Reduced workspeed = more skill gain per material used?

[asanbr]

Sometimes I craft or cook just to gain skill, I don't care about what the value is or if I'm going to use the end product.

So I thought that a non-electric tailoring bench could be a good thing, because it seems that work happens slower but skill gain happens at the same amount per second. So I gain more skill per ingredient.

Is this correct?

It's quite useful on biomes like ice where there isn't much leather around.

[cultist]

Yes that is correct. You can further increase this number by having the crafting area outside and/or in non-ideal temperature.

[Canute]

Some weapon mods offer some heavy weapons they reduce the workspeed too.
Or amputate a hand/arm to lower manipulation, same effect. But you should have a bionic arm/hand for him ready once he got a good skill.

[asanbr]

Or amputate a hand/arm to lower manipulation, same effect. But you should have a bionic arm/hand for him ready once he got a good skill.

lol, I don't know if I would have come up with that idea. Wonderful. WAD obv 

[BoogieMan]

This seems like counter intuitive design. Why should having work speed penalties increase skill gain? It should probably be normalized..

Instead of awarding EXP as work is being done, it seems like it should award portions of exp award something like every 25% of an object completed so fast workers don't get screwed.

[cultist]

This seems like counter intuitive design. Why should having work speed penalties increase skill gain? It should probably be normalized..

It doesn't increase the rate of xp gain, it just slows down the crafting process. The end result is more xp for less materials consumed, but (obviously) also fewer items produced. The cost/benefit analysis is about whether or not you have an excess of raw materials.

I should add that this doesn't work with most jobs. Cooking (and Doctoring) gives a single chunk of xp when a pawn finishes a task, so you want your cook (and doctor) to always work as fast as possible, regardless of skill level. Same for stonecutting. Not sure if other "low tech" crafting jobs like smelting steel chunks even give xp anymore, but the same applies here if they do. It works for construction, but you run the risk of wasting materials because it also increases chance of failure.
Essentially the "exploit" is only good for long-term jobs that create items with quality levels, so tailoring, (most) smithing jobs and artistic.
It kind of works with growing and construction, but the potential downsides make it usually not worth it. Besides, you generally want these jobs finished quickly because they are already time-consuming to begin with and essential for your colony to thrive and expand.

And finally, there is a daily skill gain cap which in most cases prevents you from doing much more than stifling your own progress by doing this.

[Trylobyte]

Cultist has it right - This is an illusion and is, for most tasks, counterproductive because XP is only given when the job is finished.  I'm not sure how this works for jobs with work units (crafting, artistic, etc) but I imagine it's actually the same, with XP being given per work unit completed rather than per second.  This would also be counterproductive since the number of work units doesn't change, just the speed at which they're completed.  This would limit the gains to limiting over-cap XP (because the job takes longer to finish so the pawn is less likely to hit their daily cap, and exceeds it by less if they do) and maintaining skill levels (since skill decay doesn't happen when a skill is gaining).

[b0rsuk]

When it comes to training Construction, it is trivial to conserve resources if you order a stone chess table. It takes forever to build one. Or at least it used to work that way. I need to check a recent version.

[cultist]

I'm not sure how this works for jobs with work units (crafting, artistic, etc) but I imagine it's actually the same, with XP being given per work unit completed rather than per second.

I think it depends on the type of job mostly. Any artistic, armor or weapon bill gives continuous xp, as does growing, research and construction. I can't figure out the logic behind when plant cutting gives xp and when it doesn't, but it seems to be related to the maturity rate of what you're harvesting. Most other jobs only give xp when the job is finished.

Surgery used to give continuous xp, but I think it was changed to a large chunk instead (presumably to prevent powerleveling by starting surgery and cancelling before it's done).

[asanbr]

Cultist has it right - This is an illusion and is, for most tasks, counterproductive because XP is only given when the job is finished.  I'm not sure how this works for jobs with work units (crafting, artistic, etc) but I imagine it's actually the same, with XP being given per work unit completed rather than per second.  This would also be counterproductive since the number of work units doesn't change, just the speed at which they're completed.  This would limit the gains to limiting over-cap XP (because the job takes longer to finish so the pawn is less likely to hit their daily cap, and exceeds it by less if they do) and maintaining skill levels (since skill decay doesn't happen when a skill is gaining).

It't not an illusion and it's not counterproductive. People already confirmed that it works.

I mentioned tailoring in my example and as far as I understand it would work perfectly fine with art too, which is similar to tailoring.

I'm doing exactly this in my current game, where I'm on an ice sheet and I have very little leather / cloth to use. I need some clothes but I'm not in a hurry to get them, and my tailor pawn can't do anything else useful with her time. So I go for max skill gain with the little amount of leather I have available.

I would do the same with art since I don't want to waste stones when I always need more stone walls and floors, but I would like a high skill art pawn for income later on.

[Trylobyte]

I'm not sure how this works for jobs with work units (crafting, artistic, etc) but I imagine it's actually the same, with XP being given per work unit completed rather than per second.

I think it depends on the type of job mostly. Any artistic, armor or weapon bill gives continuous xp, as does growing, research and construction. I can't figure out the logic behind when plant cutting gives xp and when it doesn't, but it seems to be related to the maturity rate of what you're harvesting. Most other jobs only give xp when the job is finished.

Surgery used to give continuous xp, but I think it was changed to a large chunk instead (presumably to prevent powerleveling by starting surgery and cancelling before it's done).

Seems a bit unusual that it would work that way, but I admitted I didn't know how it works for work unit tasks.  I'd have programmed it differently myself to remove that very thing.  I'll keep that in mind.

[cultist]

it's not counterproductive.

That depends on your playstyle. If you just want to crank out goods and make some money quick, it is indeed counter-prodcutive. If your goal is to level a pawn's skill with as little material consumed as possible, it's a good tactic.

[Bozobub]

it's not counterproductive.

That depends on your playstyle. If you just want to crank out goods and make some money quick, it is indeed counter-prodcutive. If your goal is to level a pawn's skill with as little material consumed as possible, it's a good tactic.

..Then flatly stating that it is counterproductive is, in fact, obviously not necessarily correct *shrug*.