Mars: Enhanced - needs a fix from Keen SWH (see description) and VOTE!

This mod will no longer look right until Keen restores the ability to add albedo shading. See below. VOTE!

UPDATE: I am working on updating all my planet mods, but I need some help. Many of the planet mods I create make use of albedo shading. This technique, discovered by Xilthis, creates subtle shading that brings a little more depth to planets. We had to use the ore mark mechanic to do this. Since Keen has changed the way ore marks are done, it is no longer possible to do this using that mechanic; but, it is still possible to do if Keen will implement it by making use of an existing, unused texture layer in the same file. If we can get the votes up, maybe they will make this technique part of the approach to planet design. Please go here and vote for this feedback: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/return-the-ability-to-create-planetary-albedo-maps-using-add-file. They will not listen to feedback with only a few votes. Please help.

This is the second planet in my Mercury to Mars series: an enhanced version of the Mars-like planet.

Some of the new features:

Olympus Mons: Massive shield volcano, roughly 35 km across, about 7 km high, with 2km drops at some of the cliff edges. Wide caldera at the top. Also, the cliff edges are much more detailed. To give you an idea of how big Olympus Mons is in real life, it's a little smaller than France and almost 3 times the height of Everest.

Valles Marineris: This series of canyons is huge. Stretching across half the planet and almost 17km wide at points.

Ice Caps: These are made to look as they do in real life.

I have dimmed the ore markings so that they aren't as prominent, reduced the gloss on the soil and rock textures, and tweaked the atmosphere.

Recommended size: 120km (If you want it to be relative in scale to the Earth-like, use 63 km, but this will change the size and shape of the geological features.)

This mod usess custom-made heightmaps based on USGS Astrogeology Science Center's DEM of the planet, altered in World Machine, and slight tweaks to the vanilla textures to remove some of the shininess. No vanilla textures are permanently altered by this mod, but if you use a modded planet that has Mars Soil and Mars Rock, it will be subtly affected by this mod.

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Copyright 2016 - entspeak. This item is not authorized for posting on Steam, except under the Steam account named entspeak