Children of a Dead Earth (Hard Sci-Fi Space Combat Sim)

[KJakker 901]

Anyone here at CombatAce who is a fan of hard science fiction and space combat might be interested in a sim called "Children of a Dead Earth" by QSwitched Productions a one man developer. The game has been out since September 26th, 2016 and has been receiving regular monthly to bimonthly updates and is is now at Patch 1.1.1. These updates including bug fixes, added features in response to community input, and mod support. I have included the patch notes as of 4/27/2017 in a spoiler box at the bottom.

 

Weapons include conventional guns, rail guns, coil guns, lasers, and missiles, plus both conventional and nuclear warheads. I think the trailers tell it better than I can in words and note that those trailers are based upon the beta and things have evolved significantly since then.

 

 

 

Link to the Homepage: http://childrenofadeadearth.com/

 
Link to the Developers Blog: https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/
 
Link to the Official Forum: http://childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/
 
Link to the Steam Store: http://store.steampowered.com/app/476530/Children_of_a_Dead_Earth/

 

 

 

Patch Notes

1.1.1 (4/27/2017)

- Gameplay
--- Auto-reintercept: Whenever the enemy dodges your intercept, a reintercept will be attempted.
--- Distributed Targeting: Weapons distribute targets amongst each other. Can be disabled optionally.
--- Nose-forward order for aiming roughly at the enemy fleet.
--- Manual Fire: Guns which launch payloads can be manually fired, just like launcher modules.
--- Core Design Changes: All drones use internal mounts now. Many turreted guns use electric actuators now. Several guns have increased/different barrel armor.
- Design
--- Electric Turret Actuators: Instead of reaction wheels, turrets can use electric motors. Are more power and mass efficient, but suffer on volume and cost.
--- Internal Weapon Mounts: Unturreted guns can be installed on internal mounts, shielding them with spacecraft armor. Increases spacecraft armor mass/cost/size, and greatly increases cooldown times.
--- Composite Barrels: Gun barrel armor can be made different from the barrel material. (Note: Original barrel thicknesses will not be read in, and will need to be rewritten individually.)
--- Core limits changed: Smaller radiator sizes, smaller turret/gimbal sizes, smaller laser cavities/rods, smaller ammo modules, lower carrier module power, lower loader min charge, smaller turbopumps, launcher range increase, reactor components mass, propellant tank size, coilgun stages, rad shield size.
--- New Materials (many are gathered from the forums): SmCo Magnet, NdFeB Magnet, Cu-242, Sr-90 Titanate, NaK, FLiNaK, Gd, Gd-157 (+Seebeck coefficients), PETN, Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene, Nd, Ir-192, ZrC, Ti-Beta, AlBe.
--- UHMWPE has been split into a fiber version (which is porous and can't be used as a propellant tank) and a bulk version (which is weaker).
--- Costs of magnets slightly altered, now take into account coercivity.
--- Can customize cargo bay shell material.
- AI
--- Missiles will now scatter if enemy missiles are inbound.
- UI
--- Listboxes and dropdown lists have a search filter textbox.
--- Guns now show their spread/accuracy.
--- Added more conventional gun stats in module design.
--- Module lists don't reset when deleting modules.
--- Show Advanced Modules can be set by default in options.
- Modding
--- Property limits have been extracted into a file and now can be modded. (Mod at your own risk, changing limits can be very crashy!)
--- Added black box power modules.
--- Chemical reaction, material, and dissociation reactions now send user to import log if they fail validation.
--- Invalid Shear/Young's Modulus produces import log error now.
- Other
--- Fleet separation takes into account velocity more correctly, so high speed launchers/manual gun launching can net you substantial initial acceleration towards the enemy.
--- A number of damage related bugs fixed, including turreted gun barrel armor not being affected by damage, laser optic damage fixes, and indestructible lasers bug.
--- Numerous bugs. Notable ones: half velocity per delta-v expenditure, missile "teleportation" bug, TaHfC and Nickel property bugs, bug preventing gold on False Flag, black box engine mass flow errors, arc lamp envelope singularity issue, moon rotation, and many more minor bugs.
--- Numerous crash fixes. Some optimizations done.

1.1.0.3 (4/5/2017)
- Dozens of crash fixes, particularly concerning mods.
- Mods can now replace existing data without error.
- If a mod is incorrectly loaded in, it will not crash usually, and instead send open game into an import log of all the errors encountered.
- Sandbox is listed as a dependency for ship design deletion.
- Neptunium-237 and oxide added to stock materials. Element includes fission power.
- Modding multistar solar systems is now possible.

