Group actions

[Saurissimo]

Can somebody explain me what is this, what does it do and how it works?

[PCPhoenixGaming]

In the most basic terms, it allows you to manage more than one type of action simutaneously.

Say I have 5 solar panels. I bind them to an action group in the hangar, and each action group to a key (none are set at default). When you hit that key, it activates, so in the example, the 5 solar panels would all extend at the same time, instead of clicking manually

You can also do more complex operations such as extending th gear, and retracting the aftormentioned solar panels, and turing off the lights at the same time. Bind that to an action group, and voilla. When you hit the button, the lights will turn on, the solar pannels wil fold, and the gear will extend.

That's basically it.

[Fel]

Like PhoenixLord said, you can use them to trigger multiple things in one key press.

It can be used for solar panels, to activate or desactivate engines...

For space planes, for example, you woul use them to toggle between nuclear engines and jet engines.

Many mod add parts that have a lot of actions relatedd to them, like Kethane scanner and many others, and you can bindd these actions to these action groups to.

Long story short, you can use them to do anything you couldd do with a right click on a part (except changing the active command module).

Most action groups (the 1-10 ones) are activated only through use of the keyboard numbers above the letters, the others are linked to the buttons near the altimeter (and can be bound to keys in the config).

[Saurissimo]

Looks useful, but my brain can't understand how to create an action; for example, how can I add an engine or anything else to an action? I can't find any button or something like that.

[Streetlamp Le Moose]

There's 3 buttons on the top left (to the right of the parts tabs). One is for parts, one is for action groups, and one is for crew. Just click the action groups tab, then click custom 1 (this means when you press the 1 key, it will do any action you bound to that key) then click a part you want to bind, then select the action you want that part to do when you press the key.
It sounds a little complicated but it really isn't. Makes things like toggling several solar panels a lot easier than going around and individually clicking them.

[Rig Nan Roach]

I am resurrecting this thread for a specific purpose. It is, in point of fact, the reason threads get resurrected in general, and that is that an ongoing problem just seems never to get addressed. So please, firstly, just don't even bother to lecture me about vampire threads.

Like so many things in life, Kerbal suffers from a lack of effective instructions in game.

I just learned about these action groups from the Wiki, and what I would like to point out is that this is made unecessarily tedious by the process being exactly backward. The item selection column should be second, and the group selection should be third.

The whole thing is insufferably counterintiotive. The phrases "Custom01" - "10" Should just be named "Group 1" - "Group 10" with a little hover screen explaining that they are already assigned to the ten numeral keys 1 through 0. To assign something to one of these custom groups, you select the item itself on your construction in the hanger bay you are currently working in. Remember, the "Group Action" and "Selection" comlumns are exactly backward from the actual work flow. So your item will show up in the right hand column, and you will "add" functions to the group by shifting them BACK to the left. Then, to activate the function, simply press the numeral key corresponding to the group you want. I have never confirmed this, but "Custom 10" is almost assuredly the numeral "0".

[maculator]

Well I don't get the problem. The Keybindings are defined in the options menu, wich everyone looks up bevore playing a game .... at least thats what I do. And the whole actiongroup thing is mentioned in the ingame wiki, wich every new player also should read. So it's not 100% described but you got A and you got B and together you understand how it works.

[Rig Nan Roach]

Originally posted by maculator:

Well I don't get the problem. The Keybindings are defined in the options menu, wich everyone looks up bevore playing a game .... at least thats what I do. And the whole actiongroup thing is mentioned in the ingame wiki, wich every new player also should read. So it's not 100% described but you got A and you got B and together you understand how it works.

NO ONE

reads the entire wiki before playing this game.

And this is not a key binding issue.

Menus can be intuitive. Search Google for "Action Groups" and people everywhere are still asking this question. The reason is because it is still poorly designed.

[Manwith Noname]

Something about your post completely borks my Steam when trying to quote it but...

Originally posted by Rig Nan Roach:

...I would like to point out is that this is made unecessarily tedious by the process being exactly backward. The item selection column should be second, and the group selection should be third.

It's backward to you because your brain is wired in such a way to see it like that. Allow me to try and explain how it is "logical".

You go to the action groups tab and you have listed on the left the group names. All the way to the right of the columns, in fact outside of the columns, you have your craft view. Between these, there are two more columns.

Clicking on a part of your craft lists the possible actions that can be added to a group in the third column, the column closest to your craft because you are taking actions from your craft and placing them in the group all the way to the left.

Now, this leaves the second column which of course gets filled when you actually click on an action to move it from your craft into the group selected.

