After more than three years of development, SimpleRockets 2 is now available on the iOS App Store and Google Play. You can get it here.
As usual, here's a new trailer we put together for this special day. There is an absurd number of features in the game and the mobile version has the same feature set as the PC and Mac versions. The only difference is that the graphics are dialed back slightly, but don't get the wrong impression as the game still looks amazing on mobile devices!
SR2 has been available on Steam for almost a year now, so we've had time to add tons of new features and fix a lot of bugs to get it ready for this mobile release. But, we're not stopping here! You can check out our Roadmap for the list of stuff we are planning to work on. If you have a suggestion, feel free to submit it and make sure to upvote the suggestions that you favor. We take player suggestions into consideration with every update and it has led to great enhancements to the game such as the procedural rocket engines and jet engines.
If I could go back three years ago to when we started this project, I never would have imagined that we would get a fully 3D space simulator with seamless ground-to-space transitions and unprecedented craft customization working on a mobile device. I'm really proud of the team and the work we've done in creating what is now the most comprehensive simulator on mobile for building and flying rockets. I hope you will enjoy the game as much as we've enjoyed making it!
Thank you for reading and we hope you enjoy the game!
-The Jundroo Team
SimpleRockets 2 is coming to mobile on 9/19/19
We are releasing SimpleRockets 2 on the iOS App Store and Google Play on September 19th, 2019. It will be the most comprehensive simulator on iOS/Android for building and flying 3D rockets and airplanes.
We have put a tremendous amount of effort into optimizing the game for mobile and we have completely reworked the user interface to make it as natural as possible on a touch device. We are really excited about how the game has come together and we can't wait for you to try it out!
In the meantime, here are some teaser screenshots:
DETAILS
Launch Price $4.99 USD
iOS App Store page https://apps.apple.com/us/app/simplerockets-2/id1294032921?ls=1
Google Play page https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jundroo.SimpleRockets2
KEY FEATURES
Fully 3D Rocket Designer that allows building anything from basic rockets to very complicated multi-stage rockets, airplanes, rovers, satellites, robotic mechs, etc.
Design custom rocket engines and jet engines.
Realistic rocket physics and orbital mechanics.
Simple to get started, but advanced players can dig into the technical details if they are interested in the math behind rocket engines and orbital mechanics.
Highly procedural parts that can be resized and reshaped into endless combinations, such as the resizable fuel tank and the cargo bay.
Map View to navigate the solar system that displays predicted orbits and encounters.
Fully 3D, rotating planets that support water and multiple biomes, such as desert, grasslands, tundra, etc.
Players can upload their rockets and sandboxes and share them with other players.
Flight model dynamically updates drag and lift characteristics of your craft as it changes.
Crafts can dock together in orbit and transfer fuel.
Performance Analysis window makes it easy for advanced players to see how their craft's Delta-V, TWR, engine Isp, etc are changed as they build their rockets.
Beta Version 0.8.106
We just released version 0.8.106 on the beta test branch.
FEATURES
Added camera part.
Added new camera modes available during flight.
Enabling re-entry effects on mobile.
Gizmo for adjusting burn node position can be accessed by long-pressing on the center of a burn node.
The game auto-saves every 5 minutes in flight. If the game crashes or exits mid-flight, upon resuming it will ask if the mid-flight auto-save should be kept or reverted to the pre-flight state.
Android and iOS now save the current flight state or designer craft when the app loses focus. Progress should be restored when resuming the app after the OS has killed it. If a crash, Alt-F4, or other means exit the game abnormally while a flight is in-progress, the main menu should prompt the player to keep or undo the in-progress flight (from the last save point).
Added ability to the resolution of orbit lines in Map View. Reducing this value can greatly improve performance when a lot of orbit lines are shown.
TWEAKS
Added an explosion effect when a part overheats from re-entry heat damage and display a message informing the player that their part was destroyed from excessive heat damage.
Added a 'Very High' setting for 'Shadow Distance' that uses higher resolution shadows if the GPU supports it.
