1. Firstly, have a look around!
Explore your surroundings and start to bank up some XP and cash for simply driving around. You will get an XP bonus for every % of road you discover on Hong Kong island, the XP you earn will increase by 500 every 5%. Keep an eye out for Radiant prizes too, as these can be anything from Cash, stickers, XP, or Crew XP. You may also discover wreck sites which if you find all of them, can lead to 2 classic cars, you will know you a near a wreck when you start to get a sonar ping and a new UI element guiding you to the wreck site. Listen out for when the beeping gets louder and more frequent.

Radiant Prizes are the square icons with diamonds in them that you may have already seen around the map. This game has heavy incentives on exploration, simply doing races may not always be the most effective way to level up.


2. Upgrades, people, upgrades.
Upgrading your car is going to be essential to winning races - make sure you are always keeping your car in top shape by always equipping the best upgrades available to you. Worried about being over-leveled for a race? You need not worry because the game will automatically configure that car for the race and reset it back to it's original state once the race is over. Note that the car will only scale down, not up. and cars that are above the requirement for the race from their base stats cannot be configured/downgraded to enter these events.


3. Winning isn't everything!
As you'll find, the AI in this game can be really challenging and in my opinion its quite a nice change of pace! I've played too many racing games where winning is a must and therefor really easy to come by. The payouts for getting 2nd-4th are still really strong and you can also take advantage of the first time race bonuses, difficulty bonuses as well as bonuses for beating any records you may have set prior to the race. I found it is best to try and get ahead of the AI as soon as possible to stop them creating a massive gap. Be prepared for little to no room for error and take some time practicing cornering, as this seems to be where they make up the most time. You can always block your opponent but I don't take much pride in this.


4. Get those tasks done!
Every 5 levels, you will gain a set of secondary tasks that can be completed optionally for extra cash and XP. The rewards for these tasks also increase every 5 levels so they begin to start paying out big time later in the game but that doesn't mean ignore them now! These tasks will net you a significant amount of cash, XP, or both and can be a big help reaching for your next milestone.





5. Rinse and repeating races is not effective!
I myself had to learn the hard way that if you repeat a race more than 5 times, the cash and XP rewards begin to decrease. THIS ALSO INCLUDES RESETS/ATTEMPTS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. This resets daily, so make sure you check the race rewards before you start the race to see what your payout will be. This can be done by hovering over the race you'd like to go to and looking at the preview of the race.





6.Have some fun FFS! Not all of us are "Driving Gods"
Unless you are going for the achievement, there is no reason to jump straight to expert level driving assists. I myself like to use manual gears, 100%ABS and 25%TC and I get an extra 20% reward increase for doing so. Don't feel pressured to take it to the max! The AI can be challenging enough as is, no need to make it easier for them. These settings can be tweaked at any time in the menus or in your race preparation menu.

7.If you just have to be a Driving God, try this
If you really must win every single race because it is the only thing that matters to you you'll love the AWD cars. They are what is currently being considered as the META.


8. Clan Recruiters will give you BANK!
Clan battles are constantly happening, These can be anything from winning instant challenges, performing FRIM actions, or winning clan races. After a clan war has ended, check in with your recruiter to see if your team won. You can earn big rewards just by checking in!


9. Check the Weather!
TDU:SC offers a dynamic weather system that is constantly changing and always random, keeping the streets fresh and engaging. However, Races will always have a set weather to them. So make sure to check what the weather will be and configure your car accordingly, Semi-Slick tires are worse than your regular tires when it comes to wet weather! You can check the weather forecast for free roam from your hotel room objectives/player card screen


10.Car Setup is important man!
Once you have hit a certain level(Level 10/15??), you will have access to some car setups that modify the handling of the car, These setups can range from Sport, All Road, Dynamic, Wet, and other vehicle specific setups. At level 20, you will be able to create your own setups. It is not complex compared to games like Forza or Grand Turismo however it is still worth experimenting here and finding a setup that suits your driving style. Some setups will also make the car more effective depending on the track you are racing on. Find a style that works for you!

