Dogs Of War Vu

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Drone Sector is a futuristic gunship game. Provide close air support by firing variety of weapons at the enemies and guide your allied troops via commands. Keep your troops alive, complete objectives, collect resources and recruit engineers. Research better weaponry for the gunship and the troops.


Home page  (https://icosphere.dev/drone-sector)
Steam  (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3279440/Drone_Sector/)
Single Player


Drone Sector - Demo Trailer 2026



About

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Futuristic Drone Gunship
Drone Sector fuses the gunship close air support role with the drone's observation and mission command. Inspired by the real-life AC-130 gunship and MQ-9 Reaper drone, it merges these powerful roles in a futuristic setting, where advanced technology and heavier firepower enable you to take on more complex and dangerous missions. While not a pure military simulator, the focus remains on tactical planning and execution, with greater flexibility in mission design and weaponry.

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Mission Control
Guide your squads as they advance through hostile environments to achieve mission objectives. Command with precision, helping them avoid traps and eliminating high-priority threats with your overwhelming firepower. Outnumbered by enemy forces, you'll need to maximize your technological superiority to turn the tide.

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Mission-to-Mission Progression
During each mission, you'll need to make strategic decisions about resource gathering. Send your ground squads into buildings or key areas to collect vital resources and research documents—but this comes with risk. Stay too long, and you may lose your squad to overwhelming enemy forces. Decide when to extract and when to push your luck for valuable rewards.

Between missions back at base, upgrade your gunship, squads, and weapons. Manage your ammo production and research new technologies to improve your chances in the field.

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Key Features

• Fluid, responsive gunship weapon controls
• Multiple camera modes: color, night vision and thermal vision
• Commanding self-sufficient squads on the ground
• A variety of infantry and armored unit types
• Resource collection and ammunition management
• Weapon research and manufacturing
• Squad building and upgrades
• Handcrafted levels with randomized missions

AI Generated Content Disclosure
The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

No AI-generated content during gameplay. Non-English text localizations are AI-translated placeholders.


Mature Content Description
The developers describe the content like this:

Military combat involving firearms and explosions, resulting in enemy casualties. There is no depiction of blood, gore, or sexual content. Players engage in tactical missions where combat is between military forces. The game does not include depictions of drug or alcohol abuse, sexual assault, or self-harm.

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v0.1.4 - Pathfinding Update
Fri, July 31, 2026

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This update reworks the tactical pathfinding and vehicle movement systems, alongside several map, balance, and UI changes.


A new previous-version branch is also available on Steam. This allows you to return to v0.1.3 if the latest update causes problems. It can be selected from: Steam - Drone Sector - Properties - Game Versions & Betas - previous-version

Added
Added a public previous-version Steam branch containing v0.1.3.

Changed
Adjusted the lighting on the Patagonia Heights map.

Added more roads to the Flatland Airbase map.

Added large rocks around the starting areas of the Dry Foothills map, providing additional early cover and concealment.

Changed the HUD toggle key from H to Numpad 0.

UI
Hid research options that have not yet been implemented.

Increased the maximum gamepad aiming sensitivity to 100x.

Smoothed the squad movement lines displayed on the HUD. These lines are intended as loose guides rather than exact representations of the paths squads will follow. Squads retain some autonomy when moving, and short sections of the line may pass through walls or buildings.

Fixed
Vehicles now slow down more cautiously before making turns.

Balance
Direct hits from the railgun now deal armor-piercing damage instead of high-explosive damage.

Increased the railgun's area-of-effect damage.

Disabled ground-to-ground friendly fire on all difficulty levels. It remains available as an option in Sandbox Mode.


Technical
Reworked the tactical pathfinding layer. It now pre-calculates more navigation data, and the tactical navigation graph is generated automatically. This allows for faster iteration, improved consistency, and denser pathfinding data.

Reworked vehicle movement physics and AI. The new configuration provides finer and clearer control over vehicle behavior, making adjustments easier and addressing several weaknesses of the previous system.

Possible Issues
The higher-resolution tactical pathfinding data may have a greater performance cost. There are several potential ways to optimize it, but the current priority is to verify that the new system works correctly and measure its actual performance impact.


