Particle Behavior Changed

[Kharnellius]

When I first started my map the particles would come towards my base and make for a great first battle.  However, I have finished the 2nd half of the level and now suddenly the particles appear to want to fly towards that end of the level even though there are no "good guys" over there.  It's like a gentle breeze blows every single particle to the right side of the field even though you start on the left side....very strange.  It has completely changed how the beginning plays, for the worse!

Aside from using fields liberally, does anyone have any idea what I can do to fix this or why this might be happening?  Did I do something wrong to unsettle the balance of the map or something?  Very confused.


Lastly, has anyone else experienced anything like this?

[Oblivion]

There no energy sources on the other side of the map? particulates love those. Disregard everything else for them.

[Karsten75]

Since I have no insight into the map you're playing, I'd hazard a few guesses. You have spawned particles with different target priorities, and perhaps unlimited or very long lifetimes.  You have now destroyed those particles targeting your ship/energy source and the remaining particles do not target those entities. Since they're not (yet?)expiring either, no new particles can arrive that will target those objects. Just a guess.

[planetfall]

Are they set to target emitters, perchance?

[Kharnellius]

Default settings for target priority as I wasn't entirely sure how that worked.  I'll add a screen shot.  This behavior happens immediately, so the lifetime of the particles is not the issue.  See below screenshots.  You can see this is only just over a minute of running the game.

The 1st image shows the left 40% of the map.  The green circles are the Energy Nodes, 8 in the screen plus one maybe 30-40 units to right of the green arrow.
Particles used to collect in the purple area and spill over into the base on the left.  Now they basically all collect in the blue area.

The 2nd image shows a zoomed in area of the previous screen shot, focusing on the upper left of the map.
I noticed particles, especially in the blue area heavily favor flying to the right (show by green arrows).  They used to follow the yellow arrows mostly.


Very, very strange.   There are Energy nodes on the other side of the map, but they are VERY far away that they shouldn't even factor in.  Keep in mind there is another 60% of a map to the right so there is a fair amount of space before you reach those.

[Kharnellius]

So I tried playing with the % That Target settings. 

Things I tried.

1) 0% That Target - Particles seemed to not congregate as much but just dispersed in a random pattern.  I kind of expected this.  Main problem is now they don't go after the player.
2) 100% That Target, 100% emitters - No apparent difference.  I assume they target friendly emitters, but those must be too far away.

[planetfall]

Try deleting the two energy sources on the right side?

[Kharnellius]

So I tried adding a ton of Energy Sources (nodes) on the left side just to see what would happen.  Seems to have stabilized a bit.  Hmmm...wonder if there is a way to do that without actually placing more Energy Sources.

[GoodMorning]

Increase "% that target", which is the proportion of particles which target anything (they default to targeting energy sources). Then increase "% ships" to the same number. These particles now do not move randomly, but instead of their default target (mines) they go for ships.

I am fairly sure they target the emitters of their own side, in order to protect them and give a buffer to throw at Lathes.

[PhailRaptor]

Might it have something to do with the quantity of "unbuilt" red strut around the landmasses?  I saw a few strange behaviors a couple of times in the story missions, but they always evened out after the strut was completed.