Ability to place/set symmetry planes/axis'

[Kaito]

We've had the same editor (give or take) for the better part of KSPs history. While this editor is amazing in it's scope, I think it's missing something that would make it one-of-a-kind, and exactly the kind of thing that many artful KSP people would like: The ability to change/place the plane or axis of symmetry, and having reflection symmetry in the VAB/rotational symmetry in the SPH.

Try this at home in the SPH: Lander can as your root part, then add the rockomax node to it. Now start building on one half of the node, and try to add symmetry to it. When I did this, it didn't work. (This might have been a bug.) This forced me to build one half of my plane, then copy it and bring it to the other side. This was more of an inconvenience than it may appear at first because...struts? Fuel lines? Small CoG/CoF changes? It becomes a bother QUICKLY. It'd be nice to just set my plane of reflection symmetry to the center of the node and call it a day.

What about in the VAB? You have rotational symmetry on the core booster, fine. But lets say for some reason you want to place batteries on the boosters. Sure, you can place them 4 separate times, but then they might not be exactly the same height, and then it doesn't look right...Why can't I just tell the game "I want the center of my rotation symmetry to be focused on THIS part, not the root part."

Back to the SPH, what if you want 4 batteries placed around the fuselage of your plane? Sure, you can guesstimate the right angles, turn your ship 180 degrees and do it again, but they might not be exactly in the right spot along the ship, and it just looks bad...wouldn't it be easier to just hit a button for "Rotational symmetry" in the SPH?

Again in the VAB, you're building a space plane. Why? Because you need a launcher and it's just easier to build a launcher in the VAB. But now with the space plane, it's just so hard to get the symmetry's EXACTLY right because the VAB lacks reflection symmetry. Why is it not allowed that I have that kind of symmetry in the VAB?

Here is what I'm envisioning for a solution to these problems:

Next to the angle button, there's another button of that same kind: Rotational or Reflection symmetry. Click it to change mode. In the VAB, the "up" direction would be facing the camera. Problem solved. But what about changing the axis'/planes of symmetry?

Maybe next to that Reflection/Rotational symmetry button, there's a smaller one that is just "set the axis" or "set the plane". This would give your mouse a part that can attach to nodes in the same fashion that we are all familiar with, except it has a few special properties:

• It can attach to nodes that are already consumed by connected parts
  
• It does not consume a node that it is placed on.
  
• It can only be rotated in 90 degree increments/it is restricted to the 6 regular directions (Facing/pointing away from the starting camera, pointing the left/right of the starting camera, pointing up/down when viewed from the starting camera)
  

And boom, your new symmetry reference is set. To reset it to the root part, click a "clear symmetry" button. Obviously this will lead to some interesting possibilities for the symmetry to come up with, so I know it will take some work. In my head, i'm thinking that setting the symmetry would just treat the part that it attached to as the root part and work from there.

The beauty of this feature is that it doesn't have to be implemented if it doesn't want to be, or would be a perfect idea for a mod/plugin. The VAB/SPH would continue to work exactly as it has worked for forever, and if you don't want to dabble in the these features, you wont have to. But if you are feeling artful/adventurous and want to try it out, it suddenly adds a whole new level of awesome to KSP. I do not have the skills to write this myself, which is why I'm suggesting this and not working on it.