Litchi is a very cool app. Their online mission designer at
Mission Hub - Litchi is very well made. I also think flying Litchi missions gives me smoother and more efficient flights than me manually controlling the Spark.
My advice on Litchi waypoint flights:
Only fly with a full
battery, unless you are doing a very short time/distance mission. Maybe not even then. Just taking off and landing can easily take 15%
battery.
Take off next to your first waypoint, somewhere clear and high if possible. Because when you press Play on Litchi, first thing it will do is make a straight line for the first waypoint, and you don't want anything solid in between you and that waypoint.
I generally have my last waypoint right beside my first one, usually about 30 feet up in a free and clear area. The Spark will hover at the last waypint, then I can keep flying manually or bring it in for a landing.
Keep your waypoints plenty high. Use Google Earth to check the terrain height along your route, but don't 100% trust Google Earth's numbers. If the terrain varies up to 50' higher than takeoff point along the route and the trees (don't forget trees, rocks, buildings, powerlines, etc) are up to 100', I fly at least 200' high, giving me a 50' margin of error. If you wish you can use your flight video to see what waypoints could/should be lower and adjust later, then refly the mission.
Remember Litchi will fly in a straight line between waypoints, so if you have a 50' high waypoint and a 150' high waypoint that are 200' apart, with a 100' tree in the middle, you might clip the top of that tree when the Spark goes from 50' to 150'. Better to add a waypoint to rise to 150' before the tree.
You can enable curved paths past waypoints instead of sharp turns, but keep in mind with a curved paths the Spark may not actually touch the waypoint, and therefore any actions you have on that waypoint (like Panorama or Take a photo) won't be performed.
On the mission designer website, turn on Labels under Satellite to see more map details to get your bearings.
Also in the mission designer, don't forget the Settings button. It contains important mission-specific options like cruising speed and curved turns. The options in that Settings button seem to be saved with each mission.
