Children of a Dead Earth

[bobarossa]

I'm an unretired lawyer and I loved this game. There is very little else like it out there.

It just goes to show, engineers have better taste than lawyers.

..and engineers are apparently more anal retentive than lawyers. Who knew?

Engineers enjoy the process and lawyers enjoy the results.   We can enjoy a good failure as long as we know why it happened.  Lawyers don't get paid for failures.

[Jarhead0331]

I'm an unretired lawyer and I loved this game. There is very little else like it out there.

It just goes to show, engineers have better taste than lawyers.

..and engineers are apparently more anal retentive than lawyers. Who knew?

Well played, sir.

As a somewhat more serious question, the lack of situational awareness/agency didn't bother your gamer brain? I kind of want to enjoy it, but I'm really struggling to do so. Maybe I'm somehow not thinking about it right.

In truth, it has been more than 3 years since I played it and I only have 3 hours into it. I believe I just ran through a number of the single missions, but what I experienced I found really impressive. The extremely casual astrophysicist in me felt that the physics and concepts involved in the game were authentic enough to give it a really unique near future and imaginable feel. This is what I recall appealing to me most. I'm not sure I got deep enough to notice the issues you raise. 

[W8taminute]

Reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago.  Btw as an aside I too am an unretired engineer.

"So this engineer dies one day.  God above is really looking forward to receiving him into heaven but notices that he cannot find him at all.  The only other logical place is that somehow he must have mistakenly been sent to hell.  So God calls up the devil and asks him about the engineer.  The devil says oh yeah that guy?  He's down here with me.  He's really a great guy to because he's installed air conditioning units, ice cube makers, and running cold water down here. 

God says well look there must have been some mix up because that engineer is supposed to be here with me in heaven.  The devil replied, "Well I think this engineer is going to stay here with me." 

God speaking, "Just you wait Lou, I'm going to sue you and get my engineer back!"

"Oh really?", replies the devil, "And just where are you going to get a lawyer?"



Sorry JH, but know this.  I told this joke to my brother in law (who is also a lawyer) and he rolled his eyes at me. 

[Jarhead0331]

lol. I like it! Actually haven't heard that one.  :DD

[Tripoli]

Mike Aben (I guy I follow for his Kerbal videos) did a series on Children of a Dead Earth a couple of years ago.  I haven't seen these, but Mike is pretty entertaining when it comes to Kerbal, so I suspect they are good.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB3Ia8aQsDKhz-wIQi7wmBNwXCsWwSV3V


And yes, I bought the game.  It was a cheap way of expanding my collection of unplayed Steam games....  ;D

[Destraex]

I am just learning this game so I cannot comment like CaptainKoloth did. But I am enjoying it so far. I primarily got the game now because it's cheap enough to purchase knowing that I will probably only take what I can learn from it about realistic space combat before putting it down again. I am glad to know that somebody who practices something to do with space for a job approves of this game as a simulator. I am intimately familiar with the scourge that is game developers developing their own automated tools rather than a playable game. So many games have that I look forward to now will I think be little more than that. Seapower as well as that up and coming drydock dreams game will I suspect largely be automated leaving only a few large decisions to the player.

Just now I had my first experience of space combat against an opponent who can fight. I came in too close and was almost immediately within range of the enemies longer ranged rail gun. I had drones to fire and wanted to slow down and stay out of range but alas could not see any way to do it. I suspect the only way to adjust speed or trajectory is outside of combat?

The other thing that surprised me was that two completely different orbital planes could be widened to intersect and then all my ship really had to do was a short curve into the enemys orbital plane. It really seemed like driving a car down a long road at top speed and then slowing to turn the corner sharply about 100m from the lights. This might just be because of the huge distances involved, which I have also not noticed yet.
What I had expected was a large shallow curve into other orbital planes that started almost from my ships original point.
It might just be that I am having trouble seeing the angles. Perspective is a huge issue in this game. It's hard to see where everything is in relation to everything else. Needs a grid system.
I own kerbal but barely played it, perhaps I need to get into that to learn my orbital norms first. Something else that threw me was that things closer to a planet move faster. I knew this. But for some reason always thought you could slow yourself and orbit at whatever speed you wanted. I think I was just basing this off things floating in space with no gravity from nearby bodies. The question for me at the moment is whether I can control my oribital speed or whether it will always default back to being based on the body I am orbitings body and my mass.

I was orbiting around that planet and had to make the orbit wider which intersected the red enemy orbit. The last step seemed simply to be a couple of thust adjustements and a complete change of direction was completed.

[Destraex]

A really nice in game feature. Very cool.