Velocidrone DRL Liftoff comparison review 2021

A quick look at the 3 FPV simulators I see recommended by the community the most. Simulators are the best way to learn FPV in manual / acro mode without risking your pricey quad.
Once you have learnt to fly, frequent practice is key to improvement. Sims let you fly when you couldn't otherwise.
Which do you use?
DRL: store.steampowered.com/app/64...
Liftoff:
store.steampowered.com/app/41...
Velocidrone:
www.velocidrone.com/
My affiliate link :)
www.banggood.com/custlink/33m...
00:00 intro
00:24 Flight Feel comparison
01:09 Maps / Environments
02:03 Graphics comparison
02:37 Track Editor features
04:27 Brief conclusion
04:38 Velocidrone detail
05:10 Liftoff detail
05:24 DRL detail
#fpv #learn #simulator
---------------
My Gear: UK Based where possible
Betaflight 4.3 SupaFly tune
Goggles: Orqa FPV.Pilot
shop.orqafpv.com/collections/...
Camera: Foxeer Falkor 3 Micro
www.foxeer.com/foxeer-falkor-...
Antenna: Foxeer Stubby
www.foxeer.com/foxeer-lollipo...
VTX: Rush Tank Solo
www.unmannedtechshop.co.uk/pr...
Batteries: THEFPV 6S 1100
www.unmannedtechshop.co.uk/pr...
Frame: GepRC Mark 5
(Be aware this is 21mm cam mount, you will need washers, I glue spare motor bell washers to the camera)
www.kingquad.shop/products/ge...
Motors: EMAX ECO II 1700 KV
www.unmannedtechshop.co.uk/pr...

[@KaNoodlefpv]

Love it! Thanks for the great vid and info on all the sims. The reason you may feel that different flight feel in the DRL sim, is the battery emulation isn't turned on by default. You can go into a flight, pause and go tot he physics panel, and turn on the battery emulation. Since the sim doesn't have that on by default, you will always feel as if there is more power than normal, that's because there is. Its like flying with a perfect battery 100% of the time that never drains. Where as in real life, you get that restriction. Once you turn that on in the sim, it resembles that real life feel and chops the float. Also keep in mind the default drone is the Racer 4... and that is a very heavy drifty drone and likely something you haven't experienced in real life. May want to try some of the other smaller/lighter drones as well! Thanks again for the kind words! Love the video!

[@dingbatfpv]

I can definitely give that a try, I can't remember what model I was using but I have tried a few different ones. It would be handy if I knew what thrust my quad makes to be able to plug that in as well. Thanks for the suggestion and the kind words ☺️

[@KaNoodlefpv]

@@dingbatfpv You can definitely see that info in the panel as well as the workbench!

[@dingbatfpv]

@@KaNoodlefpv I just don’t know my real quads thrust to match them

[@cryptic7844]

I personally use the blackout

[@cl0ud9x]

This was a great video!! So many things about it, you should keep making content and growing your channel!

[@kinafpv]

Nice job bro!! I practice on Lifftof!! Subscribed

[@TRILLYFPV]

Nice video bro!🍫

[@JeremyBX]

Thanks for making this; the Steam Racing Fest is happening right now but I only got $9 to blow.

[@PossumMedic]

Great vid thx!

[@dingbatfpv]

Thanks 😊

[@astro8062]

i agree with you on the fact that velocidrone has not much to it but i wish you talked about the building drone sides of the games but still a great review

[@dingbatfpv]

Thanks, and yeah I haven't played around a lot with the drone building side, I tend to just pick something that looks similar to mine and maybe change the weight to match for physics feel

[@skrax]

Good video:)

[@dingbatfpv]

Thanks :)

[@Heusini]

Don't know about the others but velocidrone also runs on Linux

[@madtoffelpremium8324]

Great comparision, I fully agree with you, that the physics in DRL feel of, way too floaty and massless. But its a good start for beginners beeing the only one with a real tutorial to teach you the basics. The other too are for pilots with some experience who want a more realistic feel, both come close, althought Velocidrone feels a tiny bit better to me. Both have a resonable amount of maps and quads, but Velocidrone has tons of amazing community maps and seems to be more customizable when it comes to the quads, which is probably the reason some pros prefer it. Although it always feels more like a open beta and isn't nearly as polished as the other two.

