Hi there,
I've had a few ideas floating around and I wanted to know if it was actually possible before I start delving into the rabbit hole that is GUTS.

First one: Changing the particle effect for basic bow and xbow attacks.
One of the main reasons I don't use a bow is that the basic attack looks so flat and lifeless, compared to pistols and shotties. I just can't seem to find the particle layout for it anywhere. I thought I found something in MEDIA/MISSLES but when I changed the texture nothing happened in game. Is it hard-coded?

Second one: Making an engineer forcefield  low energy indicator.
I can guess this one is possible but it's sure to be more complicated. The idea is that when your forcefield is about to run out either a particle appears above it, or even the icon might change colour or flash. That way you don't have to mouse over it in the middle of a battle to see how much is left.

Hmm, I'm not sure what is going on. 
I did try to test out the particle in that folder("bowline" or something like that) by changing the texture. The bowmissle layout in the missle folder changed to the new texture when I tried it in GUTS, but then when I loaded it up in game it crashed every time I tried to load a character. I also tried adding the missle layout to the mod just in case they were connected somehow but it still keeps crashing..

I'll keep trying

Hey Aherin,

Yes, you can modify bow and crossbow basic attacks.  If you can find and modify the particle effects that are associated with them (like Kva3i suggested), it's an easy solution.

If not, it's messy and falls most comfortably into 'total conversion mod' territory.  I'm going to make my work on The Lure of Ember open to you guys to pick apart.  Then you can go into that and see how I changed the basic weapon attacks for ranged weapons.

Here's the link:
http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/vbdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=630

I think some .LAYOUT files handle particle coloring via lines of code, so even if you change the particle image itself, the .LAYOUT just resets it via the code.

So yeah it IS coded, but not HARD-coded.  You could try editing the .LAYOUT themselves (easier said than done, I know)