Mobile Version of KSP

[kris10127]

If a mobile version is added it will get tons more people playing the game. It will also make it so more people are able to play the game because pc`s and other consoles are expensive if you add mobile way more people will get the game.

Edited November 28, 2017 by kris10127

[Eric S]

KSP's too CPU-intense for most phone/tablets.  Simple Rockets is about as close as you'll come to KSP for your typical phone.  

 

[Superfluous J]

Yeah KSP would destroy a phone.

Though I bet they could make a ship constructor that allowed you to build a ship and export it somehow to your VAB.

[klesh]

Are you kidding, they cant even get kerbalizer going.  

[Spricigo]

11 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Though I bet they could make a ship constructor that allowed you to build a ship and export it somehow to your VAB.

Is there a thread for that suggestion?

[Deddly]

I have a very old, very poor Windows tablet, and it runs KSP well enough on low settings to actually play the game. Unfortunately, it's not possible to play properly because the UI is not designed for touch screens. But I think the suggestion is not as crazy as it sounds anymore.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forum, @kris10127!

Edited November 29, 2017 by Deddly

[John FX]

45 minutes ago, Deddly said:

I have a very old, very poor Windows tablet, and it runs KSP well enough on low settings to actually play the game. Unfortunately, it's not possible to play properly because the UI is not designed for touch screens. But I think the suggestion is not as crazy as it sounds anymore.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forum, @kris10127!

Yeah, modern tablets and phones knock the socks off some of the potato based equipment some players currently use.

[Helmetman]

I can see it draining my battery faster then it takes me to let the dog out since KSP makes fried cpu and ram for breakfast. Maybe I can bake a egg on my glass Galaxy S6 cover while it's running hot.

Then you almost finished your vessel but you forgot to save and your phone quits at which point you say to yourself "I never play this game on a smartphone again"

Reading small fonts on the UI using a small smartphone screen is a no no.

Swiping, tapping, multi touch rotating/moving and dragging to build complex VAB/SPH vessels Easy peasy, right?
I know some people are smartphone gods and goddesses, but since most aren't the audience might be limited.
So not a lot more people would buy/use it in my pov despite the TS wish that it might.

How to steer the rocket? Well...

You could use motion control to steer the rocket into a precise gravity turn viewing a tiny screen, or worse, tapping and holding arrow buttons on the up, down, left and right edges of the GUI to steer the rocket into a precise orbit. No mind upholding to precise maneuver node executions. My bet is that both options will be incredibly finicky, the latter more noticeably then the former.

You might have moisture or grease on your screen and hands so you cannot select or swipe to kill your throttle so you go nuts but run out to much fuel at which point you'll have to revert flight having to face the problems I already mentioned by re-launching the thing again.
Quick save/loading will solve the above, but there are endless commands besides quicksaving that might be similarly important to you. To which key tap, combo, swipe and/or menu setting options are these other options going to be addressed with? 

You would also have to add greater font to the UI so you can still read the navball but still allows enough room on your IPhone 8 screen to see the actual rocket in action. This will do better on a Tablet. If this gets done I think that actually playing will be reserved for tablets only. Which is fine, but I'm just saying.

If hardware and battery capacity weren't a problem and we had good commercially integrated holographic hardware this will be a thing imho.
But this is just my two cents, maybe there are less advanced ways to make KSP work on a smartphone/tablet. But I don't see this being done anytime soon. 

Edited November 29, 2017 by Helmetman

[Corona688]

I could picture a phone version of Kerbal Space Program 0.1, the two-dee version.  The full game is just too complex to play on a one-button controller.

[DAL59]

For ipads, and windows tablets, maybe.  For iphone, no.

Could ksp be ported to the Wii?  

It would be better than the xbox, because you can actually point at the screen and have a cursor.  

[klesh]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Could ksp be ported to the Wii? 

 

The definitive version of KSP was supposed to be on Wii.  And then came the console debacle and the inevitable cancellation of it.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/08/kerbal_space_program_on_wii_u_is_the_ldefinitive_versionr_according_to_nintendo

[Kernel Kraken]

I think the only problem would be All those dang buttons. Most mobile screens are too small to fit all the required buttons and sliders and things without a keyboard, and it wouldn't be very mobile if you had to carry around a charger port keyboard. You could in theory do it, but the gui would be hard to use. 

[harrisjosh2711]

This is a really bad idea. It would take away from the working PC version and the released but not working console version.

[HighFructose]

Well I think current hardware could maybe actually run KSP barely. For example, the iPhone 8 has a 2.4ghz 6 core processor which is comparable to some laptops. The problem is controls though. There would have to be an external controler to have enough inputs to play. And there’s the problem of getting it to run on an ARM processor, and not making KSP max the devices RAM.

