How does "Launch assembly" work?

[Guest]

I've built three subassemblies (lifter, transfer vessel, lander). They're in the same workspace. Anybody know how I can combine them into a launch assembly and get on my way?

[LessTechnical]

I posted a bug report regarding assemblies earlier, but the entire system seems confusing to me

[Streetwind]

You select one of your assemblies as the launch assembly. There's a button for it in the same toolbar at the bottom that has the select, move, rotate etc. tools. The selected assembly, marked in green, is the one that will be going to the pad. All other assemblies will not be coming along.

If you have three subassemblies and want them all to come to the pad at the same time, you need to combine them into one assembly. The intended use case for having multiple assemblies in the same workspace is, for example: you design a space station and a lifter in the same workspace. You then pull a section off of the station, stick onto the lifter assembly, and launch that into orbit. Then, you pull a different section off of the station, stick that one onto the lifter, and launch that, and so on.

I suppose you could launch one assembly, go back to the editor, launch another one on a different launchpad/runway, and rinse, repeat until you have them all out.