this seems to be the spot now!
I have the bumpmap in there makin the planet's shape. and now with displacement Im getting the hills/mountains/canyons and etc. now. now its a matter of getting the lake working right. cant really tell the hieght to things. adn the previewer hates me on showing where the water is at. lol
but it's def gettin me there now.
I'll give more feedback when I come up with something new. and once I get this all figured out. I may even make a tutorial.
and thank you so much javajones. you've been such a great help.
heres my update: seems water is a problem. the planet surface shader did this on its own wich was nice. but it seems to be a hassle to get water all over the planet. I tried upping the radius to the same as the planet; thinking this would be the way to go; then up the hieght; but didnt seem to work. I'll mess with it some more.
for the moment I'm just using a shader to make the color of the water and made a water shader as it's child. lol