Juno: New Origins News

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:















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

• 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.
  

We just released version 0.8.106 on the beta test branch.

• 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.
  

• 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.
  

• 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.
  

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:

• 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
  

• 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.
  

• 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.
  

• Created Date/Time of downloaded sandboxes is wrong on Android
  

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 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!

• Procedural landing gear
  

• 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
  

• 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.
  

• 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 IPerformanceAnalysis.StageAnalysisChanged event
  
• 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).