Shadow quality settings have been updated and a shadow distance setting has been added. At high quality, shadows are drawn much further than before. At lower levels, resolution and distances have been reduced. Mobile shadow quality has been improved.
Minor texturing tweaks to the low quality water.
Burn node gizmos can now be retracted by clicking on the center icon.
Burn node adjustor handles now extend further to make them easier to use.
Added Save Location button to menu in flight scene.
Updated the input based activator part modifier to be able to lock heading/prograde/retrograde/target/node.
Show the map view inspector when a non-player craft is selected.
Added close button to inspector panels.
Reset finger tool position after dropping part in trash can or subassembly.
BUG FIXES
Reducing shadow artifacts by reducing shadow draw distance (and thus increasing shadow resolution) when zoomed in close to the camera target.
Fixed issue causing some orbits to be unnecessarily updated.
Fixed issue casing some orbits to have unmodifiable burn nodes (unless the game is paused).
Reduced z-fighting on shores.
Fixed bug with the sun appearing to have a black hole in its center.
Beta Version 0.8.101
We just released version 1.8.10x on the Steam, iOS, and Google Play beta channels. This is the first round of beta testing for SR2 for iOS and Android. If you were selected to join in on the mobile beta testing then you should have received an email with further instructions.
This version also brings a few changes for the Steam version, most notably some performance improvements. Here is the full change list:
FEATURES
Ported SR2 to iOS and Android.
Performance improvements for all platforms from optimizing the game for mobile.
Reduced overall memory consumption.
Added Overall Quality setting to the Settings dialog.
Added an anisotropic filtering display quality setting.
Added Refresh Rate setting to limit refresh rate, which can improve battery life and reduce overheating on laptops and other mobile devices.
Added High Dynamic Range quality setting.
Added a lighting quality setting.
Upgraded to Unity 2019.2
TWEAKS
Settings categories now save whether they're expanded or not.
Changed ToggleFPS to just show the FPS on first toggle. Toggling again will then show the detailed information.
Moved AF and Lighting Quality to Visual Effects.
Added a flashing green indicator to the nav sphere in the tutorial to show the player where to position their pitch.
Reduced unnecessary memory overhead when taking screenshots (about 33% less memory allocation at 1080p).
Tweaked the UI so that it can work well on both desktop and mobile screens.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug where the test pilot would throw exceptions when it was disconnected from a craft.
Fixed a bug with the Wasp 2.0 where it's landing gear and engines were not activated at start.
Fixed a bug where fuel tanks would not drain in the correct order when priority was overridden in some circumstances.
Low quality lighting now uses vertex lighting for the secondary light in the designer.
Fixed Required Mods dialog so that it would not extend beyond the top and bottom edges of the screen.
Known Issues
Created Date/Time of downloaded sandboxes is wrong on Android
Coming Soon to Mobile
It's no small feat to get a fully 3D space sim with custom craft building and realistic orbital mechanics to work well on a device that fits in your pocket, but we've about got this licked.
At this point, we are hoping to release in September. Since that's right around the corner we went ahead and set up the store pages and you can show your support by pre-ordering on the iOS App Store or Google Play!
Technical Note:
We are still continuing to improve performance on mobile, but as of right now you will need a device with at least 2GB of RAM. For iOS users, this means you will need at least an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus. It's possible that we might figure out how to get it working well on older devices, but we cannot guarantee it. The good news is that PC and Mac players should expect a bit of performance boost as well from all the work we're doing to get SR2 ready for mobile.
Update 0.7.3 - Procedural Landing Gear
Update trailer:
The newest update to SimpleRockets 2 includes highly customizable landing gear. You can tweak their scale, length, angle, as well as their forward, horizontal, and vertical offsets, and a whole lot more. Basically, they can be configured in an infinite number of ways. They are also far more stable than rover wheels when used with large crafts and they support retraction and an optional storage bay with tiny doors! They are a blast to play with and I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
FEATURES
Procedural landing gear
TWEAKS
Downloading a plane while not in the designer scene no longer loads your previous designer craft prior to loading the downloaded craft.
Updated stock aircrarft with the new landing gear
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug with extra lights (used in designer) not applying the detail textures to parts.