Known Issues
Infantry squad formation direction does not yet adjust to follow the shape of the path.

Vehicles may occasionally become stuck moving back and forth near trees, rocks, or other small obstacles. Issuing a new move order will usually resolve the issue. A fix is planned for the next update.

v0.1.5 - Combat Systems Update
Tue, August 11, 2026

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This update reworks several of Drone Sector's underlying combat systems, including projectile damage, explosions, and weapon configuration. Explosions can now use separate near and far damage areas instead of relying on a single explosion radius, providing more control over how different weapons deal damage.

Weapon and ammo selection UI has also been expanded to expose more of this information to the player. The new combat system is easier to balance and expand, and serves as an important foundation for more advanced damage behavior and potential weapon-stat modding in the future.

Vehicle movement and pathfinding also received another significant reliability pass. Vehicles should now handle corners more carefully, collide with walls less often, and recover from problematic movement situations much more reliably.


Added

• Restart Mission button.
• Difficulty information for Career Mode save slots.
• "Career Saved" HUD notification whenever the active career slot is saved.
• Player and enemy unit health multiplier sliders for Sandbox Mode.
• Aim and zoom inversion settings for mouse and gamepad.

Changed

• Renamed "Heat" to "Escalation" as it better describes what the system represents.
• Firefights between ground squads should last longer.
• Structures are more durable.

Combat

• Reworked projectile ballistics, ammo execution, and damage systems.
• Explosions can now use separate near and far damage areas instead of a single explosion radius.
• The new combat system makes weapon balance easier to adjust and provides more room for advanced damage models in the future.

Pathfinding & Vehicle Movement

• Further improved vehicle cornering and path-following reliability.
• Vehicles should slow down more appropriately before sharp corners, reducing sliding and collisions with walls.
• Reduced cases where vehicles get stuck in repeated movement loops or unrecoverable states.

Fixed

• Career Hard difficulty now shows the correct hint about friendly fire.

Balance

• Career Normal difficulty starts with Thermal Vision unlocked instead of enemy tracking boxes.

UI

• Weapon, ammo, and squad selection now uses a two-step selection process. Clicking an option first shows its information in the main panel, after which it can be equipped separately.
• Weapon and ammo selection now shows more information about the selected option.
• Weapon selection warns if no ammo exists for the weapon.
• Ammo selection shows the available amount of the ammo type relative to maximum ammo.
• UI view scrolling should no longer be blocked or overridden by selection.

Save Compatibility

• Existing Career Mode saves automatically convert to version 2 and gain the new difficulty state variables. This should not break existing careers.

Known Issues

• In rare cases, vehicles can still get stuck oscillating near obstacles or repeatedly driving into a corner. Moving the vehicle away from the obstacle and trying again usually helps.
• Ammo Manufacturing UI currently shows less information than the Loadout Ammo Selection screen.

Technical

• Career save files now contain difficulty variables directly instead of relying on hidden in-game logic.
• The "Heat" to "Escalation" rename is visual only. In save files and internal code it is still called heat.
• Projectile ballistics and damage code received a major cleanup pass. The previous system was unnecessarily modular in some areas while still making balance changes and more complex damage models difficult to implement.
• The new combat system is easier to expand and is a stepping stone toward potentially allowing weapon statistics to be modified through mods in the future.

v0.1.6 - Anti-Air & Weapon Balance Hotfix
Mon, August 17, 2026

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I originally planned to move straight from v0.1.5 into the larger v0.2.0 update, which is mainly focused on vehicle mounting and dismounting. However, after quite a few reports about anti-air balance over the past week, I decided to pause that work briefly and push out one more smaller update first.

v0.1.6 focuses mainly on making flak and missiles fairer and more reliable to fight against, along with a few weapon balance changes. Work on v0.2.0 will continue after this.

Changed

• Improved enemy flak targeting behavior. Flak now aims for randomized burst points around the predicted drone position instead of relying primarily on projectile spread.
• Improved anti-air missile flare behavior. Missiles now continue tracking the oldest active flare until it burns out before switching to the next one.

Fixed

• Flares now work more reliably when multiple flares are deployed in quick succession.
• Weapons now trigger alarms more reliably.

