New revolutionary use for otherwise ''useless'' action groups

[ThatDebri]

Now, i've seen alot of people calling the ''stage'' action group useless unless you can select stages.

That isn't true, it can be used for a lot of things, such as on Mulbins Munbug (for example), there is 5 engines, there's an action group there wich toggles the gimballing of some of the engines to increase stability, however with the stage action group, you can turn the engines on, then release the launch clamps (needs to be pressed 2 times) and voila! Now it does it automatically. Another possible use of the action group is to toggle SSTO engine mode, it needs to be tooled a little with in the start, but after it's easy.

Additionally you could replace the light action group for solar panels, if you have landers on a lander, you could change the ''gear'' action group to only deploy the main lander's landing legs, and there is so many possibilities out there for the use of these groups, but noone ever bothered to find out about them, so post your uses down below!

[msyblade]

Custom 1: Toggle all Solar arrays

Custom 2: Toggle all Lights

Custom 3: Toggle Landing legs/gear

Custom 4: Deploy Chutes

Custom 5: Toggle Ladders

Custom 9: PANIC!: Immediate separation of command pod, legs down, and chute deployment

[FirstyB]

put your last action group there in the 'abort' action group, then press backspace when you're in a pickle. Frees up custom action groups, and thats what its there for

[ThatDebri]

this isn't about using custom action groups, it's about those ones like stage, gear, light and so on, we've all used the custom ones and the abort.

[Supernovy]

I put ladder deployment on the gear action group.

If your rover flips when it brakes, you can take some wheels out of the 'brake' action group.

[Captain Sierra]

I like the ladder deployment trick. I also like the solar panels in lights trick. Those free up a bunch of options for me.

Abort, my most used of the non-custom groups (at least in .21, where I do try to not kill kerbals). Usually used in tandem with a parachute, the KSPX excape tower, and a stack separator (for weight) right below the command pod. Instant ' Oh SH**!' button right there.

[FirstyB]

What is the stage action group then? i dont think ive ever used it at all, but being able to turn gimble without using an existing action group would definitely be handy...

[littlebattler]

solar panel in the lights = them breaking when I'm trying to land (I use the lights to approximate the distance to the ground. Anyways, I usually make it so that for my SSTOs the action group for the jets is combined with the one to toggle the intakes. I do the initial start with the stage button.

[Frederf]

Stage action group is called on every staging event. I've used it for airplanes to disable reaction wheels on initial engine start.

[Diche Bach]

What does this mean?

Mod+L Lock current stage (very useful before you accidentally hit the spacebar)

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_Bindings

Does that mean Alt + L ?

[Fleb]

Yeah Alt+L. The stage light on the bottom left turns a different color when it's locked.

[Lazro]

Yes, that is correct.

[Gristle]

I put my navlights "on" function in the stage AG to make sure they are always turned on when something important is going to happen. Also use this to configure spaceplane engines (rockets off, jets on) as long as all engines are in the first stage. I'll use some of the named AG's for other functions, for example Abort sometimes becomes the KAS winches hook eject. Brakes becomes a landers deploy parachutes function.

[KerbMav]

0 - solar panels

9 - lights

far away from my asdw-qe-t-r-f-control-area on the keyboard

1 - thrust forward / toggle jet engines

2 - thrust backwards / toggle rocket engines

(activate/deactivate engines on docking-tugs with fore and aft engines / control spaceplane engines)

5,6,7 - often anything that controls actions on parts of a craft that will be considered debris at some time - will probably change if I finally get around to try out KAS and Robotics mods

abort - toggle gimble on all outer engines - can be reassigned (Mod: Actions on the fly) if needed

[Tw1]

I've used the stage one to activate LV-Ns when I wanted to keep the fairings on, so they looked like they were sheilded.

[katateochi]

I've used the stage action group for a few different things. I had a folding rover on one craft but when the craft was loaded the rover would be in it unfolded state so I bound all the hinges to fold in one direction to the stage group, that way it automatically folded up when I launched.

I also use it for actions like toggling steering locks on rovers, cos it doesn't matter what setting the wheels are in during flight and most rovers once deployed are don't have a use for staging, so that just frees up a custom action group.

I also use the gears and RCS groups on some craft. Often put specific landing lights on the gears action groups so they come on as the legs go down. On one plane I had a set of booster engines bound to the RCS group as the plane didn't use RCS and I was totally out of custom action groups.

I'm always short of action groups so those other ones get used quite a lot where I can. I've even had to sacrifice having an abort process before just so I could bind that group to something. When you have DamnedRobotic heavy craft, keys become a rare resource!

I WISH there were more than 10 custom groups, or that groups could have different bindings in different stages and even more I wish there was a way to re-bind action groups post launch (that didn't involve persistence file hacking).

[KerbMav]

I WISH there were more than 10 custom groups, or that groups could have different bindings in different stages and even more I wish there was a way to re-bind action groups post launch (that didn't involve persistence file hacking).

Yes, wishing for ALT+1,2,3,... too - but on your second wish, that will or better has been granted:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24882-Actions-on-the-Fly-Edit-your-action-groups-in-flight-mode

[Tiron]

Gear, Brakes, SAS, RCS, and Lights are mostly there so you can take stuff OUT of them. Unfortunately, landing legs don't actually USE the 'gear' landing group, even though they're on the same keyboard shortcut.

Stage, well, I use it on some of my spaceplanes to deploy the antenna I sometimes put on the nose. Gotta watch that, though, because unless they've fixed it, antennae are able to retract the first time their action group is used after reloading the scene. Except they won't deploy again until you've done another scene reload. There aren't a whole lot of things 'stage' would be useful for, because whatever it is would happen every time you stage, which restricts it to things that only go off once, and you want to happen right at launch.

[Sof]

Custom 9: PANIC!: Immediate separation of command pod, legs down, and chute deployment

Why don't you set that to the abort action group? Keyboard key backspace, but can also be used by pressing the abort button at the top of the screen.

I generally just use the abort action group for the abort sequence and then another one for the solar panels. Everything else has its own default key anyway.

[rhoark]

Landing legs are on the gear group, but they start out of sync with the gear mode. (Gears start deployed, legs stowed). Pressing 'g' a few times makes it figure things out.

[Tiron]

Landing legs are on the gear group, but they start out of sync with the gear mode. (Gears start deployed, legs stowed). Pressing 'g' a few times makes it figure things out.

That's because landing legs aren't actually on the gear group, they just have the same hotkey. Last I Checked, anyway. One of the side effects of this is that clicking on the 'gear' button will toggle gear but not landing legs. You can also manually deploy/undeploy gear/legs by right clicking on them, but if they're part of a symmetry group it'll still activate that entire group.

[M5000]

I usually use groups 1 and 2 for the launch vehicle's controls, I use 1 to control any core-based engines' gimbal, and 2 to control the gimbal of any radial boosters..

For other groups, I assign them from the highest and work my way back, so there's a clear separation from flight and payload controls.