Occasionally Some tracer rounds should continue burning on the ground until the phosphorus/magnesium depletes, leaving small temporary fires/smoke burning on the battlefield.
Also some rounds should rupture into a shower of sparks upon impact with hard surfaces.
This would make night battles look awesome :-)
Maybe it could be the equivalent of the grenade smoke with the bright tracer light source & the occasional small fire that burns out within a couple of minutes (sometimes seconds)
http://youtu.be/bAP3Jx4aSAg
Would be a nice effect :-)
A couple particles to come off a shot wouldn't be all too demanding, only if you had 100 consecutive tracers hitting a wall at once.
But tracers sitting until burnout would be great, also has tactical benefits as well. it doesn't even have to emit light, they could just make it glow without being a dynamic light to save system resources.
@Nicolii
GOOD IDEA :-)
As they'd never be alight long enough to need an actual projected light source.
Just make a particle effect of sparks and a tiny burst of light where tracers hit a solid object at a steep angle like when rounds hit the ground and puff dust.
Ha haaa yeah...
Luckily it would all still be very visible in daylight too just like real tracers :-)
up voted, but they should also illuminate a small radius of the environment in which the ammo has traveled. like tracers do in real life