Drones: 2024 review

Welcome Captain!

I admit I've not being very regular with game updates so... here we go. Meanwhile, under the hood, Drones: Defenders Astartes [DDA from now on], has seen a lot of changes.

But before digging into the update... a quick announcement.

What's next?

I plan to release a playable demo on February 2025!. The demo will be focused on further improve the game by collecting feedback directly from the players.

As improvements will be made to the game engine, new versions of the demo will be made available, to keep the communication channel open.

Has been a very long journey up to this point and I excited at the idea the game will be open to the public.

Ad majora!

Improved graphics

Much effort has been spent into subtly improving many aspect of the simulation. Overall the graphic style is consistent with its previous iterations but a number of special effects have been added.

New the player drone is fully vector-based. The engine exhaust has been improved and it reacts more realistically to player's inputs and other events: like launching from the mothership. The drone graphics are also being used in most of the UI, giving a more unified and clean look.

Enemy ships are also vector-based graphics and have a number of additional effects attached.

The mission selector screen is now animated, with the Albion star system actually revolving around it's star.

Now the mission briefing screen is more dynamic and shows a vector-based animation of the mission objectives, while still being fully voiced over by the mothership AI.

The weapons graphics is now also engine-based, thus fully vectorized. I feel the final effect is much more in line with the overall game aesthetics and those explosions, are soo smooth, that I can't help but feel there are never enough on screen, at the same time.

Finally, every time a new mission is started, the drone will have some pre-flight checks, that will accurately mimic internal system status (more on this later). You will be able to briefly see these on launch sequence.

Energy management

The system management has been completely rewrote. The original code was very slow in its execution and, most important, was not what I envisioned from the beginning.

The energy generator was not actually "drained" of the generated energy as it was used by the systems and there was no way for the player to see, in real time, energy being used. This has been dramatically improved.

Every system now will consume energy when actually operated, engines included.

Weapons systems

The main weapons remain unchanged:

1. Blaster Gun

2. Rail Gun

3. Laser Cannon

4. Plasma mines

Also the secondary weapons remains unchanged:

1. Rockets

2. Homing missiles

What changed is the logic that operates them. Now, every weapon has a "clip", that allow the player to shoot continuously, until exhausted and will not consume energy or mass. Once the clip is exhausted, and required to be reloaded, it will consume energy or mass.

The enemies will face same limitations as the player. So it could happen that there will be short pauses between their attacks, providing some respite to the player.

Internal systems damage

All the internal systems of the Drone, will have a structural integrity and a chance of being damaged. The UI now have "lamp lights", that will become orange or red, based on the damage level of the system.

Some of the systems could make the Drone nearly inoperative and could require immediate repairs. Other could be a nuisance or just reduce the player ability to fight.

Either case, the player will be in charge of deciding when is time to reach the mothership for essential repairs.

Modular enemies

One of the main challenges I faced with the previous iteration of the engine, was that each enemy, should have been coded from scratch. This was not only impractical but nearly impossible to manage. Every change to the underlying engine, required me to go back and redo most enemies. This slowed me to a halt in development.

Now I have created a library of modules that, used in certain ways, allow me to create diverse enemies capabilities much faster and easier to maintain.

Enemies AI

While DDA has strong simulation elements, it still presents itself as a shoot'em up. To this end I've thought far and wide how to implement enemies behaviour.

And I reached a conclusion: I want them to have clear patterns but also retain ability to adapt. This way, I still aim to create a familiar environment for shoot'em up enthusiasts while giving it a twist.

The AI will also follow player "physics" and will not be able to cheat.