About the Game
The Most Scientifically Accurate Space Warfare Simulator Ever Made.
Children of a Dead Earth is a simulation of true-to-life space warfare. Design your spacecrafts using real world technologies. Traverse the solar system using actual orbit mechanics. Command fleets as the solar system descends into war, and see if you have what it takes to become the victor.
Features
All of the above aspects combine to yield a space warfare simulator that is unparalleled in scientific realism. No other game combines the extremely accurate orbital mechanics, 1:1 scale of the solar system, and technology which is implemented 100% by scientific equations. If you ever wanted to know what space warfare would actually be like, this is the game for you.
Children of a Dead Earth is a simulation of true-to-life space warfare. Design your spacecrafts using real world technologies. Traverse the solar system using actual orbit mechanics. Command fleets as the solar system descends into war, and see if you have what it takes to become the victor.
Features
- REAL SCIENCE, REAL TECHNOLOGY - Every technology, from the Nuclear Thermal Rockets, to the Railguns, to the Magnetoplasmadynamic Thrusters, was implemented using actual equations from Engineering and Physics textbooks and white papers. Every aspect of these systems, efficiency, size, mass, power usage, heat dissipation, are all derived from valid equations.
- CAMPAIGN AND SANDBOX MODES - Assume the role of an admiral and fight through a detailed storyline chronicling the descent of the solar system into all out war, spanning every planet in the solar system and everything in between. Or simply play in the sandbox, designing ships and pitting them against other ships.
- EXTREMELY ACCURATE ORBITAL MECHANICS - With an N-Body Simulator (the kind NASA uses to plot spacecraft trajectories), all orbital phenomenon from hyperbolic orbits, Lagrange points, and orbital perturbation are all correctly simulated. Spacecrafts can stationkeep orbits, or enter into free falling perturbed orbits.
- 1:1 SCALE - The solar system is modeled completely to scale. The sizes of all planets, moons, and asteroids are accurately enormous, and the distance between them is similarly huge. The extremely high orbital speed of your ships deep in high gravity orbits is correspondingly correct.
- FREEFORM SHIP DESIGN - Build your spacecrafts out of rockets, propellant tanks, weapons, powerplants, radiators, and crew modules. Wrap it all up with multiple armor layers, and maybe a Whipple Shield to boot. The acceleration, moment of inertia, delta-v, and much more are all correctly calculated for all spacecrafts you design.
- HIGHLY GRANULAR MODULE DESIGN - Tweak everything from the nozzle length or stoichiometric mixture ratio of your bipropellant rockets to the armature and rail dimensions of your railguns. The results of every change is seen in real time, from the change in your rocket's exhaust velocity, to your railgun's inductance or muzzle velocity.
- PHYSICALLY ACCURATE MATERIAL PROPERTIES - All materials, chemical reactions, and spectra are physically correct. When your arclamp pumps your solid state laser, the pumping bands need to match up with the actual emission spectra of your excitation gas. When the photon absorption of a material is needed, it is derived from actual refractive index spectra data.
- IN-ENGINE MOD SUPPORT - The engine supports black box creation of untested or far future technology for modders to work with. All other game data, from levels to material properties, is also accessible to modders.
- STEAM WORKSHOP SUPPORT - Subscribe to mods on Steam Workshop, and they will automatically load. In-game export tools allow instant uploading of your own designs to Steam Workshop.
All of the above aspects combine to yield a space warfare simulator that is unparalleled in scientific realism. No other game combines the extremely accurate orbital mechanics, 1:1 scale of the solar system, and technology which is implemented 100% by scientific equations. If you ever wanted to know what space warfare would actually be like, this is the game for you.
Screenshots
13 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
On the site: Build 2945058
Up to date
Highlights
- Foreign Language Support
- Form Fitting Ship Armor
- Polygonal Ship Armor
- Modules Can Now Stack Around Each Other
- Fuse Modules
- Material/Module/Ship Sortable Grid View
- Graphics: Ship Shadows
Full Changelist
1.2.0 (12/18/2017)
- Foreign Language Support
--- Non-English languages are now supported, and fan-made translations can be imported. A fan-made Chinese translation is in the works.
