Welcome / FAQ / Crash Troubleshooting

[bribrobot]

Ahoy! Welcome to the Clone Drone in the Danger Zone community!

• Game Start Issues? Read this.
  
• Bugs / Crashes? Read this.
  
• Ideas for the game? Read this.
  
• Twitch Mode FAQ
  
• General Game FAQ - how do I [...], when will you [...]

In terms of rules, we follow Steam’s rules and code of conduct:

• https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
  
• https://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/

It’s maybe worth pointing out that Steam prohibits discussing cheats and game exploits on their platform. So don’t risk it! And we can’t spend our development time to help fix your game if you’ve been goofing around with that stuff, anyway.

In short, keep it friendly and civilized (after all, WE ARE THE HUMAN RESISTANCE, WE MUST BAND TOGETHER -- save the rage for the robots). Rocket League, one of my favorite games, said it best: “no harassment, trolling, or jerk behavior. We don’t like toxic players and neither does our community.” -- that goes for Clone Drone in the Danger Zone as well.

We live in the age of the internet, there are way more fun places to be a jerk than here. This is a place for fighting sword robots and giant spiders, & saying Kappa to our friends on Twitch.

Have fun, make friends, help everyone become MLG pros together, and let us know what you think about the game!

[bribrobot]

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Game Start Issues (won’t start, or crash on start)

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(or jump back to main FAQ)

Make sure your computer meets the System Requirements.

• Before you purchase the game, visit the store page, scroll down to System Requirements and confirm your computer matches these specs.
  
• If you’re already purchased the game and realize your computer can’t run it, you may request a refund from Steam within 14 days / 2 hours of gameplay time (no questions asked). More details from Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

(Windows) Run a machine performance diagnostic:

Make sure all everything on your computer is running at full speed -- run a diagnostic with https://www.userbenchmark.com/Software to diagnose any issues (even if your PC meets the requirements, this could help figure out if background processes or anti-virus programs are slowing it down). You can also send us the link to this report if you feel the game is under-performing on your computer.

Launch with lower resolution and quality

• Open Steam and right click Clone Drone in your Library
  
• Select "Properties" from the drop down
  
• Click "Set Launch Options" and type "-show-screen-selector"
  
• Launch the game

This will let you select a screen resolution before the game starts. Try selecting one that fits your screen, lower the graphics quality and see if this helps solve the problem.

(Windows) Make sure you are running Steam in Administrator mode.

First, close Steam. Wherever you launch Steam from, right click on the icon and click “Run as Administrator”.

Validate the integrity of your game cache.

In your Steam Library list, right click on Clone Drone in the Danger Zone -> Properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of Game Files

If you’ve played the game before successfully (or from a previous version on itch, etc), try resetting your data.

• Hold down S during startup (while the screen is white and the dog is barking).
  
• A button will pop up, click it to reset your data.
  
• If it didn’t pop up, close the game and try again.
  
• NOTE: You will lose any challenge progress or upgrades.

Try disabling the Steam Overlay.

In your Steam Library list, right click on Clone Drone in the Danger Zone -> Properties -> Un-check “Enable the Steam Overlay In-game”

Update your graphics drivers.

• NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
  
• AMD: https://support.amd.com/en-us/download/auto-detect-tool
  
• Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

Try running in DirectX 9 mode

• Open Steam and right click Clone Drone in your Library
  
• Select "Properties" from the drop down
  
• Click "Set Launch Options" and type "-force-d3d9"
  
• Launch the game

Try temporarily disabling third-party (non-Windows Defender) anti-virus

We've heard some reports that game crashes can occasionally be caused by third-party anti-virus tools (e.g. AVG, Avast, Norton, but Windows Defender is fine). One way to test this would be to temporarily disable the tool and try launching the game. If the game works when it's disabled, you can often add an exception for the game in the tool.

