Nice animation.I take it the exhaust trails are done with particle effects? Be nice if the asteroids moved and tumbled around too,but I guess you intended them to remain motionless so that they don't interfere with the fighter's flight paths.
I agree about the lighting and materials, this is actually the area I'm going to explore deeply now, also would love to see some kind of engine trail tutorial from you for either maya or 3ds max, cause I spend plenty of time experimenting with my engine trails, but that was the optimal result I managed to achieve
Pretty nice work - however with greyish ships and no exhaust trails, it looks more like EVE Online than Homeworld. Also you should put more effort into lighting and materials, the scenes look a bit flat.