Mobile Version of KSP

[Oldfinn]

Technically you used to be able to play KSP on a mobile phone via GeForce Now until the game got removed from the service. No port required, no concerns over melting phones or performance issues (a Nokia 3310 would've probably worked hehe), just enough bandwidth to be able to stream the gameplay. I imagine some type of attached controller would've been required though.

[kspnerd122]

My steps to make ksp mobile compatible

Step 1, controls use SR2 alike controls, they work pretty well.

Step 2, tone down the system, have less planets and moons(remove gilly, bop, eeloo, dres)

Step 3, tone down the planets, lower the texture quality, don't ruin them just lower quality, no solid colors, just remove all the tiny details.

Step 4, remove ground scatter, simple this is an option in the PC version

Step 5, Parts, Parts, Parts, reduce the amount of parts in the game(give them .625, 1.25, 2.5, 3.75 fuel tanks, as well as LF only tanks(you could make that an option for any tank)

Step 6, where is that engine, give them a few engines to use, nerva, vector, mainsail, skipper, 1.25 m engines, jets, and some wings

Step 7, how will this run, simple, drop the physics range down to something way smaller(e.g 500m), limit part count of vessels(300 seems fair)

Step 8, Pods, give them all the stock command pods.

Step 9, Power, give them basic solar panels, and rtgs, make a button to extend all(automatic action group)

Step 10, ISRU, leave as is.

Step 11, remove aero heating as well as only allowing wings the ability to generate lift(have a lift value on wings that determines how much it creates) everything else just does what normal KSP does without body lift, items inside fairings and cargo bays do not create any aerodynamic forces.

Step 12, only load the physics for the system your craft is in everything else is ON RAILS and physics is not being caluclated other than for gravity, no other forces will affect the ships.

Step 13, Enjoy your mobile ksp!!!

 

[kerbiloid]

On 8/10/2020 at 7:53 PM, kspnerd122 said:

Step 2, tone down the system, have less planets and moons(remove gilly, bop, eeloo, dres)

Just several of them: a yellow star Hotty with a gas giant Puffy and its moon Icy.
A dense golden near-star asteroid Goldy to mine the money.
And the Earth-like DefaultPlanet with the moon Rocky.

On 8/10/2020 at 7:53 PM, kspnerd122 said:

.625, 1.25, 2.5, 3.75 fuel tanks

Small, Medium, Large = 1, 3, 6 m. Four are too many to remember for a child.

[mvb4298]

On 8/10/2020 at 12:53 PM, kspnerd122 said:

My steps to make ksp mobile compatible

Step 1, controls use SR2 alike controls, they work pretty well.

Step 2, tone down the system, have less planets and moons(remove gilly, bop, eeloo, dres)

Step 3, tone down the planets, lower the texture quality, don't ruin them just lower quality, no solid colors, just remove all the tiny details.

Step 4, remove ground scatter, simple this is an option in the PC version

Step 5, Parts, Parts, Parts, reduce the amount of parts in the game(give them .625, 1.25, 2.5, 3.75 fuel tanks, as well as LF only tanks(you could make that an option for any tank)

Step 6, where is that engine, give them a few engines to use, nerva, vector, mainsail, skipper, 1.25 m engines, jets, and some wings

Step 7, how will this run, simple, drop the physics range down to something way smaller(e.g 500m), limit part count of vessels(300 seems fair)

Step 8, Pods, give them all the stock command pods.

Step 9, Power, give them basic solar panels, and rtgs, make a button to extend all(automatic action group)

Step 10, ISRU, leave as is.

Step 11, remove aero heating as well as only allowing wings the ability to generate lift(have a lift value on wings that determines how much it creates) everything else just does what normal KSP does without body lift, items inside fairings and cargo bays do not create any aerodynamic forces.

Step 12, only load the physics for the system your craft is in everything else is ON RAILS and physics is not being caluclated other than for gravity, no other forces will affect the ships.

