Effect of science level? (skill vs. attribute terminology mess)

[myxal]

What exactly does a dupe's science level affect?

Speaking of "leveling" as in maxing out dupe's persistent stats generally, 2 stats come to mind:

• skill points acquired (how many skills I can assign to a dupe in the "jobs" screen, the things that need skill scrubber to reset)
• "skill level", referred to as "attribute level" by wiki - the thing that maxes out at 20 and never goes down (ie. excluding any buffs granted by temporary effects or assigned skills)

This is the science attribute pop-up. The description up top implies it improves the former (and no mention of the other), the percentage effect implies it helps with the latter (and no mention of the other). So which does it actually help with?

Crucially - is it beneficial to max out a dupe's science attribute level before maxing out any other attribute level, if the goal is to reach attribute level 20 on everything the dupe can do?

[Tigin]

This is the updated tooltip on the beta branch

[myxal]

So it affects attribute leveling (presumably, according to wiki), the description is fixed, but the breakdown of total and effects list still (incorrectly) calls it "skill level".

Edited November 13, 2025 by myxal

[Tigin]

54 minutes ago, myxal said:

So it affects attribute leveling (presumably, according to wiki), the description is fixed, but the breakdown of total and effects list still (incorrectly) calls it "skill level".

baby steps

[myxal]

If devs are watching this topic - another inconsistency is in the notification:

[asurendra]

It definitely not affects skill points gained. +10 scientist get experience at the same speed as regular +0 dupe