I'm hosed, right? Can't define control groups on the fly?

[James_Eh]

I'm 99% sure (based on my repeated failures and my Google site searches) I have to kill the lander and send the drive stage home to pick up a duplicate lander which has a 4th control group defined. Was just curious about whether there is any way to fix this "on the fly", as it were.

When I undock from the main drive, I use the little tanks/engines to deorbit, then separate them. I have control groups set up for them, for the 6 ramjets, and for the center rocket (which is kind of obscured in this picture). What I forgot was a 4th control group for the 6 engines which get uncovered when the first 6 deorbit tanks have served their purpose. I am certain that I can not solve this issue with staging changes.

Don't suppose anybody has a secret key combo out there which can somehow define a new control group, do they?

(Yes, it's not an attractive craft. Yes, I know jet engines don't work on Eve. I am cheating.)

[Superfluous J]

There are several mods that will allow you to set up action groups (which is what you're talking about, I think?) on the fly. One of them is Action Group Manager which I've used in the past and another is Actions On The Fly.

Watch out, AGM has had some weird bugs. Never tried AOTF but if I need to modify action groups in the future I'll probably try it first.

[James_Eh]

1) Thanks, I will fiddle with those mods

2) I'll bet that if I go back to my searches and use the phrase "action group" instead of "control group" I would have more success, so thanks again... In my head I have always thought of them as "control groups" which is fine until you post on a forum...

[Claw]

If you run into bugs with the mods, you can also try making a new craft with the action group you want and put it on the launch pad. Then edit the save file to copy over the action group to your craft around Eve.

[bsalis]

Why not adjust the staging and use the spacebar to be the 4th.

[Supernovy]

There's always persistence file editing. I don't know exactly how you'd do it, but look for the "ACTIONS" modules and look at other craft that have action groups, you should be able to figure out how to hack together a solution.

Keep backups, though.