Fixed a bug where deleting a stage in the staging editor would not update the performance analyzer.
Fixed a bug where the center of thrust would not recalculate when the altitude was changed in the performance analyzer.
Fixed a bug where an engine's thrust would not be included in the performance inspector during flight if the engine was not activated via stage activation.
Fixed a bug where the exhaust plume could look overexpanded in a vacuum.
Fixed a major memory leak when leaving the flight scene.
Fixed a bug where jet engines would report incorrect performance in the designer after the afterburner option was enabled and then disabled.
Fixed a bug where the battery and mono displays in the flight inspector would not report the correct amounts when the non-primary command pod was selected.
Fixed a bug where the designer could become unresponsive after deleting a solar panel array.
Fixed a bug where the craft would not update its CoM/CoL/CoT when rotated or nudged via numeric entry in the rotate panel or nudge panel.
Fixed slant angle detaching landing gear's wheel in flight scene.
Possibly fixed hang on exit bug.
Fixed crash bug related to large craft.
MODDING
Upgraded to Unity 2018.4.4f1. Modders should also upgrade. Sorry for requiring another update so soon, but 2018.4.4f1 included some important bug-fixes.
Updated mod tools with support for adding custom fuel types, rocket engines, and rocket engine nozzles. See notes at "Assets\Content\Craft\Parts\RocketEngines_Help_ Rocket Engines.txt". Note: the Propulsion.xml file and help text file only get created when clicking the 'Start Creating Mod' button. Known Issue: Textures are not properly supported yet, but a solution is in work and should be ready in the next update.
Marked 'IsModRequiredForFlightState' as virtual on the GameMod base class.
Fixed a bug where creating a new subpart via the part manager would not auto-reference the new subpart script.
Added IInspectorPanel.RebuildModelElements() to clear and rebuild the inspector panel based on its current model.
Added 'IUserInterface.AddBuildInspectorPanelAction' and 'IUserInterface.RemoveBuildInspectorPanelAction' for hooking in to and extending the inspector panels (script based UI's like the Performance Analyzer and Flight View windows). Added 'IUserInterface.InspectorPanelLoading' and 'IUserInterface.InspectorPanelLoaded' events.
Added 'IXmlLayoutController.OnLayoutRebuilt' and 'BuildUserInterfaceRequest.AddOnLayoutRebuiltAction' for hooking in and executing code after a UI has been rebuilt.
Updated mod tools & API to support custom mod settings, accessible to the user via the game's settings dialog. A 'ModSettings' class will be created when clicking the 'Start Creating Mod' button in the mod builder window. View the commented out code to get started with adding custom settings to your mod.
Added a StagingChanged event to the CraftPerformanceAnalysis as well as a property for setting the atmosphere sample.
Added an IPartTextureStyleProvider interface that can be added to PartModifierData classes to allow the part modifier to define available part texture styles based on its current configuration (used by rocket engine components).
Added an OnModLoaded overload on 'Mod' game object instances that should be raised when the mod has fully loaded (part/propulsion data, UI resources, etc. have all been loaded).
Update 0.7.2.2 - Mod Support
We just released update 0.7.2.2 for SimpleRockets 2 on Steam. With this update comes official Mod support! This was one of the community's most highly upvoted features and we are really excited to see what everyone can do with it. This was a small update, but it is not the only thing we have been working on lately. We hope to have some customizable landing gear coming your way in the near future.
Music tracks no longer loaded when music volume is set to zero
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug where the ion engine would consume fuel even without battery.
Fixed a bug where the fuel tanks would report the wrong height when resizing vertically.
Small Update - Version 0.7.1.4
We just released a small update today that fixes some of the frustrating bugs from the latest update, most notably the staging bugs. The auto-staging algorithm still needs to be improved, but now it shouldn't wipe out your changes anymore.
Here are the changes in 0.7.1.4:
Fixed a bug where the designer would wipe out player's changes to to the craft's stages in some circumstances.
Fixed an issue where wheels would sometimes sink into the ground on reload.
