Sky Link Steam Charts & Player Count

13 Oct 2022Developer post

Sky Link Offline

Hey Sky Captains! We are a small team that started with a dream to challenge traditional shooters and bring that experience to the skies! It has been a wonderful and crazy road but we are so close! Today, we would like to announce Sky Link: Freefire as our Free-to-Play path forwa

Hey Sky Captains!
We are a small team that started with a dream to challenge traditional shooters and bring that experience to the skies! It has been a wonderful and crazy road but we are so close!

Today, we would like to announce Sky Link: Freefire as our Free-to-Play path forward! Everyone who has purchased Sky Link will be reimbursed with:
+1 Unique Sky Captain Skin
+1 Unique Sky Captain Portrait
+4 Drones
+375,000 Currency

Temporarily, Sky Link will go offline and will be available by the second quarter of 2023 with many exciting features, community playtests, and more!
Signup for playtests here

FLIGHT PATH AHEAD!

Introducing our communities!

TEAM DEATHMATCH

We are focusing on a more standard Team Deathmatch mode for launch, with a potential Ranked mode and general Ladder System. There will be a Revive Mechanic included in the mode, where players can revive their teammates to not lose a point. Upload is still contemplated as a more competitive mode, but we wanted to create a more competitive mode with the community while players wreck stuff in TDM.

PROGRESSION

We will be adding progression to the game as well for launch. Players will be able to progress through each drone once they're unlocked to mix and match different modules combinations to open different playstyles for each drone.

MAPS

Players will have access to new maps. We hope to launch with multiple maps, we will announce more as we get closer to the launch date.

Pandora

Split

Vice Bay

MOVEMENT

We feel we’ve created an exciting and unique flight model that includes multiple movement mechanics that are yet to be seen in any aerial combat game. These are designed to be easy to learn and difficult to master, so the focus is not just in downing enemies by firing weapons and launching missiles but also by using movement mechanics to stay alive. Together we feel this makes for a very engaging, tense and exciting experience that we hope others enjoy as much as we do!

BOTS

We are working to improve our bots in the game so that players can enjoy a decent challenge Skirmishing against them to get to know the different playstyles available. At some point we hope to get those bots to the point where they can prove more of a challenge to players and start including them in future game modes.

POLISH

We are working hard on general polish as well focusing on the following main areas:
Making sure transitions are smoother.
Improve player understanding of combat scenarios by making them more intuitive,
Players can now locate others by just listening for example.
As well being able to see or feel from where they are being fired at.
More clear combat utility and improved feel of Smoke in game.
All sides should have proper feedback from each ability and item.
Polish for shiny purposes
Improve sensation when spawning/respawning
Each drone will have a unique sound for its engine.
Idle and active effects for the engine.
Clearer indications of which movement mechanic is under use.
UI upgrades all around,
In game Tab screen
Matchmaking flow
HUD improvements

If you got this far reading, thanks for sticking around! Hope to see everyone in our aerial battlefield of the future! Suit up and link up, see you in the skies!

Sky Link: FreeFire: COMING SOON!

Changelist

VFX

Spawning and respawning fx applied to drones.
Hit indicator spheres added to drones to tell players which direction damage came from.
Added a subtle camera shake when damage is received.
Redid Stasis and EMP

Maps

Pandora and Split:
Smoke floors replace water in several maps and smoke clouds have been added to provide cover, supporting close range combat and escapes.
Split now will open areas when 6 or more players join the match.

UI

Tab screen
Score screen
Dead screen
Garage and cosmetics UI
Ping system - ping allies for a blue mark, enemies for red, and anything else for white.

Road Map

These are larger features being worked on, planned, or subject to change.
Progression and attachment system - level up to unlock attachments!:

Improved bots - receive orders and context awareness.
Missile redesign - more missiles coming to drones!
Hit indicator improvements - Effects UI indicators, screen edge overlays.
Ladder System - a more competitive format where you can rank up from bronze, silver, gold, platinum.

Game modes
Team Deathmatch Plunder - Currency as a 2nd win condition and respawn.

Unreal Engine 5
Battle Royale?

