Game Guide

Race Batches

Races run in automated batches on a regular cycle. When a batch triggers, the system pairs active drones within their level bracket (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20) using ELO ratings. Higher-rated drones face higher-rated opponents. If a bracket has an odd number of drones, a bot fills the gap to ensure everyone races.

Track Assignment

Each race is assigned a track filtered by the drones' level range. Tracks have minimum and maximum level requirements, difficulty ratings, and unique characteristics: different ratios of straights to turns, varying lengths, and signature conditions.

The Strategy Window

When matchmaking completes, races enter a two-minute pending state before execution. During this window you see the upcoming matchup: your drone vs the opponent, the track layout, the rolled weather, and the time of day. This is the window where you swap the equipped mod on your drone to adapt to the matchup. When the timer expires the race locks and executes.

Active / inactive toggles are not blocked during the strategy window or the execution lock that follows it. Mod and skin swaps on the queued drone lock once the strategy timer expires. See the Active Drone Slots section for how the pending Activating and Deactivating states resolve.

Race Simulation

The race engine simulates each race segment by segment across 3 laps. Segments are either straights or turns, and different stats carry different weight on each type. Weather conditions (clear, rain, wind) and time of day (day, night) apply modifiers to relevant stats. Battery degrades across laps. Lap 1 runs clean, later laps test your Battery Capacity stat. The drone with the lowest total time wins.

Rewards and Progression

Winners earn 10 XP plus tiered volts: 3 base, plus level / difficulty / upset / dominance bonuses. Losers earn 4 XP plus 1 base volt scaled by their level (floor(loserLevel / 4) bonus). ELO ratings adjust based on the outcome. Upsets (a lower-rated drone beating a higher-rated one) flag in the log and pay a volts bonus to the winner. XP drives leveling, which unlocks higher stat caps and access to harder tracks. Volts fund the rest of the economy: stat upgrades, packs, NPC vendor purchases, and Marketplace buys. You cannot buy XP - leveling only happens by racing.

Active Drone Slots

You start with 1 active drone slot. Slot 2 unlocks at 3,000 total races, slot 3 at 10,000 races. Each milestone also auto-spawns a free Level 1 drone (plus an unbound common skin and mod) so the new slot has something to fill it. Only active drones enter race batches. Changes to active/inactive status take effect after the current race batch resolves.

Volts

Volts are the only in-game currency. You earn them by racing. Winners take 3 base plus level, difficulty, upset, and dominance bonuses; losers take 1 base plus a level bonus. Volts buy stat upgrades, packs, NPC vendor drones (3,500V each), and other players' listings on the Marketplace.

The Marketplace

The Marketplace is where players trade drones, skins, and mods with each other. All listings are priced in volts. A 5% rake is applied to every sale - the platform's only fee. Active drones can be listed and keep racing until they sell. A drone's entire bound skin and mod collection transfers with it.

Packs

Two product lines: skin packs (cosmetics) and mod capsules (functional). Each comes in three tiers - Starter, Premium, and Legendary - sharing the same slot rarity tables. Skin packs cost 2,000 / 12,000 / 60,000; mod capsules cost 1,000 / 6,000 / 30,000. Every pack opens 3 items.

Building value

A drone's market value comes from the time invested in building it. Level, stat allocation, the bound skin and mod collection, and ELO history all contribute. Stat allocations are permanent - there is no respec. A well-built drone is what other players want to own.

What is Hyperdrome

Passive competitive drone racing. You own drones, allocate stats, and they race automatically every 3 minutes. A weighted simulation decides each race using your stats vs. the opponent's, the track layout, the rolled weather, the time of day, and a small dampened random variance. Wins pay volts and XP. Volts spend on stat upgrades, marketplace buys, and packs. Seasons run 30 days.

Creating your account

Sign up with email. We send a magic link. No password. On first sign-in you get a free Level 1 starter drone (active by default), 500 volts in your wallet, one unbound common skin and one unbound common mod sitting in your inventory, and 1 active drone slot at ELO 1000.

