Post by Banatu on Feb 19, 2015 1:46:06 GMT
Professions can be pretty confusing at first. In Mammoth you are free to choose whatever profession you like and to do as many or as few tasks as you want. However, if you want to maximize your contributions to the organization, it helps to understand the role professions play.
There are four possible professions, each with their own assortment of tasks (jobs). You can change professions once every 24 hours for 5,000 Zoo Dollars, so you can easily switch around if you don't like your first choice.
Basically, each profession serves at least one of several important functions:
Before we get into individual tasks, it helps to understand how professions work together. As with most things in the organization, it ultimately comes back to animals in preserves. Animals are our primary driver of reputation and so are of critical importance.
The Shipper performs the most basic role of transporting a donated animal to its preserve. Without a Shipper to transport it, an animal will just sit in storage and never generate any reputation.
Animals that are already in preserves will randomly become ill or injured, at which time they are automatically removed from a preserve and placed in storage where they do not generate reputation. Shippers are also responsible for transporting these animals to the Veterinary and, once healed by the Veterinary, the Shipper returns the animals to their preserves.
Each time the Shipper transports animals or the Veterinary heals animals, the buildings used for these tasks detiorate. When buildings reach a certain point of deterioration they are no longer functional and can no longer perform tasks until repaired.
The Mechanic is the one who repairs deteriorated buildings; without the Mechanic all professions would soon grind to a halt. Mechanic tasks do not cause building deterioration, but they do consume tools. When a Mechanic is out of tools no more tasks can be performed. A Shipper can deliver new tools to the Mechanic.
The Environmental Officer profession is sort of an oddball; these tasks have no influence on other members' buildings or on organization animals. The primary benefit of this profession is that the tasks they do get tend to generate considerably more reputation than all other tasks, which is good for the organization. Like Shipper and Veterinary, each Environmental Officer task causes building deterioration which must be periodically repaired by a Mechanic.
While all profession functions are important, some are more important than others:
Each profession has additional tasks other than those mentioned above, which we'll get into later. Some other tasks are not terribly important, and some are even negative.
Choosing & Changing Professions
You'll be prompted to choose a profession when you join an organization. If you decline to do so then, you can choose a profession later using the little 'profession' button that's offset on the 'organization' button:
The image above shows an airplane because my profession is Shipper; it will vary depending on your profession (or if you haven't chosen one) but the location is the same.
Before you can start doing tasks for your chosen profession you'll need to purchase the building, which costs 15,000 Zoo Dollars. This is a one-time purchase that you'll never have to repeat. You can purchase any or all of the buildings at any time by clicking on them; you do not have to choose a given profession to purchase the building, but you can only do tasks for your current chosen profession.
Once you've chosen a profession you can change to a different profession by clicking on the same button shown above. It will bring up a similar screen:
Changing profession in under 24 hours is also possible, but it costs 10 diamonds.
Navigating
The easiest way to interact with your profession is to open the profession building at the front of your zoo by clicking on it, which will present you with the Overview window. Most important in the Overview window is your building's condition. You can call a Mechanic to repair your building as soon as it is below 100%, but ideally you should wait until condition is 25% or below to prevent Mechanics from being swamped with minor repair requests.
Mechanic buildings work the same, but instead of calling another Mechanic to repair the building a Mechanic must call a Shipper to deliver more tools. Note that the option to Call Shipper is grayed out in the below image because the building's condition is 100%.
The other information in the Overview window relates to upgrading. Upgrading is completely optional. Tasks are completed 5% faster with each upgrade, and the exterior of the profession building changes with the first three upgrades. Neither of these changes are terribly significant so unless you have a lot of spare Zoo Dollars to blow there's no particular reason to upgrade. Note that work experience continues to accumulate even if you don't upgrade right away; you don't lose anything by waiting.
Finally, to start doing tasks, you must switch to the Tasks tab at the top of the overview window.
Performing Tasks
The Tasks tab shows you open tasks that need to be completed, tasks currently being worked on and upcoming tasks that have a chain. Available tasks are always shown first. Here is an example of a chain task and a simple task:
The upper task shown above is a chain task; in the first step a Shipper must transport the animals from storage to the Veterinary, at which point the Veterinary will have a task available to heal the animals. Finally, when the Veterinary is finished, the task will again be available to the Shipper, this time to return the animals to their preserve.
The lower task is a simple task; someone has donated a Lemur and a Shipper simply needs to transport it to a preserve.
