I.. wha-.. D:

[Smasher5523]

I.. just realised something that i wasnt really a fan of, All the skills slowly go down... all of em. So if i go afk for a while with my OP "cover the whole map with turrets" setup, i come back to morons with lvl 1 crafting and mining.. Why does this exist? Why do my colonists brains slowly turn to mush? is there an option to disable it or... na?

[Haplo]

Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.

[EBrown]

What baffles me is that I send my guy out hunting and he ends up sniping one of my own people because they got in the way. Really, Mike? Shooting McPherson now?

Thanks,
EBrown

[Smasher5523]

Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.

Uhh, yeah i got mods that require more than lvl 10 and.. idk how to keep it maintained.. Like the crafting skill.. I cant keep a colonist making stone blocks etc ??/? whatever dates and times they got on the rimworld. and it is just annoying really..

[christhekiller]

Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.

Really? I seem to be in a constant need for Stone blocks. Either I build into a mountain and like lining the walls with stone blocks once I'm settled or I have a proper town and I need so much god damn stone for pathways and big arse perimeter walls

Uhh, yeah i got mods that require more than lvl 10 and.. idk how to keep it maintained.. Like the crafting skill.. I cant keep a colonist making stone blocks etc ??/? whatever dates and times they got on the rimworld. and it is just annoying really..

[Goo Poni]

There really is no way to maintain it. You can save edit all your colonists to lv20 in all skills and within a few game days, they will have degraded to lv16-17. It makes those well-skilled assassins and such kinda moot, they'll end up only marginally better than everyone else because they will forget how to gun in a week and the 100-man raid will not help them remember. Same with any really good doctors. Temporary benefits at best.

[FMK]

There really is no way to maintain it. You can save edit all your colonists to lv20 in all skills and within a few game days, they will have degraded to lv16-17. It makes those well-skilled assassins and such kinda moot, they'll end up only marginally better than everyone else because they will forget how to gun in a week and the 100-man raid will not help them remember. Same with any really good doctors. Temporary benefits at best.

Not entirely true, you can use cryo pods if you absolutely need to keep colonists from degrading in skills, since everything about them is saved and set as-is. As an added bonus, they don't consume food or count towards your colonist count while in the cryo ship pods.

[ShadowTani]

I personally think that:

• The skill degradation should be slower
• It should be at least a days delay since last activity with the skill before the skill starts degrading
• If a skill delevels you get EXP bonuses up to the highest level the character reached in the skill, making it easier to regain the lost skill levels - because really, relearning/remembering shouldn't be the same as learning something from scratch. The bonus can be affected by the characters consciousness though, can't expect someone with a brain injury to remember stuff well.

I think these points would make the skill degradation more realistic and less frustrating imo, and I would actually then not mind if the skill degradation was active for all levels - though then preferably also with a delevel threshold from highest level reached (for example if character hit level 12, he can't delevel further than level 7 if the delevel threshold is -5).

[UrbanBourbon]

The skill should never drop a whole level. I think that'd be the easiest and simplest solution. The worst aspect of the skill degradation is that it can't be modded off. It's such a core gameplay element currently. It's irritating and off-putting, really. As a critic I can appreciate (forced) skill degradation. It's a beautiful mechanic. But it still goes against my gamer instincts. It's untraditional and ultimately unpleasant, even if it feels fresh at first. In the longterm, skill degradation is a demotivator.

The cryo pod trick was a new one to me. That sort of puts things to perspective. Maybe I should start collecting experts, train them, freeze them and unfreeze them as necessary? Even so, I still think the skill degradation is too strong currently. On the other hand, it'd be totally cool and awesome if it could be stopped with a legitimate late gameplay mechanic such as an implant!

[skullywag]

I think this is a mechanic that will be removed it serves no purpose, I don't see this being here in the final release. I could be wrong but it adds no value to the game and I don't pay much attention to it bar shooters, if I ever have I've gone " ugh that sucks" my shoters lost 4 levels it removes the achievement of getting a colonist to 20. Also as in Tynans original premise of a time restricted game (I feel this is changing, most people arent playing to escape) having your stats drop makes little sense. Again I could be wrong and Tynan likes this mechanic or has plans for it, but currently I label this as an annoyance.

[TheSilencedScream]

You should lose progress from one level to the next, but I agree that you should never completely lose levels, let alone MULTIPLE levels.

It's simply not possible to combat the degrade with any effectiveness, and it makes any specialized pawns - like the assassin - completely worthless (can't do many other jobs and, after a few days, is a mediocre shot as well).

[Serkonus]

I agree with it being an annoyance. I find it diminishes the fun I have with the game. When the game becomes too much 'work' to achieve a goal (in this case, keeping skills high/maxed) it will lose some level of satisfaction for the work you put into achieving that goal.

Let the game challenge people with choices, but not with having to ramp up your micromanaging just to keep a small statistical advantage.

[RemingtonRyder]

I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.

[TheSilencedScream]

I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.

I can get behind this. For example, it makes sense that, if you're shot in the arm, you're not going be quite as good of a shot without therapy and training.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.

I can get behind this. For example, it makes sense that, if you're shot in the arm, you're not going be quite as good of a shot without therapy and training.

This should only happen if the arm shot happens to be your shooting arm. You can still shoot small arms just fine with only one hand, so long as they were designed as such (Hello pistols, Uzi's, etc).