All upgrades in NMS say that they get activated as soon as they are available inside the inventory/suit/cartridge. Though, I have noticed that, suppose, if I put all mining tool upgrades close to each other, they all get a green coloured aura around them.
Does positioning of these upgrade modules also matter in the game? I've noticed that I can not move these upgrades around, unlike other commodities/objects/ores etc. So I thought that there might be this possibility!