MAP MAKERS: Please give your friendly emitter particles a non-infinite lifetime

[tanelorn]

I don't even know if this is a setting, but I know it is common on user made maps for friendly particles to get caught in nooks and crannies on the map and just sit there, maxing out the particle count and turning off the emitter. Then you are forces to fly your grabbers all over the map grabbing the sediment and ferrying it to someplace useful.

If you set a reasonable lifetime for particles this problem will be solved. Hopefully it is possible, as I have seen particles self destruct on certain maps.

[Helios]

Second that.

IMHO around 3000 Max Lifetime should be enough in most case.

[GoodMorning]

Coming soon: Default setting for this, I believe.

[planetfall]

Also, 0% that target please.

[tanelorn]

In addition, I posted in the support section the common issue of high viscosity and circular behavior of friendly particles on most user made maps. They behave very differently than in the single player campaign. I've investigated and it seems to be due to map settings. So please scrutinize your maps to make sure that benign particulate behaves properly BEFORE releasing your map. If you use the settings from the campaign you won't require daisy chaining grabbers to push particulate more than 10 feet.

[Cavemaniac]

You're right in that map creators need to be aware of particle decay time limits, and factor it into their maps, however, as noted in other threads, having/using/waiting for a pool of particles is a legitimate game feature/game play style.

[tanelorn]

You're right in that map creators need to be aware of particle decay time limits, and factor it into their maps, however, as noted in other threads, having/using/waiting for a pool of particles is a legitimate game feature/game play style.

waiting, yes. But the current default causes particles to circle back shortly after being pushed by grabbers, making it impossible to push particles more than about 4x the length of a grabber ship. I've seen several user made missions grand 6x grabbers to deal with this, while simply using different settings on the emitter / particulate will do a much better job.

[GoodMorning]

Planetfall requested a default of 0% that target above, which I recall to be the setting which causes your irritation.