lock a stage to prevent dumping the service module

[BamBam]

Today, and not for the first time, I had my lander on a perfect lunar course. I was just about to do the de-orbit burn and land on the mun when i accidentally hit the spacebar and dropped the service module. Now there is a capsule with parachutes and a docking port orbiting the mun. Those Kerbals are dead even before they know it....

Is there a way to lock a stage to prevent accidental separation?

This was a practice run with a new lander. Think of the frustration if i had made it all the way out to Duna and then dumped the SM!

Edited September 11, 2013 by BamBam

[Superfluous J]

You can't lock a stage, but you can:

* Hit F5 occasionally to save the game state. I do this at least twice on every mission. Once before I start my descent burn and then once when I'm happy with where I'm going to land. You should mabye add one for once you're in orbit around Kerbin and maybe another for when you reach orbit around the other body. Then you can just hold F9 to restore from your backup.

* Create an empty stage right before your current stage. You'll have to do this manually I think. That way, hitting space by accident executes the "do nothing" stage.

[FastMINI42]

Actually, if you hit Mod+L you will lock the stage and prevent bad things from happening by accidentally pressing the space-bar. When you hit Mod+L, you should see the green light on the lower left of the HUD turn a pink color.

Key Bindings

[UmbralRaptor]

alt+L locks the current stage

[BamBam]

Awesome! That is exactly what I needed. Thanks

[Superfluous J]

It's amazing what you learn (and how late you learn it). Thanks also for me. I've been doing what I said above and now I have a better way!

[rpayne88]

Just don't forget to unlock it to pop the chutes after reentry.