Hi,

Modern tech is advancing so fast, that now you can conduct combat military operations not only from your home PC, but also from the comfort of your sofa and big screen.
Ironic, isn't it?

In this update:

• Gamepad support and control guides
  
• Minor bug and crash fixes

Being mostly a keyboard and mouse player myself, I believe that I managed to fully transfer the essence of the gameplay to gamepad without compromising even a tiny bit of comfort or functionality.

Current scale of the game-design with four squads to control fits on the gamepad perfectly, like it always meant to be played this way.

Try it yourself, and tell me in the Discussion how it feels.
(As one player to another - pay attention to shortcuts bound to Left Trigger, they are necessary to be a pro player).

This update doesn't bring new content to the game, yet, but it opens up my ability to port this game to Steam Deck and other platforms, and also helps to make sure that upcoming features will be done with respect to both types of input.
One step at the time.


Another big thing in this update:
I addressed drone movement feedback from the Discussions and introduced a "high speed mode" for the scout drone.
- If you hold [Shift] your scout drone will be flying faster.

Games have to empower players instead of limiting them, and I am grateful to the vocal part of our community for reminding me that.
Remember - our discussions help me to make this game better, and I will always listen to your feedback and will address it.


If you've read my update this far and want to support the project, I have a small favor to ask: please consider leaving a Steam review for the game.
When you release a game without a publisher, sales numbers tend to balance at the very bottom edge of sustainability, and when I say community support matters, I truly mean it.

If something prevents you from leaving a positive review - just tell me that in the Discussions, and I will see what can be done.
Thank you!

Next stop for us will be localization pass and level editor iteration - with Dynamic Trenches in the level editor being the most anticipated feature.
As usual, I will keep you updated about my research in Dev Diaries on Discord.
Stay safe!

Always yours,
Demetri


PS I also want to take my chance to celebrate operators who reached the good ending, with some players being so fast, that I can't even imagine how they did that.
(Do you guys stream or maybe have youtube channels? I genuinely want to see your playthroughs).

Morgan!
RabidGoldfish
Devil of the Rhine
Petrtorch
SMALLS0022
Bashar Al-Assad
GamerChad420
Shrekka
niccris04
elchapstick
LordSassy
ATH392
MgrBoniface
Mayor of Gamertown

Salute to you all, folks! My respect!

Hi,
The first update didn’t take long!
I’m excited to introduce Steam Leaderboards integration in Drone Perspective.

There are now many drone operators conducting missions worldwide, and while we all wait for multiplayer, it’s nice to have a way to compare our skills.
Leaderboards will help us to do that.
(They will also help to understand mission completion time to adjust difficulty in the future).


In your Connection Tool, you will now find a tab called "Best Employees:", showing the top 50 results for the selected mission.

(It is just me on the leaderboard for now, so come and claim your spot before the pro players do.)

Scores are calculated as "Level Completion Time + 1 additional minute for each casualty."
That feels like an honest and challenging compromise - we want to determine both the fastest and the most careful among us.

I was expecting Steam to use IDs instead of nicknames, but it seems they’ve changed their policy, and now we can see each other's nicknames there.
If you think this is a problem, please write to me, and I will add an opt-in/opt-out option.

• I did small adjustment to make sure that your Squad Selection Tap always register. (it was conflicting with "Hold" functionality, which is a cinematic Zoom At Squad)
  
• Exotic crash in cover selection is fixed
  
• Level HELP was made a bit easier (it was good for the demo, but unnecessary for the full game).
  
• Unit Echo is now available in the Level Editor.
  
• Game is stable overall.

There are still some GPU and occasional Chaos Physics crashes happening.
These are largely between Epic, Nvidia, and AMD.
On my side I promise to update the game to UE5.5 in the nearest future.
Until then, make sure your graphics drivers are up to date - it helps!

If you experience a crash, hit "Send Report"—I do see them.
(You can also leave a message—it helps with troubleshooting, or just say hello.)
We also have a whole subforum here for your bug reports.


Next up: gamepad support and, why not, an additional level to keep the content flowing.
I will be adding these during my vacation, hopefully from some seaside spot - it's been a while.
You also can help me with prioritization, just drop your message here in Discussions, or on Discord.

Wishing you all a great start to spring.
Stay safe!

Always yours,
Demetri