Does a High Level of Stupidity Mean That the Kerbal is Smart?

[Tygroux]

This thead keeps coming, again and again.

To me, it's extremely explicit. It defines the STUPIDITY of the guy. So bob is indeed a smart guy, bill the dumb one, and Jeb is average but badass.

What we need (and needed for some time), is a definitive clarification of the Dev, with what they change, and what are the intentions for the future of this feature. So... squad, if you hear us?

[HeadHunter67]

I've got a guy named Samhat Kerman, the persistence file shows his Courage at nearly 97% and his Stupidity at less than 13%. He never seems to panic, and he sure doesn't act Stupid. So I'm inclined to believe that a high Stupidity does, indeed, mean one is very Stupid.

[Tiron]

This thead keeps coming, again and again.

To me, it's extremely explicit. It defines the STUPIDITY of the guy. So bob is indeed a smart guy, bill the dumb one, and Jeb is average but badass.

What we need (and needed for some time), is a definitive clarification of the Dev, with what they change, and what are the intentions for the future of this feature. So... squad, if you hear us?

Actually technically it's the 'Dumb' stat, per the persistence file. It's just presented in game as 'Stupidity'. The question isn't really which way it is, but which way the game USES it.

Empirical evidence is all we've got to go off of, unless the code gets released or a dev interjects, and Bill certainly acts the smarter of the two kerbals with defined attributes. I'm probably going to shoot a test flight later, just to see, but I need to get some way to compress the video first so it doesn't take all night to uploader. Windows movie maker or summat.

Edit: Well the flight was a series of botches, so I didn't film it (well I filmed part of it), and will redo that later if necessary, but it did collect interesting information. I replaced the parachute on a Kerbal-X with a Mk1pod, with a small parachute on top and two radials on the mark 1-2 pod.

Here's my four hacked kerbals, I couldn't think of a good name for the 0/0 one. You'll note I named the others following my belief that Stupidty/Dumb is backwards (assuming you get the references).

Dunder = 0 Courage/Brave, 0 Stupidity/Dumb

Forrest = 1 Courage/Brave, 0 Stupidity/Dumb

Sam = 0 Courage/Brave, 1 Stupidity/Dumb

Tony = 1 Courage/Brave, 1 Stupidity/Dumb

Test results were interesting.

In particular, during normal flight there were basically only two sets of reactions: Dunder and Forrest spent the entire ascent and half the descent completely freaking out. While that was happening, Sam and Tony were both neutral-ish, and maybe a bit excited. In Orbit and for the first half of the descent, Sam and Tony were Grinny, while Dunder and Forrest were moderately concerned to neutral.

There was little to no noticeable difference on the courage axis while in normal flight. However Mechjeb seriously botched up the landing for some reason. It was trying to land like, right ON the launchpad, almost perfectly lined up... but brought the ship to a hover several hundred meters up. I then attempted to take manual control and shift it downrange a bit so it wouldn't fall off the side of the launchpad...and after a series of overcorrections, ran out of fuel and came down just a bit hard on the edge of the launchpad. Some breakage of connections and one minor explosion, but allmost all of the upper stage was intact, if a bit more...spread out than it really should've been. And then I noticed something interesting.

The two pods had broken off each other and the main landing stage, and I was left in control of the Mk 1-2 pod containing Dunder, Forrest, and Sam (Tony was in the mk1pod several meters away.) I noticed that Dunder and Sam were looking about in some alarm, while Forrest sat there looking fairly calm.

The appearance is that Stupidty/Dumb primarily affects their attitude in normal flight, while Courage/Brave primarily affects their level of scaredness when something goes a bit wrong. Notable is that in both instances, a *higher* value makes them less likely to be scared.

In the case of Stupidity/Dumb, this can be taken two ways, which support either conclusion: Higher is dumber because they're not as frightened by operating a Kerbal Rocket in the more dangerous flight regimes; or Higher is Smarter because they're not as likely to dramatically overreact to normal flight.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Tiron

[Tygroux]

In the case of Stupidity/Dumb, this can be taken two ways, which support either conclusion: Higher is dumber because they're not as frightened by operating a Kerbal Rocket in the more dangerous flight regimes; or Higher is Smarter because they're not as likely to dramatically overreact to normal flight.

That's the mother of all of our problem.

Maybe the game consider being in a rocket and going fast "normal", or maybe the game consider going fast with engines on "dangerous".

Since we're on alpha, i'm inclined to think the game care about speed and explosions only, but that's a -maybe-.

Since we're on alpha, i wonder if the stats -really- define the kerbals reactions in a logical way (and programmed in the first place, and non-buggy), or if we're doing very serious study on totally random datas.

Wich is... More than probable.

Edit: I'm going to repeatedly send a non-badS kerbal in the same rocket, ans see if the results are constant... Just in case...

[Tygroux]

Setup: mk1 pod with mk16 parachute, decoupler, ft800 fuel tank and LTV-45 engine. Engines at full power, cutting the engines + decoupling + opening parachute at 10km.

Subject: Bob (High courage, low stupidity)

1: Panicked all the way up, and after decoupling. Smiled when lower staged crashed, and looked calm and contempt after the parachute deployed (as in not just open).

2: confirming Bob hate to ascend, hate to fall as long as the parachute is not fully deployed, but love to see lower stage explode 1km below him.

Note: subject seems to worry when i spin his capsule. Confirmed that bob doesn't like me using the torque of his capsule (as i fall slowly with parachutes open and deployed, he start worrying and return to a calm face when i stop)

3: idem. I will stop here, as subjects seems to react at very precise events. (ie: engines running+rocket moving, explosions of non-rocket parts, and parachute deploying.)