Balance

• Reduced enemy flak AA accuracy.
• Reduced enemy flak explosion radius and damage.
• Reduced enemy missile AA damage.
• Increased enemy missile AA maximum velocity and acceleration.
• Increased 40mm HE and HE-FRAG primary and secondary damage.
• Greatly increased Glide Bomb cluster HE explosion damage.
• Increased 150mm Railgun damage.

v0.2.0 - Vehicle Transport
Mon, August 24, 2026

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This is the first update since launch a month ago that brings larger gameplay changes rather than mainly fixes and improvements.

Vehicle transport had been in my plans for a while, but player feedback pushed it to the top of my gameplay priorities. Bugs and the worst pathfinding problems still came first, but this became the main new system I wanted to get into the game.

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Vehicle Transport

Infantry squads can now mount friendly vehicles and use them for transport.

With an infantry squad selected, target a friendly vehicle to give a mount command. The squad will move toward it and mount once close enough. If the vehicle moves while they are approaching, the squad will continue following it.

Once mounted, the squad travels with the vehicle until ordered to dismount or until the vehicle is destroyed.

This should make infantry considerably easier to reposition, especially on larger maps. Instead of slowly walking between objectives, squads can now travel with APCs, IFVs, or other friendly vehicles and dismount where they are needed.

This does not solve every problem infantry currently has. Their combat effectiveness and survivability still need more work, but vehicle transport removes one of their bigger limitations.

Squad Commands

The vehicle transport system also required new squad commands. I ended up adding four: mount, dismount, capture objective, and destroy objective.

The objective commands are more than just different labels for move orders. Capture commands keep squad members inside the capture zone until the objective is completed. Destroy commands make squads look for a position with line of sight to the target and prioritize attacking it.

This also makes command queueing more useful. A queued capture or destroy command now remains active until that objective is completed, instead of ending as soon as the squad reaches its destination.

Commands are selected contextually based on where you aim. Aim at a destroy objective to give a destroy command, inside a capture zone to give a capture command, or at a friendly vehicle to mount it. If the selected squad is already mounted, targeting the ground gives a dismount command.

Command HUD

With more contextual commands, it also became more important to show what a click is actually going to do.

The center command icon now changes depending on what you are aiming at and which squad is selected. It can show movement, mounting, dismounting, capture and destroy commands, along with a blocked state when the selected squad cannot move to the targeted area.

What's Next

There is still quite a lot I want to improve on the ground-combat side of Drone Sector.

Vehicle transport helps with getting infantry around the battlefield, but infantry effectiveness still needs work. I want to improve the visibility and accuracy systems, especially situations where vehicles spot troops through trees too quickly and land accurate shots almost immediately.

I also want infantry to make better use of cover, making stationary or well-positioned squads harder to spot and hit while improving their effectiveness in return.

- Ingmar

Full Patch Notes

Added

•     Vehicle mounting. Infantry squads can now mount friendly vehicles for transport. Target a vehicle with an infantry squad selected to issue a mount command. The squad will move to the vehicle and update its destination if the vehicle moves. Mounted squads remain inside until ordered to dismount or the vehicle is destroyed.
•     Dismount command. Mounted infantry squads can be ordered to dismount by targeting the ground. The squad exits the vehicle and spreads out nearby.
•     Capture commands. Targeting a capture zone now issues a dedicated capture command. Infantry squads will remain inside the zone until the objective is captured. Capture commands can also be queued.
•     Destroy commands. Targeting a destroy objective now issues a dedicated destroy command. Squads will move into a position with line of sight and engage the objective until it is destroyed. Destroy commands can also be queued.
•     Command HUD hints. The center HUD icon now shows which command will be issued at the current aim point, including when movement or another action is unavailable.
•     Rain effects on Quarry and Airfield. Rain can be disabled in the setting

s.

Changed

•     Landmines now only damage friendly troops when air-to-ground friendly fire is enabled.

Fixed

•     Improved navigation data generation, reducing cases where squads take unnecessarily long or oddly shaped paths.
•     The language selection screen should no longer appear again after a language has already been selected.

