LuGus Studios
Liftoff: Micro Drones
The indoor and small-field companion title, built around whoops and micro classes.
01 Overview
The indoor and small-field member of the Liftoff range, sold separately from the flagship and also available bundled with it. It is built around the micro class rather than scaled down from a 5 inch simulator: the catalogue is whoop and micro hardware, and the environments are tight spaces rather than open ones.
Pilots use it for practice rather than as a novelty. The recurring report is that it reproduces the difference between a whoop and a 5 inch quad rather than flattening it, and several describe training on a frame here that they also own in real life. Reviews since the 1.0 release in August 2025 run a little above its lifetime score.
It expects a real radio. LuGus say so in the system requirements and pilots repeat it often; at least one attributes the difficulty with a gamepad specifically to how low these drones hover on the throttle. Experienced pilots tend to point newcomers at the flagship first and treat this as the sim you add once small indoor flying is what you actually do.
02 Pros and cons
Pros
- Reproduces the flight difference between micros and 5 inch quads rather than scaling one down, which is the most repeated praise in its reviews
- Real hardware in the catalogue, including frames pilots own, so a build can be matched before it is flown
- Level design draws specific praise for detail and for confined, proximity-flying spaces
- Online PvP, and the mode list runs beyond free flight to race, infinite race, dropout race, a hover race and an item collect
- Physics 6.0 reached it in June 2026, four months after the flagship, with a brake assist toggle added to the drone editor in July
- Windows, macOS and Linux, with a 15 GB install and LuGus's published memory figures at 3 GB minimum and 5 GB recommended
- Sentiment since the 1.0 release runs above its lifetime score
Cons
- Map count is the most common caveat, at 7 locations with 14 level variations, and it is raised mostly inside reviews that still recommend it
- A floaty feel against a real whoop is the most repeated criticism in the negative reviews, and those negatives are mostly recent rather than historical
- A gamepad is a poor fit; pilots consider a real transmitter close to required
- Two criticisms turn on its position against the flagship: a minority argue it should have been an expansion rather than a separate product, and those reviews are among the most-voted negatives; separately, its Physics 6.0 changelist is a subset of the flagship's for the same generation
- macOS is listed, but some Mac pilots report it running poorly
03 The numbers
- 01Price
- One-off purchase, and a separate one from the flagship, though the Liftoff Ultimate Collection bundles the two with the Slipstream and Night Fever packs. Early Access ran from 30 November 2021 to full release on 4 August 2025. Check the store for today's price.
- 02Physics model
- Physics 6.0, shipped to the flagship in February 2026 and here in June 2026. The two builds are not identical: the flagship's 6.0 also brought realistic motor power limits, wind simulation and battery readouts, which this changelist does not list. A brake assist toggle was added to the drone editor in July 2026.
- 03Controller support
- Controller supported, and LuGus recommend an RC transmitter; Steam classes the title as gamepad recommended with partial controller support. RX2SIM, the USB adapter that presents a radio to a computer as a controller, is listed as unsupported on macOS and Linux, and the Windows notes do not mention it either way. As with the flagship, no filter settings are exposed and nothing exports to a real flight controller.
- 04Multiplayer
- Online PvP. Game modes across the product include Freeflight, Race, Infinite Race, Dropout Race, a hover race and an item collect mode, and LuGus's later posts use slightly different names for several of them. No lobby capacity is published.
- 05Track library
- LuGus count 7 locations with 14 level variations as of the 1.0 release, including night versions of two environments added then. The track builder ships with over 175 items and tracks can be created, shared and downloaded.
- 06Drone customisation
- LuGus count 24 drones at the 1.0 release, from BetaFPV Air65 and Air75 airframes, with a 2.5 inch Kayoumini added in July 2026 that they describe as capturing the feel of a 5 inch freestyle quad. Motor kv runs from about 14,800 to 40,000 across the catalogue, on 1S packs from 260 to 950 mAh. No gram threshold for the class is published.
04 System requirements
- Processor
- BothNo model published. On Windows, a 64-bit processor and operating system. The Mac and Linux tiers name none.
- Memory
- Min3 GB
- Rec5 GB
- Graphics
- BothNo card published. LuGus advise against integrated Intel HD graphics.
- Disk
- Both15 GB, the figure set when early access opened in November 2021.
- Network
- BothBroadband, on Windows and macOS. None listed on Linux.
- Windows
- 64-bit. LuGus publish no Windows version floor for this title.
- macOS
- No version floor published. RX2SIM, the USB adapter that presents a radio as a controller, is not supported.
- Linux
- No distribution or version floor published, and RX2SIM is not supported here either.
05 Where to get it
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