History VideoGame / ChildrenOfADeadEarth

''Children of a Dead Earth'' is the most realistic space warfare simulator you are likely to have ever laid eyes on.

The game's campaign features increasingly complex missions that allow you to come to grips with orbital mechanics, combat tactics and spacecraft engineering in an iterative process that allows you to experiment and innovate.

The story of the game is relatively straightforward: In the not so distant future, worldwide conflicts, weaponized climate change, and a total collapse of the planetary ecosystem has turned Earth into a Venus-like wasteland completely incapable of supporting life. As a result, the survivors leave the corpse of their planet and venture into space to rebuild, establishing colonies all across the solar system. However, not all is well as two factions rise to power: the Republic, and the United Sol Trade Alliance. Both vie for control of the Solar System, and as they expand, tensions begin to mount. Once again, the children of a dead earth prepare for war.



It can be bought on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/476530/ here]]. There is also an official blog with more info about the science behind the game can be found [[https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/ here]]. The official forum is [[http://childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/ here]]

!!This game contains examples of the following:
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
** Some minor ones involved in craft construction. Components requiring/generating power will be considered connected as long as there is some physical connection between them even if there are no visible wires. Most noticeable are refueling modules, that allow the transfer of fuel without spacecraft docking with each other.
** For obvious reasons, the real-time-with-pause mechanic.
** Life Support is not a factor, on game scales, through the supplemental reading mentions that rockets carry provisions for a set period of time.
** The effects of atmospheres are not yet modeled.

** Material property doesn't change/transmute during the course of gameplay, so it can result in some material being ludicrously effective at some area than in real life. For example, Lithium-6 work extremely well as a radiation shield in-game, but in real life, it would capture a neutron and transmute into helium and tritium, which means the shield would ablate. This doesn't happen in-game.
** Related to above point, the game doesn't account for material loss of strength and such due to temperature changes (although in many cases it seems that the developer intentionally uses the lower values just in case of these), and some properties are only theoretically achievable that wouldn't happen even in-game. For example, diamond in-game has melting point listed as 3823 K. However, diamond is only metastable and would normally revert back to graphite at the temperature around ~1500 K under normal pressure. The in-game melting temperature can only be achieved with very high pressure. This makes diamonds a lot more effective in extreme circumstances than in real life.

** Multi-gigawatt UV lasers are terrifying beasts, but they require so many radiators and power-plants that they are usually limited to use on space stations. Even with the addition of multiple frequency doublers [[note]]Basically it lets you take an infrared or visible-wavelength laser and bring its output into the UV spectrum.[[/note]] and fan-made compact and efficient reactors it still leads to ships over a kilometer across, most of which is radiators.
** It is also possible to build guns that fire nuclear shells, though it is difficult. Nuclear bombs are heavy and firing them from a gun, either conventional or coilgun, with a reasonable amount of velocity to be accurate is hard. Such a weapon will tend to be prohibitively heavy or expensive, or likely both.
* TheBattleStar: Some ships can carry both drones and mount weapons.

* {{BFG}}: You can build one, if you want. [[CoolButInefficient Not that it'll be that effective due to low muzzle velocity unless you get your ship really close to the enemy]]...or using missiles as payload. In fact, one of the stock modules is a conventional gun with 1200mm bore size.
* ColonizedSolarSystem: Humanity settles various locations in the solar system such as the asteroid belt after they are forced to flee the changing Earth.

* DroneDeployer: There's a number of default ships that have minimal weaponry in favor of massed AttackDrone deployment tubes.
* EasyLogistics: The game has mass and cost limits for creating custom fleets, but they're quite simplistic and you never have to worry about food, water, or oxygen supply.
* EarthThatWas: WorldWarIII led to a runaway greenhouse effect and other large scale environmental devastation that turned Earth into Venus 2.0. It was too hostile to inhabit, even with sealed environments.

* GameplayAutomation: Ships will dodge weapons fire and aim their own weapons automatically, and intercepts, fly-by's and rendezvous are done automatically once a player gets the orbital trajectories into a configuration that allows them to happen.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Neither the Republic nor the United Sol Trade Alliance are portrayed as all that good nor evil. Both are quite capable and guilty of morally reprehensible acts for the sake of victory. [[spoiler: However, near the end of the campaign as the Republic has gained the upper hand in the war, they become rather bloodthirsty, rejecting the USTA's bids for surrender as they don't want to just beat the USTA, they want want to utterly humiliate and terrorize them.]]

* MundaneDogmatic: There are no aliens and all technology present is equivalent to modern-day or near-future[=/=]in-development rocket tech.

* SamusIsAGirl: Commander of the RFP space force is a daughter of the current president.
* ShownTheirWork: The infolink cites numerous scientific journals and other publications, and the game forms the most realistic depiction of space travel and combat yet; even superseding ''Videogame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' courtesy of its more robust and realistic n-body simulation.
* SimulationGame: Full n-body simulation for orbital mechanics allow you to do everything from gravitational slingshots to orbiting a Lagrange point. Module design is incredibly granular and simulates every detail that cannot be ignored.
* SlowLaser: Ironically, the kinetic weapons are a much more conventional example , creating multicolored 'beams' due to their high fire rates and the use of pyrotechnic tracers.
* SpaceFriction: Averted. Spacecraft obey Newtonian physics and will slow down only under power.
* SpaceIsNoisy: Averted. You can't hear any shots being fired in space, but you can hear impacts on the hulls of your own ships.

* SpaceshipSlingshotStunt: The game lets you pull off realistic gravity assists, both to gain a lot of speed or to shed it, depending on which side of the gravity well you try to sling around.

* SubsystemDamage: Each individual spacecraft module has its own parameters, which vary depending on the type of system: radiators have 7 parameters, while nuclear fission reactors have a whooping 23. You can also order your ships to focus fire on particular systems such as radiators and rocket engines to render enemy ships immobile or non-threatening.

* WideOpenSandbox: In Sandbox mode, there are no objectives and no limits on money or mass. You can try out any combination of spacecraft against any other in orbit over any body on the solar system you want.

* {{BFG}}: You can build one, if you want. [[CoolButInefficient Not that it'll be that effective due to low muzzle velocity unless you get your ship really close to the enemy]]...or using missiles as payload. In fact, one of the stock modules is a conventional gun with [[UpToEleven 1200mm bore size]].

* {{BFG}}: You can build one, if you want. [[CoolButInefficient Not that it'll be that effective due to low muzzle velocity unless you get your ship really close to the enemy]]...or using missiles as payload. In fact, one of the stock module is a conventional gun with [[UpToEleven 1200mm bore size]].

* ApocalypseHow: The Earth is rendered uninhabitable by a series of events such as weaponized climate change, giant rocks being smashed into the planet, and nuclear war. This leads to a collapse of the planets ecosystem and environment turning the Earth into an uninhabitable planet forcing humans to evacuate and colonize the solar system before the planet ceases to be able to support them.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: 5.5. The dev purposely limits the tech in order to be able to do a good job of representing it realistically, but it's also meant to be accessible to laypersons, so some of the nitty gritty details get brushed aside. Also remember that as of right now, this game is the result of one person's work, which means there's only so much content that can be created at one time.