Personality traits

[DarkGravity]

After reading the small amount of wiki info on Kerbals' personality traits, I am left with the impression that the only thing that is affected is the look on their faces and that courage doesn't do very much. Does anyone here really care about the stupidity, courage or BadS values of their Kerbals? If so, why?

Edited May 22, 2015 by DarkGravity

[Phil deCube]

No. It makes no difference. That might not always be the case though. Squad have talked about making this more important at some later stage.

[Snark]

In the stock game, no, it doesn't matter (as far as I know). Mod authors are free to use it, though I'm not sure how many actually do. The only example I know of is Extraplanetary Launchpads, which lets you build rockets on other planets or in orbit:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59545

...to build rockets, you need to put a bunch of crew in your rocket workshop, and I believe the mod looks at your kerbals' intelligence (er, stupidity) to decide how fast they build. So to get shorter build times, you want to populate it with the lowest-stupidity crew you can get.

[Geschosskopf]

Yeah, and Interstellar needed smart Kerbals to run its research labs. But in stock, it makes no difference.

[stibbons]

The USI Kolonization mod uses experience and traits as well. Modules are more efficient if they're crewed by smarter Kerbals.

[ftunk70]

I think it is nice that different kerbals behave differently, especially when you have several on the same mission. It is a nice touch.

[Janos1986]

They are purely cosmetic.

I personally choose them if they have an interesting/funny name or by profession.