The presence of LTs is important to one of my story arcs. I use both of the following tricks:
1) BOSS DETAIL: I add a Boss detail, selecting a custom LT as the "boss." Boss details let custom critters of any rank be selected. Set multiples in the settings if needed. If set as an optional objective, easy spawn size, and no special animations or dialog, players won't really tell the difference between your forced LT spawn and a randomly generated one.
2) GROUP W/O MINIONS: I make a version of the custom group without minions, using it in details where I can't force a "boss" of my choosing. Definitely keep it to Easy spawn size. You can swap a capital I with a lowercase l to camouflage the minion-less group, making it appear to be the same as the regular group.
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2) GROUP W/O MINIONS: I make a version of the custom group without minions, using it in details where I can't force a "boss" of my choosing. Definitely keep it to Easy spawn size. You can swap a capital I with a lowercase l to camouflage the minion-less group, making it appear to be the same as the regular group.
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I have use the forced LT spawn before, but was using the above suggestion for the patrols in question. It fixed my problem of not having any LTs in my custom groups spawn... for me anyways. Recently tho while duoing with friend to help catch story flaws etc. My friend asked this about halfway thru.. "So, why are there no minions?"
I told him all my LTs would not spawn so I just mad all my minions LTs lol. Afterwards tho I thought, hti is not reallywhat I wanted for my story. The enemy groups I made are meant to work with each other. In one group the minion shield guy has no attacks really, but offers Grant cover, so while 1 is nothing, 2 or more make their allies really hard to hit. The LT shield guy in same group has no grant cover or personal mezz protection. He's all attack with the idea that all his def comes from allies, like the minion version of self. Both are mace and similiar in costume.. both being LT (which appears only option to get both to spawn :/ ) looks somewhat redundant as only real diff is which powers in set they chose and one's name is X Gaurdian and others is X Warrior.
TY for those answers, but was hoping for something more along the lines of making my patrols spawn evenly from my groups. In reg content I see alot of patrols with LTs and even some with bosses/LTs AND minions. I was hoping I also could do the same. 
How many times did you test your mission? I've noticed that the random spawn generator can get "stuck" and generate nothing but minions, or sometimes nothing but LTs.
I do basically the same thing you do, and I get a variety of spawns on Challenge Level 1 with a custom group: three minions, 1 LT, 1 LT and 1 minion. When I'm only CL 2 I even get an occasional boss.
Try it five times and see what you get each time. The new Architect options make it really easy to zip through the mission.
One improvement I'd like to see for test mode is the ability to set the level, team size and challenge level when starting the arc. That way I can see how things spawn under all conditions.
For example, I've got a mission that, when run at level 41 on Heroic, spawns a level 46 Snake patrol. I'd been running it at level 50 and didn't see that problem, but when I switched to my 41 blaster the bug appeared. If someone reported this issue to me in a comment and I didn't have a level 41 character, I'd have a much harder time duplicating the problem.
Honestly can't say. I tested it several times then to make funner testing would publish and play to test.. repuplish repeat.. can't honestly say how many times this set up failed as each time it was "wrong" I tweaked it some way. I'll have to go back and run more tests, perhaps even with some different lvled alts.
I love this idea.. is there a MA suggestion box? did you put this there? Would recomend you do if haven't. 
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One improvement I'd like to see for test mode is the ability to set the level, team size and challenge level when starting the arc. That way I can see how things spawn under all conditions.
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OK, when MA first came out I had lots of story ideas. First having to cut stories for size, then worse find that even completed stories would "grow" in size after publishing to point they no longer worked frustrated me into giving up on MA story-writing. Now with the new features am trying again but seem to be missing knowledge that is frustrating me again.
What is the secret to spawning LTs?
My final custom goups look like this: 2 minions,2 LTs, 1 Boss and other group has 3 minions, 3 lts, 2 bosses, 1EB
I set patrols and any diff options to hard.. (tried both th lower settings already)
While solo I tested set to diff 1, then 3, now am on 4. Yet NO LTs spawn in my mission. Is there a way to get LTs to spawn solo short of max diff setting or making all new "minion-free" group?
Sorry if this was answered before, been searching but cannot find answer to this.