[@Rolo-Tony]

I can say, velocidrone runs significantly better on my 2015 laptop than LiftOff

[@ilikebananasFPV]

I started off with Liftoff because it was on steamsale. I said to myself, I´ll get a real drone once I have 50 hours of practice. Halfway trough I bought Liftoff Micro Drones, because, If I would buy a drone it had to be sub 250. After hitting 50 hours I got a cetus x kit. After flying IRL micro drones just seemed off and way to floaty. I then switched to velocidrone with the micro whoop addon. I mostly play velocidrone now with a mobula6 (have the mobula7 irl) because it feels the most realistic. I also love the velocidrone track and map editor. I once got a little bit into 3d modeling beforehand. Making spots I fly IRL is so much fun in velocidrone. I tried micro drones again but it doesnt feel right anymore. For full sized quad freestyle I still prefer Liftoff but I don´t play that as much anymore.

[@dingbatfpv]

I play sim way less since I got to be ok with flying, I found I can get tryp to feel quite close to my real quad but once you reach a certain level of comfort with flying it's just not the same 🥲

[@lugusstudios1328]

Double jump in the Liftoff track editor to go into free floating mode. ;)

[@dingbatfpv]

Ohhh that's good to know 😅

[@lugusstudios1328]

@@dingbatfpv thank you for checking out Liftoff :)

[@dingbatfpv]

@@lugusstudios1328 I use it a lot 😀

[@h3Xh3Xh3X]

Thanks for making Liftoff! It is by far my favorite sim (I bought them all). I just wish it wasn't so easy to flip upside down and get stuck under things.

[@MANDOXsquid]

personally i would rather play AI Drone or Uncrashed for anythign freestyle. lately racing practice velocidrone seemed the best. Drl im not a fan and lift off races are super long out door ones mostly. lift off micros though is super fun

[@honkfrog3343]

Velocidrone has better simulation of tinywhoops than liftoff, although liftoff is coming out with a new sim to handle that market.

[@dingbatfpv]

I have not honestly tried whoops in any sim, but I went back to Velocidrone recently and it does seem to match more closely to my quad with no go pro. I just wish it was more slick to use :/ DRL and DCL have the best production value by far despite not being the best sims

[@opstellar]

DRL is currently free (temporarily) on Epic Games, and is Mac-compatible!

[@kalooniee]

I know I'm 2 months late, but thank you for mentioning this. I forgot I claimed it on Epic 😄

[@Indpendent01]

how do i get this free? is there a link?

[@user-fc3sr9bo1r]

Drl is absolute trash compared to most other sims out there

[@gabejanssen4826]

If you don't care about realism I would seriously consider a FPV sim mod for GTA V (there's a bunch of them). Flying around a semi-realistic downtown L.A is awesome.

[@dingbatfpv]

I did consider that but GTA is a huge game just to have nice scenery to fly about in lol

[@RustyX2010]

Or even the drones in Battlefield 4 and Battlefield:2042.

[@user-fc3sr9bo1r]

Velocidrone is the best sim hands down lift off is pretty good while DRL is absolute trash the physics are horrible. Tryp is my good to sim lately tho

[@TheOuterDrive]

What computer are you playing on?👍👍

[@dingbatfpv]

I have like a 10yr old i5 CPU and a GTX970 with DDR3 RAM. Nothing crazy. All three run on my laptop which is a i5 with internal graphics. It's a XPS 13 like second gen or something its like 5 yr old or more

[@JasonEllingsworth]

I love learning on velocidrone because it feels legit, but I hate the maps. I wish they would put some real effort in to making good ones like the competition.

[@dingbatfpv]

Yeah the best one for practice imo is the karting map, the others feel kinda empty and a bit sort of "I finished an Unreal Engine tutorial and made a sim" if that makes sense

[@glitchunicorn]

I have Liftoff my friend started with Velocidrone I noticed the drones were a little tighter in Velocidrone. My friend put a good 200 hours in Velocidrone and I'll admit he far surpassed me in skill. Where I put 50 hours in Liftoff all I was focused on freestyle, mostly because all my computer can only handle are the drawing board maps and I've gotten better but not as good as my friend by far lol

[@dingbatfpv]

Practice makes perfect mate, I have played less lately because I've been able to go out a lot but winter will probably put me in the sims again.

