I would like to realize the following situation: a fighter shoots rockets as it flies. The rockets do not interact with other game objects - they just have their time of emission (e.g. 1 emission in sec), the speed of movement (which may be changed by user) and the direction of emission. Their movement is not chaotic. They also should be subject to gravitational force. I also would like to create some kind of smoke behind each rocket (using particle system).
I see the straightforward way of implementing this - treating rockets as game objects, which emission is controlled by script. The smoke is created by assigning particle system to the rocket’s game object.
But I have some doubts about this approach. Maybe the natural way is to shoot rockets using a particle system as well. But how to control their direction and speed then?..
There probably isn’t one “best”, but I’ve personally gone the GameObject route you describe, with my rockets looking like typical pointed cylindrical objects. Each has a rigidbody on it, which exerts constant force pushing the rocket in its “forward” direction. The GameObject has a particle system on it to render the smoke coming out of the back of the rocket. So far no problems with this approach.
But I’m not sure what you mean about the rockets not interacting with other game objects. Don’t they presumably hit other game objects and explode or do damage? Or are they just pretty fireworks?
