Star Trek Online out of game chat using XMPP with Android

Star Trek Online is my first Multi-Player Online game. I don’t really have time to play games anymore but with it being a Star Trek title I had to give it a try. I had to sacrifice my TV time which wasn’t so bad since most of my favorites went off the air.

With an MMO you really have to immerse yourself with the game and the players to get the full the experience, so even when I’m not playing I’m listening to podcast about the game, checking out forums, and reading the latest news from the game developers.

One of my favorite podcast about the game is STOked, and they have organized an in game fleet for the fans and with that created a chat channel so the members can talk. So here is where out of game chat comes into play. Cryptic is the company that develops the game they have made their user level chat system work via XMPP protocols! XMPP is basically an open IM (instant message) system which also includes a Multi User Chat system as well (MUC). So having that enabled from the game side it’s relatively easy to setup an XMPP IM client to log into the games chat system when you are not playing.

This is easy to setup if you have a desktop client like Pidgin. There are some really good instructions on the games forums to get it going and a prerequisite for setting up an android client.

My dilemma: I’m not on a desktop often enough to make use of the feature but I always have my phone with me so what i needed was an Android XMPP client that would work with the MUC chat so i could chat with my fleet. Easier said that done from what i found out. I tried several Android clients but none seemed to work, or when they did they didn’t work with the MUC which was mainly what i wanted. I spent several weeks, several apps, and emailed developers of the apps. Finally, there was some activity on the forums and someone had success with IMov. I had some back and forth with the user because I has already tried and moved on when i couldn’t get it to work.

So here is how to setup out of game chat on Android:

Before trying to setup your Android phone be sure to check this prerequisite post: here.

Note: Naming convention: “CharacterName”@”@Name” in my case Russell@Russell-KV4S so use those when I refer to them in the article below.
Note: AccountName is the same credentials you use to log into the game client before you have to pick holodeck or tribble.

Post updated: as of 2/13/2012 I have found 2 clients that seem to work, Jabiru and Xabber. I only have detailed instructions on Jabiru listed below but setting up Xabber should in principle be the same.

Jabiru:

Once installed from the Android Market go into the account setting and configure as follows:

Jabber ID: AccountName@crypticspace.com
Password: self explanatory
Resource: I believe this is optional but i used CharacterName (this should help match what shows in game for you as well)
security mode should be enabled by default but if not enable it.
that should do it as far as connecting.

once back at the main screen hit Menu>Connect
if all goes well you will see a group called friends Friends

Now for Channels (MUC chat):
hit Menu>Conference
Host: channels.crypticspace.com
Room: will be whatever the channel name is (if it has a space use the “\20” sign instead of space)
Edit 7/31/13: switch “+” to “\20”
Nick: @Name
Password: leave blank (in most cases)
hit join

intro to the chat window:
at the top of the screen you have a chat bubble that will be your toggle for any chats you have going on
the red x will close the chat you have active so don’t do that on channels chat or you won’t be in the channel chat anymore.
the bottom left icon is the room members this should allow you to see whose connected to the channel.

good luck and happy chatting!

I hope this guide helps someone else and saves them time because it took a lot of mine! 🙂