Vocational Training Courses NOT Occupations

[Muggins]

After playing the occupational upgrade for a few weeks  I've come to the conclusion that the 'jobs' feel more like vocational training courses instead of specialised roles for each of the dupes. Once the dupe has mastered the job there's no reason to keep them in it.

 

As of right now almost every dupe in my colony is a fully qualified miner, engineer, farmer etc. whilst they are currently undergoing 'research' training to grab those 'learning' stat boosts. Obviously they've already mastered the 'janitor' and 'courier' careers for the extra "strength' bonuses.

 

I actually quite like the idea of 'training' dupes but as it stands I find myself micromanaging the job roles so much that it's annoying and I really don't care who does what in the end.

 

some ideas:

 

1. Dupes must use specific machines, (perhaps in a 'training room' for extra efficiency,) to level up stats faster than they do passively. The player then has to weigh up the advantages of training over having that dupe available for other tasks.

2. Each job role has a 'gun and a badge' type system whereby the dupes are given specific tools, as well as the hat, but only whilst they are in that role. For example I would love to see the 'master miners' get an accessory for their 'destructo ray gun' that reaches one block further than the standard ones. When you quit or change the job you have to hand in your 'gun and your badge'.

 

 

[Argelle]

Thanks for spelling it out, this is exactely how this upsate feels.

[PhailRaptor]

The thing is that the live branch only has half the system.

In the opt-in beta preview, there was another piece that overhauled the Priority system.  In that version, Job tasks were performed before other tasks at the same Priority.  But it had a slew of problems with dependent tasks not getting done, like delivering Water and Dirt for the Research Stations not being considered part of Research.  Building anything took forever, because it required 3 Dupes to do it -- Miner to dig the tile, Gofer to deliver the materials, and Builder to actually build whatever it was.  And each of those tasks could only be assigned when the previous was completed.

The concept was quite good, and made the Job system make sense.  But it had unresolved issues that didn't live up to the concept.  Here's to hoping the next update, in 3 weeks, will contain a revised version of that system.

[Muggins]

3 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

The thing is that the live branch only has half the system.

That's true but I still feel that even if the jobs do affect the priorities I would still end up moving the dupes through each of the career paths and treating them more like training courses just for the stat bonuses. I would like to see a better connection between dupe traits and occupations, as well as an incentive to keep them in their careers, for example, maintaining specialised tools only whilst in that role.

[TheOlz]

I think the current system of having the jobs basically be a talent tree for dupes makes the game more playable than the idea of locking dupes into a particular (and narrow) job the way it was in the beta branch.

Moving dupes into and out of jobs constantly to run an effective colony was terrible.

The system we have now, while not perfect, is much better than the way it was.  It encourages keeping dupes alive and training them up, and it makes sense for a long lived dupe to become proficient at a number of tasks, not be locked into just 1.

[Muggins]

6 hours ago, TheOlz said:

It encourages keeping dupes alive and training them up, and it makes sense for a long lived dupe to become proficient at a number of tasks, not be locked into just 1.

I agree that investing time in your dupes makes them more valuable and the idea of losing them more dramatic, and I also like that dynamic. But even you have referred to this as "training them up". So why not have a separate system for training the dupes and then a more refined system for dupe occupations? It should still be possible to change job roles but maybe with a slight penalty. As it stands the player is incentivised to swap roles as much as possible which is fiddly and annoying and which is why I currently have 12 dupes in research jobs even though there is no research to research!?!? The incentive should be to have a balance of dupes across all the roles and the player should be rewarded for doing so.

[travaldofan]

yeah for one dupe mastering job i constantly have wait to open THE 5 MINUTE JOB TAB(i have 24 dupes) 

[Muggins]

11 minutes ago, travaldofan said:

yeah for one dupe mastering job i constantly have wait to open THE 5 MINUTE JOB TAB(i have 24 dupes) 

I limit my population to 15 for these reasons of laggyness...it seems to be the sweet spot for my laptop. The job screen loading time was HUGELY improved upon a few 'mini-quick-fixy-updates' ago so in case you haven't played the game since then you should give it a whirl!

[Cypher-7]

I really like the way the system works now (aside from the priority bugs) having the dupes retain the stat bonus from jobs they master feels good for game play. Letting you choose how to focus on what stats to pump and in time bring able to train up all you dupes is nice. It’s a way better system then the passive gain system before where you just ended up with a bunch of +20 athletics.