FPV PVP 0.4: Four Updates in One
Since v3.44, almost all the work has gone into one place: the two arenas you fly in.
Sandstorm and Substation have been rebuilt surface by surface. Open skies, real sunlight, a desert town you can believe in, a power plant that looks like it runs, plus new fire, explosions, menu and HUD visuals.
Nothing you learned moves.
Every wall, cover spot, route and flight lane is exactly where it was.
✨ THE SHORT VERSION
🌤️ An open sky over both arenas, with the sun exactly where the shadows say it is, plus a real night sky over Sandstorm.
🏜️ Sandstorm is a desert town now, with stone-built ramparts, hand-plastered houses, roofs, worn paving and ground shaped around the routes you fly.
⚡ Substation is a working power plant, with weathered steel, colour-coded floors, trusses, lamps and machinery.
🔥 Fire, explosions and impacts have been redone, with orange fire, a new explosion, and dust or sparks depending on what you hit.
✨ Real reflections on metal and glass, with everything sitting on the ground through soft contact shadows.
🎮 A restyled menu and HUD.
🛠️ WHY 0.4?
FPV PVP is now in Early Access, so the version number says so.
This update is 0.4 and comes after v3.44, even though the number is smaller.
Future patches will be 0.4.1, 0.4.2 and so on. The current version is shown under the logo on the main menu.
As with every update, pilots can only join each other on the same version.
Steam updates the game automatically. If a friend's game says they need to update, restarting FPV PVP should let Steam pick up the new version.
🌤️ THE SKY IS OPEN
No more roof
Both arenas used to have a solid roof at 60 m.
It hid the sky and, on Regular graphics and above, shaded everything near your drone.
The roof is now invisible.
The 60 m flight ceiling has not changed. You are stopped at exactly the same height as before.
☁️ Painted skies
Sandstorm gets fair-weather clouds.
Substation gets a heavy steel overcast.
The sun sits exactly where the shadows say it is.
☀️ A higher sun
The taller sun position means the walls cast shorter shadows, putting more of each map into sunlight.
🌙 A real night sky over Sandstorm
Thousands of stars, the Milky Way and a full moon, all positioned so the moonlight actually comes from the moon.
🏜️ SANDSTORM: A REAL DESERT TOWN
Ramparts built stone by stone
Sandstone blocks each have their own tone. They are weathered and pitted, dusty at the foot, bleached at the top, with run-off streaks beneath the battlements.
Pointed arches with glazed zellige tiles run along the foot of every wall.
Above them are crenellations, string courses, arrow slits and tall team banners over each spawn.
Hand-plastered houses
Fly close and you can see the trowel marks, sand grain and hairline cracks.
Dust has washed down beneath the window sills.
Rows of scaffold holes remain, with a few builders' beams still in place.
There are painted shutters, plank doors beneath striped awnings, caged lanterns, clay jars and a studded timber gate on the Mid doors.
Roofs worth flying over
Earthen roofs sit inside timber rims, with rugs laid out to air, clay jars, hatches and vents.
Ground made for this town
Wind-rippled sand follows the routes everyone flies.
Sand banks against the walls and trails behind crates.
There are patches of gravel, loose pebbles and tufts of dry grass.
Worn paving
Around the Mid house and along Long A, honey sandstone and pale limestone flagstones are chipped and cracked, with sand packed into the joints and drifting over the edges.
Streets
Colourful bunting and lanterns hang across the streets and over the exits.
Tall columns have tiled rings.
Plank catwalks, rocks and clay pots sit around the doors.
Hand-painted signs mark the attackers' exits:
"< B" · "MID >" · "A >"
The two site entrances are marked as well.
Beyond the walls
An old town rises above the ramparts.
Turquoise-tiled domes, minarets with gilded finials and four corner bastions sit beyond the playable area.
🌅 Truer light
The shade is now built from cool blue sky light with warm bounce from the sand instead of a flat, muddy brown.
🌃 Sandstorm at night
The town lights up.
Windows glow across the old town.
A few arrow slits burn in the ramparts.
Lanterns become brighter and easier to read while flying.
⚡ SUBSTATION: A WORKING PLANT
Weathered steel and concrete
The walls are lighter.
Some panels have been repainted. Others are tired and worn.
Rust bleeds down from seams and beneath floodlights. Grime runs down from the high windows. Oil collects around the transformers.
