Clone Drone in the Danger Zone News

Doborog Team explaining why console review is taking longer than expected
(thanks hoverfish2 for sharing this meme template on Reddit r/CloneDrone)

Helloooo humans!

We just released a teeny update on Steam! It includes some important preparation for our full console release to support crossplay 🤫

We also want to share an update on our console review progress to hopefully help answer the question... “why is there no release date yet, foolish indie game developing humans?!?”



Let's start with something invisible! This release includes an update to our networking library that will allow us to support crossplay on consoles. That means you will be able to play with your friends, even if they’re on a different platform (which is inferior to your favorite gaming platform, of course 😛).



While the server already kicks AFK players from co-op games, it will now kick them even if other players are playing while ignoring them. This will occur after 30 minutes of no input in public game servers, so stay active if you want to keep your endless streak going!

In exciting Not Crashing News™... after months of investigation, we solved a multiplayer crash that sometimes happened after joining games! Thanks to everyone who sent in descriptions of their crash scenarios to our bugs email. These are super helpful for our bugfixing!





While we heard from other devs that simultaneous releases with crossplay support are tough, we didn’t expect quite how long it would take! Rest assured we’re doing everything we can to get the game fully released on all the consoles as soon as we can. For example, when new bugs come in from the console platform reviewers, we drop everything, fix them, and submit a new build immediately. While the console review process takes longer than our usual Steam release cycle, and it can be frustrating for us too, we hope crossplay with our console friends will be well worth it!

For anyone interested, here's what the console process looks like: we prepare a build, then the console platform QA team tests and finds any issues. We then fix them and submit another build. Then they find fewer, smaller issues, we fix them, and when they finally don’t find any more issues... we can set a release date!

Review rounds have taken longer on some consoles because of reduced QA capacity during COVID. Given this, it’s been extra hard to predict exactly how long we’ve had left. Since the discovered issues are becoming fewer and lower-impact, we’re hopeful we’ll be able to lock down and announce a release date soon. That said, there’s no way for us to know exactly how many issues remain for them to find... and how many more review cycles it will take! We're crossing our fingers, and we will keep you all updated!

That’s it for this teeny bugfix update! We have some other fun things planned before launch, too, if you want to follow along:

• We have a TikTok that’s blowing up and we still don’t understand it: https://tiktok.com/@doborog
• Erik’s streaming development live on Twitch almost every day: https://twitch.tv/doborog
• Discord’s poppin’: https://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/discord

Clean clean clean,
Brian & the Dobogang

Hello humans!

We just pushed a tiny update live, improving server stability!

Recently we've received some reports of servers getting into a bad state where players get booted back to the title screen without being able to join the game, with the server sitting around in this terrible state.

With the update servers will now automatically shut down:

• After 20min of nobody sending any valid input.
  
• Immediately after 5 clients disconnect AND nobody has sent any valid input during that time.
  

Note that standing around without moving counts as valid input, and will not shut down the server.

Thanks for your patience, and let us know if you encounter any other strange errors!

Hello humans!

Are you looking forward to Chapter 5? Us too!

We're currently fixing the last bunch of bugs on consoles, and as soon as the console QA teams stop finding bugs (they are very good at it!) we will lock down a launch date and do a happy robot dance!

One upside of it taking slightly longer than expected is that we've had a lot of time to fix bugs in the Steam version of the game too!

Here's what the latest little update includes:


We looked at the data, and noticed that Infantry Command Bots are responsible for a looooot of lost clones in Endless Mode. One Diamond level in particular with only 3 Infantry Bots on average ate up 2.81 clones before being defeated!

So we made the following little changes:

• Reduced the max number of enemies spawned by a single Infantry Bot from 2 to 1.
  
• Made them not back up as much while doing the spawning.
  
• Removed the laser raptor from the higher difficulty spawn list.
  

Let us know what you think of these changes!


We also fixed a lot of bugs! Here are the main ones:

• Invisible Enemies in Co-op! It turns out the Infantry Command Bot was responsible for this happening, so we decided to just remove the levels where they appear from co-op for now. They weren't in that many levels, so the slight loss of variety should hopefully not be felt too much.
  
• Kicking an Infantry Command Bot now kills the thing being spawned as opposed to having it hang around in a weird half-alive limbo state.
  
• Late game Co-op Disconnects: It turns out all co-op games shut down after precisely 2 hours. Whoops! They no longer do that.
  
• Crash bugs! We fixed some of the most frequent crash bugs.
  
• UseKeyTrigger no longer says "Jump to hyperspace!" instead of whatever you configure it to say in the Level Editor.
  
• Uranium/Insanium audio issues resolved: Previously music would cut out when too many things were happening at once. The game is now smarter about not playing things like footsteps halfway across the arena if 20 other sounds are already playing.
  

That's it for this little update!

Hey everyone! Here's a small hotfix following the update today.

We fixed the following urgent bugs:

• Co-op Challenge Invites no longer have strangers dumped in them!
  
• Beating chapter 5 on insane is an upcoming achievement that we surfaced too soon. Removed it from the list for now!
  
• Some players experienced a crash on startup related to their language. The game now has more safeguards against data corruption in this area and falls back on English!
  

Let us know if you find any more bugs!
Cheers,
Erik

Hello Humans!

You should notice Clone Drone in the Danger Zone updating on your computer. This is completely normal and not preparation for us to download your brain into a Drone.
[h2]We Fixed some bugs![/h2]
Thank you for all your reports! You have really helped us make the game better. If you find more, let us know on Discord or via [email protected].

This isn’t the full list because we have fixed a lot of things but the most important changes are:

• Single Player
  Speech variety: We now play more than the first 8 variants. There will be more variety for things like getting a clone.
  
• Last Bot Standing
  Laser no longer snaps up at the end of firing
  
• Co-op
  Invisible enemies: This should no longer happen. Let us know if it still happens to you!
  Spidertron should now burn when falling in lava!
  
• Lots of crash bugs.

[h2]The new social area will show you what we’re doing[/h2]
On the main menu you can now see more detailed news about the game and all of the Tiktoks that we release!

In the top right we will keep you updated on new things happening in the game. That might be a new update, a competition or workshop level highlight!

In the bottom right is every place on the internet you can find us. Want a random tiktok? It’s there! A cool shirt with a clone face on? Check the bottom right! Need to contact us? The list of social media will let you do that however is easiest!

[h2]More info on rules, bans and warnings[/h2]
The multiplayer Last Bot Standing mode now has official rules to help everyone understand the conduct we expect for a fair and fun multiplayer battle.

Read the full rules and FAQs here:
https://support.doborog.com/clone-drone/last-bot-standing

All the reports of hacking and misconduct have been really helpful so keep those coming!

On the other hand, if you get timed out or banned (which we hope you won’t), there will be a pop up telling you exactly why and for how long!

We’re going to announce a full release date soon so stay tuned. We’re waiting on the consoles to review the game and some final preparations before we can tell you when Chapter 5 will arrive. But don’t worry, we will be taking care of the game after it’s launched with bug fixes and community content!

Until later, merry robot smashing!
Josh, Community Manager

---------------------------------------

[h2]Small additional update![/h2]
We fixed a few more bugs in a little hotfix (0.19.2.6) today! :D

• Co-op Challenge Invites no longer have strangers dumped in them!
  
• Beating chapter 5 on insane is an upcoming achievement that we surfaced too soon. Removed it from the list for now!