Children of a Dead Earth
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MaverickSawyer
Acolyte of the Probe
I have, actually, a while back. Admittedly, I haven't played it in over a year, so I'm not up to date with the latest developments in the game. I do remember that it's got a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's delightful fun. Designing engines and weapons can be delightful fun, and although some of the exploits have been patched, you can still make some flat-out ridiculous equipment. Nuclear thermal rocket turbopump made of ultra-high molecular weight plastic (UHMWP)? Sure, why not? :lol:
jedidia
shoemaker without legs
There's already a thread about it somewhere...
I quite like it. The physics are top-notch, even simulating such things as the angle at which projectiles hit the hull.
The interface can be a bit knotty, and missiles have a bit of a guidance problem. Not on their final approach, that's just fine, but missiles are usually launched days before an encounter, and you plan their trajectory and intercept just like you plan them for your actual ships. Which of course leaves plenty of time for evasion, which the AI doesn't make enough use of (it'll still be a lot of readjusting trajectories, which can get a bit annoying), and AI controlled missiles react to trajectory changes of your ship way too quickly, so you can run them out of dv rather easily... although that, too, is finicky work, adjusting your trajectory half a dozen times.
In fact, planning an encounter is what you do most of the time. You can still give a few simple orders once your vessels make actual contact (though in a retrograde intercept, just forget about it... you assign targets, whizz by and see if you made a good decision), but in general that's just the moment you see whether your plan was any good.
The setting is reasonable enough if a bit stereotypical at times, but the author has a clear understanding of how armed conflict actually works and why it is fought (no gung-ho save our civilisation crap here, as an admiral you are informed about reasons, necessities and predictions, not fed propaganda), which makes the campaign "story" quite enjoyable. Story is in quotes because it's really more of a series of briefings and after-action reports than a story, but thanks to copious amounts of flavor text for factions, their motivation, and all the politics going on while you're doing the fighting, I found it quite immersive. You'll be reading a lot, though.
Spacecraft design is pretty realistic, and therefore visually boring and very samey at first glance (there's only so many ways to design the hull of an effective combat spacecraft), but strategically the vessels have very specific roles, and you'll have to get familiar with those. The thing that got me was that I was finding myself checking loadouts and capabilities of new vessels very thouroughly as they became available, and was more looking at them with the interest I would read about real live battleships or fighter planes. They are so distinct in their capabilities, and those capabilities often become so important, that they even started to look much more distinct. There is no mistaking the radiators of a laser frigatte, the bulky, unadorned cylinder without any heavy guns of a drone carrier or the pencil-shaped, optimised for small frontal cross-section hull of a gunship. After a while it starts to feel more like studying actual identification charts. I have to admit that no other scifi setting so far has given me the same feeling of "realness" and importance for its ships.
And then of course you can start building your own, but that's not quite my cup of tea. It's hilariously complex and takes a lot of time, and I simply don't enjoy finetuning things enough, which is definitely necessary to come up with something better than you're provided with.
Purely on the gameplay side, this is an old-school strategy game. The kind where you have a linear campaign, and every mission is essentially a puzzle to figure out. You'll do a lot of trying this, restarting mission, trying that, until you see how all the pieces fit together and can devise a way to beat the odds with what you have available. If you enjoy that kind of strategy game, are into spaceships and trajectory planning (you probably are, or you wouldn't be on this board), and can live with getting annoyed with the interface and a bit too much micromanagment every now and then, you should definitely give it a go.
---------- Post added at 12:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 AM ----------
Hey, I just looked at the game in my steam library, and it seems there's an auto-reintercept feature in one of the patches that came out since I played it. That should take some of the anoyance out of the interface...
I quite like it. The physics are top-notch, even simulating such things as the angle at which projectiles hit the hull.
The interface can be a bit knotty, and missiles have a bit of a guidance problem. Not on their final approach, that's just fine, but missiles are usually launched days before an encounter, and you plan their trajectory and intercept just like you plan them for your actual ships. Which of course leaves plenty of time for evasion, which the AI doesn't make enough use of (it'll still be a lot of readjusting trajectories, which can get a bit annoying), and AI controlled missiles react to trajectory changes of your ship way too quickly, so you can run them out of dv rather easily... although that, too, is finicky work, adjusting your trajectory half a dozen times.
In fact, planning an encounter is what you do most of the time. You can still give a few simple orders once your vessels make actual contact (though in a retrograde intercept, just forget about it... you assign targets, whizz by and see if you made a good decision), but in general that's just the moment you see whether your plan was any good.