Both of these tasks are available, as can be seen by the large green Accept button on the right. Above the Accept button is some other important information:
Note that some tasks take only a few minutes while others can take several hours. Also note that each task costs the organization money; this is one reason why donations are so important! The Work Experience shown above counts only towards upgrading your building; it's not 'real' experience that will go towards leveling up. The damage shown refers to how much damage your building will receive if the task is accepted. If your building condition is too low to take this amount of damage, the number will be shown in red and you will not be able to accept the task until your building is repaired.
In the main part of the task description the amount of reputation that will be gained by completing the task is shown. This reputation applies only to the organization; it is not reflected in your own zoo. Most tasks don't generate a lot of reputation. The exception is Environmental Officer tasks, which can be fairly significant, but we'll get into that later.
Only one task can be accepted at a time. Once you have accepted a task it will always be shown first on the Tasks tab. The timer will begin to count down and the big green Accept button will change to a big green Complete button. If you click on Complete while there is still time remaining, a window will pop up asking if you wish to spend diamonds to complete the task (which is not a very good use of diamonds!). You can check on your task at any time by returning to the Tasks tab. When a task is complete the timer will say 00:00:00 on the Tasks tab; a bubble with an exclamation point will also appear over your profession building.
One of the more frustrating aspects of professions is that when a task is complete, you must release it before it counts. For example, if I accept that task to transport the Lemur, which takes only 7 minutes, the task is not automatically done 7 minutes later---I need to come back and release the task before the Lemur actually appears in the preserve. You can release a task either by clicking on the exclamation point bubble or by going to the Tasks tab and clicking on the big green Complete button.
You do not have to worry about completing tasks as fast as possible; most people accept a task before logging out and release it the next time they log in. For the most part that's fine, but if you accept a critical task, such as repairing another member's building, it is very important that you return to release the task in a timely manner---at least within 24 hours, preferably more like under 12. If you don't think you can do so, please don't accept critical tasks! Tasks are automatically released after 3 days, but that's far too long for a building to be inoperative.
As mentioned above, the Tasks tab also shows you some tasks you can't accept. Most of the time you have to scroll through several pages of open tasks to see these, but sometimes there aren't any open tasks available and all you'll see are tasks that you can't accept. Below are some examples; the upper task can't be accepted because someone else has already taken it, and the lower task can't be accepted because the member performing the Veterinary step has not yet released the task.
Don't worry if there are no tasks available, new ones will show up soon!
Good Tasks, Bad Tasks
You may notice some tasks have gold stars; the upper task in the image above, for example. Only the founder and cofounders can assign the stars, and for the most part we don't bother with that in Mammoth unless there are a large volume of mediocre tasks burying important tasks. Tasks with 3 gold stars will always be shown first, followed by those with 2 stars, 1 star and no stars. Most of the time you won't see starred tasks at all, but when you do see one it should be given preference---provided you'll be able to release it in a timely manner.
The Mechanic, Veterinary and Environmental Officer professions have a certain type of task that we prefer no one accept. The wording varies slightly, but they are all very similar and easy to identify. They look like this:
Note the similarities between these tasks:
All of these numbers are terrible. These tasks are very expensive for negligible reward. More significantly, they don't produce tangible results; these other members don't really need assistance and it makes no difference whatsoever if these tasks are completed or not, other than draining the organization's money. The tasks discussed in the other sections of this post, on the other hand, do produce tangible results; repairing buildings, transporting animals and healing animals directly effect other members and Mammoth's reputation. Please do not accept A member of your organization needs assistance! tasks, or, if you simply must do them, please replace the 1,500 Zoo Dollars they cost the organization.
Shippers and Mechanics will both get tasks involving transporting and repairing vehicles, and Shippers will get tasks to transport plants. These tasks also do not have tangible results, but they do generate decent reputation; they're not very important, but fine to accept if there are no other tasks available. Other than the A member of your organization needs assistance! tasks, all Veterinary tasks are important to complete.
Environmental Officer tasks, as previously mentioned, are a bit unique. None of them produce tangible results, but certain ones do generate great reputation; usually they involve repairing a damaged preserve, such as this one:
These high-rep tasks are well-worth doing, though they tend to take several hours to complete.
There are four possible professions, each with their own assortment of tasks (jobs). You can change professions once every 24 hours for 5,000 Zoo Dollars, so you can easily switch around if you don't like your first choice.
