I've been looking at introducing tactical elements when attacking enemies that go beyond just unleashing your weapons and avoiding theirs.
By implementing defences for certain enemy types, some forethought is going to be needed when engaging them.
Enemy Classes
All enemies in Drone Warfare take the form of insects you find in nature, although they are usually much, much, larger than real life examples.
The current build of the game only features butterfly enemy types and of these there are 4 base/natural classes which have different stats (health/armour/speed/weapons/threat level) and are easily identifiable by their colours (Blue, Red, Green, and White).
Introducing the Prototypes
If you kill enough of the base/natural enemies then there's a chance that another class of enemies might appear - the prototypes:
Enemy prototypes are earlier versions of the natural looking enemies and have a chrome/metallic appearance to them. They are usually much tougher, and sometimes larger, than their base siblings.
The prototype versions of the butterflies also include missile flare countermeasures which are pretty effective at mis-directing your drone's missiles. Unleashing a full salvo of missiles at a prototype only to find them all wasted because of the countermeasures is pretty annoying to say the least! :)
Insectoid Classes
If the prototypes aren't challenging enough then prepare for the Insectoid classes! Each insect type includes an Insectoid class which is basically a boss level version of that enemy.
Insectoids usually come with special abilities or weapons. In the case of the butterflies, this is an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) defence that generates a spherical wave that quickly expands out from its center.
If the drone is caught in the wave then the HUD disappears and there is a temporary loss of flight control. This is similar to a nearby lightning strike during storm conditions (see the previous post).
The EMP is triggered by a damage limit. If the enemy receives enough damage in a given length of time, then the EMP is launched which disables the drone and any ground turret caught in its wave.
Couple that with a fairly decent health recharge rate, along with missile flares, and these insectoids can be pretty tricky to take down!
Thanks for reading,
Faster Time Games.