If you do find disabling your AV makes the game not crash, we'd love to see details on the crash so we can see if there's anything we can do on our end to fix it. Send along your crash report (see details below) and the name / version of your third-party anti-virus tool, we'd really appreciate it!

Still stuck?

Contact us at [e-mail] and we will try to figure out what is going on (and every detailed report helps us fix issues for everyone -- really!!). Please include:

• Exactly what is on screen when it stops loading. Is the game logo there? Is it the white screen with the dog on it? Any text? (Better yet, if you can take a screenshot, take one and attach it).
  
• Were you able to hover over any buttons on screen?
  
• Were you able to close it normally, or did it say not responding?
  
• Does it freeze? Close the game? Never open? Is there an error message on the screen?
  
• Verify that you have checked your system requirements versus those listed for the game.
  
• If it was a crash (the game completely froze, or a red screen popped up):
  
  • Include a screenshot of the red crash error message if one popped up
    
  • If after the crash, you get a message like "“A crash report named “Crash_YYYY-MM-DD_NNNN” has been generated. These files can be sent to Doborog for analysis. Would you like to open this folder?”, zip this up and attach it to your report email.
    
  • Include the crash log if it exists: in your Steam Library list, right click on Clone Drone in the Danger Zone -> Properties -> Local Files -> Brose Local Files... -> “Clone Drone in the Danger Zone_Data” folder -> If there is a file “output_log.txt”, attach that to your report as well.

We'd love to help you figure it out. If we can't, or you'd rather not continue trying, getting a refund is a quick, easy option. Steam will offer a refund no questions asked if you've played for less than two hours, and will usually consider other requests even if you're beyond that.

You can request a refund right here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/
See Steam's full refund policy here: https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

We hope to win you back as a player in the future -- it's possible we will figure out the issue before you try next -- and we're always working to improve and optimize the game.

[bribrobot]

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Bugs / Crashes?

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(or jump back to main FAQ)

If you encountered a bug or crash, email it to [e-mail]

In the email / attached to it, please include any details on the bug:

• A description of what you were doing before the crash happened, where, and what was happening on-screen at the time.
  
• If it was a crash (the game completely froze, or a red screen popped up):
  
  • Include a screenshot of the red crash error message if one popped up
    
  • Include the crash log if it exists: in your Steam Library list, right click on Clone Drone in the Danger Zone -> Properties -> Local Files -> Brose Local Files... -> “Clone Drone in the Danger Zone_Data” folder -> If there is a file “output_log.txt”, attach that to your report as well.

We take game crashes very seriously, and every detailed report helps us narrow down the root cause. Thanks for your help!

Where to discuss / find workarounds

You can also see if the bug has been discussed in the Bugs forum category and if there are any workarounds listed.

If you’re encountering a crash that recurs, played the game before successfully (or from a previous version on itch, etc), now try resetting your data.

1. Hold down S during startup (while the screen is white and the dog is barking).
   
2. A button will pop up, click it to reset your data.
   
3. If it didn’t pop up, close the game and try again.
   
4. NOTE: You will lose any challenge progress or upgrades.

If you finished a challenge but didn't get an achievement for it

If you have any non-Windows Defender antivirus (like Norton, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, etc.) or firewall installed, it may be blocking the game's ability to communicate with Steam and award you achievements. You can try temporarily disabling that software and re-beating the challenge and seeing if Steam awards you the achievement.

Currently you will need to re-beat the challenge to get the achievement that was previously blocked. In future update we may make it so achievements are automatically re-awarded if the challenge is beat, but there's no firm date on that yet.

[bribrobot]

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Ideas for the game?

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(or jump back to main FAQ)

The best places to share your idea, from most likely to least likely to be acted on:

• During one of Doborog’s live streams.
  
• On the Ideas forums on Steam or Itch.

The best kind of ideas:

• Narrow down your big idea list to your favorite most unique ones. Check the forum, and if they’re been posted about before, riff on the idea in that thread with your own comments. Collaboration is fun, and often times BETTER ideas come from groups of people developing off of each other together.
  