This may make no sense to you. It may make no sense to other people also but it made sense to someone and it makes sense to me. I honestly feel doing it via continual branching from the left would be more confusing. Not everything needs to go from left to right.

[Rig Nan Roach]

Originally posted by Manwith Noname:

This may make no sense to you. It may make no sense to other people also but it made sense to someone and it makes sense to me. I honestly feel doing it via continual branching from the left would be more confusing. Not everything needs to go from left to right.

Yeah Steam messed with my quote format from the get go. Not sure what happened, but I futzed with it till it looked right and ran with it.

It's all well and good to point out that any format can make sense, but a left to right flow for any visual queue is an ancient thing for civilizations that read and write left to right. It's not RIGHT in some objective sense, but it is as close to right as things get in terms of making things feal normal. That's because in a culture where people read left to right, reading something left to right IS NORMAL.

Also, your comment ignores that Kerbal already has little popup windows. So why not throw a couple in here to clarify this feature? That ALSO would help straighten out the issue.

I'm about to give this game a glowing review as it is about the best open world sandbox I have ever played. What I am trying to say here is simply this - a lot of the money going to Kerbal is now being spent elsewhere, and the game is still unfinished AND slightly buggy. I don't appreciate coming late to this game, paying a $40.00 premium for it while others got it cheap because it is now supposedly "finished", and finding it like so many of the games that winnow their way through early access on Steam - half baked and sloppily thrown together.

This is just one of the many examples.

If my words seem a little harsh or extreme, it is because I have spent a lifetime being cheated by so called business people, and I am sick and tired of it. Yeah, I'm going to play the hell out of this game. Yeah, it's going to seem contradictory that I play the hell out of something while griping the whole time.

The griping is not because of the game, its concepts, or even its coders. The griping is because I know after some 30+ years of business that what is wrong with gaming is what is wrong with the whole world - we all PAY for things, and a handful of people end up OWNING them all.

More than almost any other type of game, sandbox worlds SCREAM to be open sourced. That way the investors can't just tuck it away and draw money off of it while essentially leaving it in a fixed state, syphoning cash while providing no further service to the "community" that forms around the "service".

[Manwith Noname]

I'm not really ignoring anything. I was just trying to explain how adding things to action groups has a logic behind it.

Originally posted by Rig Nan Roach:

That's because in a culture where people read left to right, reading something left to right IS NORMAL.

Reading left to right is not necessarily the same things as flow of data. Plus, not all cultures read this way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-left

Typically, in our westernised way, we are getting everyone to follow suit.

[Saurissimo]

Oh my.

[Rig Nan Roach]

Originally posted by Manwith Noname:

I'm not really ignoring anything. I was just trying to explain how adding things to action groups has a logic behind it.

Oh you absolutely ignored it. I brought it up and you ignored it again. And you still are.

Originally posted by Rig Nan Roach:

That's because in a culture where people read left to right, reading something left to right IS NORMAL.

Originally posted by Manwith Noname:

Reading left to right is not necessarily the same things as flow of data. Plus, not all cultures read this way.

Why do you think I phrased it the way I did? If you want to design the game specifically for Chinese, by all means accommodate them in whatever way seems fitting in China.

[maculator]

Interesting wich way this discussion took.

Well:
1. You open up the action groups menu
2. You have a look at the action groups and select one
3. Now you go one further and see its content
4. The next colum shows what you can put inside this group
5 You go to your craft select a part and now the last cloum shows what you can put inside the group you selected before

Makes sense to me

And for the ingame wiki, I read it even I'am experienced and playing for years now.
And someone who is clueless will moste definetly read through the parts he is courius about.

[Rig Nan Roach]

Originally posted by RoofCatA:

Action groups are shown AND explained in one of the training missions.

RTFM.

Actually, there is an in game MANUAL that explains them. No need to play one of the missions.

The problem, again, is that the interface is clunky and counter-intuitive. The internet is littered with the comments of people having an issue with it.

Look at it. It's basically two blank columns. There's hardly a clue at all in its form to its function.

The old saying "form follows function", believe it or not, is not some sort of subjective opinion. If the form does not follow the function, then the form is flawed.

[Rig Nan Roach]

Originally posted by maculator:

3. Now you go one further and see its content
4. The next colum shows what you can put inside this group

No, actually neither column HAS any content until you randomly decide to click on a part, assuming you opened the menu AFTER you had something already built.

The interface for the action groups is clunky and obtuse. It would be a trivial fix and I never said the whole game sucks. I said it is full of such flaws for being something in a "finished" state.

You can also put an airplane together and watch it shake itself to pieces on the runway while barely rolling. But I presume THAT is a feature and not a bug as well.