How Can I Configure Pistons to Activate Strictly by Activation Groups?

@sflanker
Has an update changed anything, because my pistons are no longer working either, still using this method.

@sflanker
I just need to toggle on/off.

@FLYGUY101 I think the same concept would work fine with a motor. The input constant is just the power level. And the activation group controls whether it's on or off. If you wanted to target a fixed rpm or something that would be more complicated.

@sflanker
Question for you, what can I do to make an electric motor run by an activation group? It's a little different than the piston as you can't really put a percentage on something that keeps on moving.

Kudos to the dev team for making that magically work. It was just a stab in the dark but I was thrilled to see it work (and I verified the behavior for different numeric values).

Using 1 or 1.0 as the "Input" property makes the input value a fixed number instead of reading the current value of a slider, attribute, or variable. If you used 0.5 the piston would be half extended any time it was activated.

@sflanker What does the "1.0" do?

If I understood, you want to use the piston only with action groups. Pressing AG2 one time would extend the piston, pressing a second time retract it, and so on.
If it is what you want, so do this ( I tested it works ):
- Select your piston, click "properties", and in "piston input" ( you have "slider 2" ) , click "slider 2" and write Command Pod.FlightProgram.PistonVar
- Enter vizzy and use this short snippet
- Now, pressing action group 2 will alternate between extended and retracted.

edit : Sflanker was faster than me ^_^ ( the solution seems different. His solution looks better because it don't need Vizzy. Do his solution. )

You can achieve this by setting the Input property of your piston to the numeric value 1.0, the Activation Group property to your desired AG, and enabling the "Zero On Deactivate" property. All under the Piston Input section of the part properties.

If you don't see some of these properties you need to do the following: In the part settings for your piston, enable "Show Hidden Properties" in the Tinker Panel, you will then see a number of new options under the Piston Input section.