Wait, will test engines running without rocket moving, rocket moving at slow speed, and explosion of critical rocket parts:

Okay; results

-Bob is content if rocket moves around 5m/s or less

-Bob start worrying up 10m/s

-Bob panicks at about 100m/s and more.

-Bob don't care if it's rocket has engines at full power and activated booster point at his capsule, as long as claps hold everything still and not moving.

-Bob don't like things exploding close to his rocket, whether it's previously mentionned booster colliding with him, or parts of his own rockets crashing.

-I couldn't make a rocket that would wobble below 100m/s (must become too good at this...), but it doesn't seem to influence him...

Will now test on subject with high courage and high stupidity.

-Subject is content until 100m/s, doesn't care at less.

-subject seems to panick around 500m/s

-subject don't like to see things explodes around him.

-subject LOVE explosions from a distance.

Again, results seems constants.

Note, testing if subjects care about wich face is point to the ground: Neither subjects seems to care.

Testing now with cowards.

low stupidy:

exactly the same as bob, can't find any difference...

Note: subject still love explosions, as long as it is not in contact with his ship.

Note2: subject still doesn't care if his ship is pointing the ground, as long as it does slowly.

High stupidity

Exactly the same.

IMPORTANT NOTE: i noticed a bug in the knowledge base (in map mode) that makes kerbals appear with high courage than the real value.

It may be a display bug, or the game may take that bugged stat in place of the real ones, wich would lead to false results for the coward group. Wich seems the case, since the coward group act exactly as their courageous counterparts.

[loknar]

As a KSP recruiter, stupidity is an essential quality I look for when choosing candidates for distant space station duty with good chance they will be stuck there forever.

[Tiron]

As a KSP recruiter, stupidity is an essential quality I look for when choosing candidates for distant space station duty with good chance they will be stuck there forever.

Well just watch out, one thing I found on my second test flight (which I filmed, but haven't even watched let alone uploaded) that set off the 'low stupidity stat' ones was...being in the dark. Seriously. If they were eclipsed by the planet, they'd start freaking out...except if time acceleration was on, for some reason.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Tiron

[I_do_robots]

Somewhat new here, but, noting some things while building, testing, failing, winning, and especially selecting crew. It occurred to me last night, maybe someone already asked...Do the Kerbals, regardless of starting stats, get better with every mission that gets successfully completed or do the stats just stay the same regardless?

[AmpsterMan]

@^^ nope.

I just wish a dev would stop by and tell us how it is. I hate the idea of sending a guy into space because I think he is smart and couragous when he isn't.

I know it has no gameplay reprecussions, but it rubs my RP side the wrong way

[Brotoro]

I just wish AmpsterMan gets his wish. It's a simple question a dev could answer in minimal time.

[The Jedi Master]

I like to send stupid kerbals on my most dangerous missions.

[okbillybunnyface]

I suppose that if stupidity is too high integer overflow will make Kerbal a smart guy!

Negative stupidity... Oh dear.

[okbillybunnyface]

You guys could test this by putting two kerbals with very high and low stupidity into a pod together and spinning it around like crazy. Stupid kerbals like being dizzy.

[Geschosskopf]

There's a very fine line between being a badass and being a dumbass. In fact, usually the 2 are indistinguishable in operation and observers can only separate retrospectively based on their subjective valuations of the achieved results.

Now, in my universe, I imagine that Kerbals have to take aptitude tests, the main purpose of which is to determine what color shirt they wear, in the Star Trek sense: yellow, blue, or red. So, when they 1st get in a rocket and I can observe them for the 1st time, I imagine they've just opened the envelopes containing their aptitude test results. Those who are mostly calm but who freak out occasionally have just discovered they've gotten yellow shirts and the burden of command. Those who are calm all the time are Vulcans with blue shirts. Those who freak out all the time are the nameless redshirts who have just learned their only purpose is to die so the villain-of-the-week can appear properly villainous, so that those in the blue and yellow shirts can look properly heroic in overcoming this adversary .

[Geschosskopf]

Double post due to forum problems. Please delete

[Tiron]

You guys could test this by putting two kerbals with very high and low stupidity into a pod together and spinning it around like crazy. Stupid kerbals like being dizzy.

I did, actually, on the first[Third] page. And then again later. And I used four: Every possible combination with either 1/0.99 or 0/0.01 in each stat. (The second test used the second set of numbers to try to make sure that using the putative maximum and minimum didn't interfere with anything; it didn't seem to.)

What I found was that higher levels of the stats seem to increase their resistance to being scared: Stupidity slider seems to affect resistence to G-Forces (I think that's what it is) and being in the dark (except being on timewarp stops them from being scared of the dark). Courage seems to Only affect their resistance to being scared if you, say, tip over and break some stuff off. At least that I saw.

One thing I noticed on the test flights was that the 'high stupidity' Kerbals still had attitude drops from the things that were scaring the 'low stupidity' Kerbals. While the 'low stupidity' Kerbals were screaming their heads off, the 'high stupidity' ones were neutral. While the 'High Stupidity' ones were grinning like Jeb, the 'Low Stupidity' ones were neutral or maybe slightly worried.

The question being, how do you interpret that? The way I see it, you can either go with the 'Low Stupidity' ones being the UnIntelligent ones, because they're screaming at stuff that isn't actually dangerous. On the other hand, you could say the 'Low Stupidity' ones were the Intelligent ones, because they're scared of being on a Kerbal Rocket during the most dangerous points of the flight.

I tend to favor the former interpretation, but it appears to me that there's no ironclad way to determine which is which just from watching their reactions.

Courage, on the other hand, seems to be quite straightforward. When I tipped my lander over and broke it a bit, the 'Low Stupidity', Low Courage Kerbal and 'High Stupidity', Low Courage Kerbal were freaking the heck out, while the 'Low Stupidity', High Courage Kerbal was sitting there looking pretty neutral.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Tiron