago, metallichydra said:

I think the dupe have to have a max. of - 4 science, otherwise research will be done. the dupe's science skill must not be lower than -10 science, otherwise the dupe won't gain any skills.

Seems you are right. -5 from Hypothermia still prevented research progress.

So I will make a training programm for my new dupes that will involve running on manual generator untill I get 2 new skill point. I will assign the points for all 3 science skills to get +6 on the attribute.

Then dupes will go to zombie zone to train Science

[cpy]

Isn't science completely useless for endgame? Instead of vents going dormant they should have high sediment level and science dupe will need to decontaminate sediment by pouring science juice to unclog vent. Maybe sediment charge for volcano and who knows what. But I'm pretty happy how it works now.

We need more endgame content to keep us busy.

[FenrirZeroZero]

Can't you still train science with the observatory? After the last destination it is still used and should also give science points?

[Angpaur]

Last time I used observatory it was actually training  operating instead of science. Maybe this problem was finally fixed.

[FenrirZeroZero]

Might be one of the Mods that im using that fixes it.