So I need to make a rocket that spawns with the hatches open, and always releases cargo on death.

Is that even possible?

Don't bother to make multiple posts saying no.

Long posts saying how that could be done are welcome, as long as they make sense.

Try messing with the Status variable, in the main rocket definition. As far as I know, it has up to six values, each of which do different things.

0 is absolutely normal.
I believe one and two alternate between the two AI modes.
3 is dead on arrival, what I used for the blenders.
4, 5, and 6 are unknowns to me, and I'm not sure about 1 and 2.

Also, there may be further numbers beyond six.

What happens if you set status to a negative variable?

A crash, I would assume. I think status is how the game denotes the ai behaviour.

Meaning that the game loads all component parts of actors, vehicles, etc, then holds them inside it's exe, free to modify the internal code at will.

So, I don't think it's a variable, at least not like, say, JointStrength is.
It's more like a boolean, just with more than two values.

Negative variables make it act like it's DOA (eg 3)

I'll give 4,5,6 a go, thanks.

Edit : It hasn't helped, but I'll list the functions of the status variable for rockets here for the sake of it.

4 is the same as 3

Anything above 4 makes the rocket's jets insanely powerful, to the extent that a single tap on the main thruster will send it flying off the map.