We are thrilled to announce that, after a long phase of testing with eminent members of the community, Liftoff Physics 4.0 has been released on an Experimental Branch, and is available for public testing!
Find out more about this Experimental branch and how to participate.
What is new?
- Drag (sometimes referred to as air resistance) has been reworked to be a lot more accurate by using the actual drone aerodynamic profile rather than an approximation;
- Idle motor speed is configurable in the flight controller settings;
- Pitch and Roll RC rates can be tuned independently from each other.
For more details, I would recommend reading this article. It gives a more technical overview of the changes we made and goes into detail about the altered flight physics.
An improvement for Racers and Freestylers?
Our development priorities are always aimed at realism and authenticity. However, test results and feedback often give conflicting results on what that actually means. After our first test phase, it was obvious that racers and freestylers were looking for different things in Liftoff Physics 4.0. While freestylers were attentive to hang time, carrying of momentum, and driftiness, racers tended to be more interested in having as much control over their quadcopter as possible.
Physics 4.0 aims to please both worlds!
By using the actual aerodynamic profile of a drone instead of a generic approximation and a fine-tuned model thanks to testers, we made every build more unique. Take the Talon and its vertical arms, it will generate less drag while flying forward horizontally than a Vortex Pro. Using the version of the Vega with an aileron will help you maintain trajectory while racing.
That means that some builds will be great for freestyle, but less impressive in a race setup and vice versa. This is a super exciting time for pilots to test new things to find their perfect build. So go ahead, experiment, add parts and manage your quadcopter as you would in real-life! Find that perfect freestyle setup and your favorite race quad!
A special thanks goes towards the pilots who have been involved with early testing. Among our testers we can mention, Bomba, a well-known master of creative track building and freestyle, Preston Marlowe and Power_Polo, pillars of the French Liftoff community, CrazyFPV a talented freestyler, pothead_bongtoe, one of our Discord server moderators, and a great member of the community, as well as BlueCheese, Mr.D and GTag_Graphics, some of the most skilled racers in the world. We are really grateful for their help during development.