Its all defined in the Gameplay.constants file I think. So no, unless you wanted to create some crazy buff chains to simulate it with particles. But that's a very bad an inefficient solution, so you should only do that if say some special buff was to be activated below a certain HP level.

It is possible. It is in the particles. We did it in the SoA 2 mod with the Borg.

I dont think Gameplay.constants deals with faction particle usage. Sins shares many particles between all factions. Rebellion changed some of it to be more faction specific. The phase jump particles are an example. All factions shared the same effect before rebellion.

You will need to create separate explosion, hit effect, smoke, etc. etc. particles unique for the faction you intend to use them for. Have weapons, ability, and ship entitys point to these new particles.

Know this. While you have a little room to play with in Rebellion. It is possible you will 2 gig crash if you go overboard with the effects, or have too many textures.

There are tutorials on how to create particles with particle forge, and how to hook them into the game.

That is correct. The limit to how many particles that can be rendered at once is 2000. I think. its been a while since i seen the "sins limits" list. I am not sure if that is actual particles (the whole particle), or individual effects within the particle. I do know the texture limit is 2000 as of diplomacy. That is number of textures itself. doesnt take size into account.

I can vouch for the particle display effect.  I made a 19-eyed moneter (as a concept) and later in the game, some of the eye glows begin to disappear every now and then.

Great information there Major--much appreciated.

I'm adding two small races and my goal is--aside from the necesary new models--to recycle as many textures and effects as possible that are already in the game.  Short of replacing races or already present features, I think this is going to be the defacto standard in Rebellion modding--like it or not.

Every bit counts.

It anecdotal at this point, but it does seem that the engine retains meshed particle effects over pure "effects".  I haven't had any ship sections vanish yet.

Check out the SoA 2 mod then. The guys already covered it. They pretty much took existing effects, and made them green.

Ask Psychoak. he is in charge of SoA 2 now