Battle Arena Drones is a 6 degrees of freedom arena shooter. We are expecting to turn it into an eSport game where piloting drones is the central theme of various types of sport, dominated predominately around aerial dog fighting combat in Six degrees of freedom.

Battle Arena Drones is heavily inspired by the nostalgia of Descent II multiplayer.

This page is for the dev team more then the public as a record of the games internal mechanics and behaviors.

The combat is too much to go into on this page. Follow the link for more information.

The game's distinct design style is derived from the Retrofuturistic, science fiction and popular culture aesthetics and concepts of the 1950s, as implied by, for example, the design of the drones themselves, which resemble muscle car automobiles that peaked in popularity in the 1950s. In our case we are combining the Retrofuturistic with a Cyberpunk background. So technology is high but quality of life is low.

This aesthetic is further suggested by the drones' distinctly curved and overly shinny surfaces, with hard and high-tech machinery under the hoods. The curvature of the surfaces of the drones also interact with the various lighting effects and sources in the game, resulting in an array of reflections and illuminations, which give the drones a dynamic and life-like look and feel.

Effects and aesthetics oscillate between arcade- and realistic-looking, leaning more frequently towards arcade-looking.

The stars of the BAD arenas are always the drones. The history of the drones in the BAD universe is diverse- built for everything from industrial work to urban pacification, the drones were designed to penetrate any building designed for human use. This makes them able to move wherever we would and do the jobs we might have done, or hunt down a reclusive criminal. The drone types used in BAD have been refitted to operate within the arena rules, and of course are as glossy and shiny as possible. In some ways they reflect the obsession some have with muscle cars: glossy paneling, and under the hood there’s just hard machinery. BAD features several manufacturers that each brings their own style to the drones. Each drone is designed to look distinct and recognizable in shape, while still holding true to the primary design of all drones in the game.

Image	Name	Manufacture	Primary weapon	Special
	Duzzy	Mast	Combat Shotgun	Active: Shield boost
	Beverly	Mast	Double Barrel Shotgun	Active: Bull Rush
	Shark	Manson Gifford	50cal Machinegun	Active: Frenzy
	Banshee	Manson Gifford	Minigun	Active: EMP Scream
	Wasp	K13	Pulse Laser	Active: Stealth
	Cynthia	Brannon Aerospace	Pulse Laser	Active: Shield Drain
	Mjolnir	undecided	undecided	Active: Chain Lightning

Multiple arenas exist to allow players a variety of experiences both in play style and athletic.

The meta game revolves around making in game currently levels in each drone, badges and prizes (digital and real world). We have identified several different players we need to cater for.

• Casual players (only there for the fun)
• Social players (predominantly there for the social experience)
• Competitive players (players that are there to gain prestige and win tournaments, segmented by the various communities they part of)

In each case a set of short, medium and long terms goals need to be ascertained for each of the types of players. In both free to play and commercial models. This is 6 meta game models we need to mold.

As pilots fly drone they gain experience flying that drone and unlock configuration features. These features change the drones engine power to shields and various other things. Each adjustment has a cost and a gain. These can be done in-between spawning.

Each drone has a unique set of unlocks always 5 levels with 3 positions per level. Leaving a total of 243 different combinations.

To unlock each level should be calculated as a number of games played which in turn amounts to a time played value.

Each AI in the game has a personality and a play style. Some are specific to certain drones others can fly various drones. All are named after fictional artificial intelligences. The AI's have player profiles and there scores are kept globally, this the in turn becomes a yard stick for measuring a players ability to defeat certain AI skills.

All games are played in tournaments. Battle Arena Drones currently hosts two regular tournaments; BAD Sundays (the weekly Beta test) and Weekly Wreck-a-thons.

Scoring in tournaments can be presented for social groupings as well as comparing social groupings against each other in a leader board. For example, if two secondary schools are playing in the same inter-school tournament (only available to players in social groups of educational/secondary), each school can evaluate how there players compare to each other as well as how they are doing compared to the other schools overall.

To make this fair, scoring is done on the top 10 (or n) players and each players tournament score is their top 10 (or n) games scored. So attrition does help but skill is a far more significant measurement.

Global ranking is only adjusted when playing ranked tournaments (any kind in any circumstance). Ranking is based on a score differential where each player starts the season (every three months) with a specific score. Players with a higher value will not easily take from those with lower. Also players are typically placed in games with similarly ranked players (this depends on the match making model for the tournament).

Free-to-play players are the life-blood of the game. In effect they are as much a part of the game as each part we build. When we motivate their play style we need to consider how it will play out versus our paying customers and create a symbiotic relationship between the two modes of play. Big goals here but currently no plan exactly how this can be achieved.