These next few tips aren't as important, but equally as good to know about!

11. Loopholes for road exploration? They've thought about those
This tip is something I thought I'd mention just for those who think they can kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Roads you drive on while doing a race or performing a test drive DO NOT COUNT towards your overall road exploration. You will have to return to these roads in a car you own in free roam in order to discover them.

12. Not sure what car to buy? Solar Crown has some ideas..
Some races will require a specific car, such as the Porsche 911 Carrera, or the Nissan GT-R (R35). These are not required races, and you won't be missing any extra content by not doing them. However, these can be helpful in deciding which car you should purchase next.

13. The roads less travelled
If you are like me, and you love going for 100% road discovery you may notice that there are lots of 'Secret' roads around the island. Mostly found on off road trails, these secret roads need to be driven on in order to appear on the map. These roads also count towards your road discovery, so keep an eye out for any paths or trails you see that aren't on the map! If you'd like to see all secret road locations, IUnstoppable has published a detailed guide where you can see all of the secret roads. You can find this here: 100% Completion Map - Cheers Mate!

14.Stay Classy!
There are a total of Five car classes that you can obtain in TDUSC. These are as follows. D = Daily Driver, C = Cross Country, G = Grand Tourer, S = Supercars, and H = Hypercars. I wanted to share with you some of the cars that have been especially helpful for completing/winning races.



Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR - This has been super useful once I put the short range gearbox and off-road tires on. The only challenge I face using this car is the buggy, but I always seem to catch it going down the straights. This was my car of choice for my Crown Jewel Amber event but I only managed to beat the task's time by 6 seconds...


Sientero Reinita (Buggy V8) - This is my close second to the Range Rover, The level of grip this car has off road is astounding, however I did encounter a fair amount of understeer whilst using it. Overall, this is a great choice for your Cross Country class car.




Mini John Cooper Works GP - This is now my go-to daily driver. The front grip this car has is comparable to none. I love doing daily driver races simply to use this car. The biggest competition it faces are either the Audi TT RS, or the SLK55.




Audi TT RS (S8) - The current meta for daily drivers, the AWD system really makes this car shine above the rest here. My personal preference is still the mini, but if the AI is becoming a bit of a challenge or you just want to even the odds with them, this is a great, go-to choice.


Lamborghini Huracan Performante - This was my choice for the Crown Jewel - Ruby race. With slicks on and minimal upgrades this was a great choice for the endurance event. You'll love the level of front grip the tires have whilst not being too lively in the rear. Overall a great supercar and well worth your money



Nissan GT-R (R35) - Not to my surprise but this thing is awesome off-road. For any speed traps or any supercar races than happen to have off road sections I would highly recommend this car with a set of off-road tires on it. I recently did the Sapphire and Amethyst Crown Jewel race in this car and was able to beat the tasked time by several minutes in both races. I highly recommend this car for these endurance races.

Porsche 918 Spyder - After much contemplation, this was the Hypercar I ended up purchasing and I feel it was an awesome choice. The Hybrid system feels strong and punchy, you'll definitely feel when you are out of battery. with upgrades and tuning I've been able to achieve speeds of well over 500KPH!(310MPH) This was my car of choice for the Crown Jewels Nacre and Jade events. Surprisingly, there have been a few complaints about the difficulty of the Jade event but thankfully I was able to complete this race on my first attempt. Just stay flat foot and keep your movements to a minimum.

Porsche Cayenne Turbo (9Y0) - After many hours of riding around in the buggy, this is easily my new top choice. It's planted, loads of power and torque, and finds grip in the dirt where no other car can. Just make sure you put on off-road tires as they are essential to this cars competitiveness.



Aston Martin Vantage (AM6) - This is my most recent addition to my car collection, and man I wish I bought it sooner. This has to be my favorite Grand Tourer class car. For RWD it has an insane amount of grip and loads of power so you can guarantee you won't be left behind. for around 900k credits it is a little steep, but this will be the last grand tourer you'll ever need to buy.