• Name your thread so you can get the gist of the idea by looking at the subject.
  
  • Good title: “A water cannon that extinguishes fire weapons!”
    
  • Bad title: “A REALLY GOOD IDEA”
• Fun things to think about when thinking through an idea:
  
  • What goal does this idea achieve? Could it be accomplished in another way, or is it already accomplished in the game as it is?
    
  • What do you like most about this idea versus other approaches?
    
  • What might make this idea work especially well in Clone Drone versus another game?

[bribrobot]

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Twitch Mode FAQ

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(or jump back to main FAQ)

My channel has hundreds or thousands of viewers. Why did my account get muted when I played, and how do I stop that?

Since Twitch mode currently outputs viewer feedback in the chat from your account, Twitch can end up muting your account if there is a high volume of incoming player chats.

You can set your room to Slow Mode before starting the game so players can still interact but without overwhelming the system. See Twitch’s documentation for how to use /slow [seconds] to enable slow mode on your channel:

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/659095-chat-moderation-commands

Twitch mode is too hard and my viewers are too mean.

Try opening the configuration menu (Esc -> Twitch Spawn Settings) and reducing the number of enemies that can be spawned each round. You might want to reduce the number of Spidertron 6000s, Hammer 3s and Jetpack 2s allowed each round (or make them only show up in later rounds).

I can’t connect to Twitch, and it says it times out.

Check your firewall settings, is IRC port 6667 blocked? This is what the game uses to connect to Twitch chat, so it will need to be open.

Try connecting to Twitch IRC directly. Does it work? If so, and you’re still having connection issues, reach out to [e-mail] and let us know so we can help figure out what else might be going on.

[bribrobot]

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Gameplay FAQ, tips, tricks

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(or jump back to main FAQ)

The game is really hard (but fun and addictive and I still love it), how can I get further?

• Don’t forget to get clones! If you keep dying on level 2, 3, 4, etc. and are frustrated with having to restart back from the beginning, consider trying to keep at least one or two clones available.
  
• Upgrade synergy: Pay attention to which upgrades pair up the best. You may have a ranged attack preference and that extra energy regeneration will come in handy.
  
• The best basic build is probably the jetpack firesword, where strafing attacks can be timed in devastating attack chains that leave the entire arena in flames.
  
• Angles matter: Looking slightly up or down will affect the swing, and possibly evade your opponent's defenses
  
• Choose your upgrades wisely. Especially for challenges, different upgrade sequences can be the difference between winning and losing. When you die, think, “which upgrade would have saved me on that level”?
  
• Facing a sword opponent will automatically block. If you notice a sword 3 coming up behind you, a sharp 180 can save your life.

How do I use the new Photo Mode?

• Press ` (backtick) to enable photo mode. This will freeze time and allow you to fly around freely to position a screenshot. The key mapping & instructions will be listed on-screen, and can be hidden.
  
• Press F12 to trigger a Steam screenshot.
  
• Tip: left mouse click will advance time one frame at a time.
  
• Share your beautiful screenshots in the Community Screenshots gallery!

Will the game be made available on Linux?

We don't currently release a native Linux build, but we've heard that most of singleplayer works when playing the game through Steam Play. To make multiplayer work, you must select a multiplayer region to override (due to an issue with the ping library on Steam Play/Proton/Wine as of early 2019)

Will you add multiplayer?

2018 Edit: YES! We added it :D

Will you support keymapping?

2019 Edit: YES! We added it :D

Will you support game controllers (Xbox controllers, Steam controller)?

2019 Edit: YES! We added it :D

Will the game be available on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, or iPads?

Definitely let us know in the forums which platforms you would be most interested in, and maybe list some other games you already enjoy on those platforms. Hearing that you are interested can help us prioritize where to focus any porting/publishing efforts!