Duplicate parts but place them in a separate stage?

Question

This is relevant for building asparagus staging rockets. Basically each asparagus-stage should be ejected separately, so they should be on a separate stage, but for consistency and quick building they should not be constructed individually (I have found the need for many separatrons on my large asparagus fuel tanks, so placing an array of separatrons on each pair of asparagus stages is tedious).

I can of course use the alt-key to copy the stage, which takes me most of the way there, but I still have to reorganize all my separatrons and decouplers to put them onto a new stage. How can I "target" my copied rocket section so it will place its items into a new/different stage?

Answer 1

Took a while to figure out, but I'm really glad there is actually a way: Here's how you do it.

You move or copy out the rocket section you want to place on a new stage. Then, add an empty stage BEFORE the other stuff that's already there. Then once you go to place the stuff you took aside, it will be inserted into your newly created stage. This does not work if you create the empty stage AFTER.