15.The French Dilemma
The Achievement "French Horsepower" requires you to drive 50KM (31 Miles) in a Citroen 2CV... As much as James May likes to claim this car is for the people, I cannot think of a single person this car was for. I wanted to share a more effective way of getting this achievement done.
DON'T BOTHER DOING THIS IN EARLY-GAME. This car is seriously slow and can be a massive buzzkill compared to the hot hatches and supercars you were just driving around in. Upgrade it as soon as you can and find a good music playlist or audio book of your choosing and be prepared for a long drive along the highways. Whilst doing this achievement, I managed to complete Mapmaker (50% road discovery) and GPS Coordinator (Find all Fuel Stations, Clan HQ's, Workshops, and Dealerships) so save these achievements for when you decide to take on the French Horsepower feat.

With the introduction of Season two, we can now travel to Eivissa! The Spanish island town faithfully recreated in 1:1 Scale provides a fresh change of pace for those who are getting bored with the soaking-wet town of HKI. The island provides a fresh new stomping ground, as well as new POI's, 65 new collectables, 23 new speed-traps, and the introduction to custom Street & Sharp clothing stores! In the short time that I have been roaming around the new area it has been such a breath of fresh air and already has a much more 'TDU' feel than HKI does. Whilst the optimization could really use some work in areas such as the castle, overall this has been an excellent step in the right direction. But enough of my opinion, let me show you around...
Note: You will need to be Rep level 12 and have joined a clan in order to access Ibiza Island

To give you a summary, this is what is listed on the TDU website:

• Ibiza Returns
  
• New Cars
  
• Seasonal Content
  
• AI rebalancing & adjustments
  
• Steering Wheel Animation
  
• Proximity Voice Chat
  
• Season 2 Dev Diary + Next Steps

Ibiza is back! sort of.. The city of Eivissa has returned from TDU 2 on a 1:1 scale. The map is significantly smaller than HKI, but provides much more in-depth details and scenery that adds another layer of immersion to the area. You'll find plenty of tight streets, narrow pathways, and small dirt roads but you will also have access to some large highways, spillways, and country backroads that grants an opportunity for all car classes to shine. Dedicated players who follow the subreddits or content creators may have noticed some more roads and structures people have discovered whilst exploring outside of the map. Could we see the full Ibiza island appear in the future? Here's hoping!

Within the new Social hub you can find the brand new Selene dealership, boasting a modest range of customized cars reserved only for those who achieve certain level milestones within their clan. These new vehicles are:

• Ferrari California
  
• Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Xago Edition
  
• Fiat 500 Abarth Selene Edition
  
• Alfa Romea 4C Selene Edition
  
• Alpine A110 Berlinette Selene Edition
  
• Chevrolet Corvette C1 Selene Edition
  
• W Motors Fenyr SuperSport Selene Edition
  
• *1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe
  "Adventurer Edition" - only available to gold edition members as launch compensation
  
  
  
  Who doesn't love new content?
  Upon your arrival to Eivissa, you will see some brand new Collectables, Speed Traps, and Races featuring a new restriction rotation which will change race restrictions daily, to keep the challenges fresh and engaging. Leaderboard's are also be reset daily to keep the leaderboards relevant to the race. You will also begin to complete road discovery again with Clan XP rewards every 5% so grab your favorite car and go for a drive!
  
  
  The Not-so but still somewhat broken AI
  Nacon continue to make changes and adjustments to the AI behavior in the game. With the recent set of changes now making it more tedious to reach expert level AI, and making it easier to drop a difficulty level when the game notices you aren't winning races. They have improved their ability to complete overtake maneuvers, as well as improved their off-road and wet surface performance. Having experienced this first hand, I gotta say there is definitely a long way to go to make the AI fun and competitive but this is a step in the right direction. The AI are still struggling with driving off-road, but its a hell of a lot better than what it was before.
  
