Season 6’s mid-season update released earlier this month. This update brought more Detective Missions with a difficulty improvement to all of them, a new vehicle and bug fixes. Next is Season 7, which brings new vehicles with majority of them belonging to JDM culture, and a massive improvement to the game's ‘live’ gameplay structure with new daily challenges, enhanced live events, and an enhanced solar pass. We won’t be able to share the release month of Season 7 yet, but we will have better visibility on this topic within the next 2 Solar Club Letters, giving a 30 day heads up on the next update release.
Now, let’s discuss what’s happening behind the scenes with the games development! Oh, before that, keep note of the pictures you see in this letter. Some, if not many, have quite a lot of fixes and improvements in them, and some might even reveal some cool stuff too!
What’s In the Letter?
Current Developments
Season 7 Vehicle Progress
Season 7 Live Enhancement Progress
Season 7 Fixes & Improvements So Far
Offline
Current Work
What’s Next?
A Message To The Community
Community Spotlight
Winners
How To Enter
May Theme
⏭️ Current Developments
Today we’re going to discuss some of the things our developers are working on behind the scenes.
Season 7 Vehicle Progress
So you already know the theme behind Season 7’s vehicles, but let’s go in a little bit more detail on this topic! As usual, Season 7 will bring 1 vehicle to the dealership, 3 to the Solar Pass, and 2 bundles in the online store. Currently, we’ve already worked on the dynamics on all the vehicles and soon to finalise the sound of them as well. We know you want a tease, so here’s a zoomed in screenshot of a Season 7 vehicle!
We are also working on other areas we are working on to improve the experience of the players. This is for example:
Remove Stock Wings
We will continue to add this option on some vehicles, where it makes sense and respect the TDU DNA. Some cars that will have this feature day one in Season 7 are:
Unannounced Season 7 Vehicle
Unannounced Season 7 Vehicle
Unannounced Season 7 Vehicle
Nissan GT-R (R35)
Lotus Exige 380 S
Audi TT RS
Revamped Hypercar Tyres
We have updated the behaviour of the hypercars. We knew from the launch that the hypercars had a more ‘arcady’ behaviour than the rest of the cars. So we have fixed a part of this by changing the dynamics of hypercars' physical tyres.
It's not the only thing we will change in the future on the hypercars to make them more realistic and more fun to drive. We will change the aero downforce (force and balance front/rear) that can be a little too much on some vehicles, especially the electric ones like the Lotus Evija that feel unrealistic at some point.
We will continue to improve driving sensation to make TDUSC more real, more simcade. Accessible but credible.
Various Bug Fixes
Fixed transmission on Ford Mustang GT
Fixed transmission on Nissan 370Z
Fix handbrake being weird on some vehicles
Enhanced Racing Experience
Kind of vehicle related, but we’re hard at work improving the racing experience. We are currently revamping start lines, finish lines, and checkpoints across all Progression and Live Events races to make them more realistic. In Solar Crown events, checkpoints will now be static objects, meaning poor driving will have real consequences! This is a huge task, so we’ll be rolling out these changes progressively over the next few months.
But we also want to be open and let you know that there are other areas of the game we are working on, but what we’ll mention below we cannot yet confirm if it will arrive in Season 7 or Season 7’s mid-season update yet. Such things are:
Camera Improvements
We know camera behavior has been a hot topic lately. Just like our recent work on tires, we want to push the realism further. While the current setup delivers a nice sense of speed, we want to bring back that classic TDU DNA: more focus on the car, a tighter FOV, and a more immersive feel behind the wheel.
Don't worry—we aren't deleting anything. If you love the current views, we will keep them via a 'Legacy TDUSC' setting . That said, our post-launch experience has shown us that a change is needed to truly match the Test Drive vision.
We’re targeting a Season 7’s mid-season update to release for these new cameras. After Season 7’s mid-season update, we’re also planning to add deeper customization settings so you can tweak the view to your liking as well as interior camera improvements. This extra layer of personalization will follow the update of the cameras.
Fix Some Vehicle Shift Times
Improved Turbo Sounds
Fix turbo sound on some cars that have the blow-off-valve noise without doing anything
Delete some sounds that are not accurate like the BOV sound on the Ferrari 488 Pista for example
Vehicle Turning Radius
Since TDU has a very strong differential to improve the cars' road holding, the steering angle is consequently lower when a gear is engaged. This is a complicated fix within the games code to make sure we can fix this without affecting the overall physics of the game
New Quests
New quests will be added soon along the progression. These ones will be dedicated to new game modes we have added (Taxi, Convoy, Detective)
Rim Size Customization
We are officially working on the ability to change rim sizes. While we don’t have a specific release date yet, the design phase and UI interface are already complete.
