one thing i noticed is that the effect is not tied to the ship orientation and if the ship turns does not look like its following the ship.
Ah - it's particle-based, so when a ship turns or slows or w/e, the particles that are already out there don't get affected. It *could* also be done so that the particles are tied to ship orientation - in fact a slightly earlier version did that - but to me that made it look too... not "pasted on" but something like that. It felt less real and more like an "oh, here's an effect tied to the ship position".
Yea when i first looked at it though it didn't look like it was particle based but rather stuck on. Imagine a hose. If you're spraying the hose and turn it you don't make the water from the original spray follow the nozzle but you do make a nice curve in the water as the later water now has a new direction. As you add hoses and spin them you make spirals when viewed from the top. This happens even if add enough hoses such that there is no surface without a hose.
It doesn't look like that effect is happening when the ship turns. Rather it looks like the ship is occluding something that is statically happening below it.
@gothars. But not in the vacuum of space. There is no air resistance to slow the particles down and make that trail. That would only happen if you were accelerating in a particular direction.
edit: The new version significantly reduces the feeling of this effect. Though that may be because the oddy isn't turning all that fast. How does it look when a ship is accelerating or turning fast?