X-Plane: Starship

Name: X-Plane: Starship
Rating: 4.4 (865 reviews)
Author: Laminar Research

Simulation

Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.

865 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Simulation
Developer

Laminar Research
Language

EN
English
Size

3.7
GB

SpaceX is about to fly a Starship to 45,000 and belly-flop to a landing in Texas. Here's your chance to fly the mission yourself. And then... try it on Mars. All with realistic physics.

Ratings & Reviews

4.4

out of 5

865 Ratings

Controls, Camera, Cockpit, and Tutorials
11/23/2020

Rollex128
Adding more control options (like a screen thumb stick or game pad compatibility) would enhance the experience for iPad Pro owners. "Tilting the pad" is impractical with larger screens.The camera needs work. It's hard enough to control the aircraft and tweaking the camera in-flight makes it easier to lose control. Most maneuvers would also require you to "eyeball" your tasks from outside the ship (like the landing), which reduces realism for hardcore simulator players.The cockpit is bare and lacks a fully functional instrument panel. The flight telemetry overlay is not as useful and does not fix itself where the instrument panel should be. Instrumentation lacks important flight information guidance displays (like PDF's and MFD's) that could dramatically enhance the control and navigation of the aircraft. An example of a basic control guidance would be an Attitude Indicator. Another example of enhanced control would be the inclusion of a landing system similar to modern aviation's ILS, but designed for the Starship. The latter could eliminate the tedious experience of landing the aircraft.The simulator could also use more tutorials and should include text material that explains flight telemetry and why it is relevant to the flight. Should other instruments be added, these should be explained as well.Last, but not least, the inclusion of an instant replay option would be amazing! It would give players a chance to review their flight and also enjoy the view as it happens!This simulator is fun and has a lot of potential! Thank you Laminar! :)

Developer Response
Hi! I am right at the four gigabyte app limit now to hold all of the mars elevation and imagery data...There is no more room to include more video tutorials in the app... but, I recently included a video tutorial on the cockpit instrumentation.
Controls, Camera, Cockpit, and Tutorials
11/23/2020

Rollex128

Adding more control options (like a screen thumb stick or game pad compatibility) would enhance the experience for iPad Pro owners. "Tilting the pad" is impractical with larger screens.The camera needs work. It's hard enough to control the aircraft and tweaking the camera in-flight makes it easier to lose control. Most maneuvers would also require you to "eyeball" your tasks from outside the ship (like the landing), which reduces realism for hardcore simulator players.The cockpit is bare and lacks a fully functional instrument panel. The flight telemetry overlay is not as useful and does not fix itself where the instrument panel should be. Instrumentation lacks important flight information guidance displays (like PDF's and MFD's) that could dramatically enhance the control and navigation of the aircraft. An example of a basic control guidance would be an Attitude Indicator. Another example of enhanced control would be the inclusion of a landing system similar to modern aviation's ILS, but designed for the Starship. The latter could eliminate the tedious experience of landing the aircraft.The simulator could also use more tutorials and should include text material that explains flight telemetry and why it is relevant to the flight. Should other instruments be added, these should be explained as well.Last, but not least, the inclusion of an instant replay option would be amazing! It would give players a chance to review their flight and also enjoy the view as it happens!This simulator is fun and has a lot of potential! Thank you Laminar! :)
Developer Response 11/27/2020
Hi! I am right at the four gigabyte app limit now to hold all of the mars elevation and imagery data...There is no more room to include more video tutorials in the app... but, I recently included a video tutorial on the cockpit instrumentation.
Great game with some annoying mechanics
10/25/2021

thatwhiteguybrad
I love the game, it seems realistic and it has a lot of info to consume. A few things I keep getting annoyed by are that if your finger is on the engine button, you can’t move the screen around to get a better view, it just zooms in. This just makes it impossible easily get an orientation of the ground relative to the craft. Another issue is that there is no locked camera view or a way to easily tell which direction you’re facing relative to the direction of travel, it makes it impossible to land the craft with any type of reliability, you’re having to wildly rotate your device to figure out the correct direction all while dealing with a spinning craft because only one engine is firing
Great game with some annoying mechanics
10/25/2021

