This may be a lighting issue. As the sun would be on the light side, it may be the planet is so big, it blocks out all the light from the dark side.

lol, i should explain more throughly

ok! from one side the texture is not visible (doesnt matter where the sun is or any lighting) untill you get right up close to it, once you go around the planet a little, it is there perfectly fine.

think i need to scrap the idea tho fad, its turning out to be a right pain

Cheese On Toast:
Like the name
Beware the player

Check the {Ambient} setting in your systems ini, if it's black or almost black then that could be the problem. The vanilla systems use mostly reds & blues which is why you can be on the dark side of the planet and still see it, if the ambient color is blackish then that's all you can see.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

no no no lol, ive gotten a tga file and made it use alpha so it nulls the black and leaves the white, but what i have done is made 2 CMP files on the same area so it looks like the clouds arent attached to the planet, they are floating above it.

this also leads to something else but youll see in the latter if i can get THIS part sorted out

Cheese On Toast:
Like the name
Beware the player

Gotcha Cheese, sorry. I guess I should have read into it more.