Make Kerbal Stats Matter

[tntristan12]

This is something I would really like to see in KSP before 1.0. Right now, Courage and Stupidity mean absolutely nothing. They are just arbitrary values which, while they might determine what facial expressions a kerbal has, do absolutely nothing for gameplay. I can think of a few ways this could be fixed!

First off, I would like to see either the stupidity bar inverted (intelligence) or the courage bar inverted (cowardice) so that the stats can be more easily compared at a glance. High bars == good (or bad), and low bars == the opposite. Furthermore, I'd like to see them add some more attributes. I'm not sure what those would be, but more attributes would be nice to round out the kerbals' personalities.

If we can have something like that, I think it'd be a good idea to tie those parameters in to how kerbals perform certain tasks. For example, high intelligence kerbals get more science from experiments; high courage kerbals make better pilots; and maybe high... I dunno... resourcefulness? ingenuity? something like that would make good engineers. Now, when you hire a recruit kerbal, you should be able to specify their job for them! Bill, Bob, Jeb, and Val are all pre-assigned, but recruit kerbals can be made into whatever role you want. However, the rate at which they gain experience, or perform their tasks might be dependent on their personality parameters.

This way, parameters aren't just a random bar that is of no use to players. It can be used to make decisions about hiring kerbals and assigning them to their respective roles.

Thoughts?

[Van Disaster]

The Extraplanetary Launchpads mod makes a little use of some stats, but that's about as much as I can think of at the moment. It does seem like something of a half-done feature, so maybe there's more on the way.

[Superfluous J]

What drives me nuts is we have these two totally-useless stats that mean nothing, that you can easily change in the file, and then they add something very similar in professions that you can NOT change in the file. Or in any way other than a kludgey name change.

I agree though, "Stupidity" should be "Smarts" or "Intelligence" or something like that. It's natural in games for higher = better.

[Moon Goddess]

What drives me nuts is we have these two totally-useless stats that mean nothing, that you can easily change in the file, and then they add something very similar in professions that you can NOT change in the file. Or in any way other than a kludgey name change.

I agree though, "Stupidity" should be "Smarts" or "Intelligence" or something like that. It's natural in games for higher = better.

OMG this so much, And I've got this real fear going on that in 1.0 if I try to name a Kerbal after myself I'm afraid she'll suddenly gender flip and change profession.

[dryer_lint]

The thing about changing it to "Intelligence" is that, in KSP, higher might not be better.

Maybe your main priority is getting a bunch of stupid Kerbals that won't question their leader.

[klgraham1013]

You mean having two highly visible stats that don't actually do anything might confuse new players?

Why weren't classes tied to these? If at some point Squad decided to not use these stats, why haven't they removed them?

[Pthigrivi]

I mean they're funny, I actually like that its called stupidity. I had been thinking they could be integrated into a "happiness" system, in which lone kerbals on long missions slowly deplete in happiness. Once they become unhappy, they no longer gain experience. This could be mitigated by bringing along more kerbals on long missions and by including "living quarters" modules. Courage then could mean that a kerbal can go longer without becoming unhappy. I like to think stupidity has the opposite effect, that other kerbals in the same vessel become unhappy more slowly when with a kerbal with high stupidity.