Stats and Traits, What your starting choices do. 0.12.1.10

These are how the game defines you, also how it tracks and informs you of what's happening to you in game.
The Starting choices matter, much more than it seems.
This is a work in progress and will be expanded upon as I get the time and energy to do so.

Forward

The data presented here was pulled from the game files, and I've done my best to translate it into something readable.
There are probably going to be errors, I've noticed a few while translating the data, which are bugs, some could be me mucking up the translation process.
This is also presented with data from the 0.12.1.10 patch and could change drastically in later ones.

I'm not listing any solid numbers here unless I know 100% what the effect of it is.
I can tell if it's a positive or negative effect and have listed them as such, sometimes with a quantifier of slightly, which means it's modifier was roughly 1/4 that of the usual one.
The reason for this is that some of the modifiers were listed as 0.2, but is that processed additive or multiplicative to the stat in question, if the initial stat is 1 then there's no difference, but if it's 10 then that could be 10.2/9.8 or 12/8.

Stats, how they work.

There are many stats to track with your character, the sim is complex and the devs are trying to make it as realistic as possible, to a point.

The best way I can figure to describe how they work is that our stats accumulate points and once we pass a certain threshold, the stats state changes in severity.
These severity changes are what we see when we get tired or hungry and determine if we have any buffs/debuffs assigned to us because of that.

A lot of the traits are supposed to adjust these thresholds, allowing us to accumulate more or less of a particular stat before it changes state.
They also affect how we interact with Npcs and which options we have to do so.

Skills do the same with an even more narrow a focus, and not even half of them are implemented or available to us. They usually provide a bonus to one or two activities, or are supposed to unlock certain actions or socials.

Conditions

Conditional states are use by the game to both show a rough estimate of a stat, and to decide whether that statistic has changed enough to affect others.

Are you Hungry? Thirsty? How much can you ignore and when will it impact your performance?

I'll expand on this more later.

Mental or Personality Stats

The 10 Mental/Personality stats are:
Achievement, Altruism, Autonomy, Contact, Esteem
Family, Intimacy, Meaning, Privacy, Security, Self Respect.

These represent your current needs to ensure you are a sane and well adjusted individual, not that disregarding theme will do much for the moment, but that could change in future updates.

There is also a hidden Weird stat that measures/governs roughly how Sane you are.
The more you get exposed to disturbing stuff the worse it gets, we can't see it except in the message log where we start becoming superstitious, paranoid and then broken from reality.

Currently letting them fall into the red does nothing unless you smoke, in which it will increase the craving for a cigarette, it may also cause you to crave a cigarette if you don't smoke.

Where as 5 of them are supposed to give you a mood bonus should you max them out: Autonomy, Esteem, Family, Meaning and Security.

Over time and when not interacting with anyone, Autonomy, Privacy and Security should naturally restore themselves, the others slowly worsen.

In case anyone has issues seeing the G/R spectrum the game uses to denote good/bad, I've listed out the states here from Best to Worst.

Achievement  : Triumphant  Accomplished  Adequate      Unsuccessful   Useless
Altruism     : Selfless    Helpful       Aloof         Selfish        Greedy
Autonomy     : Liberated   Independent   Unsupervised  Micromanaged   Oppressed
Contact      : Limelight   Noticed       Getting by    Unnoticed      Neglected
Esteem       : Celebrated  Liked         Unremarkable  Disrespected   Humiliated
Family       : Cherished   Supported     Nostalgic     Distanced      Outcast
Intimacy     : Loved       Connection    Neutral       Yearning       Desperate
Meaning      : Zealous     Purposeful    Incidental    Aimless        Ennui
Privacy      : Solitude    Peaceful      Uncrowded     Pestered       Badgered
Security     : Calm        Composed      Unafraid      Anxious        Terrified
Self Respect : Dignified   Confident     Competent     Self-critical  Worthless

Physical Stats

There are a tonne of physical stats that can impact your character, ranging from obvious like tracking how much food you've eaten to slightly more obscure like how much blood you're likely to regenerate over night or how much radiation you've been exposed to.


I'll be explaining some of the ones the starting traits affect below, but I'm planning on returning to dig into the rest at a later date:

There is a stat to track how Threatening we are to others, which should make it easier to get them to surrender in combat, but I haven't found the interaction yet.

There's a stat that tracks how comfortable you are when you try to sleep, which is supposed to determines whether we get a buff from a refreshing night sleep.

