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Life Lessons

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 bunker child is able to help research advanced starship propulsion?

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.

A proficiency can be something you know, such as calculus. It can also be something you know how to do, such as building furniture. A proficiency is otherwise in no way tied to the vanilla concept of "skill." It makes no implications of talent or effectiveness - only ability or knowledge.

Many colony activities will now have proficiency requirements.
Most craftable items require specific proficiencies to be crafted.

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 uncommon proficiencies may be worth considering an "outside hire" to obtain.

Construction often has significant overlap with crafting, but many machines and buildings will have unique requirements.

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 proficiency that someone besides your trained researcher 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.

Most "applied" proficiencies used for crafting and construction can be learned by using them, though an unqualified crafting or builder may experience penalties for doing so.

Proficiencies representing knowledge (such as mathematics) may 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 ship builder 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.

Lastly, the least effective method of learning is "pioneering." Attempt to uncover the secrets of some topic of knowledge on your own is possible, but very time consuming. Pioneering, however, is one mechanism to learn a proficiency that no one else in the colony can teach, and may be a more desirable alternative to kidnapping a teacher.

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Q: Why would I use this?
A: This mod will purely make the game more difficult by adding barriers to progression. It is entirely possible a tribal colony may struggle significantly to break through the industrial research tree. This mod creates situations where you may have to make a hard decision to recruit or kidnap a pawn that you normally wouldn't just because they're a geologist.

Q: Is there mod compatibility?
A: Some. Mod support requires patches for each mod. As of right now, it is fully compatible with the Hardcore SK modpack, Combat Extended, Vanilla Expanded, and a handful of other popular mods. Additional support will be an ongoing process. Request mod support on git below.
View the full list here[docs.google.com]

Q: Why are there some unused proficiencies?
A: There are a number of proficiencies that don't have an immediate use in Vanilla. The most obvious are EVA training, Flight, and Advanced Flight. In the future, these will be used to "lock out" the use of features from other mods, such as the ability to fly an aircraft or use a spacesuit in zero G environments.

Add to an existing save: It is safe to do so, but your existing colony may have buildings and items that would not have otherwise been possible to achieve if the mod was installed from the start. It is not recommended.
Remove from an existing save: Seems to be safe. Some errors will appear on first reload.
Game Length: This mod was designed under the assumption that a "short game" is more than 10 years. Most balance decisions are made with the intent of prolonging the game and slowing progress. It is not unexpected to spend several years without an active research project.

Because steam comments couldn't possibly be worse for managing a mod, support will not be provided on steam. Instead, reach out on discord or create a git issue below. If you want to request mod support, there is a git issue template to help me gather information needed.
Discord[discord.gg]
Git[gitlab.com]
Create a new issue[gitlab.com]