Three suggestions: Fire Wave, Atmospheric Entry, and Google Maps

[Thunder Ice]

1. In the current game, when an asteroid or average sized object hits a planet/Earth, a 'circle' of fire forms where the impact formed. It expands only slightly, but it would be cool if it spread to the entire area that would be affected by an impact.

For example, if an asteroid 10 miles was thrown and hit the Earth, the fire-storm that forms at the point of impact would spread across the entire planet, heating up the areas it hits as it goes, rather than immediately heat up the entire planet all at once, which is what I found annoying - when the entire planet is immediately set on fire, even if a tiny bit of the object has hit.

Here is an example of what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3nyn_yZQ98


2. It would be cool if an object, or the part of a larger one that has entered, lit up as it enters the atmosphere of a planet. For example, if an asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, it would glow and light up, indicating it has touched the atmosphere and impact is near, such as in the video above.

3. If cities and environments won't be for a long time, it would be cool to at least implement something like satellite imaging for Earth into the game, but as a place-holder until that feature comes into play.

[Lord DC]

1 is planned I believe. 2 you wouldn't notice anyway very often and 3 is also somewhat planned. These aren't hard facts but I believe that planned for 1and 3 already.

[Angel Armageddon]

I'd give the simulator a 100:10, if the clouds would disperse as the shockwaves passed by.

Wait. THATS MY SCENE!!

[Magnetarhyper4436]

2 you wouldn't notice anyway very often

I'd have to agree because objects travel very fast and as said, the flames are unnoticable. But if implemented, imagine 100's of objects firing towards the planet at once and the reentry flames started. That computer will burn like those meateors.

[Only2ndplace]

It might be because I'm using the alpha19preview, but your first point isn't an issue for me at all.
The "rings o' fire" spread according to the size of the object, but a 10 mile asteroid doesn't succeed in going all around the earth. I'm sure it's just wildly exaggerated in the movie. Even Ceres with 1000 km diameter only goes half way. You should try Titan

On top of that, the liquefaction of the crust isn't instantaneous either. If it is for you, you're probably using a time step, that's too large.
As for the temperature itself, yes it goes up pretty fast, because it's the average temperature over the entire planet, so a pool of lava is largely going to factor into it.

Concerning your second point:
Yes, an asteroid heating up, when it enters the earth, would be pretty cool (though I wouldn't want any fancy visuals for that, just the usual heating up graphics).
However, it is totally unimportant, since it would only be visible for objects of a radius under 100 km (i. e. small asteroids) and only if you were watching in real time. On top of that, it wouldn't do much other than looking fancy, since it wouldn't change anything after the collision.

On your last point:
I think one of the problems with high end resolution graphics for Earth (for other objects, there are just no such high resolution pictures) would be, that it would be very hard, to do dynamic craters and climate change, that look like satellite images.