Your first drone

Level 1, active by default, with all 9 stats randomized in the 1-5 range and trimmed to fit a Level 1 Total Stat Budget of 29. It enters the next race cycle automatically. Every upgrade costs volts from your wallet, so the first wins fund the first upgrades.

The 9 stats

On every track segment (a straight or a turn), each drone gets a score from a weighted combination of stats. A higher score is a faster segment. Conversion: segment time = baseTime - 0.005 * score, where baseTime = 1.6 + 0.33 * difficulty. Track difficulty sets the baseline pace. Lowest total time across all segments and laps wins.

Speed

50% weight on straight segments. 0% on turns. Higher speed lowers your time on straights.

Turning

50% weight on turn segments. 0% on straights. Higher turning lowers your time on turns.

Acceleration

30% weight on straights, 20% on turns. Pulls weight on every segment.

Durability

30% weight on turns, 0% on straights. Reduces turn penalties.

Consistency

No segment-scoring weight. Pure variance dampener. At consistency 0 the per-segment swing is +/- 7%. As consistency rises the swing scales toward zero. Higher consistency means more predictable race results.

Battery Capacity

No direct segment weight. Reduces battery degradation that ramps from lap 2 to the final lap. At 100 there's zero drain. At 0 a long-track segment can lose up to 60% of its score by the final lap.

Night Vision

Triggers when time of day is "night" (0.5x at 0, 1.0x at 50, 1.5x cap), and as the visibility stat for "fog" and "haze" weather. At night a 0-NV drone halves its segment score; at 75+ it caps at 1.5x.

Rain Handling

Triggers in "rain" weather (0.5x / 1.0x / 1.5x) and "heavy rain" weather (harsher: 0.4x at 0, 1.0x at 60, 1.4x cap). Heavy rain punishes low-rain drones more than regular rain.

Wind Resistance

20% weight on every straight regardless of weather. In "wind" weather, additionally applies the 0.5x / 1.0x / 1.5x multiplier on every segment.

Total Stat Budget (TSB)

Your drone's 9 stats can sum to at most TSB. Formula: TSB = 9 + 20 * level. Level 1: 29. Level 5: 109. Level 10: 209. Level 15: 309. Level 20: 409.

Per-Stat Cap

No single stat can exceed the cap for your level. Formula: cap = min(100, 10 + floor(4.5 * level)). Level 1: 14. Level 5: 32. Level 10: 55. Level 15: 77. Level 20: 100. The cap stops you from dumping your entire budget into one stat early.

Stat upgrade costs

Each upgrade is paid in volts from your wallet. Cost depends on the stat's current value: 1 + floor(currentValue / 10). Costs scale in 10-step bands.

Raising one stat from 1 to 100 costs 460 volts total. The first 9 volts are cheap. Past 50 it gets expensive fast.

No respec

Stat allocations are permanent. Once volts are spent on an upgrade, the upgrade is permanent.

How races work

Every 3 minutes the race cycle runs. All active drones get matched and raced. Result lands in your race log with the segment-by-segment data, the ELO change, the volts payout, the XP, and the race conditions that rolled.

Matchmaking

Drones group into level brackets: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20. Inside a bracket, drones sort by ELO and pair with the next-closest rating. A bot backfill keeps every active bracket at minimum 4 drones, rounded up to even, so every active drone races every cycle. No byes.

Race simulation

Each track is a fixed count of straights and turns, clustered into stretches of 2-4 same-type segments per lap (e.g. 3 straights, then 2 turns, then 1 straight). Segments are re-shuffled at the start of every lap so the layout varies lap to lap. For each segment, both drones get a score from the weighted stat formula, multiplied by any weather and time-of-day modifiers, multiplied by battery degradation for that lap, multiplied by a small variance dampened by consistency. Score becomes time via segment time = baseTime - 0.005 * score, where baseTime = 1.6 + 0.33 * difficulty. Times accumulate. Lower total time wins. The clustering means a stretch of 3 straights gives a speed build a real chance to open a gap before the next turn cluster lets a turning build claw it back.

