Fit checks and warnings

Lothal checks every build as you change it. When it has something to say, it says it on the row of the part that causes it.

Warn, never block

No warning stops you from building or flying. A drone Lothal thinks has a problem still flies in Sim, and still gets a config sheet with the warnings printed on it. You decide.

Three kinds

Kind	Meaning	Dot	Examples
Impossible	The geometry or the physics refuses. There is a boundary to point at.	Red	Props strike the frame. A board does not bolt to the plate. The drone cannot lift its own weight.
Limiting	It works, but something binds, and you are told which part.	Amber	The pack runs out of current before full throttle. The lead drops too many volts.
Characteristic	A description of what this drone is. Not an error.	No change	How hard it climbs. Where its hover throttle sits.

A red dot also means a part row with nothing chosen yet.

The rule behind the kinds: where the physics has a hard boundary, Lothal warns; where it is a continuum, Lothal describes. A thrust-to-weight of 1 or less cannot hover, so that is a warning. A heavy camera drone with a thrust-to-weight of 1.7 is not a mistake, so Lothal tells you how hard it climbs and lets you judge.

Where warnings appear

• Once, on the row that owns it. When the pack cannot supply the current the motors want, the warning goes on Battery, not on Motors, ESC and Battery all at once.
• On the row, as ⚠ and a short form of at most about 40 characters, with an amber or red dot.
• On the item’s page, most serious first, each with Why? to show the full explanation. With none, the page says Nothing to fix.

Coming in the next release

Not in v0.3.0. Airframe gains warnings on cutting corners sharper than the bit, gaps the bit cannot fit, strap slots missing or too narrow or not under the pack, a pad whose resonance lands inside the flight-control loop, a pad that passes the frame’s ring, an arm weaker than every frame of its size class in the catalog, and a camera wider than its drawn side plates. See Airframe → What to watch for.

Fit checks

Some checks come from the assembled geometry rather than from the parts’ figures: a part inside a propeller disc, a pack wider than its plate, two parts overlapping, a screw that bottoms out, a hole too close to an edge. They are measured on the drawn drone. The What the props sweep overlay draws the propeller clearances.

No overall score

Lothal does not give a build a single quality score. The count in the status readout says how many sections have their main parts chosen, not how good the drone is.

Related

• The screen
• Guessed, sourced and measured