skills Stat Improvement via Training

[Wedgebert]

As an alternative to the two methods of stat gain in the Occupational Update (by assigned job only with no persistence, and natural progression combined with permanent job gains), I propose something along the following.

Dupes can naturally gain stats up to a very low number, maybe 2-3. Just enough to not be absolute horrible, and to counter-act any penalties due to things like Anemic or future negative traits.

Next, when assigned to a job, upon mastery, a dupe gains +1 relevant stat (e.g. Learning as scientist) as a permanent bonus. This is not considered a natural skill gain, so if for whatever reason, you haven't naturally gained up to the max 2-3 points, this job mastery will not count against it.

Also when assigned to a job, the dupe gains the assigned job bonus (+2 or +3 or whatever). This reflects being assigned the proper tools to do his job (i.e. his hat). Switching jobs causes the dupe to lose this bonus as well as the relevant powers (no instruction manual means he forgot how to use the Supercomputer)

Finally, there is a new job available, Trainee/Student/something. When assigned to this job, a dupe can be then be assigned to a specific piece of equipment. Weight set, library, easy bake oven, etc. When the dupe gains a job level, he gets a +1 to the relevant stat, his job xp is reset to zero, and the xp to master the job goes by a some value (could be linear X times number of masteries, +25% of previous level, etc). The Learning skill gain bonus does not affect the rate of xp gain for this job and no passive xp is gained so you can't have a dupe off tidying and operating when she's supposed to be studying.

 

This way all your dupes will get a little better over time so as to not be useless. Job mastery grants some upgrades so dupes can get even better. And finally if you have the spare time, dupes can spend their time gaining more stat bonuses, but the ever increasing costs means that it pays to specialize and gaining very high numbers means having that dupe be worthless for a long time as training progresses.