kerbal space program pocket edition for mobile

[igor290506]

what will kerbal space program be  without mobile version make it compatible whit android,windows phone,IOs playing ksp in mobile

[regex]

No.

[AlmostNASA]

Guaranteed NO even jeb says NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ultimate Steve]

A mobile version would be way more complicated than you would think it would be. The first major hurdle is that most smartphones don't have the processing power required to run KSP. However, this may be fixed in the next decade...

The second hurdle is the controls. No buttons, only a touch screen, so you'd have to fit all of the controls on a tiny screen. That means that you'd have 20 tiny buttons scrunched up on the screen.

Maybe a "lite" 2D version. If you want that now, try SimpleRockets. As far as the full game, it won't happen any time soon.

[Daripuff]

It already exists. 

It's called  "Simple Rockets" and it's rather fun! 

[igor290506]

39 minutes ago, Daripuff said:

It already exists. 

It's called  "Simple Rockets" and it's rather fun! 

tell me if it works on windows phone

[Bill Phil]

Well, if the increasing size of phones and Moore's law are any indication... Then yeah, it might be possible in a few years. 

Phones are getting so big. I have a friend who claims his tablet is a phone. But it's as big as a tablet.

[Curveball Anders]

A VAB/SPH app would be possible, to tinker with designs but not actually flying them.

 

[Corona688]

Putting it on phone would mean simplifying it to the point you couldn't call it KSP any more.

[Slam_Jones]

Last I heard, the tech in SmartPhones is basically 5-8 years behind PC technology.  Example: GTA San Andreas originally came out on PC Oct 24, 2006.  At the time, the graphics were mind-blowing.  It arrived on Mobile (iOS and Android) in December 2013.  So that right there is just over 7 years from modern AAA title to being able to be played on your phone.

KSP was "officially" released in 2015, however the beta has been around (on Steam at least, at which point I assume it was complete enough to be sold to a wider audience) since 2013, unless I'm mistaken.  So, by that coin, we should expect the technology to be at the right level sometime around 2020, plus or minus a few years.

Whether or not Squad will even want to do a mobile version is a whole different story.

(PS - just imagine how quickly it would use up your battery!  o.o )

Edited July 13, 2016 by Slam_Jones

[RA3236]

17 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

Last I heard, the tech in SmartPhones is basically 5-8 years behind PC technology.  Example: GTA San Andreas originally came out on PC Oct 24, 2006.  At the time, the graphics were mind-blowing.  It arrived on Mobile (iOS and Android) in December 2013.  So that right there is just over 7 years from modern AAA title to being able to be played on your phone.

KSP was "officially" released in 2015, however the beta has been around (on Steam at least, at which point I assume it was complete enough to be sold to a wider audience) since 2013, unless I'm mistaken.  So, by that coin, we should expect the technology to be at the right level sometime around 2020, plus or minus a few years.

Whether or not Squad will even want to do a mobile version is a whole different story.

(PS - just imagine how quickly it would use up your battery!  o.o )

Not entirely true, in fact quite a lot of modern phones have much better technology in their CPUs and GPUs, however since they are smaller they do not have as much processing power as in some cases my potato eight year old laptop. The touch screen is also another factor, since there wasnt such thing ten years back.

⬆️⬆️ All that is probably wrong .

GTA San Andreas, IIRC, was also delayed because its programming language was not compatible with the mobile OS. Remember though, Rockstar also only did the port because that GTA III had come to it's tenth anniversary. 

In other news...

NO.

KSP wont be ported to mobile because of the reasons in previous posts. In fact this is a commonly requested feature.

[pandaman]

The most I can see as being practical as an official KSP mobile version/app/game is a mission planning and KSPedia tool.  Maybe with a very simplified 'back of an envelope' vessel concept design feature. 

As many have said before, controls etc would be just too fiddly on small touchscreens. 

[Corona688]

22 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

Last I heard, the tech in SmartPhones is basically 5-8 years behind PC technology.

In terms of raw power they resemble 8 year old PC's, but in architecture, they're more like proprietary game consoles.

• There is no choice of OS, programming language and tools, or upgrades without doing difficult and quasi-legal things to the hardware.
• You don't usually write phone programs on a phone.  You use special manufacturer tools, run on a real computer.
• Storage is so primitive that it's a stretch to call it a "file system".  Also small, incompatible, unexpandable, and locked deep inside.
  • An exception is made for photo cards, but...  See if your phone will let you install an app on your photo card.
• Programs share little to no data except for strictly predefined I/O, i.e. "share location"
• You can't always get multitasking, sometimes you just get TSR.

So, phones have a lot more limits than the strength of their hardware might suggest.  Programming especially, to deal with the new language, I/O, and storage model.  "Porting to phone" mostly means "writing a phone version".

Edited July 14, 2016 by Corona688

[Wallygator]

In any mobile version of KSP, the accelerometer would be directly linked to your vessels dV.  So if you want your rocket to accelerate you would need to actually accelerate your device.

I therefore eagerly await the mobile compatible RO mod.

This will put Pokemon GO into the trash heap.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Wallygator

[Vanamonde]

This suggestion for the game's development has been moved to Suggetions & Development. 

[Wallygator]

4 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

This suggestion for the game's development has been moved to Suggetions & Development. 

This is a heartwarming and generous interpretation of the OP.  I support this move.

[Slam_Jones]

8 hours ago, RA3236 said:

GTA San Andreas, IIRC, was also delayed because its programming language was not compatible with the mobile OS. Remember though, Rockstar also only did the port because that GTA III had come to it's tenth anniversary.

Out of curiosity, do you have an example of a game that made the jump from PC/console to Mobile in a mostly-intact form?  Perhaps in a shorter time frame?