Original post

18 Aug 2021Developer post

Shoot Down the Devs! - August 18th, 2021

A new week, a new chance to make Odisi devs go down in a blaze of glory. Our Weekly Play with the Devs event allows you to fly among our ranks, fight with and against us through several matches, and experience all the big and minor details of our game. Most of our matches start a

11 Aug 2021Developer post

Play With the Devs! - August 11th, 2021

It's time to enter the fiery skies of Sky Link and take down the devs once more! Our Weekly Play with the Devs event allows you to fly among our ranks, fight with and against us through several matches, and experience all the big and minor details of our game. Most of our matches

04 Aug 2021Developer post

Play With the Devs! - August 4th, 2021

It's that time again! For all people that joined us previously and new pilots that want to join, our Weekly Play with the Devs event allows you to fly among our ranks, fight with and against us through several matches, and experience all the big and minor details of our game. Mos

28 Jul 2021Developer post

Fly with the Devs! - July 28th, 2021

It's that time again! For all people that joined us previously and new pilots that want to join, our Weekly Play with the Devs event allows you to fly among our ranks, fight with and against us through several matches, and experience all the big and minor details of our game. Mos

21 Jul 2021Developer post

Fly with the Devs!

We've been busy with the launch of the game and our first patch, but now that this is out of the way, we are planning on resuming our Weekly Play with the Devs schedule! For all people that joined us previously and new pilots that want to join, our Weekly Play with the Devs event

21 Jul 2021Developer post

Patch Notes - The One Where the Megadon Shield Gets Nerfed

We've got some shiny new patch notes for you all today! This build just went live on Steam, so you might need to download the sucker before you get to shooting through the Megadon's shield as the Raptor. Yes, we're sorry that the Raptor was unable to hurt the shield before. Inste

We've got some shiny new patch notes for you all today! This build just went live on Steam, so you might need to download the sucker before you get to shooting through the Megadon's shield as the Raptor.

Yes, we're sorry that the Raptor was unable to hurt the shield before. Instead of "Rock, Paper, Scissors", a Meg vs Raptor fight was like "Lava versus Pompeii". Too soon?

There's a bunch of other tweaks too, and we've been messing with it on the test server - we think it feels pretty great! Just remember - if you LOSE a firefight, sometimes that's not the game being imbalance...

Anyway, take a look at the patch notes below and stay tuned later today, Wednesday, July 21st, for the next Play With The Devs Event!

Balance tweaks

Megadon
· Reduced initial Rate of Fire of Storm slightly, from 5 per second to 4.
· Increased time for Storm to ramp up to full Rate of Fire from 2.75 seconds to 3.
· Reduced minimum time to trigger Incendiary Grenade from 0.75 seconds to 0.5.
· Increased recoil slightly
· Reduced Armor from 105 to 100
Sky Reaper
· Reduced Armor from 105 to 100.
Type 3B
· Increased cooldown of Armor Buff from 30 to 35 seconds
· Increased initial stage HP of Sentry Turret from 40 to 50
· Increased Rate of Fire of Sentry Turret from 5.8 per to second to 8.3
Sting Wolf
· Increased alpha damage of Nova cannon from 40 to 50.
· Reduced rate of fire from 2 to 1.8
Shade
· Reduced damage falloff slightly, increasing 40+ meter damage.
Prowler
· Reduced slightly Ion Wasp’s recoil per shot
· Reduced slightly accuracy penalty while moving
Upload Game Mode
· Reduced time package needs to spend in an Upload zone to win round from 45 seconds to 40

Features and improvements

· Brightness for the Nanocloud Bomb has been tweaked
· Bots in Skirmish has been given new names
· Damage numbers font size increased
· Raptor can now damage the Megadon's shield
· Players can now toggle a visual indicator of key mappings
· Improvements to the shield barrier, making it more subtle and better looking. This also lead to better performance overall.
· Armor Buff VFX has been changed to yellow to match the bar in the HUD
· Zoomout on Minimap has been increased from 200m to 350m

Original post

24 Jun 2021Developer post

Introducing SKY LINK!