--- A language file with all strings can be imported, as can language specific images (such as the main logo), and font files.
- Ship Design
--- Form fitting, concave armor is allowed on ships. Concave armor has a smaller cross section and can sometimes save mass, but also can suffer from multiple bullet ricochets.
--- Polygonal cross section armor for ships allowed, such as triangular, hexagonal, and so on.
--- Spinal modules can be pushed inwards or outwards, allowing setups such as propellant tanks around crew modules.
--- Front and back facing attached modules also can be pushed inwards or outwards, allowing setups such as frontal guns stacked with different frontal guns.
--- Ship armor can be radially rotated about the ship (you can now edit the start and end percent for each radial span).
--- Radiation shielding is more properly calculated.
--- Weapon firing arcs can be limited by ship armor now. Ship design warns of these cases.
- Module Design
--- Added Fuse modules, which are tiny modules which can trigger Ordnances or Engines after a set amount of time. Allows for time-delayed flares or timed explosives, or for launching dumbfire missiles (with optional timers).
--- Reduced Remote Control size.
- UI
--- Materials, modules, and spacecrafts are all listed in a grid view when choosing them. The grid organizes items by mass, cost, and every other property, each of which can be toggled or sorted.
--- Ship and Module Design menus can be toggled to a grid view rather than the default list view.
--- Can enter degrees into radians sliders.
- Graphics Updates
--- Spacecrafts cast shadows on themselves and each other in combat and design.
--- Many stock spacecrafts are updated to have form fitting armor and sloped nose cones. Some have polygonal cross sections now.
--- Radiators are animated in module design. Engines bells and gun barrels too.
- Mods
--- Exposed ship armor limits in Limits.txt.
- Other
--- Renamed weapon Payloads to Ordnances to prevent confusion with ship Payloads.
--- Numerous bug and crash fixes. Notable bugs include: Temporal Burn Dragger no longer deletes previous burns, dozens of small material and chemical reaction tweaks, radiators start out cooler in combat if you have more than enough, ship design no longer stacks heat and power incorrectly.
View on Steam
- Foreign Language Support
- Form Fitting Ship Armor
- Polygonal Ship Armor
- Modules Can Now Stack Around Each Other
- Fuse Modules
- Material/Module/Ship Sortable Grid View
- Graphics: Ship Shadows
Full Changelist
1.2.0 (12/18/2017)
- Foreign Language Support
--- Non-English languages are now supported, and fan-made translations can be imported. A fan-made Chinese translation is in the works.
--- A language file with all strings can be imported, as can language specific images (such as the main logo), and font files.
- Ship Design
--- Form fitting, concave armor is allowed on ships. Concave armor has a smaller cross section and can sometimes save mass, but also can suffer from multiple bullet ricochets.
--- Polygonal cross section armor for ships allowed, such as triangular, hexagonal, and so on.
--- Spinal modules can be pushed inwards or outwards, allowing setups such as propellant tanks around crew modules.
--- Front and back facing attached modules also can be pushed inwards or outwards, allowing setups such as frontal guns stacked with different frontal guns.
--- Ship armor can be radially rotated about the ship (you can now edit the start and end percent for each radial span).
--- Radiation shielding is more properly calculated.
--- Weapon firing arcs can be limited by ship armor now. Ship design warns of these cases.
- Module Design
--- Added Fuse modules, which are tiny modules which can trigger Ordnances or Engines after a set amount of time. Allows for time-delayed flares or timed explosives, or for launching dumbfire missiles (with optional timers).
--- Reduced Remote Control size.
- UI
--- Materials, modules, and spacecrafts are all listed in a grid view when choosing them. The grid organizes items by mass, cost, and every other property, each of which can be toggled or sorted.
--- Ship and Module Design menus can be toggled to a grid view rather than the default list view.
--- Can enter degrees into radians sliders.
- Graphics Updates
--- Spacecrafts cast shadows on themselves and each other in combat and design.
--- Many stock spacecrafts are updated to have form fitting armor and sloped nose cones. Some have polygonal cross sections now.
--- Radiators are animated in module design. Engines bells and gun barrels too.
- Mods
--- Exposed ship armor limits in Limits.txt.
