Suggestion: Options menu toggle for rocket exhaust smoke

[The_Rocketeer]

Exhaust smoke is very resource intensive and can cause significant FPS slowdown on slower machines using a lot of engines. This can already be disabled with a bit of config editing, it would be great if that was made easier by having a settings toggle to disable it in-game.

[NoMrBond]

Smokescreen already lets you do this (if you're not mod averse)

Otherwise 1.2 already seems to handle particles a lot better (if you haven't tried the 1.2 prereleases), plus Sarbian is doing development for Squad now, and Unity 5.5 has a significant particle system upgrade so... fingers crossed for KSP 1.3? (since it's too late to add features for 1.2).

[The_Rocketeer]

@NoMrBondI'm not mod averse.

That said, I don't give a hoot if mods exist that do this - I can edit a config file all by myself, that's not the point. The point is the the game's system demands can be significantly reduced by making the smoke effect optional, just like you can lower texture resolution and get rid of terrain scatters. That's my suggestion.

Frankly the idea of downloading a mod to make the game less resource-intensive is perverse  

While I don't really expect this to be implemented - the majority of requests made here, even the really good ones, aren't - I saw a new feature added to 1.2 within the last 48 hours at another community-member's request, so I guess we can all live in hope.

[NoMrBond]

I was suggesting it was more likely for the particle system to get some attention because Sarbian is onboard with Squad now, not less likely because a mod exists for it

That said, you probably want to make any 1.2 specific suggestions down in the 1.2 forum, rather than the general suggestions forum

[pandaman]

As a graphics setting option I think it's quite a good idea.  Either a slider to control intensity, or a few intensity presets - none, low, med, high (default to high which is the current level).

[problemecium]

I too am in favor of such a feature. My PC can handle hundreds of parts, but having not shelled out for graphics hardware I have trouble when zillions of particles start showing up on screen.

[Wjolcz]

The smoke particles are a bit excessive. For example, the jet engines should have almost no smoke coming out of them. Wouldn't mind having them a bit optimized.

[DrLicor]

If you install RealPlume, you can diable everything what comes out of a exhaust.