I have a mod suggestion that I think would be beneficial to the SE community.. One of you guys who regularly import outside ships and from say star wars or whatever, should do a youtube tutorial of the whole process from start to finish.. Working with the SE ship creator is pretty simple and straight forward. Importing custom ships on the other hand has proven to be quite challenging not only for me but a number of other users.. I am very good at creating high res/ realistic 3d models but I have had no luck getting them into SE even after hours of trying and reading the manual. So for instance if one of you are about to import and upload a custom ship or real nasa ship you could video the creation starting with the file paths, the actual conversion from obj with your editor you use, the code changes and file making and any other useful tips or troubleshooting that may make the process 101 for beginners. I think some video tutorials in areas like that would greatly encourage more people to import and contribute to the mod community. I have talked to a number of people who have just settled for the SE ship editor due to giving up..  Its just a suggestion, but if one of you are going to import anyway it wouldn't take much time to throw something like that together. As far as building, there are plenty of 3d software tutorials out there for those of you who are new to that. So this is the big hurtle that I see. I believe there would be a large increase in awesome mods if more people were able to understand that process more easily. A visual hands on like that can be very useful.. I love SE and all of the mod contributors on here, so I hope that no one finds this offensive. But admittedly there is a learning curve in that particular process and without a sort of visual in depth template like that, there really isn't anything more that anyone can do once they have exhausted their efforts in attempting everything that can be discerned from the manual.. Thanks guys, I look forward to everyone's input, and truly hope that someone will be willing to do that request. If I was able to figure it out myself I would do it jus to help people get a better grasp on  that topic. 

Often problems concern the preparation of an obj suitable for being imported. in blender remember to flag this options:

It would be cool once ground objects can be added to have a hanger ship editor of some sort where you can pre dock ships before launch and add certain cargo.

Added:

I have something that might be a good idea to add some space weather on some planets. I downloaded a moving cloud mod for Earth the other day that turned out really awesome.. What if on dry dessert planets the cloud deck could be sparse and lowered onto ground level and put in motion at a reasonable speed but thicken and discolor the clouds and keep them only in certain areas and very thick like dust storms?? And on another note I know that it is possible to download say year long animated Earth clouds from the SPC. Could that be put in place as the stagnate cloud map is but scripted to animate on some sort of loop? If that were possible then motion could be perceived in the northern hemisphere, Southern, and Equatorial zones. Not to mention watching things like supercell convection and hurricane formation.????  

There is also weather programs now that show in great detail 3d clouds arrays so that even if they were not in motion you could zoom down and see something like a supercell from ground level rendered to scale if that could be figured out or were possible. 

I was thinking and someone else liked the idea and thought that it would be appropriate to post in suggestions. I was trying to figure out if there was a way to assign different sprites to different star classes.. for example, large bright starts using various astroniki sprites and, maybe some other classes the eve,,ect. and some of the smaller dwarfs and and what not add the nostalgia sprites too. It would give each system a different feel and variety..... for future it could be added that this feature could be turned on and off and still be able to select your own for all as now. and in game play maybe certain ships based on supposed glass and class could have it assigned to them.. In depth the sprites could vary depending on class, composition, temp, ect. just an idea.

The different feel you are searching for comes with an issue, though. I think you are referring to effects such as diffraction spikes and lens flares. In reality those are optical effects originating from the camera system and optics, not depending at all from the color, temperature or class of the objects you're pointing at.
Let's suppose your camera is pointing at a couple of stars, a white dwarf and a blue giant. If those classes have different diffraction spikes, then the scene becomes unrealistic.

JackDole wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post Wait, there could be a planet 9 and a planet 10?  I did not know there might be two!

Planet 10 is here.

Thaks Jack, do you have the add-ons for the 8 planet star system recently discovered as well as Kepler 90 which might be the nearest star with an earthlike planet?  I need to get those and put them into my add-on folder.

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post do you have the add-ons for the 8 planet star system recently discovered as well as Kepler 90 which might be the nearest star with an earthlike planet?

Not yet.

JackDole wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post do you have the add-ons for the 8 planet star system recently discovered as well as Kepler 90 which might be the nearest star with an earthlike planet?

Not yet.

OOps I think I got one confused with another- Jack, wasn't there an earthlike planet discovered recently around a red dwarf that's only 11 LY away?

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post wasn't there an earthlike planet discovered recently around a red dwarf that's only 11 LY away?

Ross 128 b

Thanks, I guess those are the two add ons I am waiting on I also wanted to see one for that cigar shaped object that was journeying through our solar system but I think you were waiting to get more specifics on that object.

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post cigar shaped object

Here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=71&start=165#p15745
and:
viewtopic.php?t=71&start=180#p15824

The second version may not work properly.
In the next version of SpaceEngine there will be 3D models for asteroids. Like this: http://spaceengine.org/news/blog180104/

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post  I guess those are the two add ons I am waiting on

The Kepler-90 system is already in SE. Except for the last newly discovered planet Kepler-90 i.

You can find him and Ross 128 b here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=71&start=180#p18288

I, for one, would very much enjoy to operate ships from Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Halo, EVE Online and Warhammer 40k. 

There is also this web fictional universe project known as Orion's Arm. It's a vast and fascinating world that, quite frankly, never ceases to amaze me. I read entries from the Encyclopedia Galactica on the regular and I'm nowhere even near close from having been through all of them. It can be an awesome source of ideas for addons, be it ships or planetary systems. 

LonesomeAstronaut wrote:

Source of the post Stargate

DoctorOfSpace has the Daedalus and the Prometeus, much recommended: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=67

LonesomeAstronaut wrote:

Source of the post EVE Online

Ettore_Bilbo: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65

Maybe this page of Celestia mod can usefull for high-resolution of Earth :
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/earthcloseup.php