THE YARD update: a working container terminal, AI wingmen and portals

THE YARD: a real industrial site to fly

The Yard has grown into a believable working estate, built for tight FPV lines.

• A working container terminal with rail-mounted gantry cranes, stacked boxes and lanes to thread at speed
• A five-storey steel frame going up round a concrete core, with a tower crane whose shaft you can dive
• Yard 13: a live drone factory. Frames ride the belt past robot arms that fit motors, electronics and props, and a finished quad test-flies in its cage
• Realistic ground: poured concrete bays with saw-cut joints, oil stains, gravel lay-down yards, worn tracks and puddles
• Weathered walls with dirt at the base and rain streaks, and weeds growing along the walls
• About 240 solid site objects: pallets, cable drums, skips, cabins, lighting towers, a lorry park and a car park

AI wingmen

Arm up in the Yard and three AI drones launch with you. The lead flies its own racing line through the site and two wingmen follow with proper separation. Their navigation lights (red, green and white) now sit on the arms like real LEDs.

Portals

Fly through the portal rings by the Yard to warp to Bando, the Factory or Central London and back. Every arrival puts you in open air, facing into the map, with your speed kept. All 163 rings on 15 maps were checked.

London comes alive

• Red double-deckers, black cabs and cars cross Westminster Bridge in both directions
• A tour boat, a tug and a police launch run on the Thames with foam wakes
• A new, realistic Thames surface, soot and rain streaks on Portland stone, and York-stone paving
• Every vehicle and boat is solid, so mind the traffic

Canyon and Fractal

Canyon: a new desert sky with high cloud, and stars and a moon at night

Fractal: a 70 m fractal unicorn under a violet nebula. Fly under the belly, through the legs, through the tail loop and down the horn spiral

Cleaner HUD

The in-flight HUD is now minimal: just "TAB menu", with bigger stick boxes that leave a short trail so you can see your inputs.

Fixes

• Factory: fixed a freeze when one rebar bundle was on screen
• Trippy Plains: collision now rebuilds correctly when you return to the map
• Canyon: trestle supports no longer stand on the lower railway or in the river pass
• Multiplayer: "Fly together" rooms now match players on this version

Thanks for flying Trippy Plains. Tell us in the discussions what you want to fly next.