Anybody heard of this yet? Looks like KSP without the ‘taking oneself not too seriously’ part.
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Wowza this and Rogue System make up for an interesting realistic take on Sapce Games, uh?
Ksp with guns…
Whats not to like?
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Really wish games would stop making claims of “Realistic Space Combat” since (as far as we know) no one from earth has engaged in space combat. sorry pet peeve of mine.
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had to account for the possibility 
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Man, I totally -like- know. You know? offer Mudcat a blunt
So, the idea behind this one is that you’re held far more accountable to the laws of physics than other games.
Realistic’s just become a buzz word that most games in the genre are all too willing to throw out- when Star Citizen fans refer to ‘realism’ I tend to roll my eyes too- they’re just playing a very pretty version of Descent with a space-like costume on. Not that there’s anything wrong with that- Freespace was great, but I don’t think it ever claimed to be a true representation of what space combat might look like.
Children of a Dead Earth seems to be made from a different mold though. They’re simulating the orbital mechanics of the engagement with an n-body calculation. Apparently ships give off the right radiation (even in the right bands - IR, radio, etc) when doing the appropriate things, and weapons and targeting actually relies on seekers that actually track said emissions. There are no hitpoints or “module health values”- when something gets hit they appear to have some kind of model in place that calculates, physically, how the vehicle gets damaged.
Thought process in Freespace/Wing Commander-esque space arcade games: “Well, if I upgrade my generator maybe I’ll be able to divert more power to weapons to increase the fire rate of my Mk.3 laser…”
Thought process in a realistic space game: “Well, I could dump more fuel towards the front end of the ship which’ll give me more DeltaV and let me come in with a more aggressive burn, but if I get hit up there that fuel’s right near the crew compartment…”
TL;DR: Correct, nobody really knows what ‘realistic space combat’ is going to truly look like, but that doesn’t mean some attempts aren’t a heck of a lot more valid than others.
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I like the orbital mechanics part, i always found that most intriguing about KSP, if COADE can make that more realistic, i’m already sold.
Something i did not realize previously, it seems that the orbital mechanics part is sort of turn based and not real time like in KSP.
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Thanks @sobek - this seems pretty interesting. I’m tempted.
I think this might be right up @EinsteinEP’s street? 
This looks amazing and shows a lot of technical promise. I’m curious to learn more about the game play mechanics. Getting a space SIM right isn’t too hard. Making a good space game seems to be tricky and, in this Elitist’s opinion, this is what drives developers to cheat on the physics.
Very interested indeed.
Edit: +1 for @AeroMechanical’s post above
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I bought it áánd requested a refund…
I was very impressed with my short time with the game. I spend some time going through the game’s encyclopedia and everything looked extremely detailed. You could choose to unlock every feature at once or have them unlocked for you step by step as you progress through the campaign. I was very much looking forward to a game like this. Games like SC and ED feel a bit like like WW2 fighters in space considering the slow speeds they move at, the artificial speed barriers they have and the fact that combat is basicly purely WVR.
However I just could not get over the turn based orbital mechanics. I’d rather have things like that in real time with time controls. If they ever add that I’ll be happy to rebuy this game.
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Yeah, that sounds tough to accept.
Watching some gameplay videos [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EorXilTI7GM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQICnGN-1w], the game feels more like a very alpha orbital calculator that has been clumsily paired with a 3D model viewer. The “turns” are just an non-clever way to avoid solving all the problems that go along with a real-time simulation of non-linear orbital mechanics. KSP’s approach simplified the n-body problem to only 2 bodies, for example.
I might be a bit biased though - the growing/shrinking ellipses remind me of an underwhelming DirectX/OpenGL class I took years ago.
In any event, I’m going to wait and watch this one mature a bit more before I hop in - but I am hoping it delivers.
This spiked my interest and I went ahead and brought it. This game is both educational and fun!
Not quite sure I understand the criticism about the turn based orbital mechanics. The shortest turns are 1 minute long. Why would you need a time resolution finer than this in orbital maneuvers (the game switches to real-time whenever intercepts and flybys occur)?
I think what is subliminally trying to be said is.
Stick weapons and base building into KSP, add multiplayer and smile…
As far as i can tell, there’s no way to manually pilot the spacecraft if the majority of flight is turn based. That is one downside. If that is actually really detrimental to the gameplay, i cannot tell, as i haven’t played it myself at this point.
Playing it for a couple of missions, so far I have not felt the need to manually pilot the spacecraft. Orbital maneuvering burns are planned on a tactical map, often hours in advance, and executed automatically. In one mission the time available was 3 months. I assume even in current spacecraft, orbital burns are performed by computers. Other than for docking, which I do not think is part of the game, I do not think there is much point in manual control.
One aspect which I think would be very interesting for this type of realistic game would be the logistics to run an inter-solar-system war like this. In the game, scenarios start with spacecraft at certain positions with a delta-v budget available to execute the task available. What I ask myself is, how do the spacecraft get there and can they get somewhere after the mission with the remaining delta-v? Spacecraft can easily exhaust their fuel and stand in orbits which would require considerable effort to be reached by supply units. The logistics train required to put warships in orbits around various bodies throughout the solar system, do tactical maneuvering and get them back out there would be enormous. A war would probably primary revolve around attack and protecting the logistics system. A realistic strategic layer would be quite fascinating.
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I am totally hooked on this one. This game is so much fun 
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