What would be better than a Notch for me?

You don’t need the four corners of the ground to be on the same plane, you need the four corners of the tent to be on the same plane.

I had wondered why you couldn’t do that. I assumed it had to be pitched to the ground for some reason. That makes more sense, but I do agree the slender ends of the Notch would likely allow it to fit into tighter spots.

 The X-Mid has been steadily getting lighter as we tweak it

What changes have you done so far?

neither is what I’d recommend if you’re serious about wanting a spacious tent for stretching out

I don’t need a palace or I’d just take the Lunar Duo. :P While I’m not claustrophobic, I was meaning no tiny little thing you can’t easily sit up in as I read, journal and look at maps a fair bit. I do use a larger pad so that needs to fit and most gear could go in vestibules if needed.

Regarding weight, the first batch of the X-Mid came in heavier than spec (28oz, 790g) at about 29 – 29.5 oz (820 – 840g) primarily because the fabric we were prototyping with wasn’t exactly the same as actual production fabric. It was very similar (e.g. also a sil/PEU 20D poly) but apparently slightly lighter per yard. Since then we’ve shaved off about 1.7oz (50g) to get the weight down to about 27.5oz (780g).

That occurred through a wide range of small tweaks, including:
– switched to different tensioners that work on smaller cord and then switched to lighter 1.5mm cord (from 2.5mm) throughout. We use the 1.5mm to connect the inner to the fly, for the peak guylines, and corner guylines. That ended up being too thin for the corners, so we have switched the corners back to 2.5mm (which holds very well – about 2x as strong as 2.5mm in LineLoc3’s) but those cords were short anyways to most of the weight savings are still there.

– The fabric used for the original production run was slightly heavier than all other batches of that fabric we’ve gotten since. The X-Mid has no struts, poles etc, so the fabric is the vast majority of the weight, where a slight change of 1-2g/m2 can be half an ounce on the tent.

– new corner guyout design is stronger, better pitching, and lighter because it eliminates the webbing. While they don’t look like much at first glance, this guyout design is based on first principles (from rock climbing) to automatically equalize the load down the two seams of the tent. Each piece of grosgrain wraps under and up the opposite seam, to cradle the tensioner in an X which can slide slightly to equalize the load if the stake isn’t quite square to the tent. This makes it stronger, lighter, and also better pitching. From a first principles/basic physics/efficient use of materials standpoint, this is likely the best engineered guyout on any tent.

The X-Mid has been steadily getting lighter as we tweak it, …

What about the length?  Is the length of the 1P increasing?  :-)

I’d like to eventually. The core shape of it can’t be changed as easily as the details because we’d need to re-pattern the entire tent (e.g. a longer inner would mean all the panels are slightly different). So that would mean convincing Drop to spend R&D money on new prototypes etc. I’m warming them up to the idea but when they’ll go for it is hard to say.

The sliding X borrowed from climbing anchors is clever Dan, I can’t think of any other shelters that do this…