[Flipside]

I had a thought that it might be interesting if the particle effect for damage could release pieces of low-poly 'debris' every so often, maybe the odd panel or pipe? Basically 2-20 polygon objects released at a rate of 1-2 per second? They wouldn't need to be visible unless they were pretty close (under about 40-50m) and would probably only have a lifetime of about 20 seconds, but would be a nice addition to the damage effect? It means a 20 poly object, if released at 2 per second, with a 20 second lifetimes ('worst case' scenario) would take up 800 polygons if all 40 were on screen at the same time - though that would be for a single fountain.

I know it's only eye-candy, but just thought I'd suggest it

Flipside

[Bobboau]

hmm that's a good sudgestion, and good timeing, I'm just now planning to rebuild the whole particle system from the ground up.

[Taristin]

I like the idea...

[Black Wolf]

Works for me. Could it be assigned on a per species basis?

[Bobboau]

would be better if it was assigned on a per ship basis, or per subobject, or per texture basis. (any one of or a combineation of each of these would be far less complicated than the actual creation of the code for the manageing and rendering of the debris)

[kasperl]

The more ways to assign it the better, really.

This sounds like a great idea.

[Kosh]

I think it would especially look great for capital ships.

[Ulala]

I'd love to see this.

[Retroboy]

Can I extend it a nudge?

When you destroy a capship's subsystem, create a small swarm of large, short-lived pieces of a similar nature. I always thought the capship system destruction effect was a bit understated.

-- Retro

[Jetmech Jr.]

dont they have something like this in vanilla-FS2? you shoot the ship and little 2d pieces of debris fly off?

[Retroboy]

Jetmech - yes, but the thought is to do this for flaming spot areas that were damaged by a shot a little while ago. A post-impact effect, not an impact effect like the debris bits are now.

I'm also wondering if instead of limiting the number of flamy damage impact spots to 10 or so per capship, if it would be possible to make the damage effect smaller but have up to 50 burning spots. A capship under assault by a fleet of fighters could then look pretty beat up.

-- Retro

[Nico]

Me, I'd rather see the burning spot expend until the ship is covered with blazing fury!!!! Gwaaaaaah!

[kasperl]

Well, that would be rather hard on your system.....

Decals, this and flamy spots ought to make a ship look pretty beat up.