Weather and time of day

7 weathers roll randomly per race: clear, clouds, rain, heavy rain, wind, haze, fog. 4 times of day: dawn, day, dusk, night. Clear weather, cloudy weather, dawn, day, and dusk are all neutral. The rest apply stat multipliers:

Rain

Applies your Rain Handling multiplier to every segment score: 0.5x at 0, 1.0x at 50, 1.5x at 75+.

Heavy rain

Harsher than rain. 0.4x at rain handling 0, 1.0x at 60, 1.4x cap. Low-rain drones get punished more, top-rain drones cap a touch lower.

Wind

Applies your Wind Resistance multiplier to every segment score (0.5x / 1.0x / 1.5x scale).

Fog

Visibility hit. Uses Night Vision: 0.6x at 0, 1.0x at 60, 1.4x cap.

Haze

Light visibility hit. Uses Night Vision: 0.7x at 0, 1.0x at 70, 1.3x cap.

Night (time of day)

Applies your Night Vision multiplier to every segment score (0.5x / 1.0x / 1.5x scale).

Clear, clouds, haze, fog, dawn, day, and dusk are visual only. They roll into your race log but apply no multiplier.

Laps

Every track is 3 laps. Battery degradation is 0 on lap 1, ramps linearly to its peak on the final lap. Peak per-segment hit = (100 - your battery) / 100 * 0.5 * length multiplier. Length multiplier is 0.8 short, 1.0 medium, 1.2 long. So a 0-battery drone on a long track loses up to 60% of its segment scores by lap 3. A 100-battery drone loses nothing.

Track selection

Random pick from tracks whose level range covers your bracket. You don't choose. The track for a race is shown in the race detail view alongside its specs.

7 tracks live today. More on the way. Every track has a fixed straights count, turns count, length tier (short / medium / long), difficulty rating (1-10), and a level range it serves. All tracks are 3 laps.

Difficulty

Difficulty drives the volts payout. Winner gets a bonus of floor(difficulty / 2). Difficulty 1 pays +0. Difficulty 2-3 pays +1. Difficulty 4-5 pays +2. Difficulty 6-7 pays +3. Difficulty 8-9 pays +4. Difficulty 10 pays +5. The difficulty also signals layout intensity: more turns, longer length, tighter angles.

Length

Length is a multiplier on battery drain: short 0.8x, medium 1.0x, long 1.2x. Long tracks punish low battery builds. Short tracks barely touch battery at all.

Level gating

Each track has an inclusive level range. A drone races only on tracks whose range covers its level. As you climb, the eligible track pool rotates.

Current track list

Neon Straightaway

8 straights, 2 turns. Short. Difficulty 2. Levels 1-5. A grinder for speedsters at low level.

The Grid

6 straights, 4 turns. Short. Difficulty 3. Levels 1-10. Mixed layout, broad bracket.

Circuit Alpha

5 straights, 5 turns. Medium. Difficulty 4. Levels 1-10. Even split favors balanced builds.

Skyline Drift

3 straights, 7 turns. Medium. Difficulty 5. Levels 6-15. Heavy turn count rewards turning + durability.

Voltage Loop

4 straights, 8 turns. Long. Difficulty 7. Levels 6-20. Long means battery matters. 12 segments per lap.

Tempest Run

2 straights, 8 turns. Long. Difficulty 9. Levels 11-20. Top-bracket volts. Tight, technical, battery-heavy.

Horizon Express

9 straights, 1 turn. Medium. Difficulty 1. Levels 1-10. Almost pure straights. Speed dominates.

XP

Both drones in a race gain XP. Win = 10 XP. Loss = 4 XP. XP accumulates automatically.

Level-up

XP needed for the next level = 200 * level^2. Level 1 to 2: 200 XP. 2 to 3: 800. 3 to 4: 1,800. 5 to 6: 5,000. 10 to 11: 20,000. 15 to 16: 45,000. 19 to 20: 72,200. Level-ups cascade in one shot if you have the XP banked.

