How does sect work?

[Arc]

I don't get it.
I made one. I have a guy. I assign him... to my building. My building has things for him to work with; zither, smithy, etc. He doesn't even show up. I figure maybe I need to specifically make individual buildings as outlined in the build menu, so I do. I can still only assign him to my main building. He still doesn't show up. A second person joined sect and DID show up, but she just sort of... walks around doing nothing.
Is the system just super unfinished and should be ignored, maybe bugging out like ordering companions (which I've never been able to make work at all). or what? If I just expanded into an existing town, would that town work for me, since they're already doing jobs anyways?

[lher]

In my game world I assigned two indoor level members to guarding the warehouse, the forge, and the tavern. All six shows up to their duty daily, but I also made sure that their old residency was either bought out or destroyed and created new residency on the same tile as the building they are guarding. I also see that they run to their residency at night to sleep and come back in the morning. I have also taught them forge, crafting, weave, and wine skills. On occasion I will see them crafting or doing something because the training white circle shows up from time to time. So maybe the sequence to get them to work is:

1. Remove all residency the member had prior.
2. Create a new residency on the same tile as the building they are assigned to that has a bed.
3. Teach them a relevant skill to the building they are guarding.

[Sheldin 夜秋夢]

Before you do anything make sure you can build a warehouse..
With that said, it works likes this;

If you assign people to different jobs: Langya Pavilion, Clinic, Forge, Training Room, Stable, Music House and Fabric Shop your disciples will learn the corresponding skills over time automatically. You'll see a blue bar start to fill up.
Every other "job" doesn't have corresponding skills in the game (yet) but they still do work (I'll get to that later).

When your disciples start off with their new job they will "suck" at it and not be as effective. Once they reach the highest rank you'll start to see higher tier craft being made, higher sales and more passive income. This takes forever though so have some patience with it.

As for the other "non-skill" jobs such as fisherman, miner, farmer (village) etc. They do gather the materials for you but slowly. And if you place a mining hut for example close to ore veins you'll gather higher tier ore more frequently - even if your sect don't own the land where this is happening.

If you do own the land you increase the passive income;
When you expand your territory a small box shows up when you hover over the territory you want. It shows the potential income in that area - both monetary but also materials. Use that to gauge where to place your labor to maximize efficiency.

You can also get passive income from non-sect members by expanding your territory over areas where there are houses of which you do not own. These people living here will pay taxes to you.
If you then recruit the owners of establishments (like the clinic master for example) the building will automatically become yours once they join you - all you have to do is re-assign them to the clinic in the "Manage Disciples" menu.

You also have to manually create Kung-Fu for your disciples to learn (and manually assign it in the menu) if you want them to learn your skills. This too happens automatically, randomly while they are out and about.

[Arc]

Did the break down, recreate, add skill thing. Even tried in a fresh world. Nothing. They're nowhere near the sect and they're not actually making any effort to move towards it.
Also what's a good way to break buildings? There are some in my way. I set it on fire but 5 random people came out of nowhere to put it out (which npcs can do instantly with water pulled out of the air). Even after killing them, the fire puts itself out. The building (clinic in maple woods) has > 9k durability. Punching it does nothing.

[lher]

Originally posted by Arc:

Did the break down, recreate, add skill thing. Even tried in a fresh world. Nothing. They're nowhere near the sect and they're not actually making any effort to move towards it.
Also what's a good way to break buildings? There are some in my way. I set it on fire but 5 random people came out of nowhere to put it out (which npcs can do instantly with water pulled out of the air). Even after killing them, the fire puts itself out. The building (clinic in maple woods) has > 9k durability. Punching it does nothing.

Use skills like Flame Sword, Frost Saber, or any other that does good damage. Flame Sword will take down most building in 3-6 hits depending on HP.

To your point about the NPC not making any effort to move may be incorrect. To test your problems I issued an order to one sect member to guard my Music House and I followed it around. First, the NPC ran toward a house I had started construction but did not finish. The NPC started gathering materials to finish the house by itself without any commands. When it finished the house it ran toward another house really far away that I had completely forgotten to finish and it started finishing that house too. Finally after finishing the house, it ran toward the Music House and walk right into it. This all took about 23 minutes. My conclusion is that your NPCs are probably doing the same thing if you follow it around. On the map, they will not look to be moving because the game does not have real time map movement as far as I know.