Liftoff News

Every winter holiday season, Steam holds the Steam Awards. It's a chance to recognize your favorite games for their achievements. However, as Rock Paper Shotgun pointed out, because these awards rely on public voting, they often end up rewarding mainstream games backed by enormous marketing power rather than some indie gems that do equally impressive things yet don’t enjoy the mass media attention.

In the past, we used to actively promote the awards within our Liftoff community. However, we soon realised that we were pressuring you, our community, to participate in a system that couldn't truly recognise the unique and niche games you loved.

To illustrate this sentiment, this year's results are raising eyebrows among gamers and game press alike. Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that hasn't received any significant updates in the past 2 years, has been awarded the "Labor of Love" award. While it is a fantastic game deserving of much praise (we love it), it seems ironic that, as far as the gaming community is concerned, it is an abandoned project. The huge Rockstar fanbase however shows strength in numbers, simply voting for their favorite game.

So rather than just celebrating the popular vote alone, we’ll also reveal our special consideration for the 2023 Labor of Love Award: our community!

Together, our virtual pilots have achieved the milestone of logging over 10 million total flight hours in Liftoff. Nearly a decade after its initial release, they've consistently set new records in growth and playtime. In 2023, their dedication resulted in over 3,700 custom community-made pieces of content, contributing to the more than 27,000 workshop items collectively shared over the years, freely available for any other Liftoff pilot to use. They've shared 11,000 virtual drones online and crafted hundreds of kilometers of virtual drone racetracks to fly them on. For us, this signifies an incredible labor of love, and we deeply appreciate our community for it!




To the thousands of new pilots that joined us the past few days. Please be welcome! Join our community on Discord and Facebook!

Just like the previous update, version 1.5.11 of Liftoff introduces a range of enhancements and bug fixes. All these improvements were made based on player feedback, and we're grateful for your ongoing input!

[h2]Changelist[/h2]

• Added: Camera angle synchronisation in multiplayer while spectating.
  
• Updated: Loading of certain assets should go faster, resulting in faster loading times of maps on systems with slower drives.
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer drone spawn issue where an active player wouldn't have a drone assigned, which could result in black screens when spectating that player.
  
• Fixed: In multiplayer infinite race, it no longer shows a message if the player jumped first in the ranking without having a time set.
  
• Fixed: Drones in multiplayer now spawn at the right location so that they don't appear to glide for a fraction of a second.
  
• Fixed: Several scroll views on Windows and Linux that were extremely slow.
  
• Fixed: Bando City environment collisions with trees.
  

Ticking off a series of items on our list, version 1.5.10 is all about some essential quality-of-life enhancements. We appreciate your valuable feedback and bug reports, these make all the difference!

[h2]Changelist[/h2]

• Fixed drone respawn issue in multiplayer free flight and infinite race for other players. This may also fix some black screen issues if the player was spectating this particular drone.
  
• Fixed main menu or level loading issues where it was trying to show or use the DJI FPV drone while the parts were not available.
  
• Fixed issue with the race checkpoint markers jittering when using the Fisheye lens effect.
  
• Fixed issue with the race checkpoint markers lagging behind the camera's movement.
  
• Fixed issue where the camera would seemingly spawn for a fraction of a second in a remote location of the map before being properly assigned to a drone.
  
• Fixed issue with temporary drone settings being carried over when switching drone setups in-game, e.g. camera angle and flight mode.
  
• Fixed issue with toggling the Fisheye lens effect from the in-game game options menu.
  
• Fixed issue where the leaderboards wouldn't properly load in the multiplayer game lobby when a race from the Steam Workshop was used and the player still had to load in the data.
  
• Fixed issue where it would sometimes try to save an empty flight recording.
  
• Fixed several third person camera issues.
  
• Fixed several missing French and Ukrainian translation entries.
  

Lets celebrate this wonderful time together in our 4 weeks in-game holidays event.

Discover each snowman nestled in a single Liftoff level during this event to unlock the enchanting "Snow Spotter" achievement!

May your days be merry and bright.

Ending the year with flair: a new frame, enhanced multiplayer, an awesome tournament, and thrilling experiments!

[h2]Changelist[/h2]

• Added a "special" version of the popular TanQ frame by Let's Fly RC.
  
• Updated the multiplayer to support 8 players in a game.
  
• Updated the multiplayer network activity to be more efficient and adjust dynamically based on the amount of active players.
  
• Updated the multiplayer so that players experience less loadings and down time.
  
• Multiplayer game settings can be updated while in-game by the game's host, and players will reload directly into the game's updated settings without having to go back to the game's lobby.
  
• In multiplayer, the new game settings window also shows the game's chat window so that the host can discuss the changes.
  
• In multiplayer, players can select their drone setup while in-game. For Classic Race and Dropout Race, the drone setup can be changed in the finish screen.
  
• In multiplayer, the Classic Race and Dropout Race game modes no longer require the host to start the game and can now be started by any player.
  
• Updated multiplayer infinite race game mode to stall Liftoff Pro experience events until the player resets the drone as to not disturb or interrupt while flying.
  
• Updated the drone HUD in multiplayer spectator and in replay to show the drone's speed and altitude as well as the horizon axis.
  
• Updated the content layout to optimize freeing memory when leaving a level.
  
• Added A.I. opponents for the official Permafrost races.
  
• Added a build identifier in the game version to the main menu.
  
• Added Ukrainian translation for the new tutorial. Thank you SBT Localization team.
  

[h2]TanQ 2[/h2]
Let's Fly RC wanted one thing out of his new frame more than anything else, and that's for it to survive any and all damage. Of course, we all know nothing does that better than a tank. This new frame is made to be the most rugged you could find, and it succeeds. The TanQ in Liftoff is extra special, because it presents the first look at the brand new version 2 of the frame. Try it out in Liftoff first!

"Somebody said something to me today at kwads and coffee when I was talking about the release of the TanQ in Liftoff. They joked that God mode should be the default setting because the TanQ is indestructible! Found it hilarious! " - Let's Fly RC


[h2]Fixation Tournament continues [/h2]

It's been thrilling witnessing our top pilots in action at the monthly Dquad Fixation tournament. Chapter 4 was exceptionally exciting! Take a look at the results.
[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2AZj10Du1c
[/previewyoutube]

[h2]Blending real life with virtual worlds![/h2]

Finally, let's talk mixed reality! Always on the lookout to offer our Liftoff drone simulator experience in new ways, we're thrilled to present our initial proof-of-concept demo video for a potential Liftoff XR experience designed for Meta Quest 3.

[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4naybd555M[/previewyoutube]

While in the past we stayed away from building a VR experiences, with the latest full color pass-through features, it's evident that the technology is now primed for some exciting FPV adventures! 🙂
We'd love to know if you are interested! Should we make this available for everyone to try?