Help needed: Is there a way to capture (suppress) the flame/engine exhaust visually via mod?

[dr.phees]

I want to "capture" the thrust of an engine and would like to suppress the visual exhaust representation (if possible even with physical heating effects etc.) in a mod. Is there a proper way to do that?

The engine should still run, but ideally not produce an exhaust plume/exhaust effect.

Edited March 16, 2018 by dr.phees

[steve_v]

I've not tried it, but at a guess one could use ModuleManager to remove the "PREFAB_PARTICLE" section (looks like the exhaust effect to me), and set exhaustDamage = False in ModuleEnginesFX...
Suck it and see.

[Eleusis La Arwall]

It is possible but depends on the engine how to remove these effects. I've quickly wrote a small MM-patch that removes all visual/sound effects and damages to other parts as @steve_v suggested from the Mammoth Engine Cluster as an example:

@PART[Size3EngineCluster]
{
	!EFFECTS{}				// Removes all engine effects (flame, smoke, etc)
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
	{
		@exhaustDamage = false		// No damage to other parts
	}
	@MODULE[FXModuleAnimateThrottle]	// This Module makes the heat-effects
	{
		@responseSpeed = 0
	}
	!MODULE[ModuleSurfaceFX]{}		// Removes Surface effects when engine is close to the surface
}

This patch won't work on some of the older engines like the LV-T45 because they use different configs for the effects.