staging grouping

[tyraidooi2]

In the staging section similar itmes are grouped and just have a number on it. Other times I add a bunch of decoulpler boosters and they are all listed singly in the staging section. How do I group items up in staging so as to make the list smaller and mroe manageable than having a long list with a ton of single items.

Edited May 18, 2014 by tyraidooi2

[Pecan]

The '+' sign next to a staging group (when you mouse-over it) lets you create a new, initially empty, stage. Similarly, the '-' lets you collapse and remove empty stages. Click any component in the stages and drag it to the stage that you want. Whole stages can be re-ordered by dragging the bar above them to the put them in the squence you need.

Note also that the staging can sometimes be a bit limiting. If you want to do several things together that don't have 'staging' actions, such as decoupling docking-ports, or need to do something more than once - parachutes you've re-packed are the classic example - you will need to use action groups. These are set-up using the second tab at top-left of the VAB/SPH window.

[tyraidooi2]

yah i understand how to setup extra stages. but lets say I have 10 boosters I want all to light at that stage. How do i make it so there is only one booster icon with the number 10 in it instead of 10 separate booster symbols.

[Pecan]

Mystery to me, I'm afraid. It seems to be something KSP does all by itself, or not. They're usually grouped to a single icon if added with symmetry but if you change almost anything they're shown separately. A save and reload usually consolidates them but, to be honest, it's not something I worry about much - when you light them in flight they're all shown individually anyway, whatever you do.

Edited May 11, 2014 by Pecan

[Claw]

Pecan is right. They will only group together if they were placed with symmetry. Sometimes if they become split, they will regroup when reloaded. But if you have 10 decouplers placed all over and they aren't done with symmetry, they will never collapse into 1.

[tyraidooi2]

I bring it up because I have a stage with decouplers to drop my starter boosters. Each booster has a few sepatrons on it to help push it away from the main body. But the sepatrons are not firing and the boosters are just dropping straight down and clipping my main engines an fuel tanks nocking them off. Was wondering if the sepatrons where grouped would they fire properly or what am doing wrong to make them fire? I have sepatrons that push my main tanks away during asparasugs staging drops and works fine but for some reasons the boosters just drop and are not being pushed away.

[xcorps]

Put the seperatrons in the same stage as the decoupler, before the decoupler.

IE stage 3 consists of 8 seperatrons and 8 decouplers, the seperatrons are below the decoupler. That way the seps fire at the same time the decouplers fire and you get your push.

[Claw]

Put the seperatrons in the same stage as the decoupler, before the decoupler.

IE stage 3 consists of 8 seperatrons and 8 decouplers, the seperatrons are below the decoupler. That way the seps fire at the same time the decouplers fire and you get your push.

Yes, this is the first step.

However, sometimes KSP will still not fire the separatrons at the same time as the decouplers even if they are in the same stage (random bug and I don't know what triggers it). To fix it, you can rearrange the order of the separatrons/decouplers within the staging block. So per xcorps' example... If stage 3 consisted of 8 seperatrons (at the top of the stage) and 8 decouplers (at the bottom of the stage), then grab the whole lot of decouplers and shift them to the top of the stage. Try to grab them all at the same time.

The order doesn't really matter. It's just a way to fix the random bug that sometimes pops up.

[tyraidooi2]

Tried all of that and still couldnt get them to fire right so tried two seperate stages where first stage fired the sepratrons then the send stage decoulpled the boosters but some how the boosters were still still bumping into and taking out my main tanks so think its just time to figure out a new design. THank you every one fore your input.

[LaytheAerospace]

How are your sepratrons oriented? If they're just decelerating the tank, then you'll still get collisions commonly. Orienting them so they push the tank directly away from the rocket has tended to work better for me. Lots of ways you can place the sepratrons to accomplish it, but generally I just put them on the sides of the tank, at right angles to each other, so the net force is directly away from the rocket.