We are now focused on the technical implementation. Sometimes, features that seem simple on the surface require a deep overhaul of our current systems to ensure they work correctly in the long term. This update will also include a comprehensive fix for existing rim size inconsistencies currently affecting certain car models.
We will continue to give you updates on what’s coming next for TDUSC.
Season 7 Live Enhancement Progress
One thing we knew we had to improve in the game at some point is how players interact with the game everyday. Right now, the only new content or challenges you have are weekly live events as the main thing. With Season 7’s live enhancements, you’ll have a massively overhauled live experience to help captivate the world of TDUSC with new rewards through revamped live events which can now feature missions and challenges, new weekly rewards for the Solar Pass, and new daily challenges which now focus on three elements.
The development team has done some incredible work with these new features, in fact, it’s easier if we have Guillaume go over these screenshots to explain this as we are now near a final version of the UI that you’ll all see in Season 7!
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“This is a major feature that will fundamentally reshape your day-to-day experience in Test Drive. As you can see, the World Map now features a Live Panel where various types of challenges can be tracked and completed to have access to rewards (money and items) and progress into your Solar Pass.
These are categorized into three types:
- Daily Challenges
- Live Event Challenges
- Seasonal Challenges
First, let’s dive deeper into the revamped Daily Challenges.
We have redesigned how these work to better reflect the three pillars of the TDU DNA: Exploration, Lifestyle, and Driving. Each day, you will be assigned one challenge for each pillar. Completing them grants you specific rewards.
If a particular challenge doesn't suit your playstyle, you can use one of your three daily rerolls. Doing so will allow you to choose a new challenge from a selection of three alternatives within that same theme. Our goal is to give you the freedom to shape your own daily progression.”
- Guillaume (TDUSC Game Director)
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“The Live Event Challenges are here! You’ll have 8 themed challenges to tackle during each event. These objectives will push you to drive specific cars in new ways and explore the latest events popping up on your map.
The best part? No more grinding for points. If you complete the 8 challenges, the special reward is yours. It's that simple: just play, complete the tasks, and enjoy your prizes!
We’re also incredibly happy to share that we’re moving beyond Sprints and Circuits. Thanks to this new system, we are finally bringing Contracts, Time Attack, Navigation, and Domination events to the world of Solar Crown. Get ready for a lot more variety!”
- Guillaume (TDUSC Game Director)
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“And finally: Seasonal Challenges.
We’re adding 8 new challenges every week, and they’ll stay active for the entire season. If you clear a full page of 8 challenges, there’s an extra reward waiting for you!
If you’re looking to blast through your Solar Pass or stack up some easy cash, these tasks from the Live Panel are now your best bet. You’ll still earn progress by just racing and accomplish thing like before, but these challenges are the ultimate shortcut.
This has been in the works since day one to make sure your daily and weekly routine in TDU feels rewarding. It was a huge task for the team, but it’s finally here to make the world of Solar Crown feel more alive than ever.”
- Guillaume (TDUSC Game Director)
Season 7 Fixes & Improvements So Far
Cars and new features aren’t the only thing we’ve been working on. There are a lot of quality of life improvements we’ve done on all fronts. For example, here’s a look at some new colours for the world map! Thibault and his team have worked on the artistic direction of it to make it more like a plan and less like a futuristic projection, and we hope you love it!
p.s - yes we hid some POI's, we don't want to leak the location of the houses yet! Plus you have some house teases in this letter too, we're integrating some of them into the map already!
Remember speed traps? We are also updating Speed Traps with a new official HKI model and removing the 'portal' effect for a more seamless look. Our goal is simple: to make your time in Test Drive feel more like real-world driving.
You might also realise that low light and photos with shadows look much better. Though this isn’t a quality of life improvement and rather a bug fix, photo mode no longer has the Global Illumination/Ambient Occlusion Not Stabilised/Denoised In Photo Mode issue. This means you can take beautiful pictures, without being affected by poor shadow performance in the form of ‘dots’ on the vehicle or other objects in the world.
Here is what it was like before.
Here it is now.
As we said before, your pictures have never looked better after this fix!
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There are much more bug fixes and quality of life features we are working on such as:
Grain enable/disable has now been adding to settings in Post-Process submenu
Chromatic Aberration enable/disbale in Post-Process submenu
Tour De Force race impossible to complete
Windshield wipers turn off automatically in tunnels even when Automatic Wipers are disabled
Addition fixes to Poker
And many others as we continue to keep you in the loop in future Solar Club Letters
We also are working on memory issues that TDUSC has to help improve the reliability and performance of the game. We don’t have much detailed insight on this yet but as usual, we’ll make sure to let you know more info on this later.
