Un-Group Parts in Staging

[SiliconPyro]

If I place parts, say decouplers, radially with symmetry turned on, they become a group in the staging. How do you un-group them so they can be part of separate stages? I'm asking because I like to stage a pair at a time with fuel flowing from the first stage, through the next, then to the central engine for efficiency, which is apparently called asparagus staging. Anyway, do you just have to place it all manually, because I suck at that.

[MulleDK19]

Click the group icon, it'll expand. Then hold control and click the ones you don't want, then drag the rest to another stage.

[SiliconPyro]

Click the group icon, it'll expand. Then hold control and click the ones you don't want, then drag the rest to another stage.

That's so obvious I can't believe I didn't at least try it. Thank you, sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

[Qumefox]

The easiest way to do what your asking is to just build in stages. That way they'll be automatically grouped. For instance, if you want two stages containing four decouplers each around a central body. Instead of setting symmetry to eight and adding all of them at once, set it to four, add one group, then the other.. This will give you two groups of four instead of having to manually break up the group of eight.

You can also break up groups. If you click the group in the staging list, it will expand it. Then you shift click (or is it ctrl?) to select/deselect individual parts in the group so you can move them.

[SiliconPyro]

I was thinking six radially mounted stacks dropping in pairs and if you place them manually, they will be slightly higher or lower than each other. Place SRBs outside of those and the problem gets exponentially worse.

To be honest though, even if their being slightly uneven didn't affect controllability, I still would have made this thread just because it drives me nuts knowing they're just a little bit off.

[Qumefox]

Generally 'eyeball' close is good enough for me. Usually the trick I use is if the body i'm putting the radial decouplers on has a seam in the texture, etc, running around it, i'll use that as a guide and just stick one edge of the decouplers against the seam and use it as a reference. It's not millimeter perfect, but I can usually do it close enough that I can't tell it's off just by looking at it.

Worse comes to worse, I can always edit the .craft file and adjust the Z axis offset for the offending parts to all be the same.

[SiliconPyro]

Generally 'eyeball' close is good enough for me. Usually the trick I use is if the body i'm putting the radial decouplers on has a seam in the texture, etc, running around it, i'll use that as a guide and just stick one edge of the decouplers against the seam and use it as a reference. It's not millimeter perfect, but I can usually do it close enough that I can't tell it's off just by looking at it.

Worse comes to worse, I can always edit the .craft file and adjust the Z axis offset for the offending parts to all be the same.

Hey, there's an idea. PERFECTION!

[Qumefox]

lol.. It'd be easier to just add the decouplers as a group then break up the group.

I've never tried to adjust part offsets before in the middle of asparagus stages so i'm not really sure what the result would be if you try to do it all at once after the craft is built.

The only manual .craft text editing part moving i've done before were 'end of chain' parts, not parts that had several other things attached to them.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Qumefox

[EndlessWaves]

lol.. It'd be easier to just add the decouplers as a group then break up the group.

But then you end up with uneven fuel lines

[SiliconPyro]

But then you end up with uneven fuel lines

Oh, don't get me started on the fuel lines! I hate that you can't attach them two at a time, that the symmetry tool automatically switches to whatever the item your attaching them uses.

[Qumefox]

Yes you can. when it autoswitches, just x through to the symmetry you want again and it should stick.

[TheHengeProphet]

Yes you can. when it autoswitches, just x through to the symmetry you want again and it should stick.

Through thorough testing, I can say that is not true.

[SiliconPyro]

Yeah, I couldn't get it to work. Breaking up groups works fine though, so that's awesome.