A couple of weeks ago I picked up a new Nook Tablet, 16GB version. This past weekend I took the opportunity to try it out in a session of everyone's favorite game.
As prep work, I purchased the ezPDF Reader APP, downloaded and installed PDF995 on my computer, and then used Solaris SkunkWerks to print a PDF of (what I thought would be) all the pertinent 'Mechs' record sheets (8 in total) in a single document. I was expecting another player to run half the force, so I printed the remainder on paper. I also moved a PDF copy of Total Warfare and other rulebooks over to the Tablet.
The tablet was easily able to render the rulebooks, and they looked good. Scrolling across pages, zooming in and out, and all the aesthetics were as good as I had hoped. However, the search function leaves something to be desired. It's slow, and I believe starts from the page you're on without returning to the beginning of the document. I also didn't notice any increase in speed for more than one search. If you have to use it, always jump back to the beginning of the document, which is actually really easy by comparison.
The record sheet PDF looked good, but the problem came when I tried to use it for recording damage. Zooming in closely required a two-step screen rewrite that took several seconds. The annotation tools were also difficult to access due to the size of the icons, and the drawing tool frequently didn't record my taps. Sometimes it would record taps, but not lines. I held up my opponents on several occasions, much to my chagrin. Flipping between sheets was usually quick, but sometimes it would need to pause to reload a new sheet. This was disconcerting as well. To top it all off, my fingertip eventually got sore from tapping. Combine with having to flip between tablet and paper for the other 'Mechs I had to cover, and I left rather disappointed in the process, even if the game was still fun.
However, hope always surges anew. Upon arriving home, I sat down with the tablet and looked deeper into my problems. From there, I came up with a number of recommendations that made my newest test runs go far smoother. I'll try them out next game as well.
1. Print each record sheet as its own PDF. The tablet never gave me any speed problems opening the first page of a document, and you can get to any document with two clicks. You also don't have to remember that the Catapult was on page 6 while the Dragon was on page 4. Eventually you'll have a stockpile that you can select the day's roster from and move into a temporary folder for easy access.
2. Hold the tablet horizontal. I don't know why I didn't think of this during the game, but the default zoom level changes when you rotate the tablet, and when horizontal it's large enough that you can mark individual armor dots without further zooming. This eliminates a lot of delay.
3. Get used to doing annotations in quick spurts. It sucks to do all your marking for a single turn in one go, and then realize you don't want to remove that mark at 9 on the heat scale because it'll also take 25 points of armor damage and a hip critical hit off the sheet.
4. Get a stylus. A normal retracted pen doesn't work. I don't have a stylus yet, but I will. Soon.
Ask away with questions and I'll do my best to answer.
