Should I force my kittens to do the same job forever?

Question

A follow up from this question: how much bonus resources are being gathered (approximately) for each level? I have seen dabbling (the starter level) and novice (the second), but I am not quite sure how to calculate the increase between these levels.

Then, if this a certain amount, is it worth it to keep my kittens at the same job? Currently I switch in the winter to a ~-2 catnip but that requires a lot of farmer kittens. In spring I refill catnip again, and when the stock is sufficiently large, I switch most of the kittens back to miner/scholar/whatever. Is it better to keep just 2/3 (or more, depending on several factors) farmer kittens the whole year through instead of my current approach?

(If it is needed, I currently have 11 kittens, and busy buying the workshop upgrades. No scholar upgrades can be bought right now (Science needed is much larger then my maximum science))

Answer 1

Looking at the code, the skills' information is as follows:

• Dabbling - No XP required - No bonus
• Novice - 100 XP required - 1.25% Bonus
• Adequate - 500 XP required - 2.5% Bonus
• Competent - 1200 XP required - 4.5% Bonus
• Skilled - 2500 XP required - 7.5% Bonus
• Proficient - 5000 XP required - 12.5% Bonus
• Master - 9000 XP required - 18.75% Bonus

Thus, a kitten who is splitting their time up between two jobs about evenly is going to still be under proficient when a kitten who'd focused on the same job all the time has made master. You're probably better off letting a small number of kittens focus on Farming continuously through the year; you won't get much benefit right away, but when they finally do make master, they'll be able to feed more kittens, especially with the upgrade later on that doubles how much bonus all skills give.

Even worse, any kitten who has skill in a job they're not currently doing, will slowly (very slowly) lose experience in that job. The effect of this is minor (five thousandths of an XP per second), but if you're idling for long stretches, it can stall progress if you're trying to teach a kitten two jobs.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter too much what you do this early in the game. Getting to master-level kittens takes a while, and swapping your kittens around won't stop them from making master in their jobs eventually; just slows it a little. Plus, once you get more Pastures, and the Hoe upgrades to your farmers, even a small handful of Dabbling farmers will be enough to feed a fairly large population through cold winters.