Basically, each profession serves at least one of several important functions:
- Mechanic - Keeps other members' buildings operational.
- Veterinary - Heals sick animals so they can be returned to preserves.
- Shipper - Transports animals to and from preserves.
- Environmental Officer - Increases reputation.
Before we get into individual tasks, it helps to understand how professions work together. As with most things in the organization, it ultimately comes back to animals in preserves. Animals are our primary driver of reputation and so are of critical importance.
The Shipper performs the most basic role of transporting a donated animal to its preserve. Without a Shipper to transport it, an animal will just sit in storage and never generate any reputation.
Animals that are already in preserves will randomly become ill or injured, at which time they are automatically removed from a preserve and placed in storage where they do not generate reputation. Shippers are also responsible for transporting these animals to the Veterinary and, once healed by the Veterinary, the Shipper returns the animals to their preserves.
Each time the Shipper transports animals or the Veterinary heals animals, the buildings used for these tasks detiorate. When buildings reach a certain point of deterioration they are no longer functional and can no longer perform tasks until repaired.
The Mechanic is the one who repairs deteriorated buildings; without the Mechanic all professions would soon grind to a halt. Mechanic tasks do not cause building deterioration, but they do consume tools. When a Mechanic is out of tools no more tasks can be performed. A Shipper can deliver new tools to the Mechanic.
The Environmental Officer profession is sort of an oddball; these tasks have no influence on other members' buildings or on organization animals. The primary benefit of this profession is that the tasks they do get tend to generate considerably more reputation than all other tasks, which is good for the organization. Like Shipper and Veterinary, each Environmental Officer task causes building deterioration which must be periodically repaired by a Mechanic.
While all profession functions are important, some are more important than others:
- Of utmost importance is ensuring other members' buildings are operational.
- Second-most important is ensuring animals are transported or healed.
- Third-most important are high-reputation tasks.
Each profession has additional tasks other than those mentioned above, which we'll get into later. Some other tasks are not terribly important, and some are even negative.
Choosing & Changing Professions
You'll be prompted to choose a profession when you join an organization. If you decline to do so then, you can choose a profession later using the little 'profession' button that's offset on the 'organization' button:
The image above shows an airplane because my profession is Shipper; it will vary depending on your profession (or if you haven't chosen one) but the location is the same.
Before you can start doing tasks for your chosen profession you'll need to purchase the building, which costs 15,000 Zoo Dollars. This is a one-time purchase that you'll never have to repeat. You can purchase any or all of the buildings at any time by clicking on them; you do not have to choose a given profession to purchase the building, but you can only do tasks for your current chosen profession.
Once you've chosen a profession you can change to a different profession by clicking on the same button shown above. It will bring up a similar screen:
Changing profession in under 24 hours is also possible, but it costs 10 diamonds.
Navigating
The easiest way to interact with your profession is to open the profession building at the front of your zoo by clicking on it, which will present you with the Overview window. Most important in the Overview window is your building's condition. You can call a Mechanic to repair your building as soon as it is below 100%, but ideally you should wait until condition is 25% or below to prevent Mechanics from being swamped with minor repair requests.
Mechanic buildings work the same, but instead of calling another Mechanic to repair the building a Mechanic must call a Shipper to deliver more tools. Note that the option to Call Shipper is grayed out in the below image because the building's condition is 100%.
The other information in the Overview window relates to upgrading. Upgrading is completely optional. Tasks are completed 5% faster with each upgrade, and the exterior of the profession building changes with the first three upgrades. Neither of these changes are terribly significant so unless you have a lot of spare Zoo Dollars to blow there's no particular reason to upgrade. Note that work experience continues to accumulate even if you don't upgrade right away; you don't lose anything by waiting.
Finally, to start doing tasks, you must switch to the Tasks tab at the top of the overview window.
Performing Tasks
The Tasks tab shows you open tasks that need to be completed, tasks currently being worked on and upcoming tasks that have a chain. Available tasks are always shown first. Here is an example of a chain task and a simple task:
The upper task shown above is a chain task; in the first step a Shipper must transport the animals from storage to the Veterinary, at which point the Veterinary will have a task available to heal the animals. Finally, when the Veterinary is finished, the task will again be available to the Shipper, this time to return the animals to their preserve.
The lower task is a simple task; someone has donated a Lemur and a Shipper simply needs to transport it to a preserve.