Step 13, Enjoy your mobile ksp!!!

 

all you have to really do is change the controls

[kerbiloid]

And the augmented reality.

Spoiler

Turn your place into KSC.

[Aelipse]

Can anybody explain to me what is so appealing about having KSP on a smart phone? I play it on a laptop with a 17 inch screen and all the GUIs from both stock game and mods like Engineer Redux or Scansat cram my screen so much that I had to increase my resolution to fit it all in and now I have to actually wear glasses while playing the game just to be able to read it. Why would anyone want to fit the game on a tiny screen of a phone? How do you expect to see anything let alone control it?

Edited August 22, 2020 by Aelipse

[catloaf]

In order to make ksp work on mobile you would have to water it down so much that it's just a ksp themed sfs. If course sfs is actually a lot of fun, so it might work. Also, I actually prefer sfs to sr2. Procedural pars are tedious enough on pc, much less mobile. And the simplicity and performance benefits of 2d make it more suited to mobile that 3d. However, I could totally get behind a 2.5d mobile ksp, if the scenery wasn't lackluster like in sfs, and it was well optimized.

Edited August 23, 2020 by catloaf

[Deddly]

7 hours ago, Aelipse said:

Can anybody explain to me what is so appealing about having KSP on a smart phone?

I think the appeal is accessibility. I have a powerful computer in my pocket at all times. When I'm waiting for someone, away on holiday or just in another room, it would be nice to mess around with a few design tweaks for my craft. I do agree though, the experience wouldn't be nearly acceptable for regular play. Designing craft and testing them briefly, that might work. 

[kerbiloid]

16 hours ago, Aelipse said:

Can anybody explain to me what is so appealing about having KSP on a smart phone?

1. Subway/suburban train/bus, end of working day, 2 hours of road, standing in a crowd.

2. School/university/whatever, classes, evil teacher.

3. Airport. Just it.

Edited August 23, 2020 by kerbiloid

[catloaf]

What would be cool would be a mission manager app. It would sync to the pc to provide information and interact with ships. It would contain the following:

• Ker (flight or vab)
• A model of the ship, either vab or in flight, that could be rotated, and you could access the tweakables.
• Heating could be shown in the model.
• You could mirror the navball to the phone.
• You could control translation.
• A mode to control all breaking ground robotics (for when it's so complex that it's easier to do by hand than mess around with kal) you could also sort different robotics into groups, and order them.
• Other utilities like that to reduce screen clutter and improve multitasking.
• Science tab to control experiments, labs, and antennas. Pretty much the robotics mode but for science.

Edited August 24, 2020 by catloaf

[catloaf]

On 8/22/2020 at 4:34 PM, Aelipse said:

Can anybody explain to me what is so appealing about having KSP on a smart phone? I play it on a laptop with a 17 inch screen and all the GUIs from both stock game and mods like Engineer Redux or Scansat cram my screen so much that I had to increase my resolution to fit it all in and now I have to actually wear glasses while playing the game just to be able to read it. Why would anyone want to fit the game on a tiny screen of a phone? How do you expect to see anything let alone control it?

Simple, make it 2d or 2.5d like I described. Perhaps craft could be 3d (As in you could have north/south facing boosters, but physics would be restricted to a 2d plane. There could be a surface mode for Kerbals and rovers that could move in all directions, but there is an altitude ceiling (perhaps 300 meters, with no mountains taller than that.) And a top speed of 20m/s. 

[Deddly]

3 hours ago, catloaf said:

Simple, make it 2d or 2.5d like I described. Perhaps craft could be 3d (As in you could have north/south facing boosters, but physics would be restricted to a 2d plane. There could be a surface mode for Kerbals and rovers that could move in all directions, but there is an altitude ceiling (perhaps 300 meters, with no mountains taller than that.) And a top speed of 20m/s. 

