Unable to Use Action Groups to Undock Ports on the Same Ship

[FiveOneEcho]

I have encountered what I would consider to be a fairly serious bug with docking ports.  Using Breaking Ground, I made a robot arm (Don't worry, I didn't classify this under Breaking Ground on purpose) and secured the end in place with Jr docking ports- as this is the only reusable way to secure the robotic parts.  The ports start undocked and dock when the vessel loads or when the arm swings into the stowed position.  I set the docking ports to undock with an action group so I don't have to hunt them down and click "Undock" on them.  When I tried to use the action group, however, the ports would not undock.  Over the course of several hours, no configuration of parts or action group triggers let me undock ports that were part of the same vessel.  I see this as a serious issue, because with the introduction of Breaking Ground robotics, you have to use docking ports to secure things in place.  This bug has made it impossible for me to create several ideas, which is a little disappointing.  I don't believe it should be classified under Breaking Ground, since I was using the original action groups and it seems to only have to do with the stock docking mechanics.

 

So!...  Is this a known bug with a workaround or am I on my own here?  I couldn't find anything on this and I would really like to be able to utilize docking ports on my vessels to secure hinges and automate them with action groups.

 

I have linked to a video of the arm not working properly as well as attached an image of my action group setup.  There are visual mods installed, but nothing that impacts parts or gameplay mechanics.

 

The video of me struggling.  

 

 

[Mikki]

It`s not a bug, dockingports must be decoupled once via the staging sequence when they come assembled in a craft. Then you can use the actiongroups to decouple them further while using the the assemblys. Hope this helps:D

Edited June 22, 2019 by Mikki

[Geonovast]

8 minutes ago, Mikki said:

It`s not a bug, dockingports must be decoupled once via the staging sequence when they come assembled in a craft. Then you can use the actiongroups to decouple them further while using the the assemblys. Hope this helps:D

No they don't.  I decouple them all the time using action groups without staging first.  In fact if you want them staged, you have to actually enable the functionality in the PAW first.

@FiveOneEcho would you mind uploading the craft file itself to a file sharing site, and posting the link here?

[FiveOneEcho]

1 hour ago, Mikki said:

It`s not a bug, dockingports must be decoupled once via the staging sequence when they come assembled in a craft. Then you can use the actiongroups to decouple them further while using the the assemblys. Hope this helps:D

As I stated, they start undocked and dock upon loading to get around the “Decouple Node” situation.  Because of this, I don’t need to use “Decouple Node”.  Also, you can see me try again (when the arms start actuating) in the video after manually undocking in the PAW menu and redocking. The action group that triggers the arms moving also undocks those ports, so everything should go when just the arms and panels appear to be activated in the video.

 

 

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

No they don't.  I decouple them all the time using action groups without staging first.  In fact if you want them staged, you have to actually enable the functionality in the PAW first.

@FiveOneEcho would you mind uploading the craft file itself to a file sharing site, and posting the link here?

Sure thing.  I have moved past using it, but I would still like to see if this really is intended behavior.

 

Craft File: Cargo Shuttle

 

Basically, action group 0 activates the arms folding in/out, the solar panels, and, in theory, undocks the securing ports from inside the cargo bay.  I shouldn’t need this functionality once they add the self collision option in the PAW menu, but it would be nice to use docking nodes as anchors for floppy robotic arms and the like.

Edit: Sorry about the long response time.  I’m not new to the game, but I’m new to the forum and, as such, my posts take just a bit longer to go up!

Edited June 22, 2019 by FiveOneEcho
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