Staging annoyance. Please for the love of God change this before i go insane.

[DButcha]

When in the vab on the right hand side of the screen you have the staging order for the rocket right? And some of those parts are collapsed into like groups of 4 or 2 or whatever? okay well lets say some parts are in the wrong order, so you go to rearrange and every dam time you want to move a group of 4 parts you have to click it once to expand it into a giant useless column that clouds your vision before you click again and hold to drag it somewhere else. It is completely useless to me to expand it in order move it. I know what it is and its about 1000059348793486794 times easier if you could just move it without expanding the group of 8 parts into a massive screen hogging column. I can't express my annoyance and hate for this enough. I'M LITERALLY GOING INSANE TRYING TO PUT THINGS IN THE RIGHT ORDER WHEN IT'S ALL EXPANDED AND HARD TO SEE. Please I made an account on here just to tell you, I checked before I posted but I didn't see anyone else with this same frustration. Its a massive ui flaw to me as I always rearrange the staging stuff so please for the love of god fix this or something or anything cause i'm going to go absolutely crazy if I have to expand one more gdam thing oh my god.

[boomerdog2000]

First off you might want to settle down a bit. Shouting at people will get you nowhere.

Secondly the reason those groups expand is so you can select specific ones to take them out of that group, in case you want to put them in multiple separate stages.

Third the staging symbols on the very edge of the screen really aren't that big, when they're tucked over in the corner.

[SuperWeegee4000]

I do agree that you should be able to take them out all at once without having to expand them.

[LeadMagnet]

I hear your pain, and you need a hug! This is particularly difficult when using symmetry on lettuce (I hates asparagus! ) staged rockets.

I've often wondered if the option to right-click a part in the VAB (not so much in the SPH) and from a context menu select "Send to stage...", at which point a small dialogue would appear asking for a number. Type "4" (or whatever), then BAM! that part is in stage 4.

But, still wondering.....

[Sean Mirrsen]

Disagree with OP's tone, but agree with the idea. Most of the time you're rearranging whole groups - thus it would make sense if the groups would select whole on a single click, and only expanded on a double-click or a right-click.

[Commander Wilmot]

Boomerdog, I agree with you that it is not a big deal, but when the parts are grouped because they were fitted symmetrically (the only time they group together for me) it does not make sense to break them up. In that case, it makes more sense to keep them as a whole and make multiple symmetrical groups instead if you want them separate. For example, instead of placing a group of 6 radial decouplers and boosters then breaking them into three groups, why not make 3 groups of 2 decouplers and boosters?

[Dobrodav]

Maybe select stage as a whole, while shift or ctrl holded when left clicking on them ?

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I think you can already do that, just click and drag the part from the stage list...

[boomerdog2000]

Boomerdog, I agree with you that it is not a big deal, but when the parts are grouped because they were fitted symmetrically (the only time they group together for me) it does not make sense to break them up. In that case, it makes more sense to keep them as a whole and make multiple symmetrical groups instead if you want them separate. For example, instead of placing a group of 6 radial decouplers and boosters then breaking them into three groups, why not make 3 groups of 2 decouplers and boosters?

I have to split up bits of rocket all the time during my asparagus stage construction. I build it on 6 times symmetry because it's faster and then split the decouplers and separation rockets manually.

[drtedastro]

I hear your pain, and you need a hug! This is particularly difficult when using symmetry on lettuce (I hates asparagus! ) staged rockets.

I've often wondered if the option to right-click a part in the VAB (not so much in the SPH) and from a context menu select "Send to stage...", at which point a small dialogue would appear asking for a number. Type "4" (or whatever), then BAM! that part is in stage 4.

But, still wondering.....

Yes to what you have suggested and I have been wanting a method so that you could,

a) assign some form of identification to the part that was in the stage. something other than trying to figure out which decoupler is which by the exact same little icons.

setup and assign sub-stage identifiers, like tree display in folders. example stage N has 4 SRB's and each SRB has ???? and so on. would be a heck of a lot easier and intuitive for setting up more complex craft.

c) ability to setup time delay for items within the stage. From selectable time base such as msec from when stage started or msec from previous item, etc.....

there would be so much power and flexibility if we could do something along these lines.

But first, like LeadMagnet said, need some simple way to identify the parts and also as said before some better way to expand and shrink the info in the staging window.....

[karolus10]

Disregarding OP going insane (I'm not recommending using this tone ,if you want to be hear out), it has a point - arranging and moving groups in staging stack can be problematic sometimes.

Edited August 23, 2013 by karolus10

[drtedastro]

Problematic""".... I have used many 'other' words at different times.....

I would be happy for any progress with the entire staging setup, control system....

[Bandock]

There were original plans to improve the staging system, It actually has improved since the original version (mainly with hiding various elements that are no longer needed to be shown on the staging list since 0.18 I believe). However, it wouldn't hurt to improve it further. Especially when scrolling through stages at the VAB can sometimes overlap the Launch button, causing accidental launching.

Eventually, it might need to be upgraded again anyhow since subassemblies are definitely in progress. In a future post of mine, I might have an idea of how it could work in the future.

[drtedastro]

Excellent, I will enjoy hearing your idea(s). I am working on some mockup's as well. would be great if we can start making some progress along this.... Good stuff........

[Platofan2]

It is as clear it can be

[destroyer2012]

Why don't they just make it so you can select which objects are grouped and which aren't? Many times I have experienced mirrored engines being grouped incorrectly, it would be great if the user could fix that, or even ungroup eight-fold symmetry so it is easier to create asparagus-style groupings.

just make a little [+] sign on the ones that are grouped, and then one could, if they want, expand that group, or just drag the group as a whole. That would be nice.

[Francesco]

hey, wouldn't it be a great idea if, when you selected a collapsed group of parts, instead of expanding within the staging column, it expanded in another column parallel to that?

maybe with a small UI element like an arrow which links this sub-set to the root staging set.

[Chi]

I hear your pain, and you need a hug! This is particularly difficult when using symmetry on lettuce (I hates asparagus! ) staged rockets.

I've often wondered if the option to right-click a part in the VAB (not so much in the SPH) and from a context menu select "Send to stage...", at which point a small dialogue would appear asking for a number. Type "4" (or whatever), then BAM! that part is in stage 4.

But, still wondering.....

God, you just had one of the best ideas ever!!