Well, the day is finally here. All your patience and waiting have paid off. This... is Sky Link . In just a little bit, you'll notice an update available for Drone Strike Force that changes the game to Sky Link, and we honestly couldn't be more excited to bring this to all of you

Well, the day is finally here. All your patience and waiting have paid off. This... is Sky Link.

In just a little bit, you'll notice an update available for Drone Strike Force that changes the game to Sky Link, and we honestly couldn't be more excited to bring this to all of you that have been with us since the start.

Formerly known as Drone Strike Force, Sky Link is a groundbreaking aerial shooter that aims to be the fastest online game in existence. Sky Link gives you unparalleled freedom as you control powerful UAVs such as the tank-like Megadon or the stealthy tactical Shade Z1 to defeat your opponents and win the day. Grapple, afterburn, and expertly maneuver your way across varied war-torn battlefields in a fight for the world’s most valuable resource - information.

With aerial speeds of up to 250 MPH, Sky Link promises to be unlike anything in the online gaming scene, with unique sky-based combat, tactical grappling hooks, and a primary game mode that aims to shake up the world of team-based games. Designed to be easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master.

With a renewed focus on aerial combat, Sky Link pushes the boundaries of spatial awareness and high maneuverability with the sheer freedom of three-dimensional gameplay at your fingertips.

Intense high-speed combat at speeds up to 250 MPH
Easy to learn, difficult to master movement mechanics:
Air Grapple System (AGS) - Be a robotic Spider-Man in a dystopian battlefield. Punch your foes, swing across the cityscape, and steal the cache from the enemy.
Instant Engine Cut Off - Got a bogey on your tail? Cut your engines, and lose ‘em fast.
360 Degree Warfare - Fights can happen literally anywhere in the map - above, behind, below. No space is safe.

More than Just Fly and Gun… Introducing UPLOAD

The main game mode in Sky Link is UPLOAD - a tactical 3V3 competition where two teams fight to take a cache of sensitive data to specific upload zones within a given map. The attackers must either upload the entire package before the time runs out, or eliminate their opponents.

Meanwhile, the defending team must destroy their attackers or prevent them from being able to get the upload to 100 percent. The first team to win the required number of rounds wins the day and the digital glory.

The New Weapons of Warfare

With devastating tech at your disposal, you’ll have plenty of options when it comes to not only how you look, but what role and loadouts work best for your playstyle. Each tactical UAV has a role to play and their own set of weapons and skills to help their teams win the day. Tactical usage of various unique abilities allows you to push the limits of what each aircraft can do.

There’s no shortage of interesting skills across our selection of aircraft. From a devastating remote-controlled missile to an electromagnetic pulse that pushes enemies into their surroundings, possibly exploding them on impact. There’s a plasma leash that can double both as a weapon and a repair beam, as well as a turret that can attach itself to any surface and create a deadly choke point between buildings.

AND IT'S ON SALE!

To top all this new hotness off, we're also putting Sky Link on sale during the Steam Summer Sale for a frighteningly cheap $9.99 (that's 50% off!). That means on June 24th, when the sale begins, it's the best time to jump in if you've had the game on your wishlist or if you want to share the aerial battling with your friends and family.

We hope you enjoy the work we've been doing, and we're sorry it's taken so long to bring this unique experience to you... but we think you'll agree it's been worth the wait.

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/playskylink
If you're a creator, you can claim a key on Woovit! - https://woovit.info/sky-link

Original post

26 Feb 2021Developer post

The Shade Z1 Sneaks Into the Fight

“Everyone with their missiles, their lasers, their turrets… give me a cloak and a shotty any day of the week and I’ll show you what damage I can do.” - James Reginald Pierce III, United Kingdom RAF Cyber Pilot Program We’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks highlighting th

“Everyone with their missiles, their lasers, their turrets… give me a cloak and a shotty any day of the week and I’ll show you what damage I can do.” - James Reginald Pierce III, United Kingdom RAF Cyber Pilot Program

We’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks highlighting the larger and “in charger” Champions coming when Upload hits the live servers. This week, we thought we’d give you a sneak peek at the Shade Z1 - a small, nimble, and stealthy craft that flies softly and carries a very big stick.

