game-editor.com

Basically when you have a multi-layers set of actors- some locked or just on top of each other you need a more streamline way of grabbing them without being forced to change the z-depth to bring them forward.
The solution is to simply to be able to use the direction keys when you list-select the desired actor to move it or a context key that when held will prioratize its grabability and temporarilly bring it to the front.

I think, the z-depth changing in the Actor Control is the result of planning,
how to access the individual actors in a stack.
At any point, you have to deal with the z-depth of the selected actor, shifting
it up or sorting it back into the stack.
But quite inconvenient, you are right !

A little Actor list, to simply select one of the actors, which are colliding
with the selected Actor, without changing the z-order, would do it.

To implement such new feature, it would cost some work, which has to be done
by someone. And in these times, only one person (skydereign) is working on
the code, to release GE 1.4.1 at least.
I'm not sure, if he will add any new features in this version, as there is
also the GE 1.5 waiting in the pipe, to get released one day...


Cheers !

There is the current feature to help with this. Holding control and clicking an actor grabs the actor one layer down. This stacks so if you hold control and click three times, you would have selected the fourth actor. This applies to left click, right click, and dragging actors.