I chose GTA SA because it was a major game that I know of that was ported from PC to Mobile.  Your points about touchscreens is pointless since, like you said they didn't exist.  So obviously they'd have to adapt to the new input type anyway, like with any game being ported from PC to Mobile.  If you have a different device, then you need to adapt it to the functionality of that device.  That's just basic logic.

The only other game I can think of currently that fits my above question would be Minecraft, which took only 2 years and some change from Release ( May 17, 2009 ) to Mobile Release ( October 7, 2011 ).  If anything, that means the transition can be made quicker if the Mobile version is properly adapted the the device (and input devices) it will be used with.  Plus it's likely to happen quicker if there is demand for it, as I assume there was for Minecraft.

The fact that it is a commonly requested feature means it's more likely to see a port of some variety eventually.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Slam_Jones

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, Wallygator said:

In any mobile version of KSP, the accelerometer would be directly linked to your vessels dV.  So if you want your rocket to accelerate you would need to actually accelerate your device.

I'm picturing people accidentally throwing their devices across the room during a tense liftoff.

In all seriousness...processing/graphics limitations will eventually be overcome by better processors. The hard limit is UI/UX. There's no way to enable the game as it stands today with it's myriad of controls on a smartphone. There could be a game that lets you launch rockets (SimpleRockets) but it's not a port of our existing beloved KSP game.

Edited July 14, 2016 by tjt

[kBob]

The game in it's current form will be quite playable on a phone (with suitable screen and input attached) in 10 years.  Of course hopefully in 10 years KSP will be in version 3 or 4 and would melt any phone trying to run it.

[Crocket]

On 7/13/2016 at 0:03 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

A mobile version would be way more complicated than you would think it would be. The first major hurdle is that most smartphones don't have the processing power required to run KSP. However, this may be fixed in the next decade...

The second hurdle is the controls. No buttons, only a touch screen, so you'd have to fit all of the controls on a tiny screen. That means that you'd have 20 tiny buttons scrunched up on the screen.

Maybe a "lite" 2D version. If you want that now, try SimpleRockets. As far as the full game, it won't happen any time soon.

^This. The second hurdle is also one of my gripes about the console version. PC games that use at least 50% of the buttons on the keyboard are bad ideas for console unless you can somehow simplify the controls to where you won't be pressing 2-3 buttons on the controller at the same time trying to perform an action that could be done with 1 on PC.

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, kBob said:

The game in it's current form will be quite playable on a phone (with suitable screen and input attached) in 10 years.  Of course hopefully in 10 years KSP will be in version 3 or 4 and would melt any phone trying to run it.

I'm not sure a phone with a screen and keyboard attached is really a "phone" anymore...it sounds like a PC  

[kBob]

That's my point they will be as powerful as today's desktops possibly more so.  I didn't say they had to be permanently attached and in fact it would most likely be a wireless connection.

Edited July 15, 2016 by kBob

[Whirligig Girl]

There's a game called Space Simulator which "proves" that 3D spaceflight on a mobile device is possible and, after getting used to it, practical. A KSP Mobile wouldn't be a port though, it would have to be a whole new game. Really, a 2D Kerbal Space Program would work fine for a mobile game. There is simple rockets, but without the Kerbals it's kind of boring. I don't feel invested in space missions with Simple Rockets, because there aren't any people in the universe who really want things to work. It's just a game about building rockets. There's no "human" element to it.

So personally, I'm in support of a mobile KSP. Just not a port, and certainly not until the current KSP for desktop (and console) is more stable.

[Tyko]

On 7/14/2016 at 6:41 PM, kBob said:

That's my point they will be as powerful as today's desktops possibly more so.  I didn't say they had to be permanently attached and in fact it would most likely be a wireless connection.

There's no doubt that CPUs will continue to get smaller, I'm sure some enterprising nerds have or could get KSP to run on Raspberry Pi - which isn't much bigger than a phone. My point was, if you're adding a monitor and keyboard (wireless or not) then you're not really playing a "phone version" all you're doing is changing the form factor of the CPU from a box to a phone.

[kBob]

3 hours ago, tjt said:

There's no doubt that CPUs will continue to get smaller, I'm sure some enterprising nerds have or could get KSP to run on Raspberry Pi - which isn't much bigger than a phone. My point was, if you're adding a monitor and keyboard (wireless or not) then you're not really playing a "phone version" all you're doing is changing the form factor of the CPU from a box to a phone.

Which is a major change from now if a phone can run KSP at the speed of a current high end desktop, unless the program grows a lot, it could actually mean then end of the gaming rig (there is a point of diminishing returns and much software already does not need a powerful desktop to run well, once you have 4k photorealistic graphics and a certain level of complication in a game its future improvements well be relatively minor and the need to always be upgrading hardware to keep up will be greatly reduced...we are already seeing this).  

I was talking about a port of KSP, it could also be improved so it could have two modes, portable running on a small touch screen and full when using a keyboard/mouse/monitor.  No matter how you put it a phone is not a desk top it's a huge form factor change and if you sometimes connect it to the living room TV or whatever it's still a phone; also its display could still be used to hold reference material a map whatever.

As for running on a Pi, the Pi would not run it well, no point in doing that now and in 10 years who will need a Pi when the phone can do everything it can and more (be a phone too).  That is of course if phones develop that way and I think they well--I do see a lot of desire for a Surface phone (i.e. a phone running a full version of windows as well as being a phone).  Dies will have to shrink of course and given the recent problems we've seen with that it may be a bit more than ten years baring of course a breakthrough.  Moore's law has slowed down in recent years but we still see steady albeit slower progression.