What the Shade lacks in options for combat, it more than makes up for with its superb agility, stealth mechanics, and extremely potent auto-shotgun known as “Mow Town”. When combined with the Shade’s main Stealth Cloak skill, sneaking up behind an unsuspecting sniper or a defending enemy becomes an act of pure beauty when their craft goes crashing down to the battlefield floor in pieces and flames.

But beware, though the Shade Z1 is one of the most potent and dangerous Champions in the game, this sort of quick burst damage doesn’t come without its drawbacks - the Shade isn’t exactly known for having a lot of armor or survivability. So when the going gets tough, or if you miss your chance at a shotgun blast when you come out of stealth, it’s probably best to use your “Ghost Protocol” skill and get the hell out of dodge before it’s your turn to explode. Or, you can use it to sneak the package out of the scoring zone, like so...

But fear now, if you thought the Shade had limited firepower, there’s one more tool in the little guy’s utility belt - the Smart Grenade. A limited use homing grenade that locks on targets and chases them - exploding and causing splash damage to surrounding crafts - the Smart Grenade is that one final boost to damage the Shade Z1 sometimes needs to make sure they get their kill.

That’s it for the Shade Z1, our Champion that’s pretty much custom made for players who like stealth and getting in close to do their dirty work. So stay tuned for more details on this and all our Champions leading up to Upload’s launch in the coming weeks.

We look forward to revealing even more of our new Champions in the weeks ahead, but for now, stay tuned to our social channels on Twitter, and join our Discord to take part in the latest playtests!

Original post

19 Jan 2021Developer post

The Megadon is Coming

“I’m all for making statements in battle. With my trusty Meg, that statement is usually ‘I’m going to murder you with machine guns and large explosives’.” Dimitry Volkshyn - Ukrainian Aerial Supremacy Program The Megadon is one of 8 new Champions being introduced with the Upload

“I’m all for making statements in battle. With my trusty Meg, that statement is usually ‘I’m going to murder you with machine guns and large explosives’.” Dimitry Volkshyn - Ukrainian Aerial Supremacy Program

The Megadon is one of 8 new Champions being introduced with the Upload content update in the coming weeks, and well - it’s a beast!

Equipped with a high-accuracy, rapid-fire machine gun as its main weapon, an incendiary grenade to burn foes, a massive front-facing shield for extra defense, and a handy self-heal bot to keep the party going, the Megadon is both one of our most straight-forward champions and one of the most rugged and long-lasting.

It may seem simple, but the Storm-99 multi-barrel machine gun is an extremely fast-firing and high-precision weapon meant to chew through opponents’ armor and whittle down their health at a fast rate. When combined with the defense-boosting shield barrier skill, the Megadon quickly becomes a floating metallic hunk of death incarnate.

And when you’re out of ammo, waiting for a reload, the Megadon’s incendiary grenade is always on standby for a “don’t get too close to me” button to send a fiery signal to your foes. Just a gentle reminder - when you’re out of rounds on the gun and out of grenades, it’s time to move your large butt out of the line of fire.

There are no stealth or hiding techniques for a big tanky aerial demon like the Megadon. But what grace he’s lacking, he more than makes up for with amazingly high survivability and potent reliable firepower to deal damage in a dogfight.

And though he’s not the fastest champion in our game, the Megadon’s handy little healing bot makes sure he has survivability to find friends and recharge between firefights. Just don’t get caught in a losing team-fight while it’s on recharge or you might end up a hunk of scrap on the streets of the Fjords.

We look forward to revealing even more of our new Champions in the weeks ahead, but for now, stay tuned to our social channels on Twitter, and join our Discord to take part in the latest playtests!

Original post

11 Dec 2020Developer post

Introducing The Raptor

“She may be little, but she’s pretty clever. Plus, bonus points for being the closest thing our Digital Air team has to a Jedi…” Shinua Ryujin - South Korean Digital Air Superiority Squad The Raptor is one of our game’s 8 new incredible Champions coming in the highly anticipated

“She may be little, but she’s pretty clever. Plus, bonus points for being the closest thing our Digital Air team has to a Jedi…” Shinua Ryujin - South Korean Digital Air Superiority Squad

The Raptor is one of our game’s 8 new incredible Champions coming in the highly anticipated Upload patch early next year!

