Btw, do you know ballpark how many polygons the iPod/iPhone/iPad can display at a comfortable (30 FPS) rate?
The main ship is 330 squares or 660 triangles, if they need to be converted. As you can see here, there's room for some optimization on this model:
The lander with one side removed is 182 squares or 364 triangles. There's far less room for optimization on this one, but some is still possible.
Scale the numbers up, and we're talking at least 3000 triangles on screen with the ship, a few enemies, and some humanoids, not to mention the terrain. Does that seem reasonable? Worth thinking about first.
I thought about this because I was going to mention that the "smooth" ship has a
much higher polygon count (13,416 polys), and would probably only be suitable for stills unless rethought/rebuilt.