Action groups

[Castle-Wizard]

When building a rocket in the hangar , up next to the crew fan there is an action group fan .
How does the action group work ?

[Ulrin]

action group work wiz 132457890 keys, and are group where u can configure actions.
Group several engines, cliking one by one, it will appear some action u can make wiz that part, as toggle engine 4 example, then ingame, press 1 and that engine run, or specific light light on, ladder up/down...

[Castle-Wizard]

So , a sort of short cut ?

[Rhedd]

Yes. Think of them as customizable shortcut keys. Used correctly, they can make your vehicles do some very fancy stuff.

To set them up, just click on the group you want to add stuff to, then click on the part. A list of available options will come up that you can add to the group.

[Rene]

In the action groups tabs you have custom 1 to 0 for whatever you want them to be. Useful for stuff like extending all you solar panels in one go, switching engines and closing air intakes in SSTO planes, or doing a lot of science experiments together, for example. There's also an abort action group (backspace by default), which you can use with the Launch Escape System and at the same time decoupling everything from your rocket in the case something goes wrong during launch.
Then you can also change what happens if you use some of the default buttons. Examples are landing gear, lights and even staging. I have not found a lot of use for these.

[Castle-Wizard]

Thank you . Should be interesting working with that .

[Ottomic]

As an aside, most stock cockpits have clickable buttons to activate action groups when in IVA if you have RasterPropMonitor installed. The ALCOR capsule even lets you put custom tags on them so you know which one does what.

Also, Action Group Manager allows you to edit them while inflight. Really useful.

[Cooper Kid]

I use the "Abort" action group mostly - this is triggered by wither the Backspace key or the ABORT button that pops out next to the altitude display during a flight.

For manned mission, I'll set my abort action group to shut-down all engines, separate the crew capsule and fire the escape tower. This gets your kerbals well out of the way if there's an accident (which is more than likely for most of my designs!) I usually set the parachutes to 0 as well, just in case!

There are a couple of other ones that can be useful - for example you can set your fold-out ladders to open up when you lower your landing legs, or set your solar panels to unfold when you switch the lights on.

[Tayrtahn]

If you're not using a mod like Action Group Manager to let you change your action groups in-flight, it's important to develop "standardized" action groups, like always using 1 for "toggle solar panels". If you don't, you may find yourself in some bad situations when trying to control ships after docking!

[Ulrin]

can use a mod like ship info (not sure of the nme), put a part, and have a note were u can indicate which action do which group

[Typo]

Originally posted by Rene:

Then you can also change what happens if you use some of the default buttons. Examples are landing gear, lights and even staging. I have not found a lot of use for these.

If you add lights to the brake group, you can make brake lights for your rovers.
I also sometimes remove some of my landing gear from the lights group when constructing planes, as the landing gear lights aere very bright and too many can easily white-out the ground.

[Toastie Buns]

Originally posted by Rene:

Then you can also change what happens if you use some of the default buttons. Examples are landing gear, lights and even staging. I have not found a lot of use for these.

I usually disable the front brakes on planes, it prevents them from front flipping when you land.

[El Rushbo]

This is one of my best uses of action groups.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=256000537
As you can see I used landing gear to serve as cargo bay doors, I bound them to the 1 key while also removing them from the normal landing gear action group. I also find them useful for switching engines for SSTO designs.