group actions

[crestofawave]

hey guys, most likely a simple question, but how do you group actions? say for example 4 landing legs to go up and down at the same time, i did try and go into the action screen (most likely wrong wording, forgot what the screen was called) and add the legs to a group but they still go down 1 by 1

thanks a lot

Edited August 24, 2015 by crestofawave

[Superfluous J]

I think I'd need to see the craft. You shouldn't have to do anything special to get landing legs to go up or down. Hit G, they go down. Hit G again, they go up. You don't even need to set up the action group. Are you hitting G or are you right clicking them?

One thing: you have to hit G twice. One of the oldest unaddressed bugs in the game makes the legs "think" they're down so when you hit G the first time, it "raises" them into their already up position. Just hit G a second time and they'll go down. After that, they'll go up and down normally.

[selfish_meme]

If the landing legs were placed with symmetry they will all work when you add one to the action group. If they were placed individually they all need to be added individually to the action group.

[Sharpy]

...and without Stock Bugfix Modules the symmetry behaves really wonky regarding action groups, e.g. it says in VAB that all four parts are assigned to an action group, but once launched, only 3 will activate.

Seriously, install that mod. It doesn't change anything except fixing bugs like these.

[crestofawave]

ah thanks guys, it was my fault, i was right clicking them, so they were acting individually, must check the key bindings doh!!

[Hagen von Tronje]

ah thanks guys, it was my fault, i was right clicking them, so they were acting individually, must check the key bindings doh!!

Custom action groups are very easy - 1 through 0 exactly as labelled in the action group tab.

A quick rundown on how it works:

- Open action group tab in VAB/SPH

- Click the group you want to add actions to on the menu that opens on the left. You can edit all custom groups plus the default groups like gears and lights if you want to change how those work, or you can use abort as a "free" group as well even on career.

- Click the part you want to add to the group, and a list of actions it can take will show up. Pick whichever you want. For most parts like landing gear/struts, lights, retractable solar panels, etc, you can choose to "Toggle" rather than adding on/off, which will let you use one key to flip the switch rather than use two keys to turn on and off. There are a few parts with no toggle, and in general people hate that, so hopefully it's fixed in the future.

- You can add multiple actions or parts to the same group, no problem. Parts added using symmetry mode will normally be grouped and whatever one is assigned, all will do. To make them work individually in the field you can still right click and choose the action manually, they will allow desynching this way if you want that for any reason. Note that typically when you place a part, assign it to an action group, then pick it back up in the VAB and move it (or even place it right back where it was), the action groups will almost always be messed up and need to be reassigned even if they still show up in the action group menu. This is why you should assign your action groups last, after the vehicle is finished, so further design modifications don't bork your whole keyset over and over.

- The default groups of lights, gear, and brakes will always have all parts on the vehicle that fit into those groups added to them, even if you pick them up and move them around, they are actually hard to bug out, so that's reliable and nice. However, you can also remove some parts from this list if you like - say you want your lander legs to operate with the gears key, but don't want a probe you attached to it deploying its own legs at the same time since that could be a nuisance. Remove the probe's gear from the group, and add them to another group of your choosing if you like.

- Note that action groups are merged and inherited. If you build a rover, give it action groups, save it as a subassembly, then build a lander and attach the rover to it via docking port, the rover and lander's action groups will merge. The rover's lights and lander's lights will all come on with the lights key, for example. You can avoid this by using non-conflicting keys for each component (ex. 1-5 are lander, 6-0 rover), but if you say, deduct the rover lights from the "lights" group so they don't come on at the same time as the lander's, when you undock the rover and drive it separately its lights action group will be empty. Either assign them to an empty group, or maybe use Action Group Manager mod to let you reassign things in the field so all your vehicles can set their keys as needed.

- The above applies in reverse too, if you dock a shuttle to a station, the action groups of the two will be merged for as long as they are docked, so make sure the "deploy panels" key on your refueling station doesn't activate "eject cockpit" on your shuttle!

I hope all of this makes sense, I ramble and it's a lot to take in but it's worth knowing it all I think!

Edited August 24, 2015 by Hagen von Tronje

[_stilgar_]

You don't need to add landing gear to an action group, they are added by default to its own group - just press G.

[crestofawave]

thanks a lot guys, hagen, thanks for the write up