The game actually splits our hunger into three parts, one that tracks how hungry we are, one that track how full we feel and one that set how much food we burn every x amount of time.
I mention this as there are traits that adjust fullness and the rate food is used, but not Hunger.
The Hunger/Fullness stats are linked, two parts on the same axis, we can't increase one if the other exists, so when eat and zero out Hunger, it starts adding to the Fullness track.
Too far into Hunger and we start starving, too far into Fullness and we puke from over eating.

Our stamina is also gauged with 3 stats, but they aren't aligned.
One to track how much we have, one to track how fast we recover it, and one to track how much extra we use when we do something.
Stamina and recovery is understandable, the last one is a bit different, the usage one modifies the stamina cost of actions and makes them cost more/less depending on it's modifier.
The biggest one here is usually from wearing EVA/Pressure suits.
Pressure suits add a 25% increase to stamina used and EVAs a 50% increase to stamina used.

Getting hurt.

From what I can tell Wounds are dealt with similarly to everything else we've talked about so far.

We get damage inflicted on a body part, and it tracks how much we get, then it passes the threshold and shows us a wounded condition, we suffer enough blood loss and it'll show us a different one, etc.

These wound conditions would then accumulate penalties on our other stats until we pass out or die.

There's ones that track infections, blood amount/loss, body temperature, blunt/cut damage we have taken and how much pain we feel.

Old wounds will also occasionally flare up and cause us to suffer pain and other side effects for a while.

Too much Pain can impact how fast we move or work, how well we fight and eventually knock us out when we go into Shock. And the other things penalties pain applies along the way might very well kill us.

Social Actions.

I'll cover these in more detail, probably in another guide.
But long and short of it is that the traits you pick up during character creation affect more than just yourself.
They affect how you interact with others, there are a lot of social options that require you to have X, but are forbidden if you have Y.

There are even traits that, for the moment, do nothing but affect your interactions with others, they are:

Charismatic/Repulsive
Genius/Obtuse
Forgiving/Vengeful
Beautiful/Ugly

For better or worse, I will note that Apathetic and Shy seems to impact about 4x the average number of actions that traits usually affect, Gregarious and Oblivious affect 3x.



There are also Skills coded which should do the same as the Traits:
Languages : Mandarin/English
Etiquette : Folk/Military/Oligarch/Spacefarer/Street

The skills don't seem to be coded to interact with anything yet, but they might be in a section I haven't figured out yet.

Mental/Personality Traits

These are just how these Traits impact you, I'll be doing a different guide for the social aspects.
I've paired them up with their opposites, the ones that they lock us from taking when we get them.
Not all traits are made equal, and I haven't listed the impact these have on social actions, as I haven't tabulated that data yet.
When something has an increased need, that means the Threshold for the stat is lowered, this means we'll need to interact with others more often to top up our social needs.
Good for a ship with crew, less so for a solo player.

Ambitious : Increases your need for Achievement.
Complacent : Decreases your need for Achievement and Esteem.

Apathetic : Decreases your need for Achievement.
Finicky : Increases your need for Achievement, Altruism, Autonomy, Contact, Esteem, Family, Intimacy, Meaning, Privacy, Security, Self Respect. You need less food to feel full. You have a harder time falling asleep comfortably. You are more likely to fall into madness.

Arrogant : Decreases your need for Esteem and Self Respect.
Humble : Slightly decreases your need for Esteem and Self Respect.

Brave : Decreases your need for Security. You are more Threatening.
Craven : Increases your need for Security. You are less Threatening.

Chaste : Decreases your need for Intimacy.
Lustful : Decreases your need for Intimacy.

Comedian : Slightly decreases your need for Esteem, Meaning and Self Respect.
Humorless : Slightly increases your need for Esteem, Meaning and Self Respect. You are more Threatening.

Cruel : Decreases your need for Altruism. You are more Threatening.
Kind : Increases your need for Altruism.

Diligent : Increases your need for Achievement and Self Respect.
Quitter : Decreases your need for Achievement and Self Respect.

Follower : Decreases your need for Autonomy.
Leader : Increases your need for Autonomy.

Glutton : You need more food to feel full. You need more sleep.
Temperate : You need less food to feel full. You need less sleep.

Gregarious : Increases your need for Contact. Decreases your need for Privacy.
Shy : Decreases your need for Contact. You have a increased need for Privacy.