Level benefits

+20 TSB

Total Stat Budget grows by 20. More points to allocate across the 9 stats.

Higher per-stat cap

Each stat's cap rises by 4-5. More headroom for specialists.

+20 volts

Paid into your wallet on every level-up. Spendable anywhere.

Possible tier change

Levels 6, 11, and 16 cross a tier boundary, which changes the drone's appearance.

Level cap

Level 20 is the max. After that, XP gains stop counting toward level and the bar pins to full. ELO, volts, season volts, and skin progression keep going.

Drone tiers

Tiers map directly to level brackets and drive the drone's base appearance.

Tier 1 · Steel

L1-5

Tier 2 · Orange

L6-10

Tier 3 · Purple

L11-15

Tier 4 · Gold

L16-20

Tier 1 (Steel)

Levels 1-5. Open propeller drone. Basic quadcopter design with teal neon accents.

Tier 2 (Orange)

Levels 6-10. Enclosed rotor shrouds with teal ring lights. More refined body.

Tier 3 (Purple)

Levels 11-15. Jet booster nacelles with visible turbine fans. Aggressive body.

Tier 4 (Gold)

Levels 16-20. Integrated supersonic engine pods. Most advanced design.

Every drone and every player carries an ELO rating. Both start at 1000.

How it moves

Standard ELO with K-factor 32. Same-rated win swings +/- 16. Beating someone 200 ELO above you swings around +24 to you, -24 to them. Beating someone 200 below swings around +8 / -8.

What ELO does

ELO drives matchmaking inside your level bracket. Drones in a bracket sort by ELO and pair with their nearest neighbor, so high-ELO drones face high-ELO drones. ELO is also tied to the drone, so a drone's rating travels with it through marketplace sales.

Upsets

When a lower-rated drone beats a higher-rated one, the race is flagged UPSET in the log. The winner gets a volts bonus on top of the base payout: floor((loserElo - winnerElo) / 100). 100 ELO underdog: +1 volt. 250 underdog: +2. 500 underdog: +5.

Volts are the only currency. One wallet per player, shared across all your drones.

Race rewards

Winner payout = 3 base + floor(winnerLevel / 2) + floor(track difficulty / 2) + max(0, floor((loserElo - winnerElo) / 100)) + dominance bonus. Loser payout = 1 base + floor(loserLevel / 4). Every active drone earns something every cycle.

Winner base

3 volts. Always.

Winner level bonus

floor(winnerLevel / 2). LV1: +0. LV8: +4. LV20: +10.

Winner difficulty bonus

floor(track difficulty / 2). Difficulty 1: +0. Difficulty 5: +2. Difficulty 10: +5.

Winner upset bonus

floor((loserElo - winnerElo) / 100) when negative. 100 ELO underdog: +1. 500 underdog: +5.

Winner dominance bonus

Margin = |drone1Time - drone2Time| / minTime * 100. Margin > 40%: +5 volts. Margin > 20%: +2 volts. Otherwise: +0.

Loser base

1 volt. Always.

Loser level bonus

floor(loserLevel / 4). LV1-3: +0. LV4-7: +1. LV20: +5.

Worked examples. LV1 winner on a difficulty-1 track in a narrow win against an even-rated opponent: 3 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 3 volts. LV8 winner on a difficulty-5 track, narrow win, even matchup: 3 + 4 + 2 + 0 + 0 = 9 volts. LV16 winner on a difficulty-9 track, dominant win (margin > 20%) against an even-rated opponent: 3 + 8 + 4 + 0 + 2 = 17 volts. LV20 winner on a difficulty-10 track, dominant win (margin > 40%) over a 500-ELO favorite: 3 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 28 volts.

Other volt income

Level-up bonus

+20 volts per level. Paid into your wallet on the level-up.

Marketplace sale

95% of the sale price (5% platform fee).

Skin drops

Random per-race chance lands an unbound skin in your inventory you can list for volts.

