Recognized Add event hooks for particle effects.

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    So as a few people know, there is a WIP particle system in Starmade, and it has existed for quite a while.

    What I'm suggesting are hooks so we (the community) can add particle system actions to events in Starmade. Each of these events can call upon their own particle effect preset file, to allow the community to edit/modify them.

    For example:


    On beam hit
    (salvage, power supply, etc have separate events}
    On missile hit
    On cannon hit
    On pulse hit


    On beam fire
    (salvage, power supply, etc have separate events}
    On missile fire
    On cannon fire
    On pulse fire

    On thrust (only from thrusters with plumes)
    On block destroy
    On core overheat
    On collision
    On warhead detonate

    And likely many others.

    Added to this, I'd like to see some minor improvements to the particle system, such as additive blending, the ability to use DDS files as the particle (as the current explosion animation does)

    Further down the line when development has slowed, a logic driven particle block, to generate a burst of particles on logic input – with it's appearence defined in-game via GUI. This would allow smoke effects, fog and steam bursts, and other intricate details for ship interior and exterior. Steam bursts when your large hanger door opens, fighters writing in space, showers that have water, interior 'rain' systems for hydroponic gardens, poisonous gasses in a reactor chamber, etc

    There are benefits from having this as an option, such as having some nice explosion effects to hide the somewhat slow explosion damage generation/loading, Allow for weapon impacts to feel heavier, and possibly scale with weapon damage.

    Currently, one of the coolest effect features of starmade is going unused, and I know many people, including myself would love to be able to at least tie particle effects to events, instead of just generating them in the middle of a sector.

    Please Schine, allow us to play with the particle system in a real sense, add the hooks, even if you leave the effects blank, add the hooks for us, as a community to modify!

    Your friendly annoyance
    ~Crusade
     
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    This idea would also really be appreciated by mod makers who want to change some of the particle effects for uses on modified objects. Just a thought. :D
     

    Criss

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    I am not sure what current plans there are for particles. We have someone interested in working on it but they have bigger priorities for the foreseeable future. They expressed great interest and I am not sure how schema wants to integrate them with normal gameplay. I will refer this to the team.
     
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    calani

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    That would be me ~

    I have already suggested some of these ides (and many more) some time ago. (Though with larger priorities, this may take us awhile to get to.) It's definitely something I want to implement.

    There are so many amazing things we could do with particles, both for immersion/ambiance and simply decoration. I can hardly wait. Adding the ability for the community to mod/customize emitters, too, would allow people to make some absolutely incredible things. I can't wait to see player-made insects and weather emitters on planets, for example, let alone other creative uses for them on ships. ^^