Hiring / Firing <Role> & Skill Gain

[Kerkain]

Kind of a brain dump so I apologize for length...

I just found this site linked in another thread: https://trello.com/b/9I286Mhu/software-inc

In the next update column I saw the following bubble: "Firing people quickly should affect satisfaction and reputation"

While I don't at all disagree with this I would like to make a suggestion that we can see more of the Trait stats available in the interview process. Last night I went through about 60 or 70 "leaders" looking for someone with a high Leadership skill. The only way that I was able to find a leader that I felt qualified to lead the team was to pause the game, hire a large group of applicants, check their stats in the employee information then fire all of the poorly qualified applicants. All in the span of about 1 in game second.

(wishlist thought)Additionally, could it be possible if you have the "Manage Employee" window open while you're hiring an employee that newly hired employee would be highlighted? Found that hiring a lot of employees can sort weirdly making them hard to find quickly.

With that said.

On the topic of skills... Is there any thoughts on making Sub skills (system, 2D, Networking, etc.) able to be gained through use similar to how the Base skill can be gained through use or should it always remain a fixed value?

Another thought on education could be to have existing employees be able to get education to unlock newly released technologies which could then be gained through use opposed to the current 3 month mastery of it. IE: Once Networking becomes available, send off an employee to learn the basics and as a product or contract requires Networking he'd gain more proficiency at it.

This could go further to look for cheap entry-level employees that you could mold to your liking through time vs expensive employees with a college background and experience.

Okay I'm done now.

[cfranks007]

If you look at the employee information, you can sort employees by how long they have been working at the firm. I suppose you would have to write down or remmeber your 'good' rookies, but that should help.

[Kerkain]

I ended up sorting by "Leadership" and then just spammed the hire buttons until a highish skilled leader showed up at the top of the list. Didn't interview at that point either.

[Coredumping]

The traits are based off of the personality. Interviews are supposed to mimic real life, in that you can gauge an employee's personality, but you really have to guess their traits from that. A good leader would probably be outgoing, for example.

All skills should automatically increase as your employees work with them, albeit slowly. I think there might be a bug, such that specialization increase is a little too slow.

[cfranks007]

One of the users made up a chart for the bonuses. I can't remember who. Here's the link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8OdFVdpNTYPcVY2ODVXdWhTYXM/view

[Kerkain]

@Coredumping - Thanks for the clarification. Part of me assumed that value was random and was more in line with just determining the compatibility with other members.

@cfranks007 - Awesome reference, thank you for the link. Gonna spend a good chunk of time looking over that.




For what its worth, I created a new save and paid attention to the skill gains just from doing contracts. Seems there is a balance issue in the types of work you can get from contracts. Art and Design I was able to max out but coding was lacking in any contract work other than 2D. At least at the start.

Notepad dump - Probably gonna be formatted really weirdly:
==============================================

Personality: Generous / Stubborn
Skill: Default values
Specialization: Design(System) Code(System) Art(2D)
Difficulty: Easy

	Base	2D	System	Audio
Design	50	<=50	~40	30
Code	50	<=50	50	20
Art	50	<=50	-	30

Contract 1 - Features (Clock) - Artists (0%) - Embedded System
	(50.95) Code, (51.58) Design, (50.79) Art
Contract 2 - Features (GUI, 3rd Party Integration) - Artists (20%) - Logistics Application (Note: clicked to fast and skipped design)
	(51.03) Code, (51.60) Design, (50.80) Art
Contract 3 - Features (Clock) - Artists (0%) - Embedded System
	(52.25) Code, (54.23) Design, (51.94) Art
Contract 4 - Features (Clock) - Artists (0%) - Embedded System
	(53.47) Code, (56.45) Design, (53.19) Art
Contract 5 - Features (GUI, 3rd Party Integration) - Artists (20%) - Logistics Application
	(56.53) Code, (66.95) Design, (55.88) Art - (Note: 3-4 bumps in 2D Design)
Contract 6 - Features (GUI, 3rd Part Integration) - Artists (20%) - Logistics Application
	(61.89) Code, (76.53) Design, (61.08) Art - (Note: 3 in 2D Design)
Contract 7 - Features (GUI, 3rd Part Integration) - Artists (20%) - Logistics Application
	(67.36) Code, (85.04) Design, (66.23) Art - (Note: 3 bumps in 2D Design, 3 in Code, 3 in Art)
Contract 8 - Features (2D Art, User interface graphics) - Artists (100%) - Game Assets
	(73.00) Code, (93.29) Design, (71.52) Art - (Note: 1 in 2D Design, 0 in Code, 2 in Art)
Contract 9 - Features (GUI, 3rd Part Integration) - Artists (20%) - Logistics Application
	(77.16) Code, (100.00) Design, (75.77) Art - (Note: 2 in 2D Design, 1 in Code, 1 in Art)
Contract 10 - Features (2D art, User interface graphics, Music, Written Dialog) - Artists (100%) - Game Assets
	(95.91) Code, (100.00) Design, (93.62) Art - (Note:  Design- 2 in 2D / 29 Audio, Code - 0, Art - 5 in 2D / 40 Audio)
Contract 11 - Features (Clock, Thermostat, Motor, User interface) - Artists (9%) - Embedded System
	(100.00) Code, (100.00) Design, (100.00) Art - (Note:  Design- 5 in 2D, Code - 5 in 2D, Art - 2 in 2D)
Contract 12 - Features (2D art, User interface graphics, Music, Written Dialog) - Artists (100%) - Game Assets
	(100.00) Code, (100.00) Design, (100.00) Art - (Note:  Design- 5 in 2D / Maxed Audio, Code - 0, Art - 4 in 2D / Maxed Audio)
	
Ending Year - March 1984

==============================================

And with that, some thoughts/suggestions to throw into the mix:

Suggestion: Filterable and visual percentage representation of the technology skills (2D, Networking, Audio, etc) similar to Information, State, Trait, Skill

Suggestion: In the Contracts window, allow the "Finished contracts" column to dynamically expand horizontally.

Suggestion: Ability to double click the Resize Column button next to column headers to resize the columns automatically based on text in the columns.

Suggestion: In the hire employees window:
Move employees personality traits underneath the team they will be assigned to after being hired. Aligns it with the compatibility of the other team members.
Add a label next to the team name the employee would be assigned to post-hiring. IE: Assign To: Core



Aaaaaand done for the night.

[cfranks007]

That's very interesting. There must be a random factor in skill gain as the two clock applications give a different percentage skill gain. Some nice bumps on some of those jobs. I never did many contract jobs because I figured I could make more money making an OS. I'll have to rethink. Thank you.

[Kerkain]

Don't get me wrong you'll definitely make more money doing a single software job then you will doing contracts, granted you make a great piece of software with some versatility to it. After 12 contracts it was four years into the company and I only had made about 180K.

After the contracts I built two software pieces, Visual and Audio, made +2 million after two years. Mind you, I didn't hire any other employees either so it took much longer.

[cfranks007]

It's very difficult at the beginning to carry employees.

[Coredumping]

Originally posted by Kerkain:

Suggestion: Ability to double click the Resize Column button next to column headers to resize the columns automatically based on text in the columns.

Suggestion: In the hire employees window:
Move employees personality traits underneath the team they will be assigned to after being hired. Aligns it with the compatibility of the other team members.
Add a label next to the team name the employee would be assigned to post-hiring. IE: Assign To: Core

Added these for now