Armed with a plasma leash that also doubles as a healing beam, it's a small and nimble craft that’s built for stealthy support as well as wrecking mechanical faces at a moment’s notice if given the chance.

The coolest part about this strategic dual-purpose weapon is that it latches onto targets and follows them, making aiming a secondary necessity - just be sure you’re in range and tracking your target in front of you to make it work. Similarly - the healing beam, when pointed at allies, provides a critically consistent health recharge, making it one hell of a support healer for a two-pronged rush on the package.

Just be careful, because while the Plasma Leash doesn’t use the typical ammo on the battlefield, it does run off the same power that is critical to your boosters - use ‘em too much and you won’t be able to get out of dodge when you need to the most!

But don’t fret too much as the grenade can work in a pinch to launch in front of you, or drop below you for ground cover or a quick burst of damage in a firefight.

There are two final tricks up the Raptor’s sleeve - the enemy-annoying radar scrambler, and the Force Push. If you need to get away from a heated battle in one piece, the scrambler will do the job, making it hard for enemies to track you around buildings as you speed away.

But the real star of the show for the Raptor? It’s got to be its long-cooldown multi-target-slapping Force Push. This is the ultimate “I need an adult!” button and works extremely well when defending the package during Upload matches. It emits a massive electromagnetic pulse that pushes all surrounding enemies away from you - and if they hit the buildings and walls around you? Chances are they’re gonna have a bad time.

We look forward to revealing more of our new Champions in the weeks ahead, but for now, stay tuned to our social channels on Twitter, and join our Discord to take part in the latest playtests!

Original post

12 Nov 2020Developer post

Say Hello to the Sky Reaper

“It’s hard to argue with a missile screaming down your six.” - Sky Reaper Pilot, Johan Lahiri - Swedish Digital Operations Force The Sky Reaper is the first of eight new champions we want to profile for you all. When Upload launches in the coming weeks, eight new “Champions” will

16 Oct 2020Developer post

Introducing Codename: Upload

This year sure has flown by! We just celebrated the one year anniversary of Drone Strike Force’s launch for Early Access here on Steam. We want to thank each and every one of you for not only your interest in our game, but also the fantastic feedback and thoughts you’ve all given

This year sure has flown by! We just celebrated the one year anniversary of Drone Strike Force’s launch for Early Access here on Steam. We want to thank each and every one of you for not only your interest in our game, but also the fantastic feedback and thoughts you’ve all given as they’ve helped us shape and refine the game into what we have coming in our upcoming massive update. This is just the beginning of the major changes we have coming to Drone Strike Force in the near future. There are many more changes than this to come, but we’re not quite ready to share all of them yet. Just know - things are about to get crazy.

We’ve been toiling away at a new game mode, the new Champions, and a whole slew of other fixes we’re going to talk about here, and that means this massive update is taking a lot longer than originally intended. That said, one thing we’ve been working on should help speed up our communication with you on a more regular basis! We hired the inimitable Lindsey “Insert Cool Name” as our new Community Manager, and she’s going to be helping out on social media, Discord, and here on Steam to make sure we code monkeys keep you more apprised of what’s going on behind the scenes.

Lindsey, take it away!

Hi everyone! Really happy to be here and to be a part of the team at Odisi working on Drone Strike Force. I’m so excited to be working with the team on this game, and there are so many awesome things coming down the pipeline. I can’t wait to be able to share them with you all! I’ve been a gamer almost my entire life, owning over 15 consoles and spending thousands of hours on hundreds of games over the decades. I can easily say that gaming is baked into my DNA at this point, and that passion is why I love working in this industry and engaging with fellow gamers. I look forward to getting to know you all – and I sincerely hope you enjoy all of the amazing new additions to the game that we’re hard at work on.

Drones Become Champions:

In the upcoming milestone update, we’ll be converting our existing Drone system to a collection of eight “Champions” - think of these like heroes or classes in other competitive shooters. We showcased the Megadon and the Cyclops in our last update, but in the coming weeks we’ll be deep-diving into each one of the Champions and what makes them unique and how they help their team in the skies. We’ve got a load of new skins for all the Champions coming into the game in the future. Take a look at one in the screenshot below!

