Does anyone else feel that the planet collision animation should also contain a ring of fire that sweeps the planet like in the image below? I think this would be crazy awesome looking. Right now collisions look pretty cool and I think this would take it up 3 notches...lol. Anyone else on board?
I agree 100%, but something you need to remember is that planetary collisions really haven't been touched since they were introduced in Beta, for all intents and purposes they're still basically on their first pass. Later on there are plans that will make it so that not every asteroid will instantly destroy a planet but will instead only act as a sort of super-nuke. Ones that will destroy entire planets, however, will probably end up looking like this.
I think we all agree on this, I do expect to see ice planets smashed get turned into molten lava planets with there atmospheres on FIRE and uninhabitable
It would be interesting to knock an ice planet out of its original position, bring it closer to the sun, and cause a naval war that your enemy totally wants to avoid =D
A similar effect is done in the kickstarter trailer, if it's anywhere close to that it will be glorious.