Changing symmetry modes from radial to mirror

[The Yellow Dart]

So I was building a ship in the SPH last night and I somehow got it into radial symmetry mode as opposed to mirror symmetry that is normal for the SPH. I do remember something from a devnote a while back saying that we would be able to switch from one to the other but I hadn't seen anything since the release to say that feature was there so I assumed it was left out. I looked all over the screen for a button or switch or toggle that I might have clicked by accident but I could find anything. Does anyone know about this? Is this an actual feature or did I just find a bug? A bug wouldn't surprise me, since they said the SPH and VAB were essentially the same now, just with a different backdrop.

Edited December 19, 2014 by The Yellow Dart

[Norpo]

Not a bug, it can be switched by pressing R.

EDIT: Also, F changes "Radial symmetry around parent part" and "Radial symmetry around Vessel", but I honestly don't know the difference. Anyone know?

[worir4]

Not a bug, it can be switched by pressing R.

EDIT: Also, F changes "Radial symmetry around parent part" and "Radial symmetry around Vessel", but I honestly don't know the difference. Anyone know?

I think parent part is if you say put a radial orange tank x4 symmetry on a centre orange tank, and then you try put 4x symmetry battery onto one of the radial tanks then the batteries will be in symmetry in reference to the radial tank not the centre orange tank in which case each radial tank would get one battery each.

[The Yellow Dart]

Much appreciated gentlefolk, I must have overlooked that, should come in handy now that I know it's there!

[antbin]

This is a usability problem - the R key is so near the WSADQE keys used to rotate pieces in the SPH / VAB, the icon difference is not clear, and it's irreversible. I found this post after having 'tainted' an entire spaceplane with radial symmetry without realizing what I'd done. Had to remove and re-place every piece to get rid of the lingering effects.

Edited December 21, 2014 by antbin

[Pavel0naut]

There actually is a bug or at least a design flaw.

I'm trying to design a rover right now and it will not allow me to use mirror symmetry. I'm stuck using radial symmetry. I can select mirror symmetry but as soon as I position the part it switches back to radial.

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

Would probably have been better to post as a separate question rather than at the bottom of another question that's already been marked as "answered".

What some of the posts above allude to is that the symmetry mode is kindof sticky. Consider three parts, A, B and C. A is the root part. You attach two part Bs to part A using radial symmetry. You now take part C, set the mode to mirror, and attempt to attach them to one of the parts B. At this point, the mode will switch to radial, because you're trying to attach to an already radial part. The way to fix this is to detach the parts B and reattach them using mirror symmetry instead.

There would be all kinds of trickiness in trying to find corresponding parts when trying to mix radial and mirror symmetry, so I think they went with the simplest option in the editor and just made it stick to one mode. Of course, you can mix modes when attaching to a part that has no symmetry (so you can radial attach Bs to A and also mirror attach Cs to A).