  
  STEERING WHEEL, GLOVES AND STEERING WHEEL
  The Steering wheel has now been animated further to show up to 1080° rotation! this can be adjusted in your game settings. This works well on wheel, but can still look a little janky on a controller if you set the rotation too far. I personally recommend 900° but feel free to modify it to suit you!
  
  
  We can all hear your dog barking, mum vacuuming, and sister crying. Hooray!
  Proximity voice chat has now been added to the social hubs, allowing you to conversate with your fellow racers. The volume will evolve with the players positioning, conversations becoming louder or quieter depending on proximity. Voice chat for free roam has also been added to Ibiza and HKL, though you'll probably never encounter anyone...
  
  
  Season Two Solar Pass
  Nacon and KT racing have released their second solar pass with the launch of Season two. This is the second pass available to all players with the Lamborghini Diablo VT (1993) being the prize car. You can also collect the Bugatti Chiron SuperSport 300+ by joining the Solar Court, or becoming the Solar King/Queen in ranked races.
  You can also collect the following:
  
  • Cash
    
  • Paints
    
  • Emotes
    
  • Stickers
    
  • Clothing
    
  • Rims
  Season Three will introduce our first premium pass along with another free Pass. Gold edition owners will receive free access to the premium pass as a part of their game edition rewards upon S3 launch.
  
  
  So... What they got cooking next?
  From the TDU website - Alain Jarniou, Creative Director at KT Racing, and Guillaume Guinet,
  TDUSC Game Director, are back with a new dev diary to give you the
  exciting new content and features coming your way in Season 2! But
  that’s not all, they’re also dropping some hints about the new plans for
  Season 3, inspired by community feedback.
  You can find the full Dev Diary here --> Season Two Dev Diary
  Some important things to take away from the Dev Diary are:
  
  • They are still working extensively on AI improvements, mainly aggressiveness and difficulty. Changes include Experts being easier to beat but you will get there less quickly.
    
  • The Clan War feature arranged for Season Three has been postponed in order to adjust the content for season three. They want to keep the identity that TDU has, and address the questions and requests from the community.
    
  • After the Season Two release, they want to focus on fixing TDU, to be where we, the community, expects it to be.
    
  • They are aware that they need to bring content and adjustments that is more focused on the nature of TDU and meets the communities expectations.
    
    Hopefully they can make good on their word, I have been a long time fan of TDU since playing the first game on my PSP all those years ago.. I hope when they talk about the identity of TDU they are referring to the fact that it has never been a racing game, it has always been an upper echelon, high class lifestyle game about buying houses, fancy cars, going up against car clubs, hanging out at the casino, going for cruises, and doing convoy/passenger/delivery missions. The message has been quite vague but I am still really enjoying the game and I hope they are ready and dedicated to giving this game the makeover a real TDU game deserves.
    
    

Welcome back! This latest content update for TDU:SC has a lot of community requested features, as well as some more QoL updates and some new game modes and cars! I have detailed all the new things you'll be able to discover when season 3 launches on the 19th of March.

• Convoy Missions
  
• Navigation Mode
  
• Customisable Plates
  
• Solo Race Mode (With Pause & Quick Restart)
  
• AI Difficulty Select
  
• 3 New Cars
  
• Clan Stores
  
• New Solar Pass
  
• New Live Events

Convoy Missions have been a long time favorite in the Test Drive series. These involve taking a customers car and delivering it to the drop off point within the required time limit without inflicting too much damage to the car. If you do too much damage or take too long, the event fails. I have been very much looking forward to some new game modes / mission types for a while now and it's great to see these make a much needed return.


Navigation mode is a new game mode type that gives the player a set destination, and provides payouts depending on how fast you can get there. It does not matter which car you take or how you get there, but some cars may be more effective than others depending on your finish point.
Long time racing fans might recognize this game mode from older racing games such as the Midnight Club series. Man this takes me back...


