Improvement of Staging System

[Kasuha]

There are problems with current staging system, particularly if you are building ships in orbit out of parts brought up by lifters which may or may not use parts of the delivered piece during the lift.

The current staging system displays stages, but the stage which activates with space is either last or next to last - but not everytime it is clear which it is.

Also the game seems to make a notice to each part that it has been staged and refuses to stage it again even if I make it ready for that (deactivate the engine, pack the chute etc) and move it to an active stage.

My idea is:

1/ visual part: introduce two extra "stages":

- "active" stage (displayed with red header at the very bottom). Intended to hold active/reusable reachable parts (engines/chutes). This stage is initially empty but is always displayed.

- "suppressed" stage (displayed with gray header at the very top, eventually collapsable). Intended as convenient place to put any stageable parts you don't want to be in the staging at the moment (e.g. parts of the payload)

2/ stage to be fired next is always the last "normal" (orange) stage

3/ stages work like single-fire action groups, i.e. when fired, all parts in the stage activate/deploy/decouple and any reusable/remaining parts are moved to the "active" stage

4/ you can move any part between stages anytime, including from "active" stage back to one of "normal" stages. If you do so and fire the stage, that item will activate/deploy/decouple again. If you move an unfired part to the "active" stage, it will just sit there until it disappears from the ship or you move it somewhere else.

This will both make it clear what is the next stage to be fired when you press space and make it possible to stage the same part (engine/chute) multiple times if needed (with manual intervention).

Also:

when the ship disassembles (e.g. structural failure), any unreachable parts should be removed from the staging list immediately or at least as soon as possible.

Allowing to edit action groups in flight would be great, too. Particularly for ships assembled in orbit.

[BluetoothThePirate]

I like this plan overall. I think I'd also want to see the state of each part included with a color code, just like with chutes. I especially like being able to exclude parts from staging altogether if we choose. It'd be like an automatic setting of the staging lock after we pass a certain point.

[Dunbaratu]

Stages are definately bugged currently when ships are broken apart and re-docked together. Even when you manually re-arrange the staging list it still doesn't respect your changes and still does things out of order. Rather than a suggestion I'd call repairing that a bug fix. The way it works now is not just inconvenient - it's actually wrong.

[Captain Sierra]

One thing I would like to suggest is the ability to right click on the active stage header and toggle it off (shut down all engines, any other resettable staged functions) and then it becomes the next stage fired upon staging. With that, another right click option would be disable staging, removing the active stage from the staging que, thus firing the next orange normal stage.

[NeilC]

+1, I agree!

I also consider the current behaviour bugged, not just unclear.

[leax256]

Stages are definately bugged currently when ships are broken apart and re-docked together. Even when you manually re-arrange the staging list it still doesn't respect your changes and still does things out of order. Rather than a suggestion I'd call repairing that a bug fix. The way it works now is not just inconvenient - it's actually wrong.

same thing with action groups

[Kerbart]

Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time that I actually take the time to reorder the staging stack. Then I hit space and -POP- go the parachutes...