Volts buy stat allocation

You can't buy XP. Leveling up only happens by racing - 10 XP for a win, 4 XP for a loss. Buying volts lets you skip the stat-allocation grind on a drone you own, but it doesn't skip progression. A high-cap level-20 drone still has to race to get there.

Where to spend

Stat upgrades

Permanent. Cost depends on the stat's current value.

Marketplace

Drones, unbound skins, and unbound mods listed by other players.

Skin packs

Starter (2,000), Premium (12,000), Legendary (60,000). 3 skins per pack.

Mod capsules

Starter (1,000), Premium (6,000), Legendary (30,000). 3 mods per capsule.

NPC drone vendor

3,500 volts buys a fresh Level 1 drone with mid-range randomized stats, plus one common skin and one common mod bound to the new drone (not equipped). No marketplace dependency, no auction.

Buy and sell drones, skins, and mods from other players. Listings are visible to everyone.

Rules

Platform fee

5% of the sale price (the rake). The seller gets the remaining 95%.

Minimum listing price

10 volts. Below that, the listing is rejected.

Active drones

You can list a drone while it's racing. Listing doesn't deactivate it. The drone keeps racing for you until it sells.

Drone transfer

A purchased drone arrives with its level, XP, full stat sheet, ELO rating, race history, and its bound skin and mod collections intact.

Bound skins and mods

Anything bound to a drone transfers with the drone on sale. Bound items can't be listed on their own.

Unbound skins and mods

Items you own but haven't bound to a drone can be listed and sold individually.

Cancel anytime

Cancel your own listing before it sells. The item returns to your inventory.

Cosmetic items that change a drone's appearance. Zero effect on race math. 61 skins exist today: 30 commons, 15 rares, 8 epics, 8 legendaries.

Rarities

Common (gray)

Recolors and surface materials over the current tier silhouette.

Rare (blue)

Bolder color schemes and metallic finishes. Still tier-aware.

Epic (purple)

Distinct material treatments and neon accent patterns. Tier-aware.

Legendary (gold)

Unique one-of-a-kind designs that replace the drone's appearance entirely. Tier-independent.

Tier-aware vs replacement

Common, Rare, and Epic skins layer over the current tier silhouette. When the drone hits a new tier (level 6, 11, 16), the skin re-applies on the new silhouette. Legendary skins replace the silhouette outright and don't change with tier.

Binding and swapping

Binding a skin permanently adds it to a drone's collection. A drone can hold any number of bound skins, and you can swap which one is actively displayed at any time without spending anything. The bind itself is permanent: a bound skin can't be moved to another drone or sold on its own. If you sell the drone on the marketplace, the entire skin collection transfers with it to the buyer.

Skins you own but haven't bound yet are unbound. Unbound skins sit in your inventory and can be listed on the marketplace as standalone items.

Skin drops

Skins drop randomly per race. Per-race chance: 5% common, 2% rare, 0.5% epic, 0.1% legendary. Drops land unbound in your inventory.

A drone with a skin equipped shows multi-color neon accents. That's the at-a-glance signal of a skinned drone.

Two product lines: skin packs (cosmetics) and mod capsules (functional). Both lines come in three tiers - Starter, Premium, Legendary - at the same price points. Every pack opens 3 items. Each slot is either a guaranteed rarity or rolled from a probability table.

Starter Pack - 2,000 volts

Slot 1

Common (guaranteed).

Slot 2

Common 80% / Rare 17% / Epic 2.5% / Legendary 0.5%.

Slot 3

Common 80% / Rare 17% / Epic 2.5% / Legendary 0.5%.

Premium Pack - 12,000 volts

Slot 1

Rare (guaranteed).

Slot 2

Common 40% / Rare 35% / Epic 20% / Legendary 5%.

Slot 3

Common 40% / Rare 35% / Epic 20% / Legendary 5%.

Legendary Pack - 60,000 volts

Slot 1

Legendary 45% / Epic 55%.