🛜 Offline
Before discussing this, we want to make one thing clear. Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a game we know can continue to improve and bring excitement to the many players who want a driving lifestyle game, a tag well acquainted to the meaning of TDU. We are committed to delivering Season 7 and Season 8, and while we are about to discuss offline, it is not a correlation to the game ending its seasonal updates after Season 8. We believe TDUSC has a future past Season 8, and we’ll be sure to communicate what’s next after the arrival of this stellar update. Now, let’s talk about offline, a large request from the community.
Current Work
The last time we talked about offline, we mentioned we will look into this feature when the games live service comes to an end, which is why we wanted to reiterate above that discussing this feature is not to be taken as an indication of the games live service ending.
That said, we can confirm we are now officially working on a plan on what offline means to Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, and how we will implement it. We of course wish to make sure TDUSC is playable for all players when we no longer update the game, but this is a complicated feature to work on, as all of the game is connected to the servers.
What’s Next
Working on a plan is the first step to know what will be offline, and how it will work when it’s offline. The word ‘offline’ may have a different meaning to many. Some see it as just being able to play a game without the internet. However, the truth is that it actually means being able to play a game without servers. What does this mean? Well TDUSC has a lot of features that rely on the games servers. Races, the Casino, Missions, and then there’s live service elements such as Hot Heads, Clan Challenges, and even the cars rotating in the Solar Hotel. The most important being how content in the online store can be available, Diamonds, and even how your saves can be adapted to the new system.
We want to make sure that nearly every feature of the game is still playable without the games servers, which might mean some features will have to be changed to work with this new system (for example if we want poker to be playable without servers).
We won’t have any news to provide on the progress of our next steps for quite a few months as we are currently working on other things related to the games network and servers such as cross region, servers ‘v2’, Official Racing Center, and all of the amazing social features Season 8’s houses will bring, but we want to ask you a question, what does offline mean to you? What should be available? What do you think should be a priority in what offline can offer? Leave your feedback to us on our Discord and social media outlets, we’ll be reading it all!
💌 A Message To The Community
We want to thank the community for their continued support and feedback on Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. We know there are many things we must work on and surely, we’ll get by them with each update that arrives! We have a lot of exciting things planned for Season 7 and even Season 8 that we have yet to reveal, many being key features and quality of life improvements the community has been asking for even dating back to the release of the game.
We are excited to deliver these next Seasons, and soon, showcase to you what the future of TDUSC holds after Season 8. We’re working hard, and we hope to see that when you play these next updates!
We’ll see you again soon and with the continued work on Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, we will be sure to keep the TDU franchise alive for the many years to come through it!
🖼️ Community Spotlight
Yup! It’s time to announce the winners for the month of May!
Winners
Last month we asked you to take photos to match the theme ‘Professional Photographer’! There were A LOT of good entries but here are the top 3 voted photos of the month by the TDU team!
Discord member Spicachu wins this month's Community Spotlight with this beautiful scenic photo during sunrise!
Discord member Ryo wins second place with this incredible picture. The weather. The framing. The time of day. It all works together nicely!
Discord member AleksFTW wins third place with the sunrise on Ibiza!
Congrats again to the winners! You all win 2,500,000 Solar Coins and 250 Diamonds! There were so many good entries for this months spotlight, we have to give an honorable mention to these members of the community too!
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How To Enter
First, join our Discord which can be found at Discord.gg/TestDrive. Once you join our Discord, you’ll see a channel called ‘tdusc-photos’. Here, you can send the best pictures you've taken in TDUSC, but make sure to put %communityspotlight5 in your message post!
Here are the rules:
Each month there will be a theme!
Pictures must be high quality and not edited outside of the game or taken with tools that are not native to TDUSC's in-game photo mode
Only 1 picture is allowed
You are only allowed one post per month; however, you can delete your post and make a new one to replace it.
3 photos will be selected by the TDU team to win each month
The best picture will be showcased in the in-game news section in TDUSC
Note: Posting in this channel means you allow your picture to be used by Nacon/KT for promotional use.
June Theme
House Guesser - Let's have some fun! Take a photo of your car in a location where you think a house will be located (does not include the construction site locations).
❤️ Final Message
Thanks for reading this letter! We’ll see you again next month as usual for the next Solar Club Letter. For now, we head back to work on the future of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown! Our engineering team did some inspections today, and they thought they should take some pictures! We hope you enjoyed them!
- The TDU Team
