Getting Started in the DRL Sim!

Introduction

Welcome to the DRL Sim and thank you for your support. Our goal is to provide you with both a fun and educational experience with FPV drone flight. We accomplish this with 54 training missions, 25 unique maps to fly, and with the ability to fly freestyle or race solo, multiplayer, or with bots.

Missions

We recommend missions as a good place to start learning to fly. You will start flying "Beginner" mode on a training drone, which provides stability and attitude assistance. Most experienced pilots fly in “Pro” mode, but it can be difficult to start with pro mode without prior FPV experience immediately. If you have prior experience, starting in “Pro” is recommended. Those missions are in Quest 3.

Settings

Once you complete the missions and feel that flying in “Pro” mode is comfortable for you, we recommend you set camera tilt and camera fov settings

Camera Tilt - To get top speed flying in the "Pro" mode, you have the ability to tilt the drone 90 degrees. However, at 90 degrees you will not see where you are flying. The camera tilt setting will help change this. For a beginner, you might find that around 30 degrees is a good fit whereas some experienced pilots might find the 40-45 range works best for them. 

Camera FOV - A camera's Field of View (FOV) determines how much it can see around it. Adjusting the camera FOV will help you to zoom in or out of the viewing distance.

For new pilots, we recommend setting this before you race although you can also change it from the pause menu. A good setting when starting out is 120.

To set camera settings from the race open pause menu:

Navigating the main menu

Solo Racing

Now that you have completed some missions and configured your settings, you are ready for your first race. While there are many tracks to choose from, here are a few we recommend:

Hard Rock Stadium / Sidelines - This track is set on the stadium of the Miami Dolphins and gives you a lot of experience with straightaways and left turns as you race around the perimeter of the football field 

GoH / Shipyard - This track takes place in the port area where you can fly between containers, a cargo ship, cargo cranes, and port equipment.

Drone Park / Xbox Xclusive - A futuristic design of a domed drone park in a city, set your own records, compete with friends, or enjoy a freestyle flight and remember this is an "Xclusive" track that is only available on Xbox.

GoH / Woods - Woods, trees, and long straightaways at the beginning of the track, this is exactly that place where you can accelerate your drone to maximum speed.

Freestyle

Freestyle flying is another good training tool when you are getting started. It can be very helpful to set a line for yourself and then try to fly that line precisely. As you get more advanced, you will find it is also a good place to try new tricks and manuevers. 

Multiplayer

Multiplayer gives you a chance to compete directly against other players to see how your skills stack up. 

Server to use - At the DRL Sim we provide the opportunity to play on three servers: Europe, North America, Asia. The best server to play is that which is located closest to you. You can try the "Best Region" option and the system will select a more suitable server for you with the best ping.

Custom room - Create your own room, select your favorite map, add bots to the race, or even make your room private and play only with your friends. All these settings are available in multiplayer. 

Inviting other players - It is also possible to send an invitation to join your race to all pilots who are online. For this, you need to create a new room and set it to the "Public" and the "Invite" button will appear under "Start" and "Spectate" buttons on the right side of the screen.

Spectate - Want to watch the race of your friends or other pilots ? - Join the room and click the "Spectate" button on the right side of the screen, which will send you to spectator mode. You will be able to spectate the race and switch between all pilots with different camera views.

Tournaments

You can participate in any of our bracket style tournaments. We currently run community tournaments (for fun only) every Sunday at 3pm eastern and 7pm eastern. The 3pm eastern tournament is on our EU server while the 7pm is on our North America server. You can register for either (or even both) tournament under the “Tournaments” card in the sim. 

Workbench

Flying one of our pre-built drones is fun, but imagine the thrill of flying a drone that you built yourself. Our workbench tool has thousands of different combinations and is a great tool for learning about the different components that make up a drone. You can even give your drone a unique look by customizing the skin and colors. 

DRL Leaders

Are you wondering why your best race is not in first place on the leaderboard? Take a look at the replays of the top players, analyze their lines, and use that as a tool for improving your own lines. You can also change the speed of the replay, jump to a specific point, and watch from different camera views. 

 To see where you stack up, choose the map for which you want to see your results and select the “My Position” button. You can come back often to see how you are progressing though you will be notified any time you set a personal best along with where you currently place on the leaderboard.