Honest : Increases your need for Altruism, Meaning and Self Respect.
Liar : Decreases your need for Altruism, Meaning and Self Respect.

Impatient : Increases your need for Achievement and Autonomy.
Patient : Increases your need for Achievement and Autonomy.

Loyal : Slightly increases your need for Esteem, Family, Meaning and Self Respect.
Treacherous : Slightly decreases your need for Esteem, Family, Meaning and Self Respect. You are more Threatening.

Optimist : Decreases your need for Achievement, Altruism, Autonomy, Contact, Esteem, Family, Intimacy, Meaning, Privacy, Security, Self Respect. You need less food to feel full. You have a harder time falling asleep comfortably. You are less likely to fall into madness.
Pessimist :Increases your need for Achievement, Altruism, Autonomy, Contact, Esteem, Family, Intimacy, Meaning, Privacy, Security, Self Respect. You need less food to feel full. You have a harder time falling asleep comfortably. You are more likely to fall into madness.

Pushover : Decreases your need for Autonomy, Esteem and Self Respect.
Stubborn : Increases your need for Autonomy, Esteem and Self Respect.

Selfish : Decreases your need for Altruism.
Selfless : Increases your need for Altruism.

Slovenly : Slightly decreases your need for Achievement, Meaning, Security and Self Respect.
Tidy : Slightly increases your need for Achievement, Meaning, Security and Self Respect.

Suspicious : Slightly increases your need for Autonomy, Family and Meaning.
Trusting : Slightly decreases your need for Autonomy, Family and Meaning. You are less Threatening.

Physical Traits

These trait primarily affect your physical body and health.
Note: there are two Stat Thresholds important to surviving accidents and Combat.
These are Pain, as you pass out if you feel too much pain, and Damage/Wounds, which sets how much you have to get hurt before you start accumulating the wounded states on you body.
In most cases this changes by only a couple of points, but that change could mean you tank a hit and don't get hurt this time, or you're now cut and bleeding.

Agliophobic : Decreases the amount of pain you can stand.
Masochist : Increases the amount of pain you can stand. Decreases your need of security. You are more Threatening.

Feeble : Decreases how much you can carry and how much damage you do in melee combat. Increases your need of Security. You are less Threatening.
Strong : Increases how much you can carry and how much damage you do in melee combat. Decreases your need of Security. You are more Threatening.

Clumsy : Decreases your defense. You are less Threatening.
Coordinated : Increases your defense. You are more Threatening.

Fit : You tire less easily. Slightly decreases your need for Security. You are more Threatening.
Unfit : You tire more easily. Slightly increases your need for Security. You are less Threatening.

Fragile : You are more likely to get hurt. Decreases the amount of pain you can stand. Slightly increases your need for Security. You are less Threatening.
Tough : You are less likely to get hurt. Increases the amount of pain you can stand. Slightly decreases your need for Security. You are more Threatening.
It takes 2 years switching this from Fragile to Tough, but if the math is correct, you can take 50% more damage before being wounded, it's worth is up to you.

Fast Healer : You heal wounds faster. You replenish blood faster. You fight off infections faster.
Slow Healer : You heal wounds slower. You replenish blood slower. You fight off infections slower.

Micro-g Hypovolemic : You replenish blood slower. You fight off infections slower. Activities make you more tired. You can't stand the cold. It's harder for you to warm yourself. You can't carry as much. You get hungry and thirsty faster.
Spend the year removing this, it will be the best year ever spent. It's bad, terrible, the worst. It affects everything that will annoy you and then some.

Immunosuppressed : You fight off infections slower.

Insomniac : You have a hard time falling to sleep comfortably.

Iron Stomach : You never get an upset stomach.
Weak Stomach : You stomach is constantly getting upset.

Fast Metabolism : You get hungry and thirsty faster.
Slow Metabolism : You get hungry and thirsty slower.

Oblivious : Decreases your defence. You are less Threatening.
Observant : Increases your defence.

Poor Hearing : Decreases your defence.
Sharp Hearing : Increased your defence.

Heavy Sleeper : You have a easier time falling asleep comfortably.
Light Sleeper : You have a harder time falling asleep comfortably.

Visually Impaired : Decreases your defence. Increases your need of Security. You are less Threatening.

Smoker : You have a nicotine addiction.

