How to assemble ships piece-meal?

[bignugget]

Hey all.

Trying to build a Apollo style ship and I am having trouble with the assembly phase. Is there a way to not build in a straight line top down?

I would like to build the pieces and then assemble them but I can't seem to figure out a good way to assemble my stuff.

For instance I cant figure out a good way to construct the rover piece by piece to the LM......but if i build the rover first, it refuses to attach properly (red not green) or I cant just build a new pod for my kerbals and attach the rover when im ready, the game gets all confused and wants to only use the rover core?

how are you guys able to assemble these massive ships with lots of pieces and detachable items?

Are you starting with a single core and working only on attaching pieces top down as you go??

Any tips on assembly would be much appreciated. i see lots of how to get the rover mounted on the LM but not much on how you guys are able to actually build the rover, or science modules, or the LM itself, and then attach those to the overall spaceship.

Thanks for any help!!!

[Nasakev]

Consider the sub-assembly mod here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/subassembly-manager/

It may be just what you need.