Has anyone given thought to using the Planetary Empires and Mighty Empires sets as a play aid for an undertaking dealing with a planet-based situation?

I was thinking about putting together terrain using one of each set, painting it in "ghostly hololith green", and using markers to represent the PCs' troop deployment and movements (and those of the enemy, of course), and mostly use extended action checks to deal with combat resolution, unless the PCs are actually in the thick of the fighting in any given sector, such as possibly grabbing a vital objective.

YES.

I have thought about it very seriously. I have Mighty Empires, so I understand the possibilities here. I haven't seen the Planetary Empires rules, so I don't know what would need tweeking.

I think that the 3D graphic representation would make my players take more 'ownership' than just rolling a bunch of dice on some arbitrary chart. Yet, at the same time it's abstract enough not to bog down the game. Know what I mean?

Even if I don't like the rules and had to make my own, there will come a time very soon where the Players will want to conquer a planet and I think Planetary Empires would help to enhance and visualize that part of the game.

I'm mostly thinking about just using the actual tiles and coming up with my own house rules for specific types of companies (light and heavy infantry, armoured cavalry, etc.).

I have the Mighty Empires set, two states away, and looked at the rules for it briefly when I got it, and haven't seen the rules for Planetary Empires yet, so I'm not sure exactly how the real rules are set up.

For starshipcombat using the Battlefleet Gothic models seems to be a pretty nice idea. Especially since both rulesets are pretty similar and should work together nicely. Using the Empire-Games sounds like a great idea, too, but would depend strongly on your style of roleplay. It's definitly worth a try.

I am a big fan of tactile and visual aids, but I feel like adding extra rule systems might bog down the session a bit. Also a big solid green map might not be the most interesting thing to look at.