How do I shut down a group of engines?

[NinpoFox]

I created a Munar lander drop ship to carry 4 Munar landers to the Mun and back. Placing the drop ship in orbit and docking the 4 Munar landers went without a hitch (note that I did not use the Munar lander engines before docking). I moved all of the Munar lander engines to their own stage (Stage 3), as all of parts in staging got jumbled after docking, and then proceeded to the Mun using the drop ship engine (Stage 4). All of the Mun landers were undocked, landed on the Mun, and returned to the drop ship. I re-organized the parts staging again and tried to fire up the only the drop ship engine. Unfortunately, all of the engines fire up at the same time now. I tried stage locking with no luck. I know I can shut down each engine individually. With enough forethought, I could set up action groups, but I'm not certain how they would act after docking. Is there any way to shut down an entire stage of engines?

Edited October 27, 2013 by NinpoFox

[RocketPilot573]

Action groups should work fine with docking.

[Kerbonautical]

Well you can right click on the individual engines and select deactivate one by one. The only other way I know of would be to return to the VAB and move them to an action group which you can toggle them with.

[SandMan13]

Do what Kerbonautical said. Right click on the engines you don't want to fire up and disable them.

[Kasuha]

If you can't fix it with rearranging stages (which always worked for me so far) I recommend using action groups, they're fine with docking.

[stoani96]

maybe you could move the fuel from the tanks with the engines you want to stop to the singe main fuel tank...?

[NinpoFox]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I found that once I restarted my PC, everything worked as expected with the unwanted engines moved to an inactive stage. Not sure if this is a PC related issue or a bug. As a footnote, I found I could recover more science in less time by flying 4 individual missions as opposed to transporting 4 landers at once (and landing them one at a time).