What to do when your Android is dated

[UesugiKenshin]

If you are going to do a lot of gaming (and BotE for Android is not demanding so it's not a good benchmarking test), look up the Teclast P80X 8 Inch Android Tablet. That has not quite as stellar a reputation, but quite a bit better performance. The hardware/firmware stats in brief are 95% the same, but there are obvious difference when using some intense games in reviews. It has better speakers too and you probably would use ear buds with the Vankyo. But the Teclast is not as reliable. I don't know what the Vankyo engineer was thinking as the speaker is on the back...instead of the side, meaning if you turn it up, whoever is in front of you would hear way more volume than you will hear.

I was able to easily find a coupon for the Vankyo, but not find one for the Teclast, but that may be different in your country. With the Vankyo coupon, one could put a large sd card to increase storage. And it's not just storage, but you can launch aps from storage.

The reviewer remarked that the hard drive only leaves you 20 gb, so you probably would put an sd card in it. If a program is going to cause lag, you probably want the Teclast.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you end up getting a new Android tablet, you may be unaware that several years ago, a fan did a port of the original Homeworld on the Android platform and released a beta and never completed it. It's free.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEaCqTZdcG8
http://beloko.com/hw.html

A new Android Vankyo or even some of the older but better ones would run the apk.

One they remastered Homeworld, it made it impossible to finish.

[UesugiKenshin]

You can buy a micro sd card and use that either as storage for files, or you format it so it's a hard drive you can run aps from.

I went through and found old gear and found an old WD My Passport 250gb usb drive. What you can do is use that for storing files to access from the Android tablet, but you will need an OTG Cable for Android Male Micro USB to USB A-Female. Unless you want it to launch Android apps, why not use what you have? Then any any devices can access say an mp3 collection or movies or camera photos.

[UesugiKenshin]

I've been told you need a pc to use an sd card burner and so you format it and put an Android OS on it, then use that to do dual booting. That is what Nook tablet folks did in 2013. That way when the sd card was inserted, then it booted to Android 5 (or whatever) and so then you could load from unknown sources and bypass the firmware which is Nook 2.2.1 OS, which won't allow it.

Now I'm wondering if can burn an sd card with an Android OS with my soon to be bought Android 9.0 OS tablet. Then put that in my Nook. See that would cost $10 and would be worth doing as I would have a second Android tablet to do tests of mods on seperate from what the much more powerful new one is editing.

Someone trying this should realize that it has minimum standards and some micro sd cards won't work with Nooks as they as 12 years old. You are supposed to use a sandisk class 4 sd card for dual booting. They recommend Android KitKat 4.4 but many use Android 7.1 Hummingbird. These are both free, so the only cost would be a micro sandisk class 4 sd card and the adapter. That would plug into the otg cable to your Android tablet.

I can't sideload as I have no Windows pc. It sounds like this will work.

The otg cable is pretty amazing as lots of things plug into it like a card reader on practically any kind of memory usb drive or sd card.

[UesugiKenshin]

They make an otg cable like.this: UGREEN SD Card Reader Micro USB OTG and USB 3.0 Android Card Adapter Read 2 Cards Simultaneously for Smartphones Tablets with OTG Function and Laptops.

It can read and write to a plugged in sd card. See if I get a copy of Android Kitkat which is open source and write to it with some files, it should when plugged in to the Nook tablet, then bypass the firmware.

[UesugiKenshin]

Back from 2012-2018, a company would sell you an sd card already formatted with Android KitKat.
https://www.n2acards.com
And so lots bought one and just stuck it in the sd card slot. Problem solved. Nobody sells these anymore. It's ridiculous as they sell you a download which is free software but organized as a process. Then you still have to do the work yourself.

Or you can use your Android micro usb cable, connect to a pc, and there is a rooting service that takes over your pc and does it for you. $40 so too expensive.

It's weird. Someone reading this could probably sell preformatted sd cards to a huge market of Nook folks, but others who need to root their Android devices too.

Why would anyone buy a Nook now? I don't know, but people do. See the screen is superior even 12 years later than then the Vankyo's S8! It's still better for some things like watching movies. 5 million Nooks were sold. All capable of running BotE for Android through GooglePlay.

[UesugiKenshin]

I wish I didn't love playing the Roma Surrectum 2 mod so much for Rome Total War, because watching that youtube video made me crazy about getting an Android tablet with 3gb. Argh! The Feral RTW version has to have 3gb. Then you're looking at a Vanko S20 and it's beautiful and 10" and with the coupon $124.

Dang it. The S7 would run BotE and be about $68 and I was thrilled as it's such a bargain, but now I have to have the S8 at $74.

Even thinking about the S20 mean I know I won't have any money for software. I know I need a good java editor if I end up tweeking the source code. Just doing minor parameter changes.

See how addicting modding is?

An old venerable 2008 Vista laptop ran RTW's Roma Surrectum mod just fine.

