Niagara settings

Hi all,

Looking for a little advance help on this. I took the air craft out for a number of reason but you will get the idea of what I am trying to do.

The overhead camera shot;

I created one effect and duplicated it. Now I want to give them a bit of a different look since they are all looking the same. Do I have to create a new a effect for each aircraft or is there a random setting that I can use?

I would also like to have a bigger variety of sizes on the sprites, what’s the best way to achieve that?

The ending camera shot the fx look like they are flickering is that because there isn’t enough of them?

Can the fx receive shadows? if so where do I turn them on?

Any help or advice would be greatly apperciated.