I want to set my smoke lifespan below the minimum value of .50, but it won't allow it. I know it can be done, because I've seen it on other combat planes. How do I do this?
I think what you're seeing on other planes is that the Smoke Starting Opacity and or the Smoke Size Rate has been lowered as well giving the Illusion of having a shorter life span
Moving the smoke component forward in the fuse May also give you the same effect as a shorter life Span
Nope. Tried that. Totally different effect. It's the "Smoke Life Span" that's below allowable value. Check out the "combat P-39". It has yellow and orange smoke set to 0.1 seconds. I want to do this on another aircraft and it won't allow a value below 0.5.
Yep. That did the trick! Another thing I found that messes with combat smoke is the regular exhaust. I got rid of that and the smoke blended much better.
OK, one last note...
Upon moving my smokes from children of the engine to children of the fuselage, the appearance was drastically changed.
It wasn't the exhaust that was messing up the appearance of the smoke. It was the order of the application. After a lot of re-arranging, it now looks right again.