Slot 2

Rare 55% / Epic 40% / Legendary 5%.

Slot 3

Rare 55% / Epic 40% / Legendary 5%.

Skin packs vs mod capsules

Skin packs roll skins (cosmetic). Mod capsules roll mods (functional, with bonus + tradeoff). The slot rarity tables above apply to both. Mod capsules are priced separately and run cheaper than skin packs - Starter 1,000 / Premium 6,000 / Legendary 30,000 vs the skin pack tiers of 2,000 / 12,000 / 60,000.

Vault rules

Items in a pack come from the public unowned vault. If the vault runs out of a rarity at open time, the pack open is rejected and your wallet isn't charged.

Mods are equippable drone modifications. Every mod gives a bonus in one area at the cost of a penalty in another - there are no pure upgrades, only strategic tradeoffs. The size of both the bonus and the penalty scales with rarity.

Binding and swapping

Same model as skins. Binding a mod permanently adds it to a drone's collection. A drone can hold any number of bound mods, and you can swap which one is actively equipped between races without spending anything. The bind itself is permanent: a bound mod can't be moved to another drone or sold on its own. If you sell the drone on the marketplace, the entire mod collection transfers with it to the buyer.

Mods you own but haven't bound yet are unbound. Unbound mods sit in your inventory and can be listed on the marketplace as standalone items.

Rarity scales the tradeoff

Common

Small bonus, minimal penalty. Net edge for general builds.

Rare

Moderate bonus, moderate penalty. Specialized builds for specific tracks or conditions.

Epic

Strong bonus, significant penalty. Dominates in the right matchup, exposed in the wrong one.

Legendary

Unique abilities (e.g. ignore lap-1 battery drain, double consistency on turns) with a meaningful stat penalty.

Strategy

Every mod is a tradeoff. Reading the matchup means looking at the opponent's build, the track layout, and the rolled conditions. A mod that wins a rainy night track can cripple you on a clear-day sprint. Each race batch shows your upcoming matchup before execution - swap the equipped mod accordingly. A drone with five mods bound for five scenarios is harder to read than one locked into a single equip.

Examples

Length

30 days per season. The current season number, start date, end date, and days remaining show on the leaderboard.

What resets

Season volts

Reset to 0 at season-end.

Leaderboard

Wiped. New season starts fresh.

What carries over

Drone stats and level

Permanent.

XP

Permanent.

ELO

Permanent.

Volts wallet

Permanent.

Owned drones and skins

Permanent.

Active drone slots

Permanent.

Rewards

Top finishers earn season-end rewards. Reward distribution happens at the season cutover.

Slots cap how many of your drones can race per cycle. Inactive drones sit out. Toggle a drone's active flag from its detail page (subject to your slot count).

Unlocks

Slot 1

Granted at signup.

Slot 2

Unlocks at 3,000 total races (across all your drones). The same milestone also auto-spawns a free Level 1 drone with one unbound common skin and one unbound common mod, so the new slot has somewhere to go.

Slot 3

Unlocks at 10,000 total races. Same auto-spawn: a free Level 1 drone plus an unbound common skin and mod.

Slot unlocks and milestone spawns check on every race cycle, so the new slot and the new drone both become available the next time the cycle runs after you cross the threshold.

Activating and Deactivating

Toggling a drone's active flag goes through a one-cycle pending state. Switching an inactive drone on shows it as Activating: the drone joins matchmaking at the next 3-minute cycle. Switching an active drone off shows it as Deactivating: the drone races out the current matchup, then drops out of matchmaking starting next cycle.

Click the toggle a second time while it's still pending to cancel and return the drone to its original state. The strategy lock window does not block these toggles. Only mod and skin swaps lock during that period.

Beyond the milestones

Milestone spawns cap at 3 free drones (your starter + slot-2 spawn + slot-3 spawn). Past that, additional Level 1 drones are available from the NPC vendor at 3,500 volts each: random mid-range stats, one bound common skin, one bound common mod. There is no marketplace dependency to grow your fleet.