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[Sithlordz]

I was wondering if teaching was fixed in the new version of LCS?
Dunno what else to put here to flesh it out.. Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb, with custard.  

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Sithlordz:
<STRONG>I was wondering if teaching was fixed in the new version of LCS?
Dunno what else to put here to flesh it out.. Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb, with custard.     </STRONG>

I'm not sure what you mean by "fixed"?

We have teaching, but I basically just wrote the system from scratch for the last alpha. If you mean the way it didn't do anything in earlier 3.12 alphas, then yes in that sense, as it now actually teaches.

[ February 12, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Sithlordz]

I see. So teaching does indeed work.  Does your teacher have to have any points in the teaching skill, or the skill you're teaching, or can you just start from scratch?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Sithlordz:
<STRONG>I see. So teaching does indeed work.  Does your teacher have to have any points in the teaching skill, or the skill you're teaching, or can you just start from scratch?</STRONG>

You need points in the skill you're teaching. Points in the teacher skill are optional, but they are good -- they help to train faster, which is important, because it costs big money to run classes in a safehouse, and a fast teacher means more skill per dollar. A bad teacher will also be limited in the maximum level of skill they can pass on -- even a master marksman won't make experts out of rookies if they aren't talented enough at teaching to pass on the finer points of shooting. However, it isn't too tough to train teaching. Give them a few students and you'll get them trained up nicely. Teaching might advance too fast still.

[BishopX]

How do you train teaching itself? Can I have a teacher train my elite programmers/goons/interrogators in teaching so they can train others?

[Wisq]

You can't teach teaching -- you have to learn to teach by doing it.

Teaching starts at $50 per student.  There's no maximum number of students, but you never spend more than $500 -- ten students worth.  You also only get ten students worth of teaching experience at a time, but all available students will learn from the teacher.

The most efficient way to learn teaching is to teach 10 or more students at a time.  This saves time, but not money.

The most efficient way to teach is to teach as many students as you can.  This saves both time and money.

Edit: Note that teaching criminals will also get the teacher charged with racketeering, even if you keep your hands clean.  If you want to stay on the good side of the law, teach your criminals before they go illegal.  (I think that means you can't tell them to commit minor crimes before recruiting them, or teach sweatshop workers.)

[ February 15, 2008: Message edited by: Wisq ]

[Solara]

And for someone to learn they just have to be hanging out, right?

[Wisq]

I thought that at first, too, but then I noticed that when I had three teachers teaching my leader (who was hanging out) at once, it was costing me a lot (more than I could afford), not just $150.

Looking at the code, I see it used to require that they just be hanging out, but that part's been commented out.  So no, anyone can learn, regardless of their current activity.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Two revisions:

 

quote:Originally posted by Wisq:
<STRONG>Teaching starts at $50 per student.  There's no maximum number of students, but you never spend more than $500 -- ten students worth.  You also only get ten students worth of teaching experience at a time, but all available students will learn from the teacher.</STRONG>

If those students are learning multiple skills from the teacher, they count multiple times when racking up the initial $50 increments. So if you're passing on five skills to everyone, each person will cost $250. This really isn't a ripoff, the real cost of the class is $500, you just get a discount if you are running a very small class and/or skipping a lot of skills.

 

quote:Originally posted by Wisq:
<STRONG>Edit: Note that teaching criminals will also get the teacher charged with racketeering, even if you keep your hands clean.  If you want to stay on the good side of the law, teach your criminals before they go illegal.  (I think that means you can't tell them to commit minor crimes before recruiting them, or teach sweatshop workers.)</STRONG>

The only crimes that count here are:
- kidnapping
- murder
- terrorism
- escaping from prison
- aiding a prison escape
- resisting arrest (not picking "talk->give up" in an encounter with alarmed police)
- car theft (I think you have to be spotted by police and not kill them to get this)
- any hacking-related (unlawful access, interference with commerce, credit card fraud)
- selling brownies (yes, the police can actually raid your safehouse instead of arresting your people on the street for this)
- racketeering

This is actually a pretty limited list. Crimes NOT included:
- stealing goods off the ground
- smashing doors
- picking locks
- trying to influence a jury and failing
- burning the flag
- breaking speech laws (only when arch conservative free speech issue)
- vandalism (smash things, graffiti)
- assault (make trouble, shoot first in an encounter)
- unlawful burial (get caught disposing of bodies)
- prostitution
- disturbing the peace
- hiring an illegal alien
- loitering (when the police can't figure out what else to charge you with and don't want to release you)
- carrying an illegal weapon

Note that you can also use this list as a reference on what will bring the SWAT teams down on your safehouse -- those are the ones that will get your teacher in trouble. Anything that wouldn't get the teacher in trouble won't get your safehouse raided either.

As it turns out, illegal aliens and people hired with "commit crimes" in their recruitment process don't start out with have any of the first list crimes, so you'll be safe. (This also means you don't get raided for having illegal aliens or telling people to commit crimes.) But don't get happy about teaching your bloody-handed hit squad unless you're willing to risk the teacher too.

[ February 15, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Wisq]

Fantastic info, thanks.  I must've missed the crime severity distinction when I was source-diving.

Also, it bears noting that community service gets you 1 juice/day if you're negative, and has a 5% chance of reducing your heat by 1, aside from also boosting what people think of the LCS.  As far as I know, aside from getting arrested, that's the only way to lower your heat, and it sounds excruciatingly slow.  

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The key place in source with the distinction is the lawflagheat() function -- it's a lookup where you pass in the law broken, and it tells you the heat signature for that law. If you commit a crime, and it has no heat signature, you don't get any heat -- and if you don't have heat, the check in the training loop won't identify the person as a criminal.

Yes, community service is a pretty sweet deal, but only for certain characters. Improving the LCS standing is huge, as it increases the impact of your activism, and heat is what brings the cops down... less means less frequent raids. It is excruciatingly slow though, at least if you're a mass murderer. It's more of a karma bonus. If you've been hitting the killing pretty hard, you're not going to win back your karma by helping old ladies across the street any time soon.  

Edit: Plus, the LCS standing can be improved by normal activism, or even successful squad actions, so it's not like it's anything special in that regard. It can take the LCS standing *higher* than most actions, but that won't be relevant until you have liberalized the country a good deal, as if half the country is Conservative, they aren't going to care how many old ladies get across the street, they'll still hate you.

[ February 15, 2008: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Earthquake Damage]

I just noticed a potential oversight.  Not all skills can be taught (or at least they aren't all listed when examining the teaching options).  I just got myself a Professional Thief by dating (fuck yeah!) and realized he can't teach me his Slight of Hand skill.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Speaking of slight of hand... we need a use for it. >_>

[Wisq]

And need to fix the spelling -- it's sleight of hand.  

Another quickie I noticed while making that changelog: In monthly/lcsmonthly.cpp, line 295 -- "lude" should be "lewd", unless the CEO's giving quaaludes to animals.  

[Earthquake Damage]

Teaching too much just cost my all my money and sent everyone back to the shelter (oops!).  After disabling teaching, I have a couple hundred guys to send back to various safehouses.  I assigned safehouses based on activity, so my illegal immigrants are isolated (so nobody else can get charged with hiring them), my writers and such are at the Guardian, and various criminals and ne'er-do-wells are split elsewhere.  Having to constantly flip between the Active Liberals and Assign New Bases screens to get everyone back where they're supposed to be (based on current activity) is frustrating.  It'd be nice if the Assign New Bases screen displayed current activities.