Both of these tasks are available, as can be seen by the large green Accept button on the right. Above the Accept button is some other important information:
Note that some tasks take only a few minutes while others can take several hours. Also note that each task costs the organization money; this is one reason why donations are so important! The Work Experience shown above counts only towards upgrading your building; it's not 'real' experience that will go towards leveling up. The damage shown refers to how much damage your building will receive if the task is accepted. If your building condition is too low to take this amount of damage, the number will be shown in red and you will not be able to accept the task until your building is repaired.
In the main part of the task description the amount of reputation that will be gained by completing the task is shown. This reputation applies only to the organization; it is not reflected in your own zoo. Most tasks don't generate a lot of reputation. The exception is Environmental Officer tasks, which can be fairly significant, but we'll get into that later.
Only one task can be accepted at a time. Once you have accepted a task it will always be shown first on the Tasks tab. The timer will begin to count down and the big green Accept button will change to a big green Complete button. If you click on Complete while there is still time remaining, a window will pop up asking if you wish to spend diamonds to complete the task (which is not a very good use of diamonds!). You can check on your task at any time by returning to the Tasks tab. When a task is complete the timer will say 00:00:00 on the Tasks tab; a bubble with an exclamation point will also appear over your profession building.
One of the more frustrating aspects of professions is that when a task is complete, you must release it before it counts. For example, if I accept that task to transport the Lemur, which takes only 7 minutes, the task is not automatically done 7 minutes later---I need to come back and release the task before the Lemur actually appears in the preserve. You can release a task either by clicking on the exclamation point bubble or by going to the Tasks tab and clicking on the big green Complete button.
You do not have to worry about completing tasks as fast as possible; most people accept a task before logging out and release it the next time they log in. For the most part that's fine, but if you accept a critical task, such as repairing another member's building, it is very important that you return to release the task in a timely manner---at least within 24 hours, preferably more like under 12. If you don't think you can do so, please don't accept critical tasks! Tasks are automatically released after 3 days, but that's far too long for a building to be inoperative.
As mentioned above, the Tasks tab also shows you some tasks you can't accept. Most of the time you have to scroll through several pages of open tasks to see these, but sometimes there aren't any open tasks available and all you'll see are tasks that you can't accept. Below are some examples; the upper task can't be accepted because someone else has already taken it, and the lower task can't be accepted because the member performing the Veterinary step has not yet released the task.
Don't worry if there are no tasks available, new ones will show up soon!
Good Tasks, Bad Tasks
You may notice some tasks have gold stars; the upper task in the image above, for example. Only the founder and cofounders can assign the stars, and for the most part we don't bother with that in Mammoth unless there are a large volume of mediocre tasks burying important tasks. Tasks with 3 gold stars will always be shown first, followed by those with 2 stars, 1 star and no stars. Most of the time you won't see starred tasks at all, but when you do see one it should be given preference---provided you'll be able to release it in a timely manner.
The Mechanic, Veterinary and Environmental Officer professions have a certain type of task that we prefer no one accept. The wording varies slightly, but they are all very similar and easy to identify. They look like this:
Note the similarities between these tasks:
- They're all titled, "A member of your organization needs assistance!";
- They all cost 1,500 Zoo Dollars;
- They all cause 7% damage;
- They all generate 15 reputation;
- They all give 15 work experience;
- There is no timer shown---they all take you to another member's zoo if accepted.
All of these numbers are terrible. These tasks are very expensive for negligible reward. More significantly, they don't produce tangible results; these other members don't really need assistance and it makes no difference whatsoever if these tasks are completed or not, other than draining the organization's money. The tasks discussed in the other sections of this post, on the other hand, do produce tangible results; repairing buildings, transporting animals and healing animals directly effect other members and Mammoth's reputation. Please do not accept A member of your organization needs assistance! tasks, or, if you simply must do them, please replace the 1,500 Zoo Dollars they cost the organization.
Shippers and Mechanics will both get tasks involving transporting and repairing vehicles, and Shippers will get tasks to transport plants. These tasks also do not have tangible results, but they do generate decent reputation; they're not very important, but fine to accept if there are no other tasks available. Other than the A member of your organization needs assistance! tasks, all Veterinary tasks are important to complete.
Environmental Officer tasks, as previously mentioned, are a bit unique. None of them produce tangible results, but certain ones do generate great reputation; usually they involve repairing a damaged preserve, such as this one:
These high-rep tasks are well-worth doing, though they tend to take several hours to complete.