Introduction to Labor
Labor in Farthest Frontier can be broken down to three categories:
- Unskilled labor (laborers)
- Builders
- Professions
Labor is the combined available workforce available to you in game based on your population of villagers. You can see your total population in the top bar of the game UI. The first number is your population and the second number is your available housing:
The key value you want to take away from this detail is the "Fit to work" value. This is your total available labor pool.
NOTE: At any given time, a portion of your total population may be comprised of infants, children, or other members who are not fit for work. You can see a breakdown of the composition by hovering your mouse over the population counter:
Unskilled Labor
By default, all of your villagers will be in the unskilled labor pool. AS new settlers immigrate to your town or as children reach an age where they are available to work, they will automatically placed in this category. This group of labor has the following traits:
- All citizens of working age not assigned a specific job are automatically added to the pool of laborers by default
- Laborers harvest wood, stone and manually marked forageables, as well as clear build sites and transport goods between buildings.
- It is recommended to initially keep a minimum quantity of 10-12 unassigned laborers in your settlement to ensure the speedy flow of goods and a ready workforce for harvesting lumber and stone. This minimum will increase as your settlement expands.
Builders
Builders are allocated from you general unskilled labor pool:
- Builders are a group of villagers tasked with construction of new buildings and hauling goods to construction sites.
- This is not a continuously-occupied profession, villagers are pulled from the Laborer pool until reaching the assigned limit. (NOTE: The game will occasionally assign a few more builders than the maximum if the need is high enough. This is typically no more than 5% of the set maximum)
- If there are no available build sites villagers will return the the laborer profession after a short time.
- Settlements start with a default limit of four builders, but this limit can be increased or decreased as needed from the Profession menu
Professions
NOTE: For a more detailed breakdown of all professions, please see the Professions page.
Professions are dedicated jobs that are available to be assigned to your villagers as new buildings are added to your town. These professions and the numbers of villagers assigned to each can be managed globally from the professions management console or on a more granular level from the buildings themselves.
This is an example of the global professions management console:
1. Count of available Laborers not assigned to a specialized profession
2. Count of assigned Builders vs available Builder slots
3. Interface for increasing or decreasing maximum allowed builders
4. (Magnifying glass) Click to go to one of the villagers assigned to the corresponding profession
This is an example of a building specific page for managing labor at just that building:
In both UI interfaces you have -/+ controls to change the number of assigned workers.
NOTE: Some new buildings require that extra worker slots be enabled by first clicking on the empty slot. This then allows you to increase the number of assigned workers using the -/+ controls.
Dealing With Deaths
Over time some of you villagers will die due to age, predators, or combat. When this happens to villagers assigned to a profession, their job slot is not auto filled by the game. Pay close attention to the game notification in the top left of your screen as time progresses. When you see a notification that a villager has died, it is strongly advised to immediately check your profession management UI to see if any jobs are unfilled.
When a profession is understaffed, it will show in the profession management UI in orange text instead of white. When you see this orange text, look at the assigned worked count. You can refill this vacancy by hitting the + button. The game will auto assign a qualified worker.
NOTE: If you want to quickly clear a profession of workers to say make more labor / builders available, you can go to the profession management tab to easily unassign all workers without having to go to each building one at a time. Be aware that soldiers in barracks have a recruitment cost. Try to avoid unassigning and reassigning soldiers as this can quickly chew through gold.