Ability for decoupler to change the names of the subassemblies it decoupled on use.

[John FX]

As in, if I have a craft with three decouplers, I could name my craft `bigrocket` and when the first decoupler fires, I could have set two names as attributes of the decoupler. One for the part that gets dropped and one for the part that carries on so I would change the name of the part that dropped to `bigrocket stage 1` and the part that carries on could be changed to `mediumrocket`. When the second decoupler fires it could call the dropped part `bigrocket stage 2` and rename the part that carries on as `smallrocket`. When the last decoupler fires the part that drops could be called `bigrocket stage 3` and the part that carries on could be `payload`

So the main craft being flown by the player would change name like bigrocket, mediumrocket, smallrocket, payload but the debris that falls would be called bigrocket stage 1, bigrocket stage 2, bigrocket stage 3

It would be very handy for landers and multipart craft. Names would become part of organising your stages and it would be nice to set the type of craft as in changing from a ship to a lander being set on the decoupler also.

Not changing any attributes on the decoupler would mean the naming convention would be the same as now and debris/unplanned separation events could be the same as now.

[vexx32]

I think this suggestion should probably go hand in hand with this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60272-Change-in-how-ship-names-are-preserved-through-docking

To be really honest, though, I don't think I'd personally find so much use for this kind of thing; I don't see the need to name the lifter stage at all unless I'm going to be keeping both parts, in which case I'd almost certainly put at the very least a probe core on the bits I'm decoupling -- and I'd probably use separators instead of decouplers in such an instance, too.

[John FX]

I think this suggestion should probably go hand in hand with this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60272-Change-in-how-ship-names-are-preserved-through-docking

To be really honest, though, I don't think I'd personally find so much use for this kind of thing; I don't see the need to name the lifter stage at all unless I'm going to be keeping both parts, in which case I'd almost certainly put at the very least a probe core on the bits I'm decoupling -- and I'd probably use separators instead of decouplers in such an instance, too.

This should apply to separators equally as well as decouplers and the stages was only an example. I see far more uses for the payload side of things. On my current KerPollo mission for example, I would like the lander to be called such when staged as well as the ALSEP and the rover. The system I propose would apply to all these situations and the names would be attributes which could be set in the VAB instead of auto generated names which are FAR too long for the space allocated for them. Then staged parts with no option to rename would also have the correct names.

It has many benefits and no deficits as far as I can see as if the user does nothing they get the current system so would not notice any change.

Like action groups. Some users do not use them at all and they notice no deficit. To those who do use them they are very very useful.