Is there a way to attach a particle system to a projectile wholesale?, fx i have a particle effect i want to attach to a projectile model.
What do you mean? Attacks can currently have a project and particle. The same XML that defines the model can also have a particle. In fact, most projectile models have accompanying particles. See
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Projectile_ParticleAlso what are the current limitations of the particle system?.
It'd be easier to answer what the system can do rather than what it can't. There's a lot it can do. Making complicated shapes, however, can be difficult (the Annex mod has some nice solutions).
As far as I know, there's still no way to track particles towards the target (ie, change direction to adjust for moving targets). There's no way to differentiate between starting and ending offsets or the direction that the projectile goes (so no "draining effects" of having particles fly from the target to the source).
Lightning effects are difficult. No way to create that ricketing, semi-random arcing effect that electricity has.
No "billboard" support. Billboards are static images that always face the user. While particles can come close to them if luminance is on, I don't believe they can fully replicate how most game engines treat billboards. Particularly useful if used as sprites (rapidly switching through a series of 2D images to create an animation). Could be useful for creating complicated graphics that the current particles can't replicate, but also difficult because of their 2D nature.
As an aside, I mostly drew these limitations from the features that GAE had.
