Component/body help please

[Anonymous]

To start with, have I got rule #1 outlined correctly.

First create a component and that component becomes a vessel for all sketches and bodies used in and on (Booleans) that component?

I will use a car engine as an example to highlight my confusion, I would like to create the engine block first so I create a new component and rename it EngineBlock.

When I come to create the pistons and other components do I create them as new top level components or do I create them as new components within the EngineBlock component?

Or is it better to create them as bodies and then turn them into components?

Do I turn the bodies that are located inside a component into components or do I leave them as bodies?

Do I need to activate a component that is located within another component when I work on it or can I just activate the top level component?

Is it wise to use the dissolve function on the bodies that are located within components or is it better to leave them as is?

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, but in DM mode this is less of an issue if you forget that as the first step.

Say you created a body and added several features to it, but forgot to make and activate a component first. You can still turn that body into a component and that will also pull all the features for that body into that component. The reason for this is that features in DM mode are strictly associated with one body, so it's easy for Fusion 360 to determine what can be pulled into the component.

In TL mode things can be quickly more complicated if the user does not pay attention.