Nah, DDS aint that bad fot effects.
RGB or ARGB looks pretty good.
TGA and JPG waste memory, as they cannot be loaded compressed in the memory.
8-Bit PCX can't compete with DDS when it comes to gradients that consist of more than two colors.
I'll fix the beamglows. I have a special layer for that (I'm kinda lazy), but it looks like I did use it only on one glow... oops

ParticleExp01 was supposed to make the beam charging look cooler.

I know it's used for for primary impacts too. But it's almost not noticeable. Well I think the stock particle is so butt-ugly that it's not much of a difference.
Reducing the thruster map size would not reduce the quality much on fighter thrusters, but it'd be too blury for capship engines.
Can you tell me where the "shockwave time" or "speed" can be found? It looks like I'll have to adjust it.