Custom Plates are making their arrival in HKI and Ibiza, with plenty of different styles and options to choose from. These plates will have defining styles to show off your clan and other milestones that you will achieve. These custom plates can be purchased from the new Clan Stores, which can be found in your respective Clan HQ, as well as new rims, clothing and more.


Solo Mode has finally made it's way to Test Drive once again! this will allow you to start races alone, skipping the matchmaking queues (if you had any...) and grants you the ability to pause your race, as well as instantly restart it saving precious time.
Multiplayer races will have a bonus +50% reward attached to them, but you will still be able to increase your rewards with the new AI difficulty slider, which I'll get into next.

Disclaimer: This is not an offline mode - you will still need an internet connection to play TDU:SC

With the addition of solo mode racing, KT Racing have also provided us with a new difficulty slider. Ditching the ways of the adaptive difficulty, you will now have more choice as to how difficult the AI racers are going to be, all the way from Novice (+0% Bonus) to Expert. (+40% Bonus) This is nice for those that are still struggling with the difficulty of the other racers, however I think I'll be setting mine to expert and forgetting about it.


Three new vehicles have been added to the TDU roster! These cars all have legendary status around the globe and I cannot wait to get my hands on them. At the time of writing, I am unsure about how these cars will be obtained but with the solar pass doubling in size, I am assuming that they will be found there. I will update this section once I know more.


The Pinifarina Battista, from Season One ranked rewards, is now available for purchase in the Luxury Car Dealership.






In the Clan HQ's around Hong Kong Island, you can find new Clan Shops to purchase customs plates, rims, clothing and more that are sure to make your cars and character shine!





The solar pass has been upgraded to 50 levels! and best of all its Free to All Players, whilst
At the time of writing I am unaware of all the rewards found in the pass but rest assured there will be many chances at cars, clothes, rims, stickers, cash, and more!
The premium solar pass will now begin in Season 4, with VIP members receiving the premium version as a part of their gold edition.



KT Racing have also given us a sneak peak at some of the live events that we can expect during the course of Season Three. There is more to come, I just hope that they give us some half-decent rewards this time!


There are a few other fixes and details not mentioned in the trailer that might be exciting to some players such as:

• Audi Q7 now has a sunroof animation.
  
• Hong Kong Island race track lighting upgrade.
  
• Steering wheel improvements.
  
• 918 Spyder Sound Improvement.
  
• 911R Sound Improvement.
  
• Clutch system improved.
  
• Adjustments to wall-riding, increased friction force

• Live events will now consist of 5 new races across HKI & Ibiza, instead of 3 races on HKI only
  
• Improved exhaust sound for several cars, such as the 918 Spyder, 911 R, and 720S
  
• Removed Jump & Jump Over from FRIM Actions
  
• Improvements to AI accuracy, overtakes, and new splines for racelines.
  
• 720S has been changed from a Hypercar, to a Supercar, R8 Green Hell now AWD (previously RWD)
  
• Multiple bug fixes

Overall, this is a great step in the right direction. I know there will be some complaints about the lack of housing, or the casino, or the lack of an offline mode. Regardless, I am very happy with what is being detailed in this update and I hope that this content drop starts to breathe a bit of life back into the game.
The numbers have been dwindling, everyone can see it, Season Three is going to be the make it or break it for this game. Going forward with Clan Wars would've been the nail in the coffin and I'm glad they decided to postpone it. I cannot wait to here more and more importantly I cannot wait till the 19th!
Thank you all for continuing to read this guide. If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up and a favorite so I can finally have a rated guide!

Cheers,
Aztro

And that's all I have for now! If you have any suggestions or comments please send them my way! This is my first guide, so I apologize if the formatting is not the best you've seen. Hopefully this guide has given you a good insight into what to expect at the solar crown competition. I am Looking forward to seeing you all on Hong Kong Island!

If you've made it this far, why not give it a thumbs up and a favourite? Thanks :)