thatwhiteguybrad

I love the game, it seems realistic and it has a lot of info to consume. A few things I keep getting annoyed by are that if your finger is on the engine button, you can’t move the screen around to get a better view, it just zooms in. This just makes it impossible easily get an orientation of the ground relative to the craft. Another issue is that there is no locked camera view or a way to easily tell which direction you’re facing relative to the direction of travel, it makes it impossible to land the craft with any type of reliability, you’re having to wildly rotate your device to figure out the correct direction all while dealing with a spinning craft because only one engine is firing
A few problems
12/19/2020

snarly2
Hey I’ve been playing this game since the day of the sn8 launch and it is amazing but I have a few issues the earth pad hop and 15km hop work every time but when ever I try to do a Mars mission the game will crash and I have to re open it this happens probably 2/3 time I’m on a iPhone 8 so not a bad phone yet the game still crashes and I can’t find why on top of that I think that on the hop we should be able to turn the amount of thrust down so that we don’t just completely cut all power at once like sn8 did they slowly cut more and more power I understand this would make the game extremely hard but you could put the option in the settings and can we get a refueling animation on the hyperbolic entry that all I have other then that this is one of my favorite games of all times good job

Developer Response
The iPhone 8 is a LITTLE tight on RAM... have you tried re-starting the entire phone and not running any other Apps? Does that stop the crashing?ALSO, some people have seen crashes when they exit a Mars mission and then suddenly re-start it... while data is still loading in the background! I fixed this in 1.12 though!! Are you sure your crash is really happening in version 1.12? You can email me at austin@X-Plane.com or answer in your review.
A few problems
12/19/2020

snarly2

Hey I’ve been playing this game since the day of the sn8 launch and it is amazing but I have a few issues the earth pad hop and 15km hop work every time but when ever I try to do a Mars mission the game will crash and I have to re open it this happens probably 2/3 time I’m on a iPhone 8 so not a bad phone yet the game still crashes and I can’t find why on top of that I think that on the hop we should be able to turn the amount of thrust down so that we don’t just completely cut all power at once like sn8 did they slowly cut more and more power I understand this would make the game extremely hard but you could put the option in the settings and can we get a refueling animation on the hyperbolic entry that all I have other then that this is one of my favorite games of all times good job
Developer Response 12/21/2020
The iPhone 8 is a LITTLE tight on RAM... have you tried re-starting the entire phone and not running any other Apps? Does that stop the crashing?ALSO, some people have seen crashes when they exit a Mars mission and then suddenly re-start it... while data is still loading in the background! I fixed this in 1.12 though!! Are you sure your crash is really happening in version 1.12? You can email me at austin@X-Plane.com or answer in your review.
Physics aren’t that bad
12/28/2024

NonstopXP
Mostly when I do the 15km sky dive I take off and once I get to the top and shut off my engines, I try the do the belly flop maneuver but the ship wants to go into a completely different direction. The controls are also a bit weird. When I take off the main control of the rocket is pitch and roll, but when falling there is pitch and yaw (and a tiny bit of roll) When I watched sn10 it shows the starship tilting on its side near the belly flop then it flips over but I don’t get this when trying to replicate it. Mostly the ship just rolls over and gets somewhat annoying. But the game still works fine it’s just the physics and controls that are a bit confusing to me.
Physics aren’t that bad
12/28/2024

NonstopXP

Mostly when I do the 15km sky dive I take off and once I get to the top and shut off my engines, I try the do the belly flop maneuver but the ship wants to go into a completely different direction. The controls are also a bit weird. When I take off the main control of the rocket is pitch and roll, but when falling there is pitch and yaw (and a tiny bit of roll) When I watched sn10 it shows the starship tilting on its side near the belly flop then it flips over but I don’t get this when trying to replicate it. Mostly the ship just rolls over and gets somewhat annoying. But the game still works fine it’s just the physics and controls that are a bit confusing to me.

Updated engine sound based on the SN9 static fire from yesterday. We now have the 'raptor honk' sound on shut-down as observed on the pad.

Version 1.15 01/15/2021

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Accessibility

Information

Seller: Laminar Research
Size: 3.7 GB
Category: Simulation
Compatibility: Requires iOS 9.0 or later.

iPhone
Requires iOS 9.0 or later.

iPad
Requires iPadOS 9.0 or later.

iPod touch
Requires iOS 9.0 or later.

Mac
Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.

Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
Languages: English
Age Rating: 4+

4+

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