Yes, we did mess around a bit with that. We never had any intention to make use of it in UE, it was just something we (which, IIRC, meant
@KillerWave and myself) wanted to see. The way we did it was pretty much exactly the same as the way the original WCP test would have been done - i.e., we made a 3D object that looked like a large bit of planetary surface, and plonked it into the game as a capship. It looked pretty terrible, I guess, but I also suppose that this level of visual quality would have been acceptable for a mod like UE, and as long as we're talking about a mostly-gray moon with no atmosphere, it wouldn't be entirely horrid.
I also suppose, incidentally, that today we could do much better, while employing the same basic solution. We certainly could use much higher texture resolutions for the ground, employing all the additional shaders developed for Standoff, and I assume if someone wanted to, they could create an additional shader that adds a detail texture on top of the ground when you get close enough to it. We could even have a very basic - and probably substandard compared to today's games - atmospheric texture. In that case, the mission would necessarily either be planetary only (starting with a cutscene of entering the atmosphere, ending with a cutscene of leaving), or split across multiple missions (in the way jump missions worked in Standoff) in order to allow for a change of the sector file that controls the background.
But then you've got the gameplay problems. The AI in particular was lousy at avoiding collisions with the ground, just like it is with any large capship. And the planetary surface mesh would sometimes unexpectedly disappear from view, just as it happens with other large capships. And, most importantly - it would be pointless, because just like in WC3 and WC4, there would be no gravity, so basically the planetary surface would be doing nothing whatsoever for the gameplay.
hmm actual in-game play value aside how much effort would be needed to create a cut scene of a land based mission? Reason I ask is I've been working with creating a
wing commander video series. Right now it's just focused on the WCP story but there have been some idle rumblings of using the WCP/SO engine and some fan-made assets as the technical means to create a machinema series.
The amount of effort needed to make it look good would be more or less the same. You could spruce it up to the point where it would look acceptable, certainly - probably not great, but acceptable. Beyond that, of course, things get easier, because if it's just a cutscene, then you get to cheat in all kinds of ways to avoid highlighting gameplay issues and the like. Certainly, for cutscenes, it would make more sense than for anything else.