Mod «Life Lessons» for Rimworld (v1.4)

Have you ever questioned how that tribal you just recruited is suddenly able to build all of the advanced technological marvels that your colony has unlocked? Or how the 15 year old starship stowaway is capably patching up a shredded liver with no prior medical training?

This mod will add the concept of proficiencies to the game. If the research system of Rimworld represents the collective knowledge of the colony, and the colonist Skill system represents the personal talent of a colonist, then Life Lesson's proficiencies represent the personal knowledge of the colonist.

Life Lessons adds new personal masteries such as First Aid training, Smithing, Ship Building, Tailoring and more. Additionally, it adds new more cerebral masteries such as Chemistry and Physics. These proficiencies are used as barriers of progression, as many common tasks around the colony will now require specialized training.

Below are some note worthy examples of how proficiencies will impact the day to day activities of your colonists.

Most craftable items now either require proficiencies, train proficiencies, or sometimes both.

Because most complex items require at least some foundational knowledge, your most experienced craftsmen are much more important. It may be difficult to train replacements, and some specialized skills like Ship Building may be rare enough to consider an "outside hire."

Us midworlders often take for granted how much training we've undergone over years to master the use of computers in their many forms. While most people are already familiar, many children and tribal backgrounds will not have interacted with computers before and may need training to use some computerized devices such as the Comms Console.

Gone are the days of the 15 year old Caveworld Urchin being the lead engineer building your physics defying spaceship. Most industrial and above constructions now require or train proficiencies. Most buildings simply require basic construction training, but many require a knowledge of Electronics or a more specialized proficiency such as Engineering.

A well trained engineer is vital for a progressing colony. Some advanced skills such as Electronics and Engineering may be very difficult to acquire naturally. However, many proficiencies can be learned by deconstructing existing structures to learn how they work. This is a very good way to learn electronics and mechanics, as many ancient structures and detritus can be disassembled to learn.

Your untrained one eyed cat-doctor is now a true menace in the medical bay. Colonists lacking First Aid training will be much more likely to make many injuries worse before they make them better, and also have a higher risk of causing infection. Most internal injuries and some more significant wounds like shredding and crushing injuries require a more capable doctor with proper Medical training to safely tend. Unfortunately, trained doctors are quite rare.
Until you train or "acquire" one of your own, you can toggle the Tend All option under a colonist's Health tab to allow them to treat any injury even at great risk to the specim- patient.

Because doctors are quite rare, it may well be worth the relationship hit to borrow one from another faction if they happen to wander onto your map.

A trained scientist is now your most important colonist. Most research projects now require various science proficiencies to complete. For example, you'll need a trained Geologist to research hydro thermal power. Once a colonist has all of the requisite proficiencies mastered, they will perform research as usual.
The lead researcher
While it's possible for one big brained colonist to master every proficiency and perform all of the colony's research solo, often you will find that a project requires a skill that someone besides your skilled researchers has. In cases like this, you can assign a colonist that has the requisite proficiencies to the research work type and once they begin researching other researchers may now join the work effort. As long as at least one researcher has all of the required proficiencies, your whole science team can work on a project.

While some proficiencies can be learned by doing, many require a teacher who already knows them. There is a new main tab Lessons along the bottom that opens a UI for designing and scheduling classes where your pawns can assemble to learn. Classrooms can teach many people at once, but in general learning in class is not as effective as learning by doing, so training a new doctor for example may be a very time consuming process.
There are two core components of the Lessons UI:
Lesson Plans: A lesson plan is a collection of students, a teacher, and a collection of taught subjects. Many subjects can be taught simultaneously, so it's possible to setup a basic elementary lesson plan and forget about it. Teaching multiple proficiencies at once will reduce the overall speed of learning.
Class Schedule: A schedule specifies which lesson plans to teach, and when. For example, you can schedule multiple classes with different students on different days of the season. It's wise to schedule in blocks of 2-3 hours or greater, as it does take some time for your students to run to the classroom.

Once a schedule is made, it can be assigned to a teacher's station and your class will assemble during the next scheduled timeslot.
In the bottom left corner of the screen there is a ? button that will kick off a small tutorial to help introduce you to these concepts.

11.07.23 (1.4)

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