1.1.0 (2/28/2017)
- Railguns/Coilguns
--- Capacitor banks can now be used with railguns and coilguns.
--- Equations have been updated to correct energy conservation issues.
--- Acceleration graph now shows exactly how the device propels the armature over time.
--- Barrel armor now correctly braces railguns and coilguns, reducing beam deflection stress and inaccuracy.
--- In-game railguns and coilguns have been heavily reworked, most stock ships are affected. Numerous new designs added.
--- Note: Designs using stock coilguns and railguns may see those stock weapons disappear or they may have poorer performance than before.
- Lasers
--- Laser turrets/mounts can be separated from the laser, allowing hundreds of disposable turrets to use a single laser.
--- Lasers can now suffer optical damage, lenses/mirrors are easily destroyed by enemy laserfire, gunfire, and nuclear flashes.
--- Armored lens caps are addable (and essential to protect the fragile optics when not firing).
--- Graphics updates.
- Turrets
--- Can make extrudable turrets, which extend out with 90+ degree attack arcs. Allows nose-facing weapon support, but mass more and are easier to hit.
--- Graphics updates.
- Radiators
--- Can make tapered radiators, allowing triangular or winglike shapes.
- Tracers
--- Added several more pyrotechnic tracers.
--- Tracers now burn hotter and with greater optical depth, yielding more colors, including blue and white.
- AI
--- Tactical AI "guts" are exposed for viewing in sandbox and for modding in AI.txt.
--- Aggressive AIs now use the ignore range mode in certain scenarios.
--- Weapons now use dodge prediction against accelerating targets. Since this can be spoofed by start-stopping, this can be optionally disabled.
--- Several minor AI combat tweaks.
--- Huge drone formations are staggered so they no longer commit fratricide.
- UI
--- In orbital view, can move burn nodes forward or backwards in time.
--- Can compare module and ship designs against their prior stats while editing.
--- Can select unorbited bodies as a Frame of Reference.
--- Selection lists no longer reset when exiting from a design.
--- User designs appear first in ship and module design.
--- Modded designs are imported as core modules/ships and are uneditable unless duplicating.
--- Ship design. Can optionally view stacked power graph. Can toggle condensed mass pie chart. Dry acceleration visible.
--- In ship and module design, most of the ui can now be flexibly resized, including error messages. Alleviates small screen issues.
--- A number of other minor UI tweaks.
- Design
--- Launcher modules can use fibers for armor.
--- Launcher reload times are now bounded by clearance time, preventing a launcher from crashing multiple items into each other by launching too fast.
--- Increased max armor layers to 10.
--- Nuclear payload 'delay trigger' now editable in module design.
--- Cargo modules are editable.
--- Added article on Missile Guidance, for help designing remote controls.
--- Several sample remote controls added.
--- Ammo bays can have more ammo and stacks. Smaller propellant tanks. Smaller RTG pellets. Lower power draws allowed for weapons/resistojets. More coilgun stages allowed.
- Modding
--- Mod Loading order now occurs correctly and reads the materials folder hierarchy correctly.
--- Modules now save any modded materials/reactions/etc they use.
--- Allowed modding of Star Chart, Emission Spectra, and Refraction Indicies.
--- Export: New button exports a single design and all dependencies to its own file to .../Mods/Data/Exports.
--- Import: .../Mods/Data/Imports folder will read in all files within it as ship or module designs or as most any other kind of data.
--- Note: Anything in this folder is read in last.
--- Note: Overriding core data with mods data (mod data with the same name as core data) is not supported!
- Other
--- Numerous material/element/ref index corrections.
--- Bugs fixed: level 4 gold record impossible without exploits, ship cross section underestimated by 2x, delta-v miscalculated with vernier thrusters, phantom refueling with drop tanks, cadmium material issues, and many more.
--- Numerous crash fixes.
--- Various optimizations.

1.0.8 (12/17/2016)
- Pause on demand in combat with spacebar.
- Parallel Staging: Propellant tanks can be made external and discardable. Added a few stock designs which use this staging.
- AI vs AI battles can be set up in sandbox.
- Lasers can be fixed point rather than turreted.
- Lasers can now be frequency quadrupled by using two frequency doublers in series.
- Explosive and Nuclear Payloads can now have timers/fuses set on them which do not require remote controls to operate.
- Added targeting sensor inaccuracy to all weapons fire based on sensor diffraction limits. Has little effect, except at extreme ranges (hundreds of km).
- Reworked the shot spread pattern of projectile weapons.
- Added in beam truncation factor to lasers. Could break some existing laser designs due to aperture size.
- RP-1 is now based on dodecane, bringing its performance in line with real world results.
- Added Osmium's thermoelectric sensitivity, fixed water's viscosity.
- Added a quick reference chart in laser design for intensity at selected ranges.
- In sandbox, can see basic info on AI behavior. Can change AI factions in sandbox.
- Fixed MPD thruster info not updating.
- Auto-launched missiles leave the launcher in the correct direction now.
- Exploit of teleporting missiles past point defenses via camera tricks has been removed.
- Numerous crash fixes, other minor bug fixes.