Known Issues

•     Vehicle avoidance can still cause vehicles to swerve off bridges.
•     Vehicles can sometimes get stuck moving back and forth near trees.
•     Queueing many squad orders can cause a performance drop.

v0.3.0 - Spotting & Accuracy
Mon, September 14, 2026

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Spotting & Accuracy
One of the biggest issues infantry has had in Drone Sector is dying too quickly. In some situations that makes sense. They aren't super soldiers, and if a shell lands next to them, they will probably die.

The problem was broader than that, though. In infantry-to-infantry firefights, entire squads could get wiped out within seconds, even at ranges over 100 meters. A big reason was that infantry effectively always hit their shots and dealt considerable bullet damage. The system did not really account for the fact that most shots in a firefight should miss.

The new system has a few layers to it.
Before any shooting happens, units first have to spot potential targets. Previously this was mostly just a line of sight check. If an enemy was visible and within a certain distance, they were spotted almost immediately, regardless of what the target was doing or how visible it actually was.

Now line of sight is only the prerequisite. From there, visibility depends on the target itself. Moving units are easier to detect, while prone and stationary infantry are harder to spot. Large vehicles are naturally much easier to see than individual soldiers. Firing a weapon also makes a unit much easier to detect for a short time.

Spotting also depends on the observer. A stationary unit can focus more on watching its surroundings, while a unit on the move takes longer to detect targets.

This also gives me more room to differentiate units in the future. For example, troops with NVGs could spot enemies faster at night, while suppressed weapons could make firing less revealing.
Once an enemy is spotted, accuracy uses a separate but similar system. The longer a target has been observed, the easier it becomes to hit. Firing at the same target also gradually improves accuracy against that specific target. If an AT crew misses its first shot at a tank, it should have a much better chance of landing the second one.

Movement matters here too. Moving targets are harder to hit, and firing while moving reduces accuracy.

Overall, a squad holding a position should now have a real advantage over an enemy approaching it. The moving troops are easier to spot first, while the stationary squad has more stable aim and more time to observe them.

There are a lot of variables involved in these systems, so getting the balance right will take some time, testing, and player feedback.

Background Work
Besides the bug fixes, smaller feature additions, and the larger visibility changes, there has also been some less visible background work.

For example, I created my own procedural road generator. Previously I used a plugin, but it had several issues that kept bothering me. It was tedious to work with, visually quite limited, and recently started causing navigation problems around road junctions.

The new system gives me much more control, the roads look better in my opinion, and they are considerably faster to work with.

I've also spent some time looking into externally configurable unit stats.

Balancing the game takes a lot of work, and it is probably impossible to find one balance setup that feels perfect for everyone. Allowing unit stats to be modified outside the game could make it easier for players to experiment with their own balance setups, while also making it easier to test different values and provide useful feedback.

This is still experimental and there is a lot of work left before it becomes something properly usable, but I now have a much better idea of what would be required.
- Ingmar

Full Patch Notes

Added

•     Time speed settings. Added separate multipliers for speeding up and slowing down time.
•     Added an option to use either toggle or hold controls when changing time speed.
•     Added an option to keep the game running while unfocused. The previous automatic pause when the game lost focus has been removed.
•     Added a Quick Manufacture button to the ammunition selection screen.
•     Gunship weapons and flares can now trigger enemy alarms. Previously alarms were only triggered by enemy deaths, threatening explosions, and destroyed objectives.
•     Added options to disable unit tracking box and unit icon fade-out.
•     Added localization for the new settings and UI text.

Changed

•     Reworked unit spotting. Units no longer detect enemies immediately after gaining line of sight. Detection now depends on the target's visibility and the observer's spotting ability. Units in cover are harder to detect, while units firing their weapons are significantly easier to spot. Stationary units are also better at spotting enemies.
•     Reworked unit accuracy. Accuracy is now more dynamic and affected by unit movement instead of relying on static projectile or damage randomization. Repeated shots at the same target progressively improve accuracy.
•     Infantry attacks can now miss. Previously infantry attacks effectively always hit, causing firefights to end too quickly. Prone and moving units are harder to hit than stationary units.
•     Improved roads on Dry Foothills. Roads now blend into the surrounding terrain more gradually, and several additional paved road sections have been added.
•     Unit icons no longer overlap objective icons.
•     Reduced the size of infantry unit icons.
•     Smoke no longer guarantees complete concealment. Instead, it greatly reduces how visible units are to observers.