Upload - The New Game Mode:

Our new game mode, Upload, continues to come along amazingly. So much so that we’re positive it’s going to be the main game mode when we finally unleash it to the world later this year.

We teased Upload recently on our Discord channel when we dropped a trailer on YouTube, giving just a taste of what’s to come. This game mode will streamline all matchmaking into one mode for now, as we feel that it’s the most exciting and competitive of all the current modes.

In addition to Upload, thanks to a lot of iteration and dedication our team has developed an upgraded flight model and a new game mode designed to take full advantage of the aerial aspect of our combat.
Strap in, because this is a lot:

Upload Details:

There is a Data Cache located at the center of the map.
Attackers need to pick it up and bring it to one of two Upload Zones.
The longer the Data Cache is in the Upload Zone, the more points the attackers score.
Defenders can destroy the Champion carrying the Data Cache to make it fall to the ground.
Players on both teams can use the new Grappling Hook [by pressing G] to drag a loose Data Cache towards them - causing havoc for the opposing team.
Teams will take turns being Attackers and Defenders. The highest score wins at the end of the match. The number of rounds in each match is still being finalized.
Each player has one respawn per round, so tactics and coordination are essential to victory. If a team is completely destroyed during a round, the standing team automatically wins the round.

Aerial Combat Improvements:

Check Your Vector - Navigate and Aim with six degrees of freedom to strike foes from above or below. Holding right-click allows you to aim with 360 degrees of motion, but only for a limited time.
Watch Those Corners - Collision damage from buildings and other obstacles means pilots have to choose between speed and danger. Skilled pilots will be able to thread their way between buildings at high velocity.
Control The Skies - Altitude is a valuable asset; climb when you can and dive when the time is right.
Precision Strikes - Enhanced gun play makes accurate pilots all the more dangerous.

More Notes and Changes:

New Map - Fjords, a snow and ice based cityscape with a communications tower at its heart where the Data Cache resides.
Refactoring matchmaking - Generating matches is much more flexible now. A Match can be generated from various ongoing skirmishes. You can even earn XP in skirmish mode. No more waiting to play!
Hit recognition - Our resident programming wizards have worked hard to update our core systems to improve all hit recognition, making sure all hits are accounted for properly.
Drones Go Boom More - Balance has been tweaked to reduce overall HP while damage has been generally increased. Get rekt.
A New Armor System - All Champions now have armor that can regen, giving them a shield overtop their normal health pool. This does not affect their ability to get rekt.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these details as much as we’ve enjoyed sharing it with you. Be sure to stay tuned because we have so many more surprises and announcements in store as we ramp up to releasing our MASSIVE update to you all.

It will be, quite literally, a game changer.

If you aren’t already following us on Twitter, you definitely want to make sure you are as we’ll be sharing a lot of details through there about the Champions, Upload, and so much more!

Original post

08 Apr 2020Developer post

Development Update - Drone Champions and Package Run!

Good morning, pilots! We’re getting really close to go-time with both our Package Run mode, and all the major changes we outlined in the last letter. But today, to tide you over, we wanted to dip into just how all of these changes will manifest in the game and what we’re doing to

Good morning, pilots!

We’re getting really close to go-time with both our Package Run mode, and all the major changes we outlined in the last letter. But today, to tide you over, we wanted to dip into just how all of these changes will manifest in the game and what we’re doing to make them as fun as possible.

We’ve been testing internally the new Champion drones and the Package Run, and we have to tell you - it’s just about the most fun Drone Strike Force has ever been. We’ve had friends from around the industry join us, and they all say the same thing. We know it’s been a long wait since we’re a small team, but trust us when we say it’s going to be worth it!

Now - onto the details!

Bots: The Bots in DSF are getting better by the day! Each individual bot is now more aggressive and can select an optimal weapon for engagement. We are now testing getting the bots to work together in Patrols. So while each bot might be more difficult to take down, soon they will be working together creating an interesting challenge for the player!

