Dear EreaDrone Community,
We’ve been away since the end of last year’s e-Drone season, but don’t worry, we’ve been cooking! We’re finally back and have been hard at work behind the scenes to make EreaDrone bigger and better. The changes we have made are mostly technical, but we have a few cool new features to showcase as well.
A Big, Technical Update
This update is quite big, but we can assure you it’s worth it. We have done a LOT of changes in the background of the game, to make it run better and allow us to do more in the future. There's a lot to download, but don’t worry: the game will now take LESS space on your drive than before, about 7 GB less in fact. The game should also run better in general and use fewer system resources. We have also added a few Quality-of-Life features in the UI. Although it's not very flashy, you can now enjoy a better drone-flying experience!
All those big changes are mostly in the background, but here’s some more foreground stuff.
2025 World Games Official Track
For all those participating in the 2025 World Games in Chengdu this year, we are excited to host the official simulator track, available with this update. Fly and train on the official peculiarly-shaped track, and race your way to victory!
The track unlocks on June 27th at 14:00 CET (20:00 CST, 8 AM EDT, 15:00 AST, 21:00 JST)
To access it in-game, search for “The World Games 2025” in the track selection once it unlocks.
VR Mode [Beta]
We have now added VR support to the Track Editor and select Environments, currently in Beta. In this mode, you can fly your drone as if you were right there on the track, and use it while building your track to get a real sense of scale and how the track feels. Feel free to try it out with your VR headset!
Please note this feature is still in Beta, so don’t hesitate to report any issues you have with it.
Steam Summer Sale
To celebrate this new update, the upcoming competitive season, and the Steam Summer Sale, we’re happy to announce that EreaDrone is running a -40% sale. Get it while you can!
2025 FAI e-Drone World Cup, soon?
We are hard at work to prepare this year’s competitive e-Drone season, including some simulator optimizations. You will hear from us very soon regarding the 2025 FAI e-Drone Racing World Cup, so stay tuned!
Warm regards,
The EreaDrone Team
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Detailed Changelog:
🆕 New Features & Enhancements
The World Games: The official drone racing track of the 2025 World Games in Chengdu will be availalbe on June 27th at 14:00 CET (20:00 CST, 8 AM EDT, 15:00 AST, 21:00 JST)
[BETA] VR mode: See the world in VR while in the Track Editor, or in game in a few select Environments
Text Chat: The Text chat is now available during the entire lobby's life, and can be seen directly in the lobby even when the game hasn't started yet
Leaderboards: Leaderboard are now available from lobbies, session settings, and escape menu directly
Better Loadings: Loading screens now displays progress instead of freezing the game
🚀 Optimisations & Improvements
Files restructuration: Game files and systems have been completely restructured, making the game take less space on the disk (40.4Go -> 33.2Go)
RAM optimisation: RAM usage has been optimised, resulting in less memory use in most situations
Engine: Upgraded Unity Engine to version 6.1
UI stability: The UI has been completely reworked behind the scenes, making it more stable and flexible
Improved multiplayer: Better performance and stability for multiplayer, game server upgraded to a new version
Depth of field: Depth of field graphical option is now disabled by default in all quality presets
Better spectator mode: Spectator camera system has been improved for a better drone tracking and camera selection
Improved drone collision: Drone collission behaviour has been improved in direct mode, making it more physically accurate
Environment lighting: Improved and optimised environment lighting
Localisation: Updated some localisation text
Many other minor optimisations and improvements
🧹 Bug fixes:
Fixed bugs related to the spectator camera
Fixed an issue making it impossible to select a checkpoint that has never been used, after loading a track in the track editor
General UI & HUD fixes and harmonisation, including fixes for improper scaling on non-16:9 monitors
Fixed terrain shaders displaying incorrectly
Fixed Drone presentation camera behaving incorrectly in some cases
Fixed issue of not being able to set someone else as the admin
Fixed lobby settings sometimes being unavailable after pressing “Back To Lobby”
Reduced volume of UI sound effects
Fixed issue where singleplayer GameServer instances kept accumulating and were never getting removed
Fixed the Field of View of the Track Editor camera being broken in certain cases
Fixed Drone collision status sometimes not resetting after respawn
Fixed Bloom and Depth of Field settings being swapped
Various other bug fixes
🧐 Known Issues:
In multiplayer, other pilots’ drones appear to stutter and move in a choppy way. This is only visual, and does not impact your times, but is very distracting. A fix should soon be released.
Thank you for reading!