Currently they will only work with skeletal meshes but we may be able to extend it to static meshes in future.
It shouldn’t be a problem to make your missile mesh a skeletal mesh though.
Your other idea wouldn’t be too hacky imo.
It’s more or less what the anim trails do themselves. They drop particles at the position of the specified sockets each tick and then the rendering stitches triangles between those to form the trail.
Is it possible to attach a Source style trail to an actor. I see the tutorials about the Ribbon TypeData module for particle emitters, but this is for a static mesh that is active in the game world - not a particle.
What if the mesh isn’t skeletal? Basically I have a static mesh of a missile, and I want to attach a colorful ribbon that streaks behind it as it flies through the world.
I considered making it a blueprint and attaching a particle emitter that spit out non-moving invisible particles and using a ribbon trail on that - but that seems really hacky.
There is no reason as stovey stated that your mesh can not be skeletal. Some people misunderstand that as being a complex mesh with moving parts or as a skeleton for animation but you could create your mesh add just one bone for a socket attachment. Your blueprint idea would work just as good for prototyping the idea and be less of a headache.