Hmm, Actually that´s a pretty neat effect.

I suppose you could try creating a shader, and then keying the interpolation between transparent tiles and visible tiles (by playing with transparency attributes).

The precise know-how might be something you could have a lot of fun investigating how to do. Just create yourself an easy ship, and play with it, a lot. You´ll feel really good if you´re able to figure this one it out on your own.

Regards ...

btw: I´m also on it.