People, trades and how they learn
Population in Starfoundry is individual units with trades, standing in specific buildings. Where you put them is the game.
Every unit has a profession. The right profession in the right building is worth about half again as much as an untrained Colonist in the same building: an Engineer in a reactor, a Scientist in a laboratory, an Agronomist on a farm, a Steward in a civic hall.
That multiplier is why moving one person can be worth more than building anything. Before you queue a second laboratory, check whether the first one has a Scientist in it.
The three ways to get a trade
1. Wait, and get lucky
A Colonist standing at the same work has a flat 1% chance each turn of simply picking the trade up. One die, rolled every turn, with no progress bar behind it. Over a working lifetime they will probably get there. Over the first thirty turns of a game they probably will not.
2. Teach them
A hall with a qualified teacher in it passes on 1 point of experience a turn, plus 1 more if the student is already doing that trade's job while being taught, and a Colonist qualifies at 30. That is slow on purpose: fifteen turns or so per graduate, one student at a time.
A Simulator Hall on the same body adds 5 to the rate and puts a graduate out every four or five turns instead, which is the entire reason to build one.
3. Drill them
Soldiers are not taught in a lecture hall at all. They are made in a Garrison, out of whoever is posted there, at 3 a turn and with no instructor needed. Gun crews on the same world pick the work up more slowly still, at 1.5 a turn, learning it beside their own job.
Two peoples that do not work this way
The Maketh Assembly cannot be taught anything. A Maketh unit is built with its trade already in it, out of the construction queue, and the way to have an Engineer is to build an Engineer. Androids are the same case for the same reason, and will only ever work two kinds of post.
The Sepharai Shoal can be taught, but not by their songs: a trade has to be learned somewhere it is allowed to go wrong, which is what their rehearsal pools and barracks reefs are for.
Keep reading
What happens when you end a turn
The exact order a turn resolves in, and why it explains most of the surprises.
Power, and what shuts down first
The grid, the shutdown ladder in full, and why a brownout is a warning rather than a disaster.
Food, farms and going hungry
How a sector feeds itself, what a birth actually costs, and how long you have when it goes wrong.