Mobile version

[322997am]

I was looking at some of the tablet stats for ram and I realized that my ram peak for my HORRIBLE computer is 1.5gb ram for Ksp since it is a 32bit game. My iPad has 2gb of ram and I realize the future 64bit version you could play the game with a mobile device with about 1gb ram. All I'm saying is that after u5 update is done then maybe squad could port the game to iOS and android. Correct me if I'm wrong on the ram stuff. Again I don't mean for this to sound like I won't play the game without the mobile version or like squad has to do this right now. All I'm saying is that I just want some thoughts about this.

[Alshain]

It's not the RAM you have to worry about. KSP only uses a lot of ram when modded, but it always uses a lot of CPU. The A7 doesn't hold a candle to any Intel or AMD CPU currently on the market. It's not meant to.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Alshain

[322997am]

But the a8 has some pretty good stats(for a tablet)

[Alshain]

But the a8 has some pretty good stats(for a tablet)

for a tablet. This isn't a tablet game. It barely runs well on the CPUs we have, get too many parts and it bogs it down. There is no way the A8 can do that.

[322997am]

Yeah, you're right. But I'd love a Ksp "mobile app that uses the Internet for fast processing" if that's possible. I don't care if I can't play it offline.

[Snark]

Yeah, you're right. But I'd love a Ksp "mobile app that uses the Internet for fast processing" if that's possible. I don't care if I can't play it offline.

It would saturate your network connection, not to mention being an enormous technical undertaking on Squad's part; setting up a cloud computing architecture is a very large and complex task. Big enough to push it very solidly into the "never gonna happen" category.

About the only way I could see it even vaguely being doable would be as a streaming setup, I.e. the game is actually running completely on a remote server and you're basically just getting a rendering feed from it and sending control inputs. But that would also be setting up a big technical task for Squad, plus there would be scaling issues for getting enough server capacity, the question of how it would all be paid for (would they have to charge subscriptions?)... not sounding super encouraging.

[Vermil]

The ARM processor cores which run the various phone and tablet OS'es are absolute puny, tiny wimps compared to any PC x86 CPU. No comparison. When I looked at a more in-depth comparison a few years back, the x86 CPUs were even also more powerful per Watt. It might be different today, because ARM use smaller scale of integration today, but the point is that ARM processors are used in mobile devices because of their small size and low total power consumption, not because of their efficiency. (The ARM architecture only compares favorably as long as the transistor count per core is rather low).

The reason phones and tablets seems snappy, is the same as in the old days when earlier generations of personal computers, Amiga, Atari ST, Windows 95, seemed snappy despite running on CPUs which are ridiculous by a modern comparison. There is a lot less going on. And they rely a lot on dedicated hardware for many things.

So mobile games are much different from PC-games. And I would rate KSP as an extreme example of a game borne on the PC. Though the PS4 and XBOne are so PC-like I can see KSP might be possible to port, ...in some sort of way. But mobile? Nope, it would be KSP only in name and theme. In other ways it would be a different game, and I suspect that the same will be true for the announced console games.

[322997am]

It would saturate your network connection, not to mention being an enormous technical undertaking on Squad's part; setting up a cloud computing architecture is a very large and complex task. Big enough to push it very solidly into the "never gonna happen" category.

About the only way I could see it even vaguely being doable would be as a streaming setup, I.e. the game is actually running completely on a remote server and you're basically just getting a rendering feed from it and sending control inputs. But that would also be setting up a big technical task for Squad, plus there would be scaling issues for getting enough server capacity, the question of how it would all be paid for (would they have to charge subscriptions?)... not sounding super encouraging.

A port to 3 different consoles is too a big undertaking. But they found a partner. Flyingtyger or someone else could help. We can also host these servers on other companies computers for laggg:D:D:D

[Red Iron Crown]

I think a subset of the game would be better, just the editor and some mechanism to synchronize craft files between the mobile app and the player's computer/console. None of the CPU-crushing physics load and much lower memory requirements as the planetary textures don't need to be loaded.

[sam.johnson841]

I suspect the A10X may be possible for 50 parts if apple continue to improve there IPC and clock speeds the way they have recently.

- Sam

[juanml82]

I think a subset of the game would be better, just the editor and some mechanism to synchronize craft files between the mobile app and the player's computer/console. None of the CPU-crushing physics load and much lower memory requirements as the planetary textures don't need to be loaded.

Yeah, but the moment you begin to download mods...

I'd love it, but few mobile devices come with 2 or 4 gb of RAM

[nothingSpecial]

I'd more like simplified version that can use the similar parts (with the same craft file system) but

• simplified meshes,
  
• simplified physics (collision and destruction of a craft as a whole? atmospheric drag as constant?),
  
• simplified world (when craft is neither active nor target, it just sits forever on it's orbit even if during playthrough there is a load of ships flying through the exact same position; planets are perfectly flat in the landing zone and perfectly wet in splashdown zone with surroundings features drawn directly above horizon),
  
• simplified nodes (if you cut throttle within margin of, say, half a second of node's execution time, the delta-V for correcting to the perfect maneuver is automatically applied).
  

Basically, an arcade game with costumizible craft and orbital mechanics, not an aspiring to be physically correct simulator of wielding crafts together from spare rocket parts and hoping it wouldn't explode when you are docking it in a middle of Eve's atmosphere with other burning monstrosity (that's the KSP's genre, right?).

That would be different, much simpler game in the (roughly) same universe.

And also SQUAD would never do it

(Also I'd like to have it not only for phones but for PC...)

[FungusForge]

There's a game called SimpleRockets that's more or less a 2D KSP (They even link to KSP in the game because it inspired the creation of SimpleRockets).

[mattinoz]

I think a subset of the game would be better, just the editor and some mechanism to synchronize craft files between the mobile app and the player's computer/console. None of the CPU-crushing physics load and much lower memory requirements as the planetary textures don't need to be loaded.

So basically a companion app to the future some what promised Multi-player server.

Server handle problematic things like syncing between your device and your main computer.

Handles hopefully game set up issues like mods active in that game.

To me this would all be good things.

But mostly I just want to be able to sketch up a craft design while I'm at lunch or such.

I do think using the multi-touch inside the VAB will also be a massive bonus.