Fixed

•     Fixed time speed changes causing weapon audio pitch to be incorrect.
•     AA missile and flak weapons now fire more reliably.
•     Fixed AA explosion damage sometimes being calculated from the wrong position. Missile steering and flak fuse logic can target flares, but explosion damage should always calculate its distance from the gunship itself.

Technical

•     Created a new procedural road generation system. It is faster and more flexible to use when creating maps, slightly less demanding on performance, and fixes an AI navigation issue that could cause units to bunch up around road junctions. It is currently only implemented on one map.
•     Started exploring support for externally modifying unit stats. This is still experimental and focused purely on gameplay values, not models or other game content. It could eventually help with testing different balance setups and allow players to customize the game's balance.

Known Issues

•     The new spotting and accuracy systems are still being tuned, so values will change based on testing and player feedback.

v0.6.0 - Vehicle Rework
Wed, October 28, 2026

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Vehicle Rework
After the previous content-heavy update, I was in the mood to do something more code-heavy again. I also had an idea for a more radical change to how vehicles move, which I had been considering for a while. I knew it would take some time, but after v0.5, it seemed like a good opportunity to try it.
The result is a complete rework of vehicle movement. Vehicles should now drive considerably more reliably, get stuck less frequently, and have a smaller performance impact, especially in missions with large numbers of vehicles.

For about two years now, vehicles in Drone Sector have been physics-based. They moved by applying forces through their wheels, while collisions with the environment and other vehicles were handled by the physics system.

Back in 2024, I thought this would make vehicle movement look more realistic and satisfying, especially since players can zoom in quite close to the action. Vehicles could slide off roads, tip over, crash into walls, or collide with each other.

In practice, most of these realistic interactions ended up causing more frustration than they were worth.

Vehicles would get caught on corners, struggle to climb slopes, slide off their intended paths, or get pushed around by other vehicles. Over time, I added various workarounds to deal with these problems. Rounded colliders to help vehicles slide around corners, extra throttle when climbing hills, recovery systems for overturned vehicles, and eventually even a system that teleported vehicles forward if they failed to make progress.

I realized that I was spending quite a lot of time trying to prevent the very situations that the physics simulation made possible.

For a game where players are mostly commanding units from a distance, having vehicles reliably reach their destinations is considerably more important than simulating every wheel and collision.
With the new system, vehicle movement no longer relies on physics. Instead, vehicles move directly along the navigation mesh surface, similarly to infantry.

Unlike infantry, vehicles still have limitations on how they can move. They need to drive forward or backward, and most vehicles cannot turn on the spot under normal circumstances. Their turning is now simulated directly rather than being a result of the front wheels steering. There are also some exceptions, such as allowing vehicles to turn on the spot when they would otherwise get stuck against an obstacle.

The system also makes better use of the additional road navigation data introduced in the previous update, allowing vehicles to follow roads more closely and reliably.

Vehicle-to-vehicle collisions have been disabled as well. Vehicles still try to avoid each other, but when avoidance fails, they can drive through each other instead of getting stuck, bouncing around, or causing a traffic jam. There is a small visual push-away effect when vehicles get too close, to make these interactions look a little more natural.

Wheels are now purely visual. They still react to the ground and rotate as vehicles move, but when a vehicle is far away or outside the camera view, those calculations can be skipped entirely.

Overall, the new system is much simpler to control and considerably cheaper to simulate. It's not as physically realistic as before, but I think it's a much better fit for the gameplay.

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Tree Destruction
Tree avoidance was another part of vehicle movement that I wanted to improve.
Previously, trees were included directly in the navigation mesh data, with a small cutout around each tree. With most maps containing around 30,000 trees, this made paths through forests unnecessarily complicated.

Now, trees are handled separately through a lightweight data system. Units can plan much simpler paths through forests and check nearby trees while moving, adjusting their direction to avoid them.
This also gave me an opportunity to make trees react to vehicles.

When a vehicle drives close to a tree, both the vehicle and tree can get pushed around slightly. If a vehicle actually drives through a tree, the tree gets destroyed instead.

