Do you use the custom VAB menus at all?

[Norpo]

With beta 0.90, the VAB was massively improved. A new menu, advanced sorting options, splitting of engines/fuel tanks, etc.

But one feature I hear nobody talking about is the custom menus in advanced sorting options. Does anyone use them? I use them to sort my modded parts, but that's just me. (They also go across saves, so that's nice.)

Do you find them useful? A hassle? Share your thoughts!

[Nemrav]

I've kinda memorized where I find things so no..

Unless I try (again) at RO in which case, yes.....

[rkman]

I don't use them because they inconveniently end up hidden in a sub menu instead of next to the stock categories.

[Slam_Jones]

I got used to the old version, and at 25 I'm much too old to change my ways

[Captain Sierra]

The new part menus have have come in handy maybe twice. I'd like to be able to sort by mod (gamedata folder) but I cant ant SPO is broken bad. Its more of a flashy option rarely used than anything that actually comes in handy (unless they add a sort-by-mod option containing subcategories for every gamedata folder with parts.

[Vaporo]

Haven't used them much, but that's only because I already know where everything is, and I haven't unlocked enough parts in career mode to warrant many pages of parts.

[RocketPilot573]

When I finish the tech tree in my current save I might change it around.

[UmbralRaptor]

I like them a great deal for the subsets of parts they can reveal but in some cases there's an annoying amount of setup required. And yes, I'm the one person who selected "I use the custom menus, and I don't use mods."

[ShadowZone]

Actually I would rather use Simple Part Organizer if it were functional with 0.90

... made it really ease to turn mods on and off (especially those with a ton of parts like B9)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62466-0-25-Simple-Part-Organizer-v1-2-1

I have made custom category just for the stock parts... but man that was a chore...

[problemecium]

I don't have many modded parts - in fact if I recall correctly in this version the only mod parts I have are Procedural Fairings - but I do make use of the Subassemblies menu and several custom categories. Currently though I find the other custom sorting criteria rather useless.

[Voculus]

There's no point in using them. If you had enough parts to need that kind of sorting and searching power, the game would crash before it loaded anyway.

[pincushionman]

Once I start unlocking non-1.25m parts, Some of these functions will start to come in REAL handy. I ALWAYS grab the wrong size decouplers, especially, say, when I have the KW parts installed.

[metl]

I've not found a use for them, but I don't use any parts packs. The "advanced" mode actually annoys me because that is where they buried the subassembly button, which is extremely useful. I'm not sure why it wasn't left in the main categories.

[AbacusWizard]

I haven't done much with the categorization submenus (other than subassemblies, of course), but I like the fact that engines and fuel tanks are in separate categories now, and I really appreciate the ability to sort parts by mass.

[Wanderfound]

The advanced part menus were a good idea, but I don't think Squad got the implementation right, unfortunately. The UI is horrible (hidden menus with small and obscure icons, yay). Every time I try to use them, I end up getting frustrated and going back to the standard menus.

What we really need is to make the parts list searchable by name, and to get some "show/hide all parts from mod X" options.

[ShadowZone]

What we really need is to make the parts list searchable by name, and to get some "show/hide all parts from mod X" options.

The last part is exactly what Simple Part Organizer did up until 0.25 ...

I have to agree on the horrible UI part. As someone who wrote his thesis on usability, a lot of KSP's UI makes me cringe. As I said before: Organising your parts is a chore.

[NecroBones]

I started to set one up at one point. But in my current career, I haven't unlocked enough for it to be highly useful yet. But since we have module-based search, technically I can find most of what I need that way.

The one thing we don't have a good search tab for right now is spaceplane fuel tanks, since there is not a "negative" feature in the resource searches. You can search for oxidizer to get the rocket tanks, but you can't search for "liquid fuel and not oxidizer".

Something that would be useful would be specifically a Mk2 and Mk3 set of tabs.

[KerbMav]

I havnt played around with them yet. But I would be really happy if I could move all KAS and IR parts into their own tabs exclusively.

[archnem]

Personally, I love the new UI and all the options. I mainly use the custom categories to break down the "utility" tab into more manageable chunks, like I have a tab for power, one for parachutes, one for legs and ladders, etc. I love the fact that any categories/tabs you make are preserved across saves, yes it's a bit of a chore to set them up the first time, but then you're done. I do have a few suggestions to make the UI better tho (imo):

1) Is the "Filter by Manufacturer" button really needed? This might be for future gameplay (if you get discounts from preferred vendors maybe?) but I don't see any point to it.

2) Please, please, move the sub-assembly tab and any custom tabs to the basic view mode. I hate having to pop out "advanced mode" just to get to them every time.

3) Please allow me to re-order the tabs (especially custom ones) in any order I wish. I would really like to be able to re-organize my custom tabs, since when I made them I just sort of randomly made categories until I covered the ones I wanted.

4) Whenever you make a custom category, please don't add the "unknown" sub-category by default. I'll add this if I need it.

5) In the "filter by tech level" tabs, please let me select more than one. It'd be nice to be able to filter by "all parts under tech level 3", etc instead of just all the parts AT level 3.

6) The "filter by resource" tab is awesome. Just wanted to say that.

7) This isn't really a squad problem, but I wish mods would spruce up their entries in the "filter by module" tab. I have a list of about a billion question marks at the moment. I'm sure this will happen eventually however. The mod community is pretty great about staying on top of things.

[Pixel of Life]

Not really. I have tons of mod parts but I've already kinda learned where everything is so there's no need for any fancy filters. The only thing that confuses me is engines and fuel tanks being in separate categories because I was used to having just a single "Propulsion" tab for them.

[LordFerret]

The only thing I use outside of the stock menus, is the Subassembly tab... which is now most inconveniently hidden beneath the Advanced Mode tab.

[Xavven]

I play 100% stock and I absolutely use the custom categories. I group 1.25 m tanks, engines, and stack separators together, along with radial decouplers, fuel lines, and struts. Then I do the same for each of the other sizes (.625, 2.5, 3.75). It's so much faster to build transfer and lifter stages when the main building blocks for each stage are on the same page.

And then I have one tab for things I commonly forget. Batteries, solar panels, chutes, etc.

[SaturnV]

Too lazy to drag parts one by one manually myself.

I hope there's a “by type“ sorting option so that I can found parts I need easier

[archnem]

I group 1.25 m tanks, engines, and stack separators together, along with radial decouplers, fuel lines, and struts. Then I do the same for each of the other sizes (.625, 2.5, 3.75). It's so much faster to build transfer and lifter stages when the main building blocks for each stage are on the same page..

I'm totally stealing this.

Too lazy to drag parts one by one manually myself.

I hope there's a “by type“ sorting option so that I can found parts I need easier

Um, 2nd tab down, "Filter by Module"? Or did you want something different?

Edited January 18, 2015 by archnem

[TMS]

I don't use them because they inconveniently end up hidden in a sub menu instead of next to the stock categories.

The only thing I use outside of the stock menus, is the Subassembly tab... which is now most inconveniently hidden beneath the Advanced Mode tab.

Both of these.

Obscure tab icons don't make much sense to me, either.