Sometimes a topic is important enough to make a person register. This is one of those times. Add me to the pool of people who feel that kerbal traits should not change the stats of parts. Instead, if traits are going to affect the technical characteristics of a craft, let me the player access them in a logical fashion. A few examples: Jeb has a great deal of experience running rocket engines at full throttle and knows that you can get a bit more out of them so when he's piloting the throttle for me the player goes up to say 110% to represent running the engines above their rating. But that is going to lead to more heating and perhaps even reduced ISP, if you want to go there. Bob on the other hand freaks out with high thrust but has learned that if you feather the throttle just right you will use fuel more efficiently and so I the player will get slightly increased ISP under 1/3rd throttle. Meanwhile Bill loves all the science and knows just what the scientists need so hisnsample collections are worth more and his transmissions have less waste so take less time. (Which is likely the thinking already in place) But honestly, while actually having effects come from Kerbal experience is a nice idea, I really don't feel the effects are needed. The Final Frontier mod does nothing but record the experiences of Kerbals and award them ribbons and I love it and it makes me care about /who/ I send on missions. (For instance rookies on basic parts tests or vets when pushing the boundries) A wonderful improvement would be to simply award, as my brother put it, "hats" to the kerbals based on experience. The "hats" being things like, hair styles, glasses, space suit colors, special visors, patches, or maybe recolors of the ship parts, etc. I know that's a lot of art work to do but a lot could be put in front of the community as was done with the kerbal company logos. However, even if you don't want to go that route yourself, please try to have the hooks installed so that the wonderful modding community that has grown around your game can?