I think at this point we're just playing Simple Rockets

[Guest]

It makes no sense to have it on mobile. Why would you bring a very complicated simulation game that requires lots of control and small parts on a small screen? I mean imagine trying to pick up a strut off a side booster...

[catloaf]

55 minutes ago, Deddly said:

I think at this point we're just playing Simple Rockets

The main difference is that the game and spacecraft are 3d, but the physics are 2d, to make controlling the craft on the small screen possible. Remember, this isn't supposed to compete with the pc version. It's for playing on a train, or for 5 minutes in between classes, so it's going to be watered down. However, I think it's very possible to water it down in a way that's still fun. I do agree with @The Doodling Astronaut though, building is already infuriating in simple rockets. That really is the dilemma, it's figuring out how to make the game enjoyable, but no so watered down that it isn't. A possible solution to the craft editing problem would be to disable part removal/placing, allowing you to get really close before moving the part, and/or having to tap the part to select it and then be able to remove it (this is sorta how it works in sfs.) Another thing they should do is have the mobile version use the same .craft file, allowing you to switch craft between versions, so maybe you could pre-load craft made in pc into the phone. Maybe a way to make it controllable in 3d would be to have a draggable navball where you could set your heading, or something like the nav sphere in sr2, but with it broken up into two draggable wheels on a hi (probably weird at first but easy to get used to and better than the draggable navball.) It would be best though to have many control schemes if it's 3d, and allow the use to pick the one they want.

 

[Incarnation of Chaos]

33 minutes ago, catloaf said:

The main difference is that the game and spacecraft are 3d, but the physics are 2d, to make controlling the craft on the small screen possible. Remember, this isn't supposed to compete with the pc version. It's for playing on a train, or for 5 minutes in between classes, so it's going to be watered down.

 

But the thing is that despite them not competing from a standpoint of "Which one is the better, more fully-featured game", they're still going to compete for the same precious resource. Time.

Mind you the KSP Console port is a trainwreck, and hardly maintained to the same standards or frequency as KSP proper. And you want to suggest that introducing a third project; even one significantly smaller in scope and scale wouldn't compete for that already thinly stretched time? And wouldn't lead to either it being quickly abandoned, or never released in the first place? Not to mention the fact that they'd have to have staff to work on it, splitting resources they likely already really don't have. All for something that you, and everyone else who's proposed it has all admitted would essentially be a glorified time waster...

Books aren't that expensive, and there's volumes on Rocketry, Physics, Mathematics or any other potential subject that can easily be found. Music can be had on CD, and ripped to whatever format you wish extremely easily and cheaply. If you really need "5 minutes of fun", then I'd suggest either of those. I'm just not really seeing the value, either for you or SQUAD here that would come from such a simplified mobile port. And it's incredibly unlikely that SQUAD would be able to execute it, and maintain it even to the low, low standards of the current KSP console port.

Hell if you're between classes, then I'm sure there's something that you could do that's directly related to them for 5 minutes. I often asked my classmates (Before all courses were put online mid-semester) for assistance with equations that had been dogging me for additional insight, or just walked around and talked (This was College, so not sure if it's that applicable to you).

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but whenever i have this much time that i start wondering "How do i use this" i tend to think of what i could be getting done in the meantime. And normally there's something iv'e let fall thru the cracks, or some other mundane task iv'e put off (Calling to schedule a doctor's appointment is a common one).

Also, none of this is to be construed as me saying/implying that you need to do X or Y. I just find the entire idea of needing something like this very Alien to me for lack of a better word.

[Deddly]

17 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

 I just find the entire idea of needing something like this very Alien to me for lack of a better word.

I know many people who would say the same thing about KSP desktop or any other game. The fact is, we're all different. There have been times when I've wished I had a mobile spaceplane hangar or VAB because I sometimes go around doing other things but in my head I'm problem solving some design issue in KSP and would like to try out a design tweak etc. It's not a case of "killing time", time is precious. 

