I dont know so much in Planets =D So maybe u should change Lodouts to 99999, 99999, 99999, 99999 ???? I dont know but maybe it ll work i hade the same prob with ships but when i changed Lodouts it started to work. So i can see Train at 10k now =D Try it but i dont know where ^^

Lodouts? You mean LOD-ranges?

Planets don't use sur files, that may be your problem. They only need a txm, a mat and an sph file.

Just in case you mis-spoke, take a look inside your sph file (with UTFXML.exe) and verify that the radius matches.

One possible reason might be the "solar_radius" when you define the (Solar) or the
"atmosphere_range" when you define the (Object )in the system.

An other thing which caused big problems were npc ships spawning inside the planet.
To handle this problems it might help, to set a zone with extremly high damage at the location of the planet.

I have played with the LOD ranges and this did not correct it.

Custom planets can have sur files. The atmosphere is correct. I can send one of the planets and sur files to someoen if they want to look at them.

I have a feeling that there is something I am not putting into the sur file, but have no idea what.

By you saying they need sur files, this suggests that the way you have built them is not the standard FL planet method.

You need to provide entries if this is the case.If you have standard fl planets and are incorporating sur files, this is not neccersary. I'm guessing your using 3db models.

So, you might want to provide more info, file entries etc. for people to understand the make up of your planets.

The custom planets are cmp and sur files. I will post the code tonight when I get hom for one of them.

It's been a while so I could have you mixed up with someone else, IIRC you were doing orbiting planets, if that's the case then the hardpoints you will have added will increase the size of the hitbox, and it's the CMP models hitbox that determines the distance.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

i doubt they are orbiting planets..
theoretically it should be the SUR file radius which gives the distance,
but to my experience it also has to do with the selection radius.
for example i have a big base, ive set the SUR radius same as the CMP.
selection is perfect, distance is not -but reducing the radius to correct the distance, made the selection too small.
if you have anton's modeltool, can you load the cmp and sur, and tell us what radii they have?

I am the one who was working on the orbiting planets, but I abandoned it due to a couple issues that can not be fixed.

As for what FLModelTool shows

The CMP:

Original Data
-------------

Bounding box info :
x1 15048.596680 x2 -15041.020508
y1 15047.121094 y2 -15050.073242
z1 15046.703125 z2 -15046.703125
Center :
3.788086 -1.476074 0.000000
Radius :
32580.867188




And the SUR:

File : C:\Program Files\Freelancer Mod Manager\mods\Requiem69\DATA\Solar\Planets\Earth\TerraReal.sur

SurHeader :
"vers" 2.00

IDHeader :
crc_id : 0x12688F2D - "Root"
type : 4 - Ship/Station

IDHeader_B :
tag : "!fxd"

exts_part (bounding box) :
tag : "exts"
xMin : -15041.021484 yMin : -15050.074219 zMin : -15046.702148
xMax : 15048.597656 yMax : 15047.122070 zMax : 15046.702148

Surface header :
tag :"surf"
Offset1 : 0x0BBC (3004) - Offset to next component of HPID
Padding : 0x0000 - Always 0

Surface :
CenterX : 2.028808 CenterY : 18.816465 CenterZ : 0.000116
InertiaX : 2700.033447 InertiaY : 3104.536865 InertiaZ : 2700.035156
Radius : 32578.738281
unknown byte : 0x6D - (109 decimal 01101101 binary)
Offset1b : 0x0BBC (3004) - always identical to surface_header.offset1
padding byte : 0x00 - Always 0
Offset2 : 0x00000BA0 - Offset to bit header
Padding3 : 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 - Always 0

Triangle group header :
Offset3 : 0x00000790 - (1936) Offset to vertex buffer
TriangleID : 0x12688F2D - "Root"
type : 4 - Primitive = D3DPT_TRIANGLELIST
no_ref_verts : 183
Padding4 : 0x00
Tricount : 120 - No of triangles in group (0 -> n-1)

There is a bunch of stuff under triangle list in the sur file, but to much to post.