Martian University...does it work properly?

[Sticky Wicket]

I'm a bit unclear about this building and it seems to be a bit disfunctional to me but maybe that's because I'm not understanding exactly how it's supposed to work?

I put Martianborn youths into the university hoping to train some non-specialists into more trained roles. (I'm assuming that is what it it there for).

I set it to train Engineers for example.
My main issue is there is conflicting information. Some colonists have mouse-over info saying they have (for example) 4 sols left to finish assignment, but some other colonists have no information at all even if they have been there for a long time and seem to be doing nothing.

The colonists with 4 sols left to finish sometimes do not graduate into an engineer but stays as a non-specialist. Does that mean they simply failed their training and have to start again? Or does it mean they cannot be trained in that area and its best to just leave them as a non-specialist?

The colonists with no info at all (the ones that simply say they are working there) and just seem to be *duds* are they just untrainable?

What is also annoying is that the game seems to just randomly assign people there also ( a mix of the sometimes train & the ones that never train), which does not seem to make sense. Is there an effective filter mechanism that can help make this work a bit better?

[NotThatHarkness]

There's no feedback about how long a colonist has remaining until they graduate (but there might be a mod which does). They will eventually graduate.

The assignment thing is something different. University is considered a job. You can manually assign a colonist to any job (or residence). That will stick for 5 sols. After 5 sols they are free to move to another job if they want. I think that's the 'finish assignment' you are seeing. It has nothing to do with university graduation but results from a player manually assigning a colonist to a job building.

I don't know how the game decides which nonspecialists to send to university. It could be random for all I know, but every colonist should be able to graduate.

SkiRich has a university mod, and an extensive guide which has a section that covers how the game graduates colonists by default. If you are interested the gory details, click on the link and on the right, jump to the section "Colonist Graduation Time".

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1415229181

[Hedning]

I assume non-specialists are looking for universities to assign themselves to similarly to how specialists are looking for specialist work. That is they will prioritize the university. But also the game will usually not leave buildings completely empty unless you change the priority, so if some people don't go to university it may be because there aren't enough non-specialists to fill the current unskilled jobs.

Also make sure there is enough housing. I rarely have more jobs than living space, but I don't think a colonist will move domes for a job if that makes them homeless.

The "time to complete assignment" is not the time to become educated, since the game awards points per day based on performance no time to finish can be implemented. Best case would be a "current points" and "needed points". Needless to say a lazy, alcoholic renegade will take a long time to finish.

[SkiRich]

Under the hood the MU operates just like a workplace.
The variable for a colonist to choose to got to the MU is not a need for a specialist but a factor of priority. The MU is preferred to almost every job, which means eventually all your colonists will be specialists of some sort.
Hence I built that mod to turn off the MU when no specialists are needed.

Why a colonist chose to leave the MU to work someplace is weird though. That should not happen unless maybe you set the workplace to use nonspecialists only and then that is a priority about equal to the MU, which throw in some RNG may have caused that. Also a colonist needs access to the MU. If they moved to a dome without a connection back to an MU in some way, then they will leave the MU for work close to home.

NotThatHarkness already listed the mods guide book, which has a nice section detailing how things with an MU work under the hood. Its good to just know that so you are not surprised from time to time.

[Sticky Wicket]

Thanks very much for the comments guys and making things clearer.

It all seemed a bit unfathomable. I have a much better idea now how to use it as a building and what to expect from it. The whole *assignment* thing was throwing me and knowing that it has actually nothing to do with graduating makes a bit more sense of it.

That mod looks very interesting but since I have yet to do a complete playthrough of the game I would like to do at least one game unmodded. I will read through that guide, thanks.

[some moron]

There is a mod that shows how long each student has until they graduate. You might try using that type of mod, they are called "Quality Of Life" mods because they don't make the game easier but they do make it easier to know what's going on.
In my experience, once someone becomes a student, they won't quit without graduating. Except for the normal rules such as if you change the filters, they lose their housing, or maybe if the diner loses it's staff person, then yes someone might quit school to go to work.

Rich, what do you mean it's preferred to other jobs, is that strong enough that a student will stay in school rather than fill the diner where nobody is working?

[Hedning]

It is clearly preferred in that they do not try to balance the workforce, similar to how a botanist will leave an almost empty factory to work in an almost full farm. The only question is if it trumps the "keep it running" priority. I have seen empty diners and grocers when there is a university, but I have also seen grocers and diners running while there is a university with space left for more students. My guess would be that the priority to keep buildings running trumps the university, but that due to individual calculations sometimes they will be left empty, at least temporarily.