The destruction itself is fairly simple visually, but I think it adds quite a lot to the battlefield.
And since tree destruction was already implemented, I also added it to explosions. Gunship weapons, ground units, and vehicle death explosions can now knock down trees as well.

This means that forests are no longer completely static, and larger battles can leave quite a visible impact on the environment.

Roadkills
With the new tree interaction system in place, it wasn't particularly difficult to add something similar for infantry.

Player-controlled vehicles can now run over enemy infantry, killing soldiers that fail to get out of the way.

For now, I've intentionally limited this to player vehicles against enemy infantry. Allowing enemy vehicles to run over player squads could become quite frustrating, especially when infantry pathfinding or avoidance fails.

As another benefit of the new vehicle system, infantry can now recognize vehicles as navigation obstacles more reliably. This should help them move around vehicles instead of simply walking through them.

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//45289376/834a4e0a971af543ef884989f76fba8f4a806e4c.jpg)

Other Improvements
Besides the vehicle rework, there are also some smaller gameplay improvements.

Protect objectives should now be a little more manageable. Enemies can no longer spawn within 140 meters of the objective, and the initial period during which enemies ignore the protected target has been increased from 20 to 60 seconds. This should give players more time to move their units into defensive positions.

I've also considerably reduced the aiming delay for gunship weapons, especially when switching between targets at opposite ends of a map. This should make engaging distant targets in quick succession feel more responsive.

A new HUD marker now indicates where enemy flak fire has been detected, making it easier to locate anti-air threats.

Finally, I've expanded the road networks on Coastal Refinery and Foothill Fringe with additional paved and dirt roads.

What's Next
After v0.5, I was planning to start work on Weekly Challenges, something that has also come up in recent player discussions.

However, I ended up getting into the vehicle rework instead. Like many players, I've been frustrated by vehicle driving for quite a while, and I wanted to finally address the underlying problems rather than continue adding workarounds.

With that rework now largely completed, I intend to return to my previous plans.

- Ingmar


Full Patch Notes

Added

•     Trees now sway when vehicles bump into them.
•     Vehicles can now crush trees by driving through them.
•     Trees can now be destroyed by explosions from gunship weapons, ground units, and vehicle deaths.
•     Player-controlled vehicles can now run over and kill enemy infantry.
•     Added a flak fire detection marker to the HUD, indicating where enemy flak fire has been detected.
•     Expanded the road networks on Coastal Refinery and Foothill Fringe with additional paved and dirt roads.

Changed

•     Completely reworked vehicle movement, improving driving reliability, road following, and obstacle avoidance.
•     Vehicles no longer physically collide with each other, preventing collisions from causing traffic jams or overturning vehicles.
•     Updated icons for IFVs, APCs, MBTs, rifle infantry, AT infantry, and shotgun breacher infantry.
•     Mission generator now prioritizes placing extraction points within allied territory when possible.
•     Enemies can no longer spawn within 140 meters of protect objectives, giving players more time to prepare their defenses.
•     Increased the initial period during which enemies ignore protect objectives from 20 to 60 seconds.
•     Greatly reduced gunship weapon aiming delays, allowing players to engage distant targets in quick succession. Aiming delay is now less dependent on the distance between targets.

Fixed

•     Vehicles can once again explode upon destruction, depending on the damage type of the killing blow. HE and HEAT are more likely to cause ammunition cook-off and explosions than AP rounds or fragments.
•     Newly spawned enemy squads should no longer get stuck at their spawn locations when no objectives remain on the map.

Known Issues

•     Vehicles can occasionally clip through terrain near steep elevation changes.
•     Immobilized vehicles can sometimes behave or appear unnaturally.

Technical

•     Replaced physics-based vehicle driving with a non-physics movement system that directly controls vehicle positioning and turning.
•     Reworked tree avoidance. Instead of cutting holes around individual trees in the navigation mesh, units now check nearby trees dynamically and adjust their movement to avoid them.
•     Vehicles now use additional road navigation data to follow roads more reliably.
•     Improved vehicle movement performance, reducing the overhead of missions with large numbers of vehicles.
•     Vehicle wheel positioning and rotation are now only calculated when vehicles are nearby and visible.