Eve on Android

I finally got my shiny new tablet. Please don’t gank it, there’s no faction stuff in there. I’d love to play Eve Online on this baby (could be neat with multi touch and stuff), but I guess this won’t happen any time soon. It can be done using some kind of streaming or remote desktop client, but let’s be honest, that’s still not quite the same.

So, for now, I’ll have to limit myself on utility apps to support or augment my Eve experience. A quick look on the official Android Market revealed several apps, with many offering an overlapping feature set. So I thought it could be a good idea to post my experience here. The following lines are of course my opinion only, and you should just make your own, if you’re interested to test these little helpers.

The following list just represents the order the market app listed the apps for me. This isn’t sorted at all (other than putting the skipped apps to the bottom). The screenshots are taken on Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3) running at 1280x800, so if you’re using an older version or a smaller screen, stuff might look a bit different.

Aura for EVE Online

By: Jason Parks – Market Page

Aura seems to be the most popular choice regarding Android apps. It’s essentially a portable character monitor, allowing you to keep an eye on several characters, their skill queue, research projects, etc. The app has been designed for the small screens offered by most mobile phones, but that doesn’t mean it’s looking bad on a big tablet screen.

After launching the app for the first time, I’ve been surprised. There wasn’t any prompt to ask for my API key, something I consider as a plus, as it’s useable without one and doesn’t nag about this. The first three icons, “Pilots”, “Corps” and “Fitter” stay empty without a set key. I can understand this, but there’s no notification or anything similar, so you can just guess that you’ll need to enter your key first.

“Database” offers a quick and easy way to look through almost any item or object existing in the game. The list looks a bit overwhelming on the big tablet screen though. At least the icons you know from the game are shown as well, making navigating a lot easier. It might take a bit for the app to load these, so it’s possible you have to browse without icons for the first few minutes. A small download indicator would have been nice, considering not all entries having an icon. Each entry has its own detail page, built in a similar way to the game’s info window. Very neat and very informative, although I seem to be missing blueprint information other than their volume and tech level.

“Market” offers you a list similar to “Database”. But this time showing you buy and sell orders for the various items. Sorting is fixed, showing buy orders beginning with the most expensive and sell orders beginning with the least expensive. There are no other sorting options right on the market screen, but you’re able to filter the results by region.

“Headlines” and “Podcasts” are a bit disappointing showing “Coming Soon™” only. I’d just have skipped them altogether, but it’s not a significant loss. “Server Status” offers a short and simple page telling you the server status (obviously) as well as the current number of logged in players.

“Settings” is a bit sparse too, but again, the most important stuff is there: add acount information and notification settings. Well, this reveals the reason you don’t have to input an API key on startup. The app doesn’t use that data immediately. Instead, you have to sign up with Aiden Robotics on the home page. I’m no fan of forced registrations and stuff, but due to being happy with the feature set so far, I decided to still do it. Once logged in on the web page, you’re able to access your preferences and add your API key there. Then it goes back to the app: The text input controls seem to be a bit weird (e.g. being multi line and showing the password in clear text), so this requires some bit of extra attention, especially considering my password now being stored in the word list of the on screen keyboard! Something like this shouldn’t happen.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get past the “Verifying your account credentials” screen, so my review will stop here (I don’t think anything will happen after waiting for 10 minutes 2 or 3 times). I’ll update this later on, once I’m able to complete the login.

[ Update: Obviously I’ve been blind. There’s an alternative method to add API keys, as it seems like the web interface/linking hasn’t been finished yet. On the top right of “Pilots” there’s a button to add pilots and on this page there’s a button to add API keys. There should definitely be some kind of hint, as I didn’t notice the icons hiding up there. The pilot information works in a similar way when compared to the database and market lists. It’s nothing very impressive, but still doing its job in a rather straightforward way. In a similar way, there’s also a small button on the “Fitter” to create  a new fitting. You must not expect something like EFT here, but it’s nice to think about some fittings, if you’ve got some time to waste. It’s still quite restricted in it’s display (due to the support for small screens), but it works. There’s a search box for modules as well as a history listing the modules you’ve got in your other slots, so fitting one of the new tier 3 battlecruisers won’t drive you crazy till you’ve put all the guns in there. ]

Evanova for Eve Online

By: Traquenard Labs – Market Page

Evanova tries to achieve a goal similar to Aura: Offering you a convenient way to check game information even outside the game. Upon opening the app greets you with 4 different tabs being pretty much self-explanatory: “API Keys”, “Pilots”, “Corporations” and “Evanopedia”. The initial presentation (showing the “Evanopedia”) looks really nice. The split view allows you to change item categories rather fast and grants you a nice overview. However, the database seems to be outdated with the last app update being back in October it’s definitely missing the Crucible changes. Other than this, the database is a lot similar to the one Aura offers. So far I’d say Aura has the better tables (e.g. for attributes), Evanova the better (tablet) layout.

What I really like here, in comparison to Aura, is the fact there’s a predefined character added to the data. This way you’re able to get a sneak peak at the app, without having to input your own data. Adding your own key is a bit more complicated: You’re able to create a QR code using the developer’s homepage, import it through the clipboard (meaning the app will scan your clipboard contents each time you tab to the app) or a text file. While the QR code way is an interesting concept, I’d still expect some direct way to input my credentials. Again, issues. Why? The web page I should be able to get the QT code just redirects me to google.com? This is very odd. The clipboard method is said to not work on tablets and I don’t want to bother trying to recreate some specific text file. So, unfortunately, for now, another app I can’t test completely.

EVE Industry Calculator

By: EXTER Software – Market Page

So, now we’ve entered another sphere of tools. The calculators. The EVE Industry Calculator does exactly what it’s name implies. It’s interface has been designed for small screens, but it works on a tablet as well. It might look a bit spartan, but it fulfills the promise: Once you’ve set your skill levels (why are you even able to set Industry to “Not trained”?), you’re able to just pick any blueprint and hit a button. The tool immediately spits out the amount of money and time you have to spend for the production run. If you want to, you’re able to edit each component, telling the program you’d like to buy it (using EVE-Central’s database) or manufacture it yourself (again open another iteration of the whole production calculator).

EVE Sleeper Loot Calculator

By: Mark Rabenhorst – Market Page

And there we’ve got another calculator. It’s more like a simple spreadsheet showing you the sum of the components. To be completely honest, I don’t even know what to write here, due to the program being that simple. I haven’t been in drone space for almost 2 years now, but there are only 5 different loot items? Well, anyway, I’ll just add a screenshot, as it explains pretty much everything.

EVE Influence Map

By: Golgorz – Market Page – Market Page

I should have skipped this one as it offers a feature set similar to the Sleeper Loot Calculator. I appreciate the work put into this, and maybe I’m even missing something, but to me this looks like it’s just showing one of the influence maps generated by DOTLAN. Disappointing…

This would be very nice, if the actual content would be some vector graphic you’re able to zoom in (e.g. to just see one specific region). It could as well offer some dynamic animations to show changes. Unfortunately it just seems to show some fixed JPEG image. Zooming in just increases blurriness like in any default web browser.

 

Well, that’s it. At least for now. There are some more apps available, but I haven’t found others that look either very interesting or offer a superior feature set. There are some alternative character monitors, like EveDroid, but it seems like these haven’t been updated for ages. Please let me know, if you know some neat app I forgot or skipped. For now I’ll definitely keep Aura and the Industry Calculator. I really liked Evanova’s style, but that won’t help if it isn’t working.