There is likely no way I can get a Vankyo S8 to run on Wine in emulation for RTW. It's ridiculous to spend so much money for software that came out in 2004.

[UesugiKenshin]

There has to be millions of old Vista laptops in America in someone's basement with dust on it. It happens all the time.

"Yeah I hung on to it, and then it was too old to sell. Still works great. Shame really."
ARGH!

Years I ago I routinely ran into situations where someone had an old pc and didn't figure anyone would want it. And then I would fix them up for poor people. Now I have no access to them.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2atHnYAFQgU
FreeOrion still doesn't have an Android port. It's been in development for a long time.

The Research screen looks just like GalCiv2. Look how all the windows can be pulled up at once. Personally, I think BotE is better as the interface is elegant whereas FreeOrion looks cluttered. There's a few things that look slightly better graphically, but I don't think the overall program is better.

BotE allows you to have seperate dedicated screens for all of these aspects, and it's actually less overwhelming to a new player. If you put all those windows in front of a new space strategy player in FreeOrion, the new player won't know what to do first.

[UesugiKenshin]

I think you'll have a difficult time finding one, but the Teclast P10 3gb Pie 9.0 OS should have better performance but similar stats to the comporable Vankyo S20 10 " version. The same price too $124. It's a bargain but fine gaming tablet.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcpfAALU3U
In GalCiv 2, the ship designer let you configure everything like long rang sacnning modules, life support, warp drive, all manner of weapons, shields, and armor.

But what was fun was "jewelry" which were modular pieces you added to create a symmerical design so the craft looked great. And so they made a STTNG mod and it was beautiful and accurate back in 2008. Then you fought against all those empires plus Star Wars ships. It was a heck of a fun mod. They scrubbed most videos due to copyright infringement. You probably could still find it, just not on moddb anymore.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL3d-aAd2Y
One of the best Star Trek mods ever made was Star Trek Armada 3 for Sins of the Solar Empire :Rebellion. That is a German mod team.

The clip of is of the Borg empire.

[UesugiKenshin]

Here is what is strange about commercial games and turned base offline space based strategy games and modding. They largely don't exist on the Android, which is why BotE for Android is unique.

Civ 2 is absolutely capable of being run through ExaGear emulation and so there are Star Trek (or anything you can dream up) mods, but they have a grainy retro look (naturally) and there is no way to do fleets. Yet they are moddable in ways that still don't exist anywhere else.

I actually configured something that works where a unit is a fleet as that is the only way to do it, but once the AI can make them, it gets obsessed about making them, yet it takes so many turns, that one can attack while the AI is trying to assemble one. You can't join units into one "army".

Civ 3 has the capability of rare leaders who can assemble and army and so 5 units can join. And later you can recruit generals who have this ability. So you can assemble fleets. And it's moddable, but now hopelessly dated...and clunky. It fights in a cumbersome one attack at a time sequential fashion

Civ 4 screwed this idea up of armies and leaders and went a new route. There is a Civ 4 space mod, but it won't run well under emulation on the Android. And so on as the Civ market ignored the Android until Civ Revolutions. You may even be able to mod Civ Revolutions, but it's not a good game and I don't think a space mod exists.

[UesugiKenshin]

Which is why someone got the bright idea to make Sid Meier's Starships, which is a clunky mess and widely panned. It looks okay, it's a halfhearted attempt with terrible AI and not on the Android but iOS. It won't get ported as the game got such bad reviews.
...
So this allowed GalCiv2 a niche market and it's intentionally moddable. It's great at offline turned based space strategy, but never got an Android release, yet can run under ExaGear emulation. But actually BotE for Android is superior to it! It's why I got excited when I discovered BotE exists.

GalCiv3 is moddable, but the requirements make it unlikely to run on an Android...or get a release. It would be some hybrid product.
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager. ... &iId=17910
3.2 will run it if you use the Steam version, but I think you would have better luck modding GalCiv2 and running it under emulation, but why as BotE is better??? The only plus is the ship designer and animated battles that really are predetermined before they begin as it's based on calculations, not tactics. It would be totally different if a clever player could do an RTS space based tactical game. These really don't work so far.

[UesugiKenshin]

Which is why all the Android space 4x games are online MMO games where you have a quasi sort of gambling where players buy upgrades and so beat other players. It's very weird as the in game purchases goes from $4-$99 to buy better ships! Yikes. What does that prove?

So people in MMO games stick around for years daily beating new naive players who haven't bought the upgrades, so the new players either quit in disgust or buy upgrades too. That is a very ugly business model.

So the organizers of MMO don't want a moddable game, as then they could not sell players upgrades.

The other business model is running ads. As previously discussed, they are offering a cloud tablet streaming service that would allow retrogaming and the market would be akin to a television model with advertisements. And that is resistent to modding as they want you to run their packaged software streamed from them, not run software you moddified.