Particle and Visual Feedback Milestones

Visual feedback gains

This phase expanded layered effects for impacts, muzzle events, and tactical cues to improve moment-to-moment readability. The primary target was clarity during dense engagements.

Effect composition now better differentiates weapon classes and combat outcomes.

• Expanded multi-layer effect stacks for high-traffic combat events.
• Clearer separation between primary and secondary hit cues.
• Improved readability in overlapping unit engagements.

Performance guardrails

As effect richness increased, runtime controls were used to avoid unbounded cost growth. Work focused on keeping frame stability under burst-heavy scenarios.

This included stronger alignment with particle LOD and culling paths.

• LOD and culling are used to cap distant effect cost.
• High-density scenarios are tested against frame-time variance.
• Debug toggles support fast A/B profiling of effect layers.

Upcoming milestones

Next steps target consistency between particle timing, audio cues, and impact graph events so feedback remains synchronized under load.

This will improve perceived responsiveness without requiring larger effect counts.

• Tighten event timing contracts across FX subsystems.
• Add stress scenarios for synchronized combat bursts.
• Finalize scalable presets for low, mid, and high quality tiers.

Key metrics snapshot

Particle quality work is now tracked with explicit readability and cost signals so visual upgrades remain budget-aware.

The key check is higher clarity per millisecond, not raw effect count.

• Active particle count by quality tier and scenario.
• LOD/culling distribution under heavy combat bursts.
• Burst-induced frame-time spike magnitude and duration.
• Readability checklist pass-rate in scripted combat scenes.

Next Steps