ArtClient v2.7 beta

Just in time for any New Year's Eve Artemis parties, I'm releasing version 2.7 beta of my unofficial Android client for Artemis SBS.

You can download it here(See update below) and check out the changes below.

Changes:

• NEW: Helm (finally) will use the correct drive (warp/jump) when joining in-progress games!
• NEW: Station shields shown when selected by science/captain
• FIX: Red alert/Shields status are shown/updated correctly when joining an in-progress game
• FIX: Captain's map selector behaves and looks more like the official one
• FIX: Bearing indicator should never go negative anymore
• Turning smoothing should be better now, as we use the server-indicated turn rate if possible
• Engineering sliders follow updates from the server during a game, now. May not be important, but the official client does this
• Minor tweaks to improve Radar rendering, ship selection, etc.

UPDATE: In response to the request for access to this again, I'm adding the improved, 2.7.2 beta that was posted on the Artemis forums. You can download it here and see the added tweaks below:

• 2.7.1: 30000% sliders bug fixed 
• 2.7.2: Add version check so it doesn't try to play with incompatible servers (causing, you know, crashes)

ArtClient v2.6 beta

Just released version 2.6 beta of my unofficial Android client for Artemis SBS. Since I forgot to post about 2.5 beta, I'll include its changes in the list here, too.

You can download version 2.6 beta here.

Changes:

• NEW: Helm and Weapons can see distance and bearing to nearby ships
• NEW: Heading indicator for Helm, about the steering slider
• NEW: Preference for tilt steering sensitivity, and to choose an alternative axis (for people whose devices report the wrong one, I guess)
• NEW: Neutral and enemy ships should get some smoothing to their turning.
• NEW: Receive and play back incoming audio messages (incoming_message scripting command)
• FIX: More ships on radar (I was treating the INVIS_TO_* flags as always active, but science was showing some INVIS_TO_SCIENCE ships if the "state" bitmask was empty, so I guess they all need to be "active" or something)
• FIX: Further reduce (remove?) "pop" when loading and unloading tubes
• FIX: Changing beam frequencies works properly (IE: Doesn't unload torpedo tubes... oops!)
• FIX: Handle missing .snt files more gracefully (for Mods support)
• FIX: Remove "tilt" menu item from weapons
• Further improved neutral ship parsing

ArtClient v2.4 beta

Recently released version 2.4 beta of my unofficial Android client for Artemis SBS. It adds some fun new features, and fixes a bunch of little issues!

You can download it here, or check out the changelog:

• NEW: Tilt-to-steer feature for Helm, if your device has an accelerometer and magnetic field sensor
• NEW: Tap-to-steer feature, just like the official client!
• NEW: Captain's map! Basically Science without scanning, but had a lot of requests
• FIXED: Inability to select the station you just were after changing ships
• FIXED: Font colors in jump dialog were wrong
• Padding/sizes in Jump Dialog tweaked to hopefully fit smaller screens better
• Improved parsing of neutral and enemy ship packets

Artemis SBS on Android (Unofficial)

Don't know if you've heard of Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, but it's pretty much the best game ever. If you like spaceships or cooperative games at all, you will be as hooked as I am!

A while ago, I decided that it would be pretty excellent to play this game on a tablet, and having a Nexus 7 and being an Android developer, I set out to do something about it. There's now an official iOS version available, but at the time I started, that hadn't even been announced.

And, I'm an Android guy.

So, I sat down with Wireshark and observed the packets that the official PC client sent and figured out the structure, then began the laborious process of building a packet parser in Java and continued figuring out the packets.

A couple months later, I now have an almost fully-functioning Android client, and wanted to share it here. To be clear, this is a completely unofficial and unsupported version, whose functionality is entirely based on me guessing at the packet structures. They seem to be mostly close enough, but I haven't had any input from the creator of Artemis about the correct structure, so weird things may happen!

You can track the progress of the app from its thread on the Artemis forums, or just check out the latest version here: ArtClient Version 2.3 beta

Follow the break for some screenshots.