- Other
--- Renamed weapon Payloads to Ordnances to prevent confusion with ship Payloads.
--- Numerous bug and crash fixes. Notable bugs include: Temporal Burn Dragger no longer deletes previous burns, dozens of small material and chemical reaction tweaks, radiators start out cooler in combat if you have more than enough, ship design no longer stacks heat and power incorrectly.
Highlights
- In-game Steam Workshop Import and Export
- Distributed Swarm Homing and "fuzzy" homing
- Distributed Drone Swarm Targeting
- Blast Launchers: Single shot, zero power, vertical launchers
- Temperature Safety Margins
- Prismatic Block Reactors, numerous gameplay and ui tweaks, many more stock materials, better mod support, bugs, crashes, and more
Full Changelist:
1.1.2 (6/21/2017)
- Steam Workshop
--- Can export modules, ships, and arbitrary files to Steam Workshop. Exporting can be found in module/ship design. For arbitrary file uploads, exporting is done via Infolinks->Steam Workshop.
--- Subscribing to Workshop Items will automatically load them in on game start.
- Gameplay
--- Distributed Swarm Homing - Missiles can optionally distribute their homing targets amongst the swarm. "Fuzzy" tolerances for heat signatures can be customized on the remote control, allowing for targeting of heat signatures weaker than flares.
--- Distributed Swarm Fire - Drone can distribute targets amongst the swarm.
--- Tweaked many stock ship designs. Removed some ammo of gunships. Tweaked flare launchers/ammo for most ships. Slightly larger radiators to deal with temperature safety margins.
- Design
--- Blast Launcher - Vertical launcher module which uses explosives to eject flares, missiles, and drones. One-shot, uses no power, high velocities, and extremely fast fire rates, though extremely volatile, requiring plenty of armor. All stock flare launchers have been switched to blast launchers.
--- Dumbfire Rockets - Can build spacecrafts without turning ability without error.
--- Launch Caps - Launchers have optional, customizable caps which can prevent them from firing too many payloads in combat.
--- Temperature Safety Margins - Materials can no longer be pressed up to their melting point, and instead must have thin margins. Powerplants and NTRs and lasers are most affected.
--- Prismatic Block Reactors - All nuclear reactors are now calculated as using prismatic block layouts (similar in results to pebble bed reactors), which reduces the fuel temperature in comparison to the moderator and control rod temperatures.
--- Editable descriptions for modules and ships.
--- Tweaked costs. Magnetic materials and high molecular weight materials are much cheaper now.
--- Material fixes: Alnico, Gold, Polyethylene, Silicon Nanothermite, Fluorine Ammonia, CO2, AlZnMg, Boron split into an extremely weak bulk material and an even stronger fiber material.
--- Material adds (most from the forums): Co-60, Ca-227, Tc-99, Various Hypergolic propellants and reactions, Chlorine, Fluorine RP-1 Reaction, Caesium, Amorphous Zirconium Steel.
--- Tweaked several default limits.
- UI
--- In ship design, detailed breakdown of heat graph. Heat graph represented as Ambient vs Peak power.
--- In design, can duplicate while in the editing screen of ships and modules.
--- Edit text boxes allow highlighting.
- Mods
--- Limits.txt now can be overriden via mods.
--- Can mod in "Cost_c__kg" and "PoissonsRatio" for materials. These values will override pre-calculated values.
--- Mod crashes now instead redirect player to Import Log without crashing.
- Other
--- Numerous bug fixes. Most important ones: Binary stars light planets and ships properly, carrier modules respect energy conservation, gamma radiation affects crew modules, payload crew counts corrected for guns, export no longer duplicates entries.
--- Several crash fixes.
View on Steam
- In-game Steam Workshop Import and Export
- Distributed Swarm Homing and "fuzzy" homing
- Distributed Drone Swarm Targeting
- Blast Launchers: Single shot, zero power, vertical launchers
- Temperature Safety Margins
- Prismatic Block Reactors, numerous gameplay and ui tweaks, many more stock materials, better mod support, bugs, crashes, and more
Full Changelist:
1.1.2 (6/21/2017)
- Steam Workshop
--- Can export modules, ships, and arbitrary files to Steam Workshop. Exporting can be found in module/ship design. For arbitrary file uploads, exporting is done via Infolinks->Steam Workshop.