Fixed a bug that would cause old sandboxes to never save the state of any planet added after the sandbox was created. In this particular sandbox, Cylero and Urados were affected.
Fixed a bug where fuel tanks could not transfer fuel after un-docking and re-docking.
Fixed a bug where the exhaust expansion would not be correctly calculated for very small nozzles.
Update 0.7.1
We just released update 0.7.1 for SimpleRockets 2 on Steam. A large part of this update was just below the surface, refactoring our old code and tackling some technical debt. Nathan took a quick hiatus from mod support to perform major surgery on the game loop and it has significantly improved performance for large craft. From our testing, we've seen an FPS increase of over 30% for some crafts.
Andrew added a new multi-directional RCS part so now you don't need to cobble together your own cluster of 5+ RCS ports. Just add one of these new parts and enjoy enhanced attitude control.
Andrew also refactored all of the fuel code so that we could support some new features to give you more control over how your crafts consume their fuel. Now you can re-prioritize your fuel tanks, drain from multiple tanks at once, and even automate fuel transfer using cross feeds, which are available on any new interstage part you pull out from the part list.
Kevin revisited the fuselage parts and rebuilt their meshes to remove unnecessary complexity and improve game performance, undoubtedly contributing to the 30% FPS boost I mentioned earlier. Then he went through all of the fuselage textures with a fine tooth comb and fixed issues with alignment that had cropped up in a few bug reports. After that, he freshened up the loading screens to be more reflective of the game's current state.
William incorporated four new songs from Fat Bard (the music guys). Then he added a new, resizable gyroscope part, so now your crafts don’t need to have a command pod for that. The power of the gyro is based on its size.
Philip has been working on procedural landing gear, but that didn't make this update. We are hoping to get that in the next update, in a few weeks.
Here are the nitty gritty details:
FEATURES
Added multi-directional RCS part.
Added gyroscope part.
Performance improvements. From our testing, we've seen large craft have up to a 30% increase in FPS.
New loading screens.
Docking ports can now be targeted, which makes docking a lot easier.
Added fuel tank priority so the player can change the order in which fuel tanks are drained.
Added fuel crossfeed option to side interstage part.
Allow draining from multiple fuel tanks at the same time when they are set to the same priority.
Added shortcut to open Performance Analyzer window in the designer. Bound to 'O' by default.
Added an option to disable ambient light attenuation in the game settings.
Added more music.
Added craft dimensions and part count to performance analyzer window.
TWEAKS
Save command pod input states so they will retain their slider positions when reloaded.
Added button to the Part Inspector to select a part's command pod during flight.
Display fuselage radius and length when resizing in the designer.
Added Propellant Mass to Performance Analyzer window in the designer.
The explode part button now must be clicked twice before actually exploding the part. Safety first.
Slightly increased the default ambient light in space.
Tweaked exhaust visuals for underexpansion and overexpansion.
Added a progress bar for fuel in the fuel tank inspector window.
Paint Emission Setting Now Allows 1% Increments.
Added tool-tips for replication/control options on command pod's flight scene inspector panel.
Engine exhaust now increases in length as it becomes more underexpanded.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug where the center of mass of the craft would not update during flight in some circumstances.
Fixed a bug with opening a craft/sandbox via file associations resulting in launching the game but not actually loading the craft/sandbox.
Fixed a bug where rotating a part with the keyboard would sometimes rotate the wrong part.
Fixed a bug with overlapping text on the dummy inspector window.
Fixed a bug where engines would not continue throttling to last known throttle input after separating from their commmand pod.
Fixed a bug where the part shape tool would not hide its grid after the player had finished dragging with the mouse.
Fixed a bug where disconnected parts would show up in staging display in flight scene.
Fixed the rotation direction of the planet in the main menu :D
Fixed issue which can cause a craft to whip around after undocking if the current heading is locked.
Fixed visual tearing on orbit lines when moving camera very rapidly in map view.
Fixed bug which would occur when the current navigation target is destroyed.
Improved the handling of invalid part styles, preventing them from modifying the part style list of all parts of the same type.
Fixed a bug where control surfaces could be added to structural panels.