Every panel, bolt and slab has relief.
Walls with scale
Steel columns divide the walls into bays.
A band of tall windows runs high above, with a few lit from inside.
Pipe risers, exhaust fans, cable trays, electrical cabinets and fire points line the walls.
Yellow-and-black guards surround every column.
Painted floors
The glossy epoxy floors are colour-coded by zone:
🟢 Green: Mid
🟠 Ochre: A
🔵 Blue: B
🔴 Red-brown: attackers' hall
🟣 Violet: defenders' hall
They are worn with oil stains, wheel tracks and concrete repairs.
Drain grates, hazard-striped transformer frames and standing water reflect the hall around them.
Know where you are from the air
A painted stripe runs around the yard at 22 m:
Yellow on the A side. Blue on the B side.
Giant painted A and B mark the sites.
MID marks the middle walls.
The attackers' exits carry "A >" and "< B".
Lane doors have floor markings.
High on the end walls:
HIGH VOLTAGE
SUBSTATION 7
Overhead
Real lattice trusses hang above the plant with high-bay lamps.
Floodlights sit beneath the 12 m girder.
Coloured site lights hang under the trusses.
The Mid block is a control room
A band of dark glass, a steel door and a caged ladder give the building its purpose.
The roof and site blocks carry air-conditioning units, vents and hatches.
Beyond the walls
Transmission pylons carry cables into the distance.
Two cooling towers roll out steam.
Red-and-white chimneys carry warning lights and drifting smoke.
🗺️ BOTH ARENAS
The bomb sites
The bomb sites are painted plant zones with a hazard-striped border and a large glowing A or B that you can spot from the air.
Same position. Same size.
💡 Real zone lights
Sandstorm uses carved wooden screens over lit glass.
Substation uses industrial fittings with glowing diffusers.
The lights now show their actual colours, green, yellow, blue and red, instead of washed-out white.
At night in Sandstorm, they become brighter because that is when you navigate by them.
👇 Everything sits on the ground
Walls, houses, crates, barrels and containers now cast soft contact shadows where they meet the floor.
✨ Real reflections
Metal and glossy surfaces reflect the arena around them instead of showing a flat grey sky.
Your drone gets the treatment first.
🔥 FIRE, IMPACTS AND FEEL
Fire looks like fire
Explosions, sparks and muzzle flashes were being clipped toward a sickly yellow-green.
They now burn from white-hot to orange and down to deep red.
💥 A new explosion
A white flash.
A swelling fireball.
Streaking embers.
A column of dark smoke.
Near the ground, it throws out a ring of dust and leaves a scorch mark that fades after about half a minute.
💨 Impacts match the surface
Sandstorm's stone and plaster kick up a puff of tan dust.
Substation's steel and concrete throw hard sparks.
Hits on drones always spark.
🔫 Tighter muzzle flashes
The flash stays at the barrel.
Other pilots still see its light.
Bullet holes
Bullet holes now remain on walls, floors and crates for about 25 seconds.
🌪️ Prop wash
Fly within about 3.5 m of the ground and your props disturb the surface beneath you.
Sand kicks up in Sandstorm.
Dust kicks up in Substation.
Every drone does it.
A low flyer gives itself away.
🎮 MENU AND HUD
Restyled menu
A new typeface.
Buttons with a glow, a lit edge and a chevron that come alive under the mouse or controller.
Long labels always fit.
The layout and controller navigation remain unchanged.
One typeface
The match clock, big banners, ammo counter and kill feed now use the same typeface as the menu.
🏜️ Sandstorm behind the menu
The desert town behind your drone is built from Sandstorm's own sand, plaster and stone.
Dust glints in the light.
Sand haze drifts across the scene.
🖥️ ALSO
Fullscreen
Fullscreen now opens at your screen's native resolution until you choose one in SETTINGS.
Previously, it could open stretched from an old window size.
🔒 UNCHANGED ON PURPOSE
Nothing here changes how the game plays.
No new collision anywhere.
The same cover.
The same routes.
The same bot paths.
The same flight.
The same weapons.
The same modes.
The same ranked play.
Everything plays exactly as it did in v3.44.
The new textures are compressed, and the new detail is drawn in batches the game can skip when they are out of view.
❤️ THANK YOU FOR FLYING
Found something broken?
REPORT BUG in the main menu sends your log and a screenshot straight to me.
Thank you for flying.