Simutrans for Android (Update Nov. 2016: New Version, new graphics, i386 support!)

What

This is an inofficial Port of Simutrans for Android computer-like devices (Phones, tablets, …).

There is no change to the game at all – this means: The user interface is the same as for the PC version. It is not ideal for phones, but works quite well for tablets with mice. Be warned.

Where

Download an APK file:

Simutrans.apk
Be careful – it is large: 133 MByte.

It contains Simutrans, a nightly version direct from source from November 28th, 2016, for ARM-based, i386 and MIPS Android devices (all in one file), the midi music and two graphics sets: PAK64 and PAK128. It does also work on 64bit Intel devices (amd64 architecture) using the i386 32 bit code.

How

Just download and install the file onto your device. Enable install from unknown sources in settings first.

If you want to add your own PAKsets or addons to the existing PAKs: Download the PAK from Simutrans web site and put it onto your SD card in path: Android/data/com.simutrans/ to the other PAKs after running simutrans at least once.

What works? Will I have fun?

It seems that everything works as expected from the PC version. Scrolling with left mouse button is enabled so you can scroll with your fingers or a stylus – or a mouse. You can click the small yellow star in the top right to enable the keyboard and enter text. It also looks exactly the same as on a normal computer. You need a fast device to have fun playing larger maps. (Test devices are a fairphone 2 (works, screen too small) and a Lenovo Yoga book (works really well on the Android version of the machine, the Windows version can just run the official Simutrans for Windows obviously)). On high resolution devices it might be a bit too small for your eyes, see next section.

It is too small!

If running on a device with a very high pixel density you might want to put your device under a microscope to actually see the user interface elements like texts and windowbars. You might want extremely tiny fingers to actually hit the buttons. (The game landscape itself does not suffer from this issue because you can easily enlarge it with the zoom button or just play PAK128 which looks larger and is also more beautiful.)

One solution is to connect an external screen via HDMI and a mouse. Wireless display lags a bit – I do not like it. This delivers a 100% PC-like gaming experience just without fan noise. A sufficiently large tablet and a bluetooth mouse also works quite well.

For playing on the road (or on board of actual trains) you can try to play around with the ¨mouse emulation mode¨ setting that can be set in the startup menu in the first three seconds of startup. Press button ¨Change settings¨ in the first three seconds.

It is possible to enlarge Buttons and Toolbars by selecting the ¨large¨ theme from the display menu inside the game.

The problem of far too tiny window close buttons can be circumvented like this:

On your SD Card open the file Android/data/com.simutrans/themes/standard-large.tab with a text editor and replace the line

second_open_closes_win = 0

with this line

second_open_closes_win = 1

To close any window or toolbar when using the large theme just click the same thing you clicked to open it. This saves you from fiddling with the tiny close button.

I have not yet found a way to enlarge the font size, but it should finally be possible somehow with the current version. If you know how to do this please comment.

Why

When buying my last phone I noticed that it has about seven times as much CPU power and double RAM than my computer while using less than a tenth of (electric) power. So I thought ¨this should replace my computer¨. A HDMI screen, keyboard and mouse is everything you need.

This works surprisingly well – there are apps for nearly everything you are used to from a normal computer. Even printing to USB printers is possible. If you still miss anything install ¨Debian noroot¨ from Play Store. This gets you a computer-desktop-like system where you can actually install and run Openoffice, Gimp and Inkscape so i can do a bit of actual work with that system.

The last thing that was missing for full enjoyment was my favorite game Simutrans. Simutrans can be installed and run from ¨Debian noroot¨ – but it is much too slow.

My old computer now has one task left to do: Compile Simutrans. Let use see how long it still works – it is just an old Atom netbook.

Who made it?

This is not my work. Credit goes to Pelya:

http://libsdl-android.sourceforge.net

Pelya made a lot of SDL software work on Android, and helped set up the build system for me.

Thank you!

Here is a GIT repository:

https://github.com/pelya/commandergenius/tree/sdl_android/project/jni/application/simutrans

And, of course, thanks to the simutrans team. Their code is simply compiled as-is, there are no patches etc, it just compiles together with the SDL for Android glue code.

I actually do not know enough about GIT, C++ and the development process in general. I somehow managed to get it to compile and build, but that is all. If you have more knowledge of the matter than I have: Feel free to improve!