[Guest]

What I could see is some kind of Assisting app when you play KSP and need to say control two craft at the same time or work on something in a spaceplane hanger while in the VAB.

Yet again you could totally replace this with a mod, hence getting rid of the use altogether. 

[mattinoz]

KSP2 might be a better target for Mobile Game. "Water it down" to just Kerbin, Mum & Minmus as a standalone game, but allow to team with Multiplayer server of your own hosting to expand out to the full universe.  Lots of players had lots of fun and never left Kerbin Sphere of influence.

Scene Graph takes care of loading the subset of the universe you are playing in.

Parts could be then limited to suit and again hotsync from your home hosted instance. If say you have the game focused to Duna it would only need the parts you have access to in the colonies in that zone.

Treat each Zone of Influence as a level and assets loading on thos platform can keep the app package size down.

With access to your home game from mobile you could use a commute to set up a whole bunch milk runs for colony building or such...

[kspnerd122]

Actually, I feel there should be other planets maybe just duna and eve though, duna would have ike, but gilly would go away, jool should be added, but maybe strip the system down to just Tylo Laythe and Vall, Moho would be possible, everything else is gone.

On 8/20/2020 at 6:13 AM, kerbiloid said:

Just several of them: a yellow star Hotty with a gas giant Puffy and its moon Icy.
A dense golden near-star asteroid Goldy to mine the money.
And the Earth-like DefaultPlanet with the moon Rocky.

Small, Medium, Large = 1, 3, 6 m. Four are too many to remember for a child.

Im a teenager, and I can easily manage.

also don't talk down to kids with gameplay.

[catloaf]

What if instead of putting the pc version to mobile, which would be a disaster. T2 contracted a different studio to build the game from the ground up. If the game was built for mobile it could have certain features to make it a usable experience. For example, having smart A.S.S. would make mobile actually playable without watering down the physics. Also, wider/taller phones means that you can have usable ui and a sizable space with the actual gameplay. Also, if there was a dedicated team from within T2 they could pay attention to ui, which would be the hardest part. This game would definitely be possible with automation of certain features and smart ui design. And unlike squad, T2 actually has the resources to do this, and there is monetary incentive for them to do this. Plus, if it's actually enjoyable and doesn't effect ksp1 or ksp2 development than how could it be a bad thing? I think it's very reasonable to have a full features ksp1 on mobile provided that it's done by a competent team given a reasonable deadline by T2.

[Goaty1208]

Well, hope we won't get another Kerbal Enhanced Edition that is actually Un-Enhanced, right?

[kspnerd122]

I have an Idea for this actually, why not just make it 2d like SFS, WAY easier to develop(I made a ksp mod for SFS in 1 week It is totally doable to make a similar game) if you really want 3d then make it so that you only have kerbin, duna, eve, mun, minmus, ike. most players never even go past duna or eve, also, just freeze time when not in the SOI(ksp still does basic calcs on unloaded ships) then when you enter the SOI calcs begin for THAT SOI.

[Deddly]

5 minutes ago, kspnerd122 said:

make it 2d 

There was a bit of a conversation earlier on about this, actually. See of it's something like what you have in mind. 

[Guest]

I was thinking recently of a Mobile KSP app of where you can download your craft files and experience them in Iva and go around your craft bringing the interior to life. I don't know how well that would work. But hey, an idea.

[catloaf]

5 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I was thinking recently of a Mobile KSP app of where you can download your craft files and experience them in Iva and go around your craft bringing the interior to life. I don't know how well that would work. But hey, an idea.

Yes! Perhaps a fun game where you go around completing tasks (minigames.) Maybe there could be a vab like level editor, where the user could set different parameters, such as gravity, how much of it, breathable atmosphere, time limit etc. The main challenge not the game would be the time limit. Users would be able to share levels.

Edited October 2, 2020 by catloaf
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