How to change the location of the main command pod? Or specify another one as main?

[Jason_25]

I would like to move my main command pod to an entirely different area of my ship. I can replace it with whatever I want, but it seems to have to go in the same location. I tried to put the command pod that I want as the main pod as the first entry in the craft file, but that did not work. When I am staging, the command pod that I want to control is not controllable because I cannot switch vessels in the atmosphere. Does anyone understand how to fix this?

[el_coyoto]

Is "Right click on the pod and select 'Control from here' before lift-off" the answer you are looking for ?

Because otherwise, in the VAB, stripping the craft to pieces until the main pod is the last active part, deleting it (if necessary), re-adding a new pod and rebuilding the craft the way I want usually works for me. I've often turned unkerballed probes to kerballed crafts that way...

Cheers!

[Nibb31]

1) Detach the rest of the rocket from the command pod.

2) Delete the command pod

3) Add a new command pod

4) Reattach your rocket to the new command pod

[Jason_25]

Great answers from both of you. Unfortunately, I have tried these and they don't help. The problem is the replacement command pod can only be placed on to the area that it came off from. I want to change the location of the command pod or specify another one as main. Thanks for any additional help.

[Guest]

Great answers from both of you. Unfortunately, I have tried these and they don't help. The problem is the replacement command pod can only be placed on to the area that it came off from. I want to change the location of the command pod or specify another one as main. Thanks for any additional help.

Sounds like you had the command pod as the root part. Use another part as the root part instead of a command pod. As stated by Nibb31, just detach the rocket, get a new part, and slap it in place where the command pod was.

Alternatively, use the part right under the command pod as the root part: Remove command pod, add the part underneath as the root part, attach old part underneath to new part, detach rocket underneath old underneath part, remove old underneath part, reattach rocket.

[Mr Shifty]

Great answers from both of you. Unfortunately, I have tried these and they don't help. The problem is the replacement command pod can only be placed on to the area that it came off from. I want to change the location of the command pod or specify another one as main. Thanks for any additional help.

Can't be done. Your root part is your root part; you can swap it with another part, but there's no known way to change which part is root.

[Cashen]

I thought as of 0.20 you could detach and delete the old root part and select a new one? Detach everything attached to the root, drag it over to the side-bar and discard it, and then you're forced to select a new root part while the remaining detached pieces are still in the VAB.

[Mr Shifty]

I thought as of 0.20 you could detach and delete the old root part and select a new one? Detach everything attached to the root, drag it over to the side-bar and discard it, and then you're forced to select a new root part while the remaining detached pieces are still in the VAB.

Right, you can swap the root part with another part, but you can't move it to a new location.

[Jason_25]

I was able to fix this thanks to Regex and Nibb31. I don't understand exactly how it was fixed, but I removed all secondary command pods except for the one I wanted to detach and control in the atmosphere. I then saved here. I them removed the "root" command pod and replaced it with a dummy part. I then saved again, and readded the old command pods in place of the dummy part and I was then able to switch to the "drone" after detaching instead of getting the "can't switch vessels in the atmosphere" message.