How will space dust work when planets orbit?asked by Cintara
TL;DRThe speaker believes space dust uses the player's local zone as its frame of reference and loops through a repeating particle field as you move, though they admit not fully understanding the zone mechanics.
Space dust takes player's local zone as a frame of reference I believe. So if you are in the outer space and your speed is 0 space dust doesn't move (unless it has some speed defined in particle system settings). There's some zone magic which I can never understand - which is probably why I am not an engine programmer - that happens when you move from one space to another but it "just works". Visually, if you are in a ship and your speed is 0 space dust particles don't move. Well, they do move a little because they have some internal momentum. If you get pushed by something or you fire up your thrusters you travel through this ever looping field of particles.
All that uses brilliant Space Loop functionality which we had for quite a while. I think we showed that in the past, maybe during 2017 citcon? I am not sure but I would be surprised if we never actually showed you how space loops work!