[@MrEvanTea]

I've just bought a cinewhoop, which simulator do you recommend? this is my first time flying fpv.....

[@dingbatfpv]

I think I had the most fun in DRL at the start just flying around exploring. It's a bit floaty but it has big maps that let you roam around and not crash too much. By far DRL and DCL are the most polished, although DRL has miles more options for physics and drone choice. Liftoff is clunky but I has the closest to real life feel for physics, at least for my quad. Although I will say FPV Air 2 has a damn close attempt for a free sim. Alternatively there is another free one called Orqa on Steam that is made by the same people who make the goggles. Looks nice, feels OK. I'd say mess with free stuff until you get bored of the limited map selection haha no cost there :D

[@dame5014]

@@dingbatfpv I'm new too, and I'm definitely taking this advice. Thanks man

[@quaneu9216]

you can try dcl

[@dingbatfpv]

I have since tried it and it definitely pushes you more into racing practice. It's not got customisable quads and physics, you fly the DCL racer. I haven't flown one so I'm not sure how close it is to real life on that. I haven't put loads of time in but it's polished and well made similarly to DRL in that aspect.

[@Xx_Henry_xX]

So all 3 are for simulations with slightly varying degrees of accuracy & seemingly too much customizations for beginners (with only doable entry point being DRL) Anything lighter than those?

[@dingbatfpv]

Orqa is pretty minimal and free so no harm in trying it? I'm yet to try Uncrashed

[@lilpebble6975]

i have never played any game like this and want to get into it what would you suggest

[@dingbatfpv]

I think Orqa FPV skydive is a good sim for free. You could use that to get the hang of things. I'm not sure what the current best advice is for entry level controllers, personally I used a tiny whoop style quad and a setting in betaflight to use that as a controller input. It's enough to get you started then you can make the bigger decision later down the line. It's not the easiest thing in the world which is why I point out DRL having a full tutorial system as a strong point for beginners.

[@millairefpv6292]

Have you tryed DCL ??

[@dingbatfpv]

Yeah, it's not bad just feels like it wants you to learn racing. It's cool though there's like a campaign mode, nice graphics. There was only one quad when I last tried it and you couldn't change physics. I should probably run through all the ones I own making videos 😅

[@greedfox7842]

people like velocidrone because it will run on a potato, and the more active community of players and devs. velecidrone also has the most accurate physics modal, you just have to turn on the propwash and real lens and battery emulation.

[@rafaeldepaula932]

My phantom 4 radio will work on those simulators?

[@dingbatfpv]

That's not likely, at least not using this method, since you can't connect a Phantom radio to a betaflight quad. If the Phantom radio can connect over USB and appear as a game controller then you would be able to, I don't know if that is the case though.

[@PossessedGR]

Anyone has any feedback on how "DCL the Game" compares to these sims?

[@dingbatfpv]

I find DCL quite similar to DRL in look and feel, but it pushes you into racing more. There's only one quad with no custom physics to mess with. At least that's true as of the last time I played. It's well made and quite slick with good graphics.

[@PossessedGR]

@@dingbatfpv Thank you for your feedback!

[@h3Xh3Xh3X]

DCL is more like Liftoff than like Velocidrone. I think it has better polish than DRL. It only has races and freeflight. To begin with you can choose between 3 weights of basically the same drone.

[@HiltsyAdventure]

I got liftoff first and I like it, the meneus are good and its easy to get started. I just got velocidrone, and I hate it. it looks like crap, the maps are lame and thrown together and I keep falling through the map like its 2001. freeking annoying!!

[@dingbatfpv]

Yeah velocidrone needs an art upgrade and needs some polish, the physics feel good but it looks like I made it myself 😆

[@dingbatfpv]

Yeah velocidrone needs an art upgrade and needs some polish, the physics feel good but it looks like I made it myself 😆

[@deanfpv1016]

Driving round corners Or You could fly

[@dingbatfpv]

Nonesense. I'll do nothing of the sort.

[@tstaff5524]

Velocidrone if you want accurate physics

[@dingbatfpv]

Honestly I couldn't feel much odds between that and Liftoff :/

[@h3Xh3Xh3X]

It's also great if you want unrealistic graphics! :D