1.0.7 (11/7/2016)
- Missile Guidance Laws have been tweaked heavily, have much better intercept results, especially against dodging targets.
- Exposed internals of missile guidance laws in remote control modules, so you can customize your own missile homing behavior. Remote Controls are now customizable.
- Removed Controlled Homing. In combat, missile phases can instead be forced via the Remote Control module.
- Added “Hard Range” and "Activation Range" for proximity detonators, allows early detonations for flak.
- Modules can now be renamed.
- Allowed manual input of values for any sliders in game.
- Intercept stats are now displayed in orbital view, showing intercept velocity, parallel vs perpendicular velocity, and closest point of approach.
- Exposed dev tool for dumping out materials as a csv file in the same location as save files. Can now be accessed by putting "PrintMaterials" in command line.
- Found and added in missing extinction coefficients in silica aerogel data. This fixes its incorrect laser damage response. A number of other refractive index data have been updated as well.
- Small range changes in module designer. RTGs and reactor fuel can be made smaller. Nuclear reactors can be made bigger. Lasers/resistojets power can be made much higher. Laser max range increased.
- Modules are filtered based on whether they are user made for easy access.
- Weapon modules have a "range estimates" box, easier than reading the range graph.
- Added coilgun diagram for applied field. Exposed film temperature info for combustion rockets.
- Minor text fixes. Minor material value fixes, like borosilicate glass, methane. UI tweaks.
- Fixed rare bug with intercepts not actually resolving and missing combat.
- Fixed bug in crew module food/air consumption.
- Fixed resistojet negative mass bug.
- Fixed crash with certain nuclear reactor and micro-rocket designs.
- Fixed occasional crash on ship/module delete.
- Fixed several more minor/rare crashes and bugs.
- Improved cpu performance of nuclear payload module design.

1.0.6 (10/14/2016)
- Fusion fuel density pressure is now an issue in nuclear warheads. Fixes boosted fission nukes behaving like pure fusion bombs.
- Fixed a number of typos in material properties (thermal expansion coefficients being off, missing critical values, etc.).
- Increased some ranges in module designer. Minimum propellant tank reaction mass is now 100 grams. Rocket engines can be an order of magnitude smaller.
- Corrected errors in nuclear fuel cycles. Nuclear fuel costs are affected. Reactors and payload costs now vary by enrichment percent.
- Coilguns now increase in mass/cost with extra stages. Some ships are altered to compensate.
- High acceleration missiles no longer vanish.
- Added in a minimum screen resolution that screen scaling can't reduce below.
- Fixed crash on first Neptune mission when intercepting the station.
- Fixed crash on mission success.
- Fixed numerous crashes upon exiting combat.
- Fixed crash with detonating nukes manually.
- Sound being missing is now fixed.

1.0.5 (10/3/2016)
- Fixed inability to use armor materials for turret armor.
- Fixed payloads staying after battle in their own fleets.
- Fixed issues with station refueling.
- Fixed crash with camera up-axis locking.

1.0.4
- Fixed RP-1 not being an option for propellant tanks.
- Increased max proximity range of detonators beyond 10 km to 100 km.
- Fixed infinite delta-v bug where you could extract reaction mass out of a tanker with zero reaction mass left.
- Fixed bug with being able to use multiple MPD thrusters without enough power to supply them.
- Fixed crash on enemy launching.
- Fixed crash on releasing burn manipulator.
- Fixed crash with certain designs with zero armor, or designs with zero reflector thickness.
- Fixed crash with using depleted uranium on nuclear payloads.
- Typos. Minor issues with material properties.

1.0.3
- Typos, minor bugs.
- Fixed core modules being editable.
- Fixed modules not saving.

1.0.2
- Fixed Offline Mode.
- Added an option to invert the mouse look control.
- Added a graphics option to use the default OS cursor instead of the custom cursor.
- Fixed erroneously low ablation for nuclear blasts.
- Tweaked core module missiles for better acceleration for hitting, greatly increases their hit probability, at the cost of some added mass.
- Fixed a number of issues with projectile numerical integration. Certain designs were exploiting the integrator's inaccuracy to yield 100 km/s or more, which was physically inaccurate.
- Fixed incorrect recoil stress on long/thin coilguns and railguns.
- In several more levels like Ceres, Eros, etc. knocking the enemy out of orbit will cause a mission kill.
- Fixed payload costs being incorrect in launcher modules.
- Fixed crash when changing a black box module name.
- Fixed crash when using certain exotic materials for nuclear weapons.
- Removed satellite/other classifications of ships, so everything is drone, missile, or payload. Fixes some issues with their behavior in combat.
- Fixed tracer colors when on lowest graphical setting.
- Fixed several crashes with damage impacts.
- Fixed drones sometimes crashing into their carrier when launched.
- Minor UI bugs fixed.
- Made corrections to crash logging.
- Several other rare crashes fixed.

1.0.1
- Fixed several OpenGL startup crashes.
- Fix for crash on startup caused by preferences not being written out.
- Fix for crash on predatory opportunism intercept.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by KJakker

[Skyviper 1,101]

Looks interesting