Sinu

I really apologize if this has already been asked and answered but I couldn't find the answer anywhere in this thread: Do you absolutely need to recover a part to improve its reliability or does simply building it and launching it many times also make it more reliable?

- Nevermind.

Lucid, thank-you for the link to that mod, it worked just as you described and saved all of my stages - it did wreak however wreak habit with mechjeb, I will admit. But now my lunar mission can continue...with some slight modifications to my LEM. I am in your debt. Also, on a side note, Rickenbakcer, NASA was planning to use two Saturn-IV's to launch the LEM and a 'transfer stage' just as you described...they would meet up in earth orbit and dock, then transfer to the moon to perform the mission. Thank-you all for your help!

First, let me thank anyone who has taken the time to read this topic, it means a great-deal; now, onto the problem at hand... I have been trying for a long time to discover a practical way to perform a 'Apollo-Style' mission, all the way from launch to splashdown. The problem I am experiencing revolves around how KSP treats spacecrafts that are technically controllable, and have unactivated stages, but are not the main ship. The staging system's GUI seems to quite simply break as soon as a piece of the ship is detached and then reactivated. Below are some screenshots with some captions describing what I am seeing. Figure 1 This screenshot details my setup to demonstrate my problem - a LEM module is supported by a launch brace and is connected via a decoupler to a empty command module with unactivated stages, one being the activation of a SPS engine and the second being the dropping of a Kethane tank. I decouple the empty pod from the original pod, and then switch to the unmanned pod in an attempt to activate it's stages. http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Sinu_Daltra/setup.png Figure 2 This is directly after the empty command pod's decoupler is activated, my focus is still on the LEM. http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Sinu_Daltra/screenshot0.png Figure 3 This is me switching to the empty command pod's focus for the first time; as you can see, the stages are missing completely. http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Sinu_Daltra/screenshot1.png Figure 4 This is me switching back to the LEM mother-ship...as the empty stages that were observed before are now gone. http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Sinu_Daltra/screenshot2.png Figure 5 This is me returning to the empty pod's focus, as you can see, the stages' icons are now returned, but are all shoved into one stage, and none of them can be activated. http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Sinu_Daltra/screenshot3.png