Once we push this out to Production, we will implement some experience gain for defeating bots to help Players progress no matter what they’re doing. This could be the basis potentially for some more PvE oriented content such as Players vs Swarms, as well as other PvP Game Modes that treat Patrols of bots more like Minions where the bots could potentially assist in Game Mode objectives and even be given commands by Player operated Drones.

Magazine and Reload: In internal testing and QA! This is a big change to our systems, and really adds a new and meaningful layer to the gameplay. Shooting is not constant or spammable anymore, it requires timing and more precision. This will allow us to include variants of weapons and opens a clear pathway for interesting progression based options.

Package Run: This started out as, “wouldn’t it be fun to do Capture The Flag (CTF) with drones?” Now, the mode is best described as (American) Football with one flag CTF and it's not a flag but a delivery package. And it's tons of fun!! We are still refining all the details, and will start involving some of our community to help test it out soon!

We are also in the process of testing Package Run game mode in other maps. One of those maps is still in greybox and unreleased while the others, Players may have seen from the other Game Modes.

Champions: We want to introduce to you our first two descriptions of the new Drone loadouts, 6 more unique Champions on the way!!

Megadon: Sporting a huge Storm 99 gatling gun that is a BOSS! Firing slows the Drone down but it lays down the law. The Megadon has the most HP by far and the Shield Barrier has more HP than the drone itself! Pop some heals and cook up some drones with the super fun Incendiary Grenade. The Megadon might feel a bit slow flying, but it is very responsive and its boost has rockets on it that burn out easily but rockets you forward super fast!

Cyclops: This is a sniper with a twist. Well, it's a flying sniper. The Olympus Rail Gun is a super accurate weapon, you hit what you see. But being a Rail Gun it needs to charge up. You can snapshot but the downside is that it will do less damage. There's no falloff damage however and damage scales up significantly the longer you hold zoom down up until a max damage that delivers the highest alpha with deadly accuracy.

These are just 2 of the brand new Champion Drones that will take over the existing drone class based loadouts when they’re ready to go live. This makes diving into the game and picking a playstyle far more interesting and meaningful than before. It’s like each drone has a real personality and unique playstyle. We cannot wait for you to try them out!

Until then - fly straight, and shoot straighter!

Original post

25 Feb 2020Developer post

Producer’s Letter - BIG Things Are Coming

Hail, Sky Captains!! It has been a while since we chatted about the state of Drone Strike Force, and what’s going on behind the scenes. But that doesn't mean we haven’t been working hard! In fact, that’s probably the best reason I could give you for how quiet we’ve been. We are t

Hail, Sky Captains!!

It has been a while since we chatted about the state of Drone Strike Force, and what’s going on behind the scenes. But that doesn't mean we haven’t been working hard! In fact, that’s probably the best reason I could give you for how quiet we’ve been. We are taking many lessons during this Early Access period and trying to steer the game in a direction that is more rewarding for our existing players and the thousands more we hope to have join us at launch. We are eternally grateful for all the amazing feedback we have been getting on our Discord server from all our players. So, without further ado, let’s go through some of what we’ve been toiling away with the following main goals in mind….

Creating Unique Gameplay for Each Drone
More Meaningful Decisions in the Garage
More Incentives for Team-Based Gameplay
Loads of New Content!

FIRST UP - BALANCE!

Sentinel Class Flight: We are balancing flying to tease out a more unique feel for Sentinel’s flight. Tweaking the balance so heavier drones feel a little, well, heavier. While buffing in other areas to compensate. Thanks to the hard work of our amazing engineers we have a lot of variables in our flight systems to tweak.

Storm 99 and Predator: We are also working to balance out Storm 99 and the Predator to ensure there is proper differentiation between them, and unique instances where it is of benefit to use one over the other. Making sure there is a meaningful reason to choose one as opposed to the other for your load out. We are taking a pass at all of DSF's weapons with this in mind, as well as while we design new ones.

Olympus: We developed and are testing a system for the Olympus that allows it to charge up over time when in zoom. This way you can decide to go for the lower damage quicker snapshot or wait for the higher damage to kick in and take that one.

