This question is from more of a creative perspective: Will custom planet maps still work?
Likely yes. I expect you'll still be able to import your own textures.
Q1: Are you guys going to add shock waves when something hits a planet with an atmosphere?
Here's a reply from Thomas, the guy developing the code for the SPH (smooth particly hydrodynamics = 3D fluid physics):
"Speaking from a sph view...
About shock waves for atmospheres... a Jupiter would likely be simulated as one large atmosphere and a planet like earth would certainly (using SPH) show shock waves through the ground. The atmosphere is however tiny compared to the rest of earth, so that would have to be simulated differently and it would hardly be sensible to directly calculate those effects."
Q2: Will it be possible to start a solar system using fluid cloud simulation and a supernova? (be nice to leave it for a day and come back and see a planet like earth in orbit 
)
Also from Thomas:
"The leave and come back later to watch a nova remnant starting over, that is very unlikely. Both because (as far as I know) not even a large collection of supernova leftovers will be right for a gravity collapse again and because we do not simulate stuff out of view at that detail level, it would be a no.
It is my understanding the cloud would have to exceed the critical mass for its current energy level and that would either take a very high mass at a small area or a very cold gas. Neither of which I believe is present after a nova. On the other hand, it would be interesting to show a nearby nova pushing to a large cloud and compressing that cloud to the critical density at which a collapse starts."
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We're making no promises here... just being open about our internal commentary. He wrote these comments up for us and I asked if it was okay with him to post them here.