[some moron]

I don't use farmers or security for their role, but I do import some to fill the slots in the diner in the university dome, for the reason they won't go to school. (No continuing education on Mars?)
Sadly I also ban middle aged from the uni dome, so that means I have to keep micromanaging the middleaged security/farmers so they go back to work in the uni-diner. Get's annoying when they get pushed out and take a shuttle across the map. Can anyone see a logical way around my dilemma? The only thing I can think of is a constant stream of young farmers and security, but that isn't always available (without multiple flaws). Wish I could pass an edict "okay you can live anywhere you want as long as you are working in food service".

[Sticky Wicket]

After some time experimenting with the Uni now I need some advice and input again.

Is there some filter system that I can stop middle-aged colonists from auto-enrolling? The only way I have found to do this is to put the Uni in a microdome and limit the dome only to youth and adult. It seems the Uni needs an innate age group filter like the school does, if there is one I cannot find it.

Is there also a way to just stop colonists auto-enrolling irrespective of age group? I am finding that too many are enrolling and leaving work places empty. I find that I have to be literally writing down names of colonists so I can keep track of whats going on and have some control over all of it. It would be useful to have a term/semester system to enrol a certain number of colonists and then refuse admission to any more until all of the original class have graduated. Is there anything like this? The only way would seem to be again to place in a tiny dome and then quarrantine it to stop anyone else going in, that does then add further complications of course and becomes a bit impractical.

Thanks in advance for further info and input.

[NotThatHarkness]

I use a basic dome with 2 universities, apartments, a service slice, and hanging gardens if I have them. Then use dome filters to limit to youth and adult, and thumbs down all specialists.

You can shut down shifts on university buildings to slow the throughput of colonists. So, have only 1st and 2nd shift open, or only one of those. You can also disable living spaces in the dome to match university slots. That ought to prevent non-specialized colonists from moving in and doing nothing until a slot opens up at university. Another thing you can try is raise priority on buildings which are missing workers, and lowering the priority of university buildings. Also, don't use thumbs up for non-specialized on your university dome, or only use it sporadically to fill university slots.

[some moron]

Yes you can put a filter on any dome. Only use the negatives. I don't have the game open but when you click a dome you can prohibit middle aged and old and idots and such.
I generally need a small dome, not micro.
You can control how many people can be going to school. Right click on the empty slot to close them (for any "work"place). And if you miss one you can "fire" them again with a right click and then close that slot.
Also be aware there is no "class". They all stay there the same amount of time but it can be staggered. So you might have one graduate every day. You can't easily control that, I'm just saying they don't have to graduate at the same time, and usually do not.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by Hedning:

It is clearly preferred in that they do not try to balance the workforce, similar to how a botanist will leave an almost empty factory to work in an almost full farm. The only question is if it trumps the "keep it running" priority. I have seen empty diners and grocers when there is a university, but I have also seen grocers and diners running while there is a university with space left for more students. My guess would be that the priority to keep buildings running trumps the university, but that due to individual calculations sometimes they will be left empty, at least temporarily.

There is no "keep it running" priority mechanics.
The MU under the hood is using the workplace mechanics, which means every so often during the colonists WorkplaceUpdate thread they check for better employment.
In that regard they follow those rules ...
Can I work there and keep my home, can i work there and move there, is there a passage for work etc etc.

Originally posted by Empire of Lies:

After some time experimenting with the Uni now I need some advice and input again.

Is there some filter system that I can stop middle-aged colonists from auto-enrolling? The only way I have found to do this is to put the Uni in a microdome and limit the dome only to youth and adult. It seems the Uni needs an innate age group filter like the school does, if there is one I cannot find it.

Preventing age groups from using the MU is not possible with vanilla but thats a great idea to add to NASA Edu Mod.
You are on the right track using filter. That gets kinda hairy though.

[Sticky Wicket]

Thanks all again for answers.

I can see it simply does have to involve a bit of fiddly micro-management.

~~~~

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Preventing age groups from using the MU is not possible with vanilla but thats a great idea to add to NASA Edu Mod.
You are on the right track using filter. That gets kinda hairy though.

That mod does seem good and I am deffo going to give it a try, but I want to do at least 1 full play-through in vanilla before using mods. I'm assuming any mods automatically disable achievements too?

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Empire of Lies:

I'm assuming any mods automatically disable achievements too?

No, they don't.

[Hedning]

The way I "micro" my universities is I look at how many specialists are needed in that summary the uni provides, and then I close shifts once the total gets low. You really don't have to do more than that. For challenge mode maps the university rarely makes an impact, but even when I have used it for challenge mode I have never manually moved anyone to a university.

With the late game bio tech that increases lifespan even middle-aged people can benefit from a specialization, if they get it somewhat soon after becoming middle-aged. Otherwise yes, a filter that forbids that age for the uni dome works perfectly fine.

Originally posted by SkiRich:

There is no "keep it running" priority mechanics.

That may be true for the university, like I said I was just guessing, but explain why I can have workers in a normal priority diner but still have work slots open and not filled in a high priority electronics factory if there is no "keep it running" priority.