Extend an invisible antenna?

[RagnarD]

Oops: my Communotron 16 on a Minmus lander is covered up by a mono tank.  Fortunately it will extend fine to transmit science, but I can't right click on it to manually extend it.  

 Are there any key commands or other ways to access the part and manually extend it?

 

Thanks!

[bewing]

The easiest way is to make it extend itself by transmitting science -- then you can hopefully highlight it and right-click on it while it is extended. If you can do that, a window will pop up that will allow you to do anything you want with the antenna. You can click the "pin" box to keep that window open for a long time.

If the antenna won't highlight while it is transmitting science, then you have to do it the annoying way. Your camera can zoom all the way inside all the parts on your ship. So you just have to peek around inside your ship's guts until you find the antenna, so you can highlight and right-click it.

 

[AHHans]

I have nothing more to add to what @bewing wrote, except maybe: welcome to the Forums @RagnarD.

[RagnarD]

On 5/6/2020 at 2:41 AM, bewing said:

Your camera can zoom all the way inside all the parts on your ship. So you just have to peek around inside your ship's guts until you find the antenna, so you can highlight and right-click it.

 

Thanks @bewing!  Your first idea was also my first idea, but it didn’t work; I couldn’t seem to interact with it while it was only extended for science transmit. 
 

But after a bewildering array of bizarre camera angles, the second idea worked like a charm. Thank you!

[UncleManuel]

On 5/6/2020 at 8:22 AM, RagnarD said:

 Are there any key commands or other ways to access the part and manually extend it?

Well, you can assign a key to extend or extend & transmit in the Actions Group menu. But you have to do that during the construction of the vehicle. The Actions Group can be very powerful, it's basically a macro generator for things to do things... 

[archiebald]

36 minutes ago, UncleManuel said:

Well, you can assign a key to extend or extend & transmit in the Actions Group menu. But you have to do that during the construction of the vehicle. The Actions Group can be very powerful, it's basically a macro generator for things to do things... 

You can install Action Group Manager mod whch allows you to edit action groups at any time in flight.  Extremely handy mod.

 

[AHHans]

3 hours ago, UncleManuel said:

But you have to do that during the construction of the vehicle.

Hmmm... Let me check the changelog for KSP 1.8.0:

* Implement ability to edit Action Groups in flight.

(Yes, that means you don't need a mod anymore to edit action groups during flight!)

Edited May 8, 2020 by AHHans
added link

[jimmymcgoochie]

Mildly cheaty, but still perfectly acceptable solution:

- Right click the offending monopropellant tank and select Aim Camera.

- Zoom in extremely close, then rotate the camera so it moves inside your lander. It might look a bit weird in there, but that's normal when you're breaking the fundamental laws of physics by putting two things in the same place at once 

- Click the antenna which should now be visible inside the lander and deploy it.

- Add an action group to toggle the antenna so you don't have to do strange camera tricks to switch it on in future.

- Always add 'toggle antenna' for any and all toggle-able antennae to an action group on any and all future missions, to make your life that little bit easier.