--- Subscribing to Workshop Items will automatically load them in on game start.
- Gameplay
--- Distributed Swarm Homing - Missiles can optionally distribute their homing targets amongst the swarm. "Fuzzy" tolerances for heat signatures can be customized on the remote control, allowing for targeting of heat signatures weaker than flares.
--- Distributed Swarm Fire - Drone can distribute targets amongst the swarm.
--- Tweaked many stock ship designs. Removed some ammo of gunships. Tweaked flare launchers/ammo for most ships. Slightly larger radiators to deal with temperature safety margins.
- Design
--- Blast Launcher - Vertical launcher module which uses explosives to eject flares, missiles, and drones. One-shot, uses no power, high velocities, and extremely fast fire rates, though extremely volatile, requiring plenty of armor. All stock flare launchers have been switched to blast launchers.
--- Dumbfire Rockets - Can build spacecrafts without turning ability without error.
--- Launch Caps - Launchers have optional, customizable caps which can prevent them from firing too many payloads in combat.
--- Temperature Safety Margins - Materials can no longer be pressed up to their melting point, and instead must have thin margins. Powerplants and NTRs and lasers are most affected.
--- Prismatic Block Reactors - All nuclear reactors are now calculated as using prismatic block layouts (similar in results to pebble bed reactors), which reduces the fuel temperature in comparison to the moderator and control rod temperatures.
--- Editable descriptions for modules and ships.
--- Tweaked costs. Magnetic materials and high molecular weight materials are much cheaper now.
--- Material fixes: Alnico, Gold, Polyethylene, Silicon Nanothermite, Fluorine Ammonia, CO2, AlZnMg, Boron split into an extremely weak bulk material and an even stronger fiber material.
--- Material adds (most from the forums): Co-60, Ca-227, Tc-99, Various Hypergolic propellants and reactions, Chlorine, Fluorine RP-1 Reaction, Caesium, Amorphous Zirconium Steel.
--- Tweaked several default limits.
- UI
--- In ship design, detailed breakdown of heat graph. Heat graph represented as Ambient vs Peak power.
--- In design, can duplicate while in the editing screen of ships and modules.
--- Edit text boxes allow highlighting.
- Mods
--- Limits.txt now can be overriden via mods.
--- Can mod in "Cost_c__kg" and "PoissonsRatio" for materials. These values will override pre-calculated values.
--- Mod crashes now instead redirect player to Import Log without crashing.
- Other
--- Numerous bug fixes. Most important ones: Binary stars light planets and ships properly, carrier modules respect energy conservation, gamma radiation affects crew modules, payload crew counts corrected for guns, export no longer duplicates entries.
--- Several crash fixes.
Highlights
Auto-reintercept whenever enemy dodges your intercept
Distribute Fire amongst many targets such as swarms of drones or missiles
Guns which launch payloads can be manually fired, just like launcher modules.
Electric Turret Actuators
Internal weapon mounts
Composite barrel armor
Many bugs/crashes/optimizations
Full Changelist:
- 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.
View on Steam
Auto-reintercept whenever enemy dodges your intercept
Distribute Fire amongst many targets such as swarms of drones or missiles
Guns which launch payloads can be manually fired, just like launcher modules.
Electric Turret Actuators
Internal weapon mounts
Composite barrel armor
Many bugs/crashes/optimizations
Full Changelist:
- 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.
Patch 1.1.0 is out now!
Highlights
- Capacitors for railguns and coilguns.
- Railguns and coilguns conserve energy now.
- Lasers can be separated from their mounts.
- Laser optics can be sniped in combat.
- Turrets with 90+ degree attack arcs.
- Tapered radiators
- More tracers
- Combat AI is much better. In particular, they smartly use 'ignore range' now.
- Can shift burn nodes in orbital view.
- Mod import/export.
- And tons more!
Patch Notes
- 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.
- 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.
View on Steam
Highlights
- Capacitors for railguns and coilguns.
- Railguns and coilguns conserve energy now.
- Lasers can be separated from their mounts.
- Laser optics can be sniped in combat.
