[A17.1543] Stonecutting table allowed skill range is Construction

[ymc]

Set minimum skill levels. Since the bills take into account Constructing rather than Crafting, you can ensure that crafters (unless they *also* meet the construction minimum skill you set) will not make stones, or drugs in the case of intellectuals.

I actually like the idea as a work-around, but you've gotta meet me half-way here. That's a work-around. In my current game I've been using very strict zones to ensure that my constructor with 0 crafting (but not disabled!) continues to use the crafting table to construct and never gets better at crafting. A life of cutting stone into bricks is preparing him for making some really sweet legendary medical beds one day.

In the current limbo system in place regarding bricks, we have to have a very skilled person sitting there cutting stone. But they don't get better at being skilled with their hands, like making spears or art out of said stone -- oh no -- they get better at making furniture and gun turrets and geothermal power plants. See below for Grunt & Longshank, my best choices for making bricks in a dual-colony world I have running 184 days in. I'm not joking, these are the people I pull off of whatever they're doing when I need more bricks for my artists and builders.

Check out Dalton (Scout / Gardener). She had passions in all the right things, seemed like a great idea for starting solo character. Nope. She couldn't make bricks even though it's based on construction now, so I had to wait for another colonist so I could waste them solely on making bricks so she could use them to build the really complicated non-menial stuff like walls. "Oh well she's a gardener, it makes sense that she's no good doing repetitive things with her hands." There's currently no backstory mention of Crating -> Make bricks at the table disabled. Give it time though, because that's what the devs do when they want to stick to their guns that it's WAD. It works real great, just look at drugs!

Edit: Your second image is a really weak example, considering that they STILL wouldn't be able to do it, as they're unable to do Construction, either.

I didn't really explain those well enough, and that's on me, I was just hoping the filenames and the tooltip would explain it. Both of those screenshots are attempts to make drugs at a drug lab by individuals broken by the update, because that was the map I had open at the time and I was being lazy. That was going with my point that drug production is a bloody mess right now because somebody "fixed" crafting skill gain there. Right now drug manufacturing is a pseudo-job that not just anybody can handle, it even gets a special mention in backstories when it's disabled, because it's somehow easier to go back and edit backstories to prove that it's not a mistake and that this is the path we want to go down. We're not talking about Walter White 99.1% pure crystal meth here, yayo is often made by unfortunate souls pulled out of factories and tailoring sweatshops because of their ability to handle assembly line style repetitive grunt work (and because if they accidentally get contaminated, it's not like it really matters, they're a dime a dozen).

In the current limbo system in place regarding drugs, we have to have a very intelligent person sitting there making drugs. They have to be at least able to craft; they don't have to be good at it, but they do have to have a backstory that doesn't prevent them from sitting down at a table. But they don't get better at being skilled with their hands -- oh no -- they get better at inventing cryostasis pods and multi-barrel weapons and shield belts.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[DariusWolfe]

To be clear, I don't like the current system, I just arguing that it's not a bug, and that it works. I just had to deal with the system for making medicine for the first time last night myself (I've always been a real slacker on drug production; mostly a moral objection, but I've been deliberately making myself play with smokeleaf, and finally started medical production) and it's kind of stupid. My crafters can't make it, my doctor can't make it, and my (3) researchers can't make it; it falls on the one person who lands just barely in the sweet spot, but who's terrible at intellectual; which is, of course, the skill she's gaining now.

I think the current state of dissatisfaction with the system is a combination of things; dislike of change, the weird interaction between disabled skills, and the skill decay system that actively discourages generalists.

I agree something has to give; I disagree that it's broken or a bug.

[dgchessman1984]

If this is truly Working As Intended... under the Work tab, when you hover over Crafting, you still see both Smelting and Cut Stone under the list of ways to increase it, and not under Construction.

(brought to this convo because I was shocked and confused to appear to be getting no exp from either one.  On further inspection the pawn was getting Construction at the end of the cut bricks)

[DariusWolfe]

The work tab doesn't specify skills, exactly, it specifies work type. Cutting stone is still considered a crafting work type, which is where a lot of the confusion is coming from, and why there has been at least one request to move stonecutting to the Construction work type.

So, rolling joints, making drugs (unless that actually moved to the Intellectual worktype, and I missed it) and stonecutting are still under the crafting work type, but they do not give crafting XP.

[ison]

bump

[ozimage]

Hey gents, just run into this problem.

By the notes it seems people don't fully realise where the problem is:

It seems you assign stone-cutting work with crafting. 
But it increases the construction skill.
And the skill limit on the table is set by "construction".

Edit: sorry, I've quoted the wrong skill increased.

[asanbr]

I think the easiest solution for you would be restricted zones until this (maybe) changes. To avoid having your crafter make stones.

Or skill restriction (low or high) but someone already suggested that.

Also, for skill gain I think stonecutting is super inefficient. I let people build stone walls and stone floors if I want them to gain quickly.

But maybe you want to sell your stones or make sculptures, rather than waste them on walls and floors.

[ison]

bump

[sadpickle]

Bump?

Should definitely be a construction job. I (now) agree with the rationale, it's a bit absurd to become a master gunsmith from cutting blocks all day.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Bump?

Should definitely be a construction job. I (now) agree with the rationale, it's a bit absurd to become a master gunsmith from cutting blocks all day.

"Bump" meaning Ison is keeping it closer to the top of the list, could be just for his own convenience or possibly he is waiting for Tynan to look at it.

[YokoZar]

There are 0 tasks under the "crafting" job that use the crafting skill.  Drugs use intelligence, stone cutting uses construction, refining isn't influenced by skill.

If you do nothing else, consider renaming that job (or the skill).  The current situation is rather unintuitive.

[YokoZar]

There's also no current way to set a pawn to "make drugs but not bricks" unless you restrict stone cutting to have a construction skill floor.  Confusingly you want your good researchers to not have construction skill - otherwise they'll waste time doing the wrong thing.

[Seriously Unserious]

Bump?

Should definitely be a construction job. I (now) agree with the rationale, it's a bit absurd to become a master gunsmith from cutting blocks all day.

IMO that's a bit of a moot point. I could also argue that it's just as absurd to think someone can become skilled at making legendary armchairs, and tables or geothermal power plants just because they're good at cutting stone into perfect square blocks so someone can make perfectly fitted stone walls out of them.

This is a game and there are limits to what Tynan can do to separate things out. As for game balancing, I personally tend to have more trouble leveling up my crafters to high skill levels as those jobs don't come up as much as construction jobs in the early game. My construction people are usually working on a backlog of walls, floors, furniture and machinery and level up very quickly to high skill levels, so having stonecutting also contribute to that skill just overloads the skill gain all to the same area, while my crafters are starved for exp.

[ison]

Alright, thanks everyone for the feedback.

Stonecutting in B18 doesn't increase any skill anymore, it's still done by pawns with the "Crafting" work type enabled though. I think it's fine, colonists shouldn't be able to grind crafting skill simply by cutting blocks.

Drug production increases the Intellectual skill, but it's still done by pawns with the "Crafting" work type enabled. It's because we don't have any work type just for producing drugs, and I'm not sure it's needed.

If I understood correctly the biggest problem is that it's impossible to restrict skilled crafters from cutting blocks because the allowed skill range widget is gone. I think that bringing it back should solve the problem.