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, Scout1218 said:

the iPhone 8 has a 2.4ghz 6 core processor which is comparable to some laptops. 

I've been looking for some information about that. Can you tell me where you found that iPhone vs laptop performance comparison? 

[Lord Aurelius]

As has been said, performance isn't really an issue anymore given how powerful mobile devices have become. The bigger issue is controls, although I don't see that being insurmountable.

Dragging around with one finger moves the camera, have a virtual joystick for the control axes, drag the throttle, and have a dropdown from the top of the screen with buttons for lights, landing gear, action groups, etc. The hardest part would be the right-click parts menu. Maybe long press on the desired part, and make the UI interact-able when the game is paused so the player can pause the game to use the menus. This would also be very much appreciated on the desktop version as well. 

[DAL59]

 

4 hours ago, Scout1218 said:

Well I think current hardware could maybe actually run KSP barely. For example, the iPhone 8 has a 2.4ghz 6 core processor which is comparable to some laptops. The problem is controls though. There would have to be an external controler to have enough inputs to play. And there’s the problem of getting it to run on an ARM processor, and not making KSP max the devices RAM.

An ipad could probably run it and control it.  

[HighFructose]

14 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

Dragging around with one finger moves the camera, have a virtual joystick for the control axes, drag the throttle, and have a dropdown from the top of the screen with buttons for lights, landing gear, action groups, etc. The hardest part would be the right-click parts menu. Maybe long press on the desired part, and make the UI interact-able when the game is paused so the player can pause the game to use the menus. This would also be very much appreciated on the desktop version as well. 

All of these ideas could work but the issue is actually making the port. We don’t want another console catastrophe...

 

17 hours ago, Deddly said:

I've been looking for some information about that. Can you tell me where you found that iPhone vs laptop performance comparison? 

Well I can’t remember exactly where I found the info, but the Core i7-4700MQ is clocked at 2.4 ghz, and the A11 chip in the iPhone 8 has a 2.4ghz clock speed. However, the i7 is an x86 chip and the A11 is an ARM processor. 

Here’s a semi-decent article about the iPhone vs a MacBook Pro in geek bench.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/22/iphone-8-geekbench-test-scores/

Edited December 3, 2017 by Scout1218
Spelling

[Deddly]

41 minutes ago, Scout1218 said:

Well I can’t remember exactly where I found the info, but the Core i7-4700MQ is clocked at 2.4 ghz, and the A11 chip in the iPhone 8 has a 2.4ghz clock speed. However, the i7 is an x86 chip and the A11 is an ARM processor. 

Ah ok, thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we can't compare ghz in order to get an indication of performance anymore. As I said in another thread, the Pentium 4 went up to 4 Ghz but is woefully outperformed by anything modern. Benchmarks can give a more meaningful comparison. 

[KSPFanatic102]

Simply , because

Smartphones can't handle KSP.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Space_taco

[Yakuzi]

On 11/30/2017 at 10:41 PM, klesh said:

The definitive version of KSP was supposed to be on Wii.

"Will launch early next year" August 2015.

Squad does seem to like its early year release dates...

Edited December 4, 2017 by Yakuzi

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Higher-end phones are more powerful than some decent laptops, so with an interface redesign it's not out of the question. I don't see much by way of base-game updates past 1.4, so it's a reasonable project, especially as KSP isn't very graphically intensive

With regards to architecture concerns, Qualcomm got Windows running on a Snapdragon and normal Windows apps running with it.

As to interface, I think you could just modify it so that parts and ship view are separate windows, and then it would just be touch-and-drag based in the editor and flight controls could be a d-pad or tilt controls, assuming you don't have a controller

Edited December 5, 2017 by OrbitalBuzzsaw

[Deddly]

9 hours ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Higher-end phones are more powerful than some decent laptops

Are you sure? I've been looking for some benchmarks but can't find any direct comparison.

[NSEP]

I don't think its impossible to make a 3D KSP-like game for mobile. We have Simpleplanes and Simplerockets, just mash them together right?

[Eric S]

7 hours ago, Deddly said:

Are you sure? I've been looking for some benchmarks but can't find any direct comparison.

The only direct comparison I've found suggesting anything like this, an iPhone (the 8, I think, might have been the X), was beating a low end laptop by about 10-20%.  Given that the same phone stomps all other phones by at least 30% in the same benchmark, I stand by my "too intense for most phones/tablets" opinion.  Even if you take the phones that it was only beating by 30%, you're talking very recent high end phones, so not a significant market share.

You can't just compare clock frequencies and core counts, which is where I think a lot of this speculation is coming from.

As for running windows on a Snapdragon, it's a specific snapdragon that has hardware support for the task, not a generic software emulator, and I haven't seen any benchmarks of said Snapdragon running Windows software.  So not proven practical, and again, not something that will provide significant market share at this time.