Kerbal of kerbals

[abowl]

Hello,

Is there a way to have a kerbal be both a scientists and an engineer? Or Scientists and pilot, or all 3 things? What if when a kerbal reached level 5 you could chose an additional trait for him? This way the kerbal leveling system will have more depht and there will be a reason to reach level 5 (right now, afaik, after level 3 you dont get much additional perks.) To be honest, the problem i am having is i end up with way to many kerbals on mission, i know i can upgrade the astronaut complex, and get unlimited amount, but it still got me thinking what if kerbals werent limited to just 1 trait? It seems that gaining an additional trait at level 5, is a nice fit, although with a few challenges to implement. Perhaps mostly UI related. What do you guys think?

[Gaarst]

Nope, there is no way kerbals can have several traits, and IMO, it would be kind of OP.

On a mission, taking 2 kerbals instead of 1 (pilot+another) usually doesn't have huge consequences on the mission, due to the fact that a command pod weighs less than 1 ton.

On the other hand, you could replace a pilot with an advanced probe core that has several SAS settings, and just take an engineer/scientist.

I personally like the trait system, it avoids having 1 kerbal managing a huge mission/station/mine/whatever on his own. And it makes sense that a scientist who does research cannot pilot a rocket on his own or repair a rocket with a single wrench. Specialisation of Kerbals makes you have a real crew for a mission, with many Kerbals having each their role.

Anyway, you could probably find a mod for this, or even edit config files yourself, it you're not afraid of what's behind the curtain.

[Superfluous J]

There are a lot of caveats, but the short answer is "kinda."

The longer answer can be found in my modulemanager config named JOMT (Jack Of Many Trades).