Skills

There are only a handful of skills that seem to directly impact our character's stats.
These are the Engineering, Melee Combat and EVA Training.

Skill : Combat Engineering : Increases the rate you install and repair Appliances, Flight Control, Furniture, HVAC, Sensors and Weaponry by 400%
Skill : Electrical Engineering : Increases the rate you install and repair Appliances, Flight Control, Power Systems and Sensors by 400%
Skill : Mechanical Engineering : Increases the rate you install and repair Appliances, Flight Control, Furniture, HVAC and Plumbing(Misc) by 400%
Skill : Robotics Engineering : Increases the rate you install and repair Flight Control and Sensors by 400%
Skill : Software Engineering : Increases the rate you Debug computer systems by 400%
Skill : Spaceship Engineering : Increases the rate at you install and repair Ship Hull and Storage by 400%
Skill : Melee Armed : Increases the damage you do in melee combat. Decreases your need for Security. You are more Threatening.
Skill : Melee Unarmed : Increases the damage you do in melee combat. Decreases your need for Security. You are more Threatening.
Skill : EVA Suits : Increases the rate at which you repair EVA suits by 400%. Removes the work penalty for wearing an EVA suit.

The rest of the skills may add/remove actions from the social and interaction menus, or affect processes I haven't found yet.

[BioVenom]

I had one character that could see the rough value of cost of parts with an actual figure.
Which trait/skill is this?

Wiki is quite bare.

[Tumskunde]

Some things are possibly programmed wrong, but these were as they were in 0.12, and they don't look to have changed much.
Some of these traits change the thresholds for your needs and abilities.
A selfish person doesn't need as much altruism to feel satisfied as a selfless one.
A shy person can work on their own for longer than a Gregarious one.
It may not seem like a huge thing, but it does add up.
It does end up that a person with a 'terrible' personality is better if you're running a solo game.
And that's before you take into account that some of these traits add/block social options.

[Danjal]

I'm a little confused - a lot of these traits that 'should' be positive actually seem to be negative? Or am I missing something?

At least, I'd expect "Leader" or "Genius" to be positive traits - but if all they do is increase the need for a certain need then that sounds like a flat negative?
If say Genius was paired with a faster learning rate, then I could see the increased needs to be a reasonable off-set.
Similarly, the traits that sound like they should carry negatives actually lowering needs sound like a net-positive as you'd have to spend less time 'maintaining' these needs?

[Tumskunde]

@Badger
To my knowledge, there aren't many.

Easiest is still at the start through Character Gen.

There's a way to improve fitness and strength using workout machines.
There's also apparently ways to train skills, though I'm not super savvy on how these work, as I've barely played since 0.12

Console commands can be used, there's a few I know, but only one affects traits:

addcond char_name cond_name 1
addcond char_name cond_name -1

The first adds a trait, the second removes it.
char_name is your character name
cond_name is the name of the condition you want to change.
With a paired set of traits like Fit/Unfit you'd need to remove the first before activating the second.
As traits, skills, health and money are all conditions, their names can be found in the Ostranauts\Ostranauts_Data\StreamingAssets\data\conditions\conditions.json file.
Traits are found as Is(Trait), ie: IsStrong
Skills as Skill(skillname), ie: SkillHacking
Stats are Stat(Stat), ie: StatUSD

[Badger]

Are there methods to remove/add traits during gameplay?

[Tumskunde]

@Voyuer I haven't played much since 0.12, so it might have changed, but during Character Creation, there's an option to "Work On Traits", you'll find Micro-g Hypovolemic sandwiched between Honest and Insomniac in the right column of the list.

[Voyuer]

how to do you remove Micro-g Hypovolemic? i can't find any information on that one.

[Tumskunde]

@Randombandit
Some of it is, but it's esoteric.
It was similar to Neoscavenger in that regard, I wanted more concrete info, so I went and got it, the files weren't encrypted, though I did need to cross reference between a couple of spots before testing the results.

[Randombandit]

This is great stuff. VERY useful. Odd they are not tooltips in-game, tbh.

[Tumskunde]

@Vorg
Unfortunately those aren't typos, they are actually coded identically and do the same thing at the moment, there's a number of these 'typos' in the game's coding, as that's where I pulled the data from before collating it. I then had to figure out what the modifiers actually did and then formatted it for easier reading.
It's actually better to not have either, as far as stats go, but I do know Patient opens up options in some events, mostly in Character Gen.