System Changes

Discoverability Changes: We have made some interesting changes to the discoverability mechanic that we are testing. We feel these changes are so far inducing more team based game play and hope that our community will notice an improvement when creating tactics with your teammates.

Magazines and Reload: We have started work on a new system to decouple ammo from energy. We feel this has a lot of potential to create more interesting variations of weaponry by liberating ammo and reloads from energy and therefore boost. While potentially something like our LWS laser armament could still use energy, we will be able to create more balanceable varieties of weaponry going forward. Generally, we found having energy and ammo systems linked to one resource as a source of friction. It was not easy to tell when your weapon was out of juice, and there was no way to force a reload. The end result was a player was incentivized to disengage from combat and recharge energy instead of just jamming a new magazine in quick to reload and start shooting again.

Skirmish and Matchmaking: Our engineers have been hard at work ensuring our matchmaking system is more polished. Skirmish was a big introduction to our matchmaking system and we had a lot of work to get it into a more polished state! Stability and reliability are continuously improving and we hope to push out those improvements as soon as possible.

Bots: We have also been improving our AI on the skirmish bots to make sure they provide a more rewarding experience so players can test out their drones while in the matchmaking queue.

New Content

New Game Mode - Package Run!

This is almost ready! We are polishing some final touches on the design of the mode to ensure balanced gameplay. We are having loads of fun playing it internally and cannot wait to share it with our community!

Preset Builds: We also wanted to let everyone know we are experimenting with preset loadouts that are super fun, unique, rewarding and tactical. The key criteria are under the same framework presented here, more unique gameplay experiences, more team based dynamics, new content and meaningful decisions for the player. We may run a playtest with our community in the coming months as these become more polished to get feedback.

It’s all just another step on the road to launch, and we hope you’ll enjoy all the changes and additions we’ve been working on. We will announce soon when they go live!

Thank you for all the support!

Original post

06 Dec 2019Developer post

Play with the Devs!

Hello everyone. Now is your chance to play with the Drone Strike Force dev team with full matches and tons of fun!. The next session will start this Friday at 3 PM EST. Remember that you can also participate in the Play with the Devs event with the Free Trial version and post you

27 Nov 2019Developer post

Play with the Devs Event

Hello everyone. We started experimenting with Play with the Devs for the past 2 weeks with superb results so we decided to make this a weekly event moving forward. Now is your chance to play with the Drone Strike Force dev team with full matches and tons of fun!. The next session

31 Oct 2019Developer post

Introducing the Wingman Program

Greetings Pilots! Do you have friends you’d like to share the friendly skies of Drone Strike Force with? Refer them to the game as your Wingman, and we’ll give you up to THREE free Platinum skins! For each friend you refer, you’ll be granted one Horus skin: first the Raptor 1000,

08 Sep 2019Developer post

Earn Double XP and Credits during weekend happy hours!

Greetings Pilots! This weekend, we’re continuing our tradition of Drone Strike Force Happy Hours where you can earn double XP and credits for each game you play! Here’s the play schedule: Saturday & Sunday: 7PM - 9PM CET / 6PM - 8PM GMT / 2PM - 4PM EDT / 11AM - 1PM PDT Weeken

07 Sep 2019Developer post

Two hours until Double XP and Credits!

Greetings Pilots! Happy Hours start in two hours! Earn double XP and credits for each game you play this weekend during the following time window: Saturday & Sunday: 7PM - 9PM CET / 6PM - 8PM GMT / 2PM - 4PM EDT / 11AM - 1PM PDT We’re looking to do this every Saturday and Sun

Updates & announcements

FLIGHT PATH AHEAD!

TEAM DEATHMATCH

PROGRESSION

MAPS

Pandora

Split

Vice Bay

MOVEMENT

BOTS

POLISH

Changelist

VFX

Maps

UI

Road Map

Balance tweaks

Features and improvements

More than Just Fly and Gun… Introducing UPLOAD

The New Weapons of Warfare

AND IT'S ON SALE!

Drones Become Champions:

Upload - The New Game Mode:

FIRST UP - BALANCE!

System Changes

New Content