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SpringFall Wiki

Traits

Overview

Traits are the handful of personality quirks every colonist carries — things like being Industrious, Sociable, Cowardly or Sickly. They’re what makes two colonists with the same job and the same skills still feel like different people: one works faster, one gets along with everybody, one panics in a fight.

How it works

A colonist can hold up to six traits. They come from a few different places:

  • Rolled at spawn — most colonists arrive with one to three traits already.
  • Where they’re from — a hero’s chosen background can grant its own traits, and some traits run in families.
  • Milestone level-ups — see levelling up for how a colonist earns the choice to pick up a new trait as they grow.

Each trait’s card on the character panel spells out exactly what it does, grouped by what it affects: work speed, XP gained, harvest yield, craft quality, damage dealt or taken in combat, move speed, carrying capacity, mood, and how quickly the colonist warms up to (or cools off on) other people. A trait is marked as a clear boon, a trade-off (a real upside paired with a real downside), or a flaw — so you can see at a glance what kind of deal you’re getting.

Some traits actively contradict each other and can never be held together — you won’t see a colonist who is both Brave and Cowardly.

Playing with it

  • Read a new colonist’s traits before you decide what to do with them — a Sickly colonist is a poor pick for frontline defence, while a Sociable one is wasted stuck alone on a remote task.
  • A colonist dragging the whole colony’s mood down is worth checking for a Pessimistic or similarly mood-costly trait before assuming it’s just an unmet need — see Mood & Morale.
  • Traits with a work-speed or yield bonus are a good signal for which job to assign someone to, on top of whatever their raw skill says.

Good to know

  • A trait’s effects are permanent for that colonist’s life — traits don’t fade or get “trained away”.
  • Occasionally a trait grants a small one-time bonus to an attribute or a head start on a skill when it’s first added — that’s on top of its ongoing effects.
  • Not every trait is a net positive, and that’s intentional — a colony of only upsides would be less interesting to manage than one where you have to work around a few real flaws.
  • Colonists — the full picture of what makes up a colonist
  • Mood & Morale — where a trait’s effect on mood actually shows up