From what I hear the devs were influenced by Cowboy Bebop in the way the wormhole animations are depicted in the game currently. I started thinking of ways which would get rid of the fakeness that the invincibility offers when you first enter a sector. Then I remembered in one episode of Cowboy Bebop what happened to the occupants of a wormhole when the gates were shut down before they had a chance to exit. The missiles that were swarming Spike and Faye from behind were turned into ghost-like anamolies that could not affect the dimension outside of the wormhole. They simply passed through 'em as though they were ghosts.

So how about this. When you enter a sector in Vendetta your ship becomes semi-transparent and everything can pass right through you. You won't be invincible, it's just that people can't even shoot you because you'll be ghosted. Then after a while (when you regain control) time will catch up to your position and you'll start to become opaque and fully solid again. It's akin to breaking the sound barrier where you're moving faster than sound, but in this case it's the visual anamoly that is caused by wormhole travel (i.e. moving faster than light).

Think about it. If your ship is traveling faster than light and it begins to slow down, you'll see some real funkiness going on. At first you may see a ghost-like ship that comes out of the wormhole, and then as it starts to become opaque you'll see two or three other ghost-like ships behind the first one slowly combining and create one solid one. Let me tell you, if the devs can implement wormhole animations that way it would be frickin' awesome. You'd actually get a sense of real speed rather than calmly drifting into a sector. Not only that, you'll also eliminate the fake invincibility crap that goes on when you enter a sector.

Sounds like the Mach Speed effects in Viewtiful Joe.

Arolte, wh's don't move a ship faster than the speed of light, they just find a shorter path between two points.
Other than the realism or lack there of I think it's a good idea (I've certainly never been one to care about realism in games). It'd be cool to have that added visual effect basically informing players when the target is no longer invincible. The person exiting the wh would also need some sort of visual clue, since one would assume they'd be able to shoot just their shots wouldn't be able to hit anything. You could also add in that two players who come out of wh's at roughly the same time would be able to damage each other.

here you can see how moving at sub-light-speeds affects object's look.

http://lightspeed.sourceforge.net/screenshots/

obejcts do change shape and colors. But they are not transparent. This is of course if you want some real-physics. If not - then go for transparent objects.

Although I don't have a problem with the current animation something like this ghost effect could add alot of style.

What you could do to show that the "ghost effect" is on or off is have the HUD flicker "off" (i.e. become dimmer) and maybe add an echo to sounds. When the ship caught up with itself the HUD would flicker back "on". Also for sound effects you could add something sounding like the ships engine drives switching from to Standard to Wormhole or vice-versa.