About the Game
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.
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.
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.
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
Screenshots
17 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Fixed
Career Mode now correctly loads saved squad loadouts containing MBT and CQB squad types.
Player units should no longer spawn underground at the start of a mission.
Some maps had issues with reinforcement spawning when allied forces were present. These changes should make reinforcement spawning more reliable on affected missions.
Changed
Added more reinforcement spawn points to Dry Foothills to better support missions with allied forces.
Expanded the available landmass and road network on Coastal Refinery, allowing for more reinforcement spawn points and better support for allied forces.
Fixed
Career missions now only generate frontline layouts that leave valid spawn and reinforcement points available for both sides.
v0.4.1 - Hotfix
This hotfix fixes allied anti-air vehicles being able to engage the player's gunship in Career mode.
Changed
Allied forces in Career mode now use a separate unit composition from enemy forces. This will generally result in slightly smaller allied forces.
Fixed
Allied forces no longer spawn anti-air vehicles in Career mode.
As an additional safeguard, allied anti-air vehicles will no longer target the player's gunship.
v0.2.1 - HUD & Vehicle Improvements
Improved unit tracking and HUD readability, alongside better vehicle driving and collision avoidance.
Added
Unit type icons now appear when zooming far out, making it easier to see what enemy types are where.
Icons of the same unit type merge into larger grouped icons when close together.
Replaced the old unit icons with a new, simpler set designed specifically for HUD use. The new icons are also packed into a shared texture atlas for better performance and smaller file size.
Changed
Unit tracking boxes now fade out when zooming far out, keeping the new unit icons clear and readable.
Objective markers are smaller to reduce HUD clutter and conflicts with unit tracking icons.
Removed water kill zones for vehicles. Vehicles that enter water now attempt to drive out or, if necessary, teleport back out. Accidental water deaths were more frustrating than useful. Water hazards may return later once vehicle navigation around water is more reliable.
Fixed
Improved vehicle driving, especially turning confidence and behavior around obstacles such as trees.
Improved vehicle collision avoidance. Stationary vehicles are now treated as fully blocked paths, while nearby moving vehicles are considered together when determining how to navigate around traffic.
Technical
Reworked unit tracking box rendering. Much of the work has moved from the CPU to the GPU, improving performance when many tracked units are visible.
Tracking boxes are now rendered procedurally instead of using UI textures, making the system more flexible for future HUD changes. Their appearance has changed slightly as a result.
v0.1.6 - Anti-Air & Weapon Balance Hotfix
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.
v0.1.5 - Combat Systems Update
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.
v0.1.4 - Pathfinding Update
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.
v0.1.3 - Minor Update
This update improves text readability for Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean players, adds Steam Cloud support, and includes several smaller content and balance changes.
Added
Added Steam Cloud support for save files.
Added a fourth music track.
Changed
The game now remembers the selected language between sessions.
Added scattered rocks around the spawn areas on the Dry Foothills map, providing additional early concealment and cover.
UI
Changed the Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts to Noto Sans for improved readability.
Fixed
Fixed an issue that could cause units to stop moving or responding.
Balance
Increased the damage of 40 mm, 70 mm, and 120 mm HE-FRAG rounds.
v0.1.2 - Hotfix
This hotfix addresses several objective detection issues and makes additional early-game balance adjustments.
Fixed
Improved unit detection within capture and extraction zones.
Improved collision around river bridges to reduce units falling through or off them.
Balance
All difficulty levels now begin with the APC .50 cal weapon unlocked and equipped.
APCs armed with 40 mm cannons will no longer appear before 15% Heat.
All difficulty levels now begin with 20 mm HEI and 30 mm API ammunition instead of 20 mm API.
Structures are now more resistant to small-caliber minigun fire.
Increased railgun muzzle velocity from 3000 m/s to 5000 m/s.
Increased railgun accuracy.
Reduced the cost of some 20 mm and 120 mm ammunition.
v0.1.1 - Launch Hotfix
This is a small launch-day hotfix addressing early balance and localization issues.
Balance
Increased Warhead Materials rewards from several objectives.
Increased infantry movement speeds.
Fixed
Fixed an issue with resource reward calculations that caused some objectives to give lower rewards than intended.
UI / Localization
Fixed map and mission option text not appearing correctly in non-English languages.
Current Release
Build 25295336
Uploaded Sep 14, 2026
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System Requirements
How to Install
DroneSector.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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Download Drone Sector for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Drone Sector for free. Drone Sector is a Action released by Icosphere.