[Aardwolf]

I like the idea behind the current dusty-looking asteroid explosions, but (as others have commented), I think the way they fade to transparent looks fugly. So I had an idea of my own:

We already have little bits of debris that fly off of ships when they are hit by weapons (debris01.pof, debris02.pof), so why not create something similar and apply it to asteroids? I think doing this would probably require a bit of coding, and I've failed just about every attempt I've made to do anything with the engine, but I don't think it would be too much. If it required a code change, I reckon some other related features could be added with not too much difficulty, as well. Particularly, anything that would require small debris-like chunks that (unlike ship debris) would not ding your fighter up would probably not be too much more work. (Sort of a "while you're at it" corollary)

What do people think? Feasible? Worthwhile?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Dunno about the feasibility, but I like the idea. Asteroid chunks flying off when you shoot them.

[Droid803]

If it's feasible, this would be excellent.

[Stormkeeper]

S'long as it doesn't hit you. It would suck if you were dodging through an asteroid field, the guy chasing you accidentally hits the asteroid, and the chunks he blows off kill you.

[Aardwolf]

I haven't tested this, but I was pretty sure that the debris pieces defined in those files don't collide with stuff. That's what gave me the idea.

[Narvi]

How big are we talking about here? Would be weird if big rocks went through stuff.

[Enigmatic Entity]

I think he's talking little, like when you park yourself 10m in front of the Deimos in Training6 and evoke hell on the hull, those tiny (triangle) pieces fly off among the "fire" effect.

[Aardwolf]

Yeah, sort of like that stuff.

I was talking about using this sort of effect in place of what the 3.6.10 mediavps' asteroid explosion has, which is chunks of rock as part of the animation, which fade to transparent as they reach the edges.