The setting is reasonable enough if a bit stereotypical at times, but the author has a clear understanding of how armed conflict actually works and why it is fought (no gung-ho save our civilisation crap here, as an admiral you are informed about reasons, necessities and predictions, not fed propaganda), which makes the campaign "story" quite enjoyable. Story is in quotes because it's really more of a series of briefings and after-action reports than a story, but thanks to copious amounts of flavor text for factions, their motivation, and all the politics going on while you're doing the fighting, I found it quite immersive. You'll be reading a lot, though.
Spacecraft design is pretty realistic, and therefore visually boring and very samey at first glance (there's only so many ways to design the hull of an effective combat spacecraft), but strategically the vessels have very specific roles, and you'll have to get familiar with those. The thing that got me was that I was finding myself checking loadouts and capabilities of new vessels very thouroughly as they became available, and was more looking at them with the interest I would read about real live battleships or fighter planes. They are so distinct in their capabilities, and those capabilities often become so important, that they even started to look much more distinct. There is no mistaking the radiators of a laser frigatte, the bulky, unadorned cylinder without any heavy guns of a drone carrier or the pencil-shaped, optimised for small frontal cross-section hull of a gunship. After a while it starts to feel more like studying actual identification charts. I have to admit that no other scifi setting so far has given me the same feeling of "realness" and importance for its ships.
And then of course you can start building your own, but that's not quite my cup of tea. It's hilariously complex and takes a lot of time, and I simply don't enjoy finetuning things enough, which is definitely necessary to come up with something better than you're provided with.
Purely on the gameplay side, this is an old-school strategy game. The kind where you have a linear campaign, and every mission is essentially a puzzle to figure out. You'll do a lot of trying this, restarting mission, trying that, until you see how all the pieces fit together and can devise a way to beat the odds with what you have available. If you enjoy that kind of strategy game, are into spaceships and trajectory planning (you probably are, or you wouldn't be on this board), and can live with getting annoyed with the interface and a bit too much micromanagment every now and then, you should definitely give it a go.
---------- Post added at 12:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 AM ----------
Hey, I just looked at the game in my steam library, and it seems there's an auto-reintercept feature in one of the patches that came out since I played it. That should take some of the anoyance out of the interface...
Last edited:
PeterRoss
Warranty man
Bought this game on steam after reading this thread. As Jedidia said above, it takes more time to read briefings and all the additional texts than the actual space combat. But the story is great, political intrigues are believable and the whole setting is quite cool if somewhat scary. And thanks to Martin and Orbiter I know what to do when mission starts :lol: And although I don't like the idea of space warfare, I find this game great.
I wonder if it is possible to simulate such a combat in Orbiter. I remember there was the Orbiter Combat project some time ago on this forum, but I don't know if it provided any results.
I wonder if it is possible to simulate such a combat in Orbiter. I remember there was the Orbiter Combat project some time ago on this forum, but I don't know if it provided any results.
francisdrake
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After being a long time reader of Rick Robinson's blog "Rocketpunk Manifesto: Battles of the Spherical War Cows" which is about various settings of 'realistic' space combat, I was looking very much forward to Children of a Dead Earth. I bought it the week it was released.
The game has a lot of technical background under the hood, which only becomes visible when you try to customize ships, or even design system. The user interface is easy to understand. As mentioned above, most of the time is spent planning maneuvers and allocating weapons. The actual watching of weapon impacting or missing is fun, but you are more of a passenger here, not much interaction is possible.
I think Orbiter would be an even better vehicle for modelling orbital combat. But it would probably require to define a 'combat-vessel' class, which has status points asigned to onboard systems, which degrade or fail when the ship is hit.
The game has a lot of technical background under the hood, which only becomes visible when you try to customize ships, or even design system. The user interface is easy to understand. As mentioned above, most of the time is spent planning maneuvers and allocating weapons. The actual watching of weapon impacting or missing is fun, but you are more of a passenger here, not much interaction is possible.
I think Orbiter would be an even better vehicle for modelling orbital combat. But it would probably require to define a 'combat-vessel' class, which has status points asigned to onboard systems, which degrade or fail when the ship is hit.
Urwumpe
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I had an idea about using "raycasting" for solving the damage profiles of spacecraft battles in a real-time sim, like bullets or laser beams having different propagation schemes inside a spacecraft or excess damage being able to damage nearby other vessels (or docked vessels). But I simply lack the time implementing it.
