Staging in VAB

[itsme86]

A couple of questions about staging in the VAB:

1) Sometimes, when I symmetrically place a staging item (engine or decoupler), the items don't automatically combine in the staging widget. For instance, if I place 4 engines, it might show one engine icon for 1 of the engines and another engine icon for the other 3. Is there anyway to avoid this or to manually combine all 4 of the engines into 1 icon?

2) Sometimes, the number of stages I have causes the staging widget to be taller than my screen, so I end up only being able to see, say, stages 5 through 12 (1 through 4 are off the top of my screen). Is there any way to see/manage the stages that are off the top of my screen? It was mentioned here that they found a way around it, but didn't elaborate. Quote in question: "I stream my work just about every night, and learn new things all the time; like for one how to scroll the lengthy staging icons when they dissappear off the screen; it took weeks to finally get this figured out."

Edited May 1, 2013 by itsme86

[astropapi1]

if you place your mouse over the stages, you can scroll through them using your mousewheel.

I think there's no solution to the other problem.

[itsme86]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll definitely give that a shot!

[Stealth2668]

How big is your screen? Like 5 inches xD

[itsme86]

I actually play on a 27" monitor with a 2560x1440 resolution. The question you should be asking is "how big is your rocket"?

[Specialist290]

1. Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to actually get the icons to combine reliably. It seems to be a rather arcane and inscrutable quirk of the programming.

2. If you use your scroll wheel while your cursor is over the staging column, you can scroll it up or down.

EDIT: Ninja'd by three people. My reaction times are slipping.

[GreatBeast666]

The issue #1, with a single item 'jumping out of it's grouping' seems to be related to picking an item back up and placing it down again.

Ex, if you place an SRB in quarter symmetry, you'll see the icon with #4. If you then grab one of the items to move it around, then place it again, that one item's icon will now seem to be out of the group on it's own.

Makes it a slight p.i.t.a for stage arrangements. But often if you leave the VAB or otherwise get the ship out of memory and reload it, all isolated items will be listed as grouped again.

[Noticeably FAT]

The non-combined items issue seems to arise when you have that item placed, then remove it, and add it again using some symmetry setting. The 'original' item will be on its own while the others will be combined. I haven't run across any way to stop this behavior, but reloading the ship seems to re-combine the items. Removing/replacing items while using symmetry seems to also mess up action group settings (even if they still look like they are correct they still seem to not behave correctly), so if I've done any moving around of items that are in an action group I remove and re-add them to the action group. For the same reason I try to leave setting up action groups for last whenever possible.

[HoY]

#1: let's say its a set of 4, showing 3and1 in staging. Pick up the group from a different one than you used to place it then set it right back down. That should fix you right up!

[Vanamonde]

1) Sometimes, when I symmetrically place a staging item (engine or decoupler), the items don't automatically combine in the staging widget. For instance, if I place 4 engines, it might show one engine icon for 1 of the engines and another engine icon for the other 3. Is there anyway to avoid this or to manually combine all 4 of the engines into 1 icon?

This is a purely cosmetic issue that has no affect on how the parts work. Besides, it resets itself sooner or later. No need to worry about it.

[itsme86]

This is a purely cosmetic issue that has no affect on how the parts work. Besides, it resets itself sooner or later. No need to worry about it.

I disagree with your opinion that it's purely cosmetic. It's entirely possible that I'll adjust staging and forget to move one of the icons which makes this a functional matter.

However, given the number of helpful people in this thread, I have viable workarounds.

Thanks all.