Trading decreases social skill

[Hedger02]

Sorry if this has been posted before but i did do a search for it and only found a post with no replies from almost 2 years ago.

On 2 different occasions i traded with a caravan and then a combat merchant using the comms. Both times i checked the pawns starting skill to see if trading one item at a time vs bulk trading helped raise the skill faster. After both times his social skill actually went down! The first time only by 1 point but the second time actually went down by roughly 180. From 2447/14000 to 2446 then 2260 respectively. I will see if i have a save file that i can attach later if that would help....not sure if i have a before and after though that aren't spread rather far apart game time wise.

Just to clarify in case it help i'm not using a single mod of any kind...playing on classic rough.

Curious if this is something intended to discourage trading to gain skill or bug?

[Skaliri]

Most likely what you have noticed is the skill-degradation: All level 10+ skills will slowely degrade over time. The speed at which it does is dependant on the level of the skill (so lvl 11 or 12 will only degrade very slowely, but level 20 or 19 will degrade quite rapidly). Try it out: check some of the lvl 10+ skills of your characters and you will see them degrading.

Of course, if you don't like skill-degradation, you could add "Mad Skills", it's a mod that has 3 different releases: 1 fully stops skill degredation, 1 stops it at 1xp/X (so doesn't actually degrade levels, only the per level XP) and one slows it down by 50%.

[Hedger02]

Hmm the 1 point drop sounds like you might be right but the 180 one was RIGHT after i traded....the only time that it could degrade would be the time it took me to close the trade window and look at the pawns skills again. Just seems fishy to me but ill check it again next time a trader comes around and also ill keep an eye on his skill to see how fast it degrades between uses

[Skaliri]

I'll have a look myself in a bit, I just kind of gave the most logical explanation, but it doesn't seem that hard to replicate the circumstances with dev mode, so I'll give it a try in a few min. I'll edit / post as soon as I tried it.

EDIT:
Have dev-moded in a buncha trade ships, have not been able to replicate it so far, only normal decay (sold and bought some things from multiple traders, no effect. No increase either) . I do run a bunch of mods though, although nothing that should affect trading

[John_Bigless]

I'll have a look myself in a bit, I just kind of gave the most logical explanation, but it doesn't seem that hard to replicate the circumstances with dev mode, so I'll give it a try in a few min. I'll edit / post as soon as I tried it.

EDIT:
Have dev-moded in a buncha trade ships, have not been able to replicate it so far, only normal decay (sold and bought some things from multiple traders, no effect. No increase either) . I do run a bunch of mods though, although nothing that should affect trading

Sorry for being frozen, but the Hypothermic Tortoises doesnt seem to do anything, it just shows a fake alert (i am 99% sure)

[Tynan]

It is just normal skill decay, whose rate varies by skill level.

Thanks for repro attempting Skaliri.