Stahldrache

Stahldrache is a top-down shooter, putting you in an aerospace fighter in the skies of distant planets. The AI controlling the planetary terraforming systems has gone rogue, and someone needs to neutralize it before the colonists arrive. That someone is you!

It is 2375. Seven years ago, news of the disaster at Arachne Quintus arrived at Earth; a colony ship lost with all hands in a vicious attack. With thousands of other ships in transit to other worlds, authorities scrambled for answers...

Nearly a century before, colony ships had begun leaving for new systems. The ships were big and slow, so small, fast automated ships were sent in advance; these would arrive decades earlier, and begin terraforming and establishing infrastructure for the colonists. This was the DAVIT (Durable Automated Vanguard Infrastructure & Terraforming) Project.

Something had gone wrong with the DAVIT systems; on every planet, they had turned hostile and would attack anything that approached. They had to be neutralized, or the Arachne Quintus disaster would repeat a thousand times over.

A new project (the Stahldrache Project) was thrown together as quickly as possible. Since the time of the colonial exodus, technology had advanced, and superluminal travel became practical.  Or at least, practical enough to be used in desperation in a series of emergency rescue missions...

A series of small carrier ships were built, capable of jumping to an afflicted system and dropping a drone fighter and a supply base to the planet. You are flying that fighter, using a hyperwave link; you must destroy the AI control nodes to neutralize the DAVIT systems. Your supply base can build new fighters and repair and rearm you, so you can keep going until the mission is complete.

Except... the AI systems are building hyperwave jammers. If you can't destroy the control nodes before the jammer is completed, contact with the system will be lost, and the carrier will have to resort to orbital bombardment to neutralize the AI. That will leave the planet in rough shape for the colonists.

Choose Your Fighter