- Turrets with 90+ degree attack arcs.
- Tapered radiators
- More tracers
- Combat AI is much better. In particular, they smartly use 'ignore range' now.
- Can shift burn nodes in orbital view.
- Mod import/export.
- And tons more!
Patch Notes
- 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.
- 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.
Patch 1.0.8 is out!
Highlights:
External Discardable Propellant Tanks - Allows parallel (but not tandem) staging rockets.
Combat can be paused at will.
AI vs AI combats can be set up in the sandbox.
Fixed point (unturreted) lasers can be made.
Lasers can be frequency quadrupled now.
Timers/fuses on nuclear and explosive payloads.
Basic sensor inaccuracy now affects all weapons.
Projectile shot pattern reworked to be more realistic.
A slew of bug and crash fixes.
Full Changelist:
1.0.8
- 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.
View on Steam
Highlights:
External Discardable Propellant Tanks - Allows parallel (but not tandem) staging rockets.
Combat can be paused at will.
AI vs AI combats can be set up in the sandbox.
Fixed point (unturreted) lasers can be made.
Lasers can be frequency quadrupled now.
Timers/fuses on nuclear and explosive payloads.
Basic sensor inaccuracy now affects all weapons.
Projectile shot pattern reworked to be more realistic.
A slew of bug and crash fixes.
Full Changelist:
1.0.8
- 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.
Missile guidance algorithms have been heavily tweaked. Guidance algorithms are now customizable in the Remote Control module.
Payloads now have a "Hard Range" and "Activation Range".
Modules can be renamed. Module sliders can be edited via text editor.
Intercept stats are displayed when you have an intercept.
Aerogel has refractive indices fixed, which affects its response to laser damage significantly. Many more minor material changes.
And many more minor changes, bug fixes, and crash fixes.
Full Changelist:
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.
View on Steam
Payloads now have a "Hard Range" and "Activation Range".
Modules can be renamed. Module sliders can be edited via text editor.
Intercept stats are displayed when you have an intercept.
Aerogel has refractive indices fixed, which affects its response to laser damage significantly. Many more minor material changes.
And many more minor changes, bug fixes, and crash fixes.
Full Changelist:
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.
'Pocket' nukes had scientific accuracy issues with their fusion fuel, which should now be fixed in this patch. Nuclear weapons and reactors in general have had a number of small issues fixed. Some custom nukes (and their launchers) may be in error as a result.
Ranges in module designer are larger, so you can make propellant tanks and engines much smaller than before.
Lots of small errors in ship design/module design and materials are fixed.
And lots of crashes fixed.
Full Changelist
- 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.
View on Steam
Ranges in module designer are larger, so you can make propellant tanks and engines much smaller than before.
Lots of small errors in ship design/module design and materials are fixed.
And lots of crashes fixed.
Full Changelist
- 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.
Offline Mode is now supported for the game, as is the option for inverted rotation controls, and using the default OS cursor.
Nuclear blasts were incorrectly calculated as too low power, this has been resolved, which should remedy some of the issues with the level Orbital Fallout. Nuclear missiles are also made a little better at hitting the target too.
"Supergun" coilgun and railgun designs which were violating the laws of physics have been corrected now.
Finally, a slew of crashes and other bugs have been fixed.
Full Changelist
- 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.
View on Steam
Nuclear blasts were incorrectly calculated as too low power, this has been resolved, which should remedy some of the issues with the level Orbital Fallout. Nuclear missiles are also made a little better at hitting the target too.
"Supergun" coilgun and railgun designs which were violating the laws of physics have been corrected now.
Finally, a slew of crashes and other bugs have been fixed.
Full Changelist
- 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.
Current Release
Build 2945058
Uploaded Aug 28, 2026
System Requirements
OS
N/A
CPU
Intel Core i5 @ 1.70 GHz processor
RAM
2 GB RAM
GPU
Intel HD Graphics 3000
How to Install
1
Download all files
2
Extract the .ZIP file to a folder (use WinRAR or 7-Zip)
3
Run CDE.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Archive password
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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Download Children of a Dead Earth for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Children of a Dead Earth for free. Children of a Dead Earth is a Simulation released by Q Switched Productions, LLC.