So, I managed to use Hero Lab Online with a recent Starfinder session and here's my experience:
Notes:
The good:
It worked. When it was up, I had full access to my character, and was able to roll all required items from the app, take damage, heal damage, etc. I was able to read descriptions and for the most part get whatever information I needed at a click (or tap in this case).
The not-so-good:
Occasional "invalid token" errors, or other issues that seemed intermittent. Since I was in a game at the time, I was not able to try to isolate/replicate the causes unfortunately.
Unable to access gear/weapons to add a weapon at one point, but was fixed by relogging.
I chalk these up to growing pains and while annoying, didn't stop me from using my character.
The bad:
It would periodically disconnect for no apparent reason. During these times I would be unable to use my character until it reconnected. None of the other devices (various web browsers on Roll20 where our map was) disconnected during those times, so it's not a connection issue. Another player using HLO on her laptop (after she saw me using it) also experienced disconnections from HLO, but not Roll20. She also was unable to use her character during those downtimes. This is what I most feared from HLO. For it to not so gracefully handle the offline condition, and for it to be utterly unusable when offline. This is under near ideal conditions as it is a small group with a strong wifi connection and a lot of bandwidth. In a setting with poor connectivity, this could be a deal-breaker.
It would periodically become very slow responding. During those times I wondered if I missed a click or tap, so I'd hit it again, sometimes several times since I wasn't sure if it was hung or what was happening, then it would finally respond with multiple things appearing (not always what I wanted to see), or the item I wanted to read appearing then disappearing in a flash. Obviously it was queuing up input until it could catch up and then all of the input would trigger and cause problems.
Verdict:
I'm not giving up yet, but, I'm not happy at this point. It's going to need a lot of work on handling network stability, and handling the offline condition really needs work. If I can't do anything at all when it goes offline, it will be pretty much unusable. This was just one game, but, another player was experiencing the same issues, and she was on a laptop (a gaming laptop, so hardware resources shouldn't be an issue.) I know it will improve as they work on it, but for me this is a rocky start.
Notes:
- Hero Lab Online Build EFCA53D
- I was running the character from an iPad Air (first gen Air), no other apps running, and on power so no battery issues.
- iPad was fully patched to the latest iOS version, and I was using the built-in Safari browser.
- Full wifi signal on a high-speed mesh network connection.
- I'm still getting used to the layout, so I'll reserve comment on that until I've used it more extensively.
The good:
It worked. When it was up, I had full access to my character, and was able to roll all required items from the app, take damage, heal damage, etc. I was able to read descriptions and for the most part get whatever information I needed at a click (or tap in this case).
The not-so-good:
Occasional "invalid token" errors, or other issues that seemed intermittent. Since I was in a game at the time, I was not able to try to isolate/replicate the causes unfortunately.
Unable to access gear/weapons to add a weapon at one point, but was fixed by relogging.
I chalk these up to growing pains and while annoying, didn't stop me from using my character.
The bad:
It would periodically disconnect for no apparent reason. During these times I would be unable to use my character until it reconnected. None of the other devices (various web browsers on Roll20 where our map was) disconnected during those times, so it's not a connection issue. Another player using HLO on her laptop (after she saw me using it) also experienced disconnections from HLO, but not Roll20. She also was unable to use her character during those downtimes. This is what I most feared from HLO. For it to not so gracefully handle the offline condition, and for it to be utterly unusable when offline. This is under near ideal conditions as it is a small group with a strong wifi connection and a lot of bandwidth. In a setting with poor connectivity, this could be a deal-breaker.
It would periodically become very slow responding. During those times I wondered if I missed a click or tap, so I'd hit it again, sometimes several times since I wasn't sure if it was hung or what was happening, then it would finally respond with multiple things appearing (not always what I wanted to see), or the item I wanted to read appearing then disappearing in a flash. Obviously it was queuing up input until it could catch up and then all of the input would trigger and cause problems.
Verdict:
I'm not giving up yet, but, I'm not happy at this point. It's going to need a lot of work on handling network stability, and handling the offline condition really needs work. If I can't do anything at all when it goes offline, it will be pretty much unusable. This was just one game, but, another player was experiencing the same issues, and she was on a laptop (a gaming laptop, so hardware resources shouldn't be an issue.) I know it will improve as they work on it, but for me this is a rocky start.
