[George] question about instance of some weapon effects

[digdug]

I noticed that Ion and Particle effecttypes have the instance set to "creator". (efParticleBeamDefault and efIonBeamDefault and efEIBlasterBeam)

Isn't it a waste in calculation resources ? I don't see why they couldn't be set to "owner" and save some resources when lots and lots weapons are fired like in Sung space and in Ares space.

[george moromisato]

Ion and particle effects are random from one shot to the next. All those waves and spikes are randomly generated. With owner attribute, you'd get the same exact shape each time, which looked a little funny, particularly on screenshots.

That said, I suspect I'll eventually have to add options to control the quality of effects (for performance). At that point I can add an option to switch to "owner"

[digdug]

ohhh, I see !
Thanks George !

BTW, I tried some <Ray> effects using "particles" weapons. I think that modders should avoid that for now. I had to optimize the number of particles to 1d3 only, otherwise the i5 I was using was slowing down.

[george moromisato]

There might be a bug (